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What Bigots Gaby. Arun Ghandi was assailed for making a false moral equivalence between self defense and assault.

Athena...
Political ties. Vitter is a repub.

Vitter is one of my Senators. I was sooo hopeing he would be shown the door...with a boot. But he came out and talked about God forgiving him, his wife by his side...and he was forgiven.

Spitzer is a Democrate. He did not talk of God forgiving him, he talked of his wife and family. Personally If he was my husband he was going to be really sorry, forever.

Vitter was just kinky sick...

terra

If gaby is a christian, then I am mickey mouse.

Same as last week and the week before farnaz... you keep trying to brand everyone who you think is anti-jewish as a christian. how many times did athena have to tell you she was a pagan? five - six? I lost count.

So every person who kills, maims, controls others, oppressess... is just full of Christ's love.

this is a strange place.

Dear DZ,

I agree with you so very much....While I am neither atheist nor religionist, I understand perfectly where you are coming from.

Mr. Eaton ascribes you (our) values to a god, I ascribe them to the most basic human instincts there are. If you need to have the fear of everlasting damnation and hellfire to simply do the right thing, then there is something wrong with you.

None of the scriptures where written by a god, all were written by men and maybe even women (god only knows, LOL). Therefore, I believe they are just lore.

By the way, I remember your post right after your wife died, and trust me you have nothing to be regretful for. It was one the the most heartfelt posts I have read on these boards. (((.....))))

All my best to you and yours!

G

Mark Eaton:

As you say, I am an atheist, and, therefore, do not believe in anything supernatural including the very concept of a soul. But, religion is not required to fall in love, make a commitment and then stick with that commitment. Millions of non-Christians have been doing it for centuries. With regard to killing, I was raised as a pacifist by my atheist father and my Christian mother. Human values are the only values there are.

Dear DZ:

While I know your deep grief (I lost my only son to cancer) these human value you speak of, fidelity, commitment, exactly where did they come from? Did you make them up? Did anyone make them up? Are they part of your "soul" like the knowledge to not kill?

While atheists have answers to some questions, other questions go unanswered.

The knowledge of your "soul" are the commandments implanted into your "conscience by God. Study primitive cultures and you will find they share a remarkaably similiar set of laws. Fidelity is one of them. Or to put it another way, "Thou shall not commit adultery". While you classify them as human values, we humans did not define or identify them. God did and he deserves the credit.

Farnaz,

You have your opinions, I have mine. You have your knowledge, I have mine. You have your experiences, I have mine.

If we were to meet in person, we would problably like each other. Many things on this board are said in haste, a typical e-mail phenomenum, that we would probably not state that way to each other in person.

One thing I would like to clarify, however, I am not Christian, nor do I belong to any organized religion. So please refrain from calling others my co-religionists. I only know of two other people who believe somewhat similarly to what I do. My personal belief in anything supernatural is so far removed from anything any organized religion has to offer that I am neither believer, in the sense the word is commonly used, nor atheist.

Farnaz:

Thank you for your note. It is appreciated. It helped me realize also that it is time to stop posting about my wife. My grief isn't over, but I think I need to make it more private. All of those who have posted their condolences have made a difference to me, but, when I reread my initial post, it seemed that the pain was too visceral, too something. As much as I dislike everything that Cal stands for, I regret the post in many ways.

Dear DZ,

Please accept my sincere condolences. As you know, two and a half months is a very short time, and none of us grieves in quite the same way.

There is such a thing as human love, and there are human values. If only we all could bring the love so many of us have for our families to all of our fellow humans.

May that love and the love of your daughters and friends comfort you now.

Sincerely,
Farnaz

Gaby,

I am sorry that you suffered from guilt by association, and I mean that sincerely. I would bet a great deal that some of that came from your co-religionists, no?

However, you still have your facts wrong, and there are many things you don't understand. Tens of millions of nonJews were killed. Not twelve million. Further, the Gypsies, like the Jews lost most of there population. DO you get it, Gaby?

Worst of all, you draw guilt upon yourself by aligning yourself with Gandhi's horrible statement by this of your own:

"I felt sorry for the personal hurt that family has gone through. However, not all Jewish people have experienced the same, yet they all play that collective "the world owes me an apology" drama whenever someone says anything against the Jews or Isreal."

Who is "they all," Gaby? You disliked what the professor said about the Christians, but look at whom he was addressing, people who say things such as you have. And why should anyone say anything against "the" Jews. Against all of us?
What kind of person would do that, Gaby?

The simple fact is that we do experience bigotry constantly from Christians, not all of them of course, but we do, and, often, it has nothing to do with Israel. When the question of Israel comes up, it is laden with antisemitism. Odd, isn't it? When many opposed France's concerns about the invasion of Iraq, they didn't refer to the French as the Christians, Catholics.

The Holocaust was perpetrated not only by Hitler and the nazis, but by ordinary people that took the occasion of German occupation to rise up and kill their neighbors. All of these people, Gaby, all of them were Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians. That is not bigotry. That is the simple truth.

The way that folks established they weren't Jews was with their baptismal certificates. The way that Germans identified Jews in other countries was through their Christian neighbors.

The consequence? A loss of culture, loss of history, loss of generations and generations and generations. There is no Jew alive, even the Ethopians, who has not been affected by the Holocaust. Imagine if all the German Christian writers, musicians, artists, etc., all the Christians all over Europe had been killed. And those who survived, maimed for life, mentally and physically, What would your world be like for the surviving Christians, Gaby, their children, their grandchildren?

And if an Indian bigot, then wrote about you as if you were all the same, then wrote you risked alienating your "friends," in short, referred to you, as I'll bet the professor would have referred to Christians, if he had the ability to sink that low, what would you think? What would you feel?

As for me, I am not of European descent. However, the EuroChristians had their agenda and spread it to the Middle East. (It was a world war, you know.) Jews did not fare well once Hitler came to power. As Jihadist put it somewhere, he didn't know about Jewish attendance at synagogues in the Middle East. Know why, Gaby? Almost all of us are gone. Ancient synagogues, medieval synagogues in countries in which we lived for centuries have been destroyed.

We now number three million, in exile, Gaby, many of us whose grandparents and great grandparents were deported. Some of us did flee in the night. My family fled, Gaby, in the middle of the night seventeen years ago. What about us, Gaby?

Do you feel the same way about African Americans as you do about Jews? Do you think you feel you owe them? You may well, but you wouldn't say so, because people wouldn't tolerate it. Why should they?

Why should we?

Gaby, racism says nothing about the target of racism, and everything about the racist. You know very little about the Holocaust. I mean no offense. It is obvious that you don't. You might see things differently, if you did.

This man Gandhi offended hundreds of people, not all of them Jews. Some of them were your co-religionists.

My friend, it does you no good to think in "they all" terms. We did not perpetrate the Holocaust. What is the point of hating us? It hurts you most of all. It hardens your heart, blinds you, darkens the world for you. It doesn't have to be this way. There are other ways you can think about all this, as a person of faith.

And again I screwed up....I meant to say of the other six million didn't exist.

And of course there were many more...

For further info, please see the following website..

http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html

FRIENDS OF HOLY COSMIC SPACE-SHIP EARTH

The Dali Lama & his International Religio Mafioso, "MONK's-ARMY", ALL have Blood On their hands!

Now this in Tibet & recently in Burma!!!!!????

How many more innocent lives shall one sacrifice for you, Mr. [un-Holy Bald-Head] Lama???

Where are you 'WAPO-Moderator' Mr. Dalai Lama?

Forsake BUDDHISTism! Dismantle them!

Forsake BUDDHISM! Forbid them Entry!

Please do not allow them "ASYLUM" Immigration Status in U.S.A.!

The Dalai Lama should be jailed & never allowed contact with the outside world!

THEY SHOULD SEEK ASYLUM IN SAUDi ARABIA!

Terrorists!

The MONK-ARMY are "Incite-A-Riot-Terrorists!" And They 'Specialize' in Psychology/Psychiatry to manipulate their potential 'tithe/alm-givers.' And they lie alot behind that religious garb!

===

Farnaz,

I probably know more about the Gypsies and Wiesenthal than you ever will. I already apologized for typing the wrong number, I'll try to be more careful next time.

You call me a bigot, yet you know nothing about me.

The "professor's" ramblings were nothing short of utter hate speech. You chose to overlook that.

As for Judea Perl's letter, I read that when Gandhi's original essay was posted. Yes, I felt sorry for the personal hurt that family has gone through. However, not all Jewish people have experienced the same, yet they all play that collective "the world owes me an apology" drama whenever someone says anything against the Jews or Isreal.

I am German, born 8 years after the war ended. I have been called many unkind names in my lifetime simply because of my heritage. I am told that I am guilty by association. My father and mother were 17 and 15 respectively when the war ended, hardly old enough to be evil Nazi Germans who murdered millions of people in the camps. Yet, I am to bow my head and accept the guilt of my country, when other countries were just as guilty by allowing those things to happen. Those people who stood by idly and now act as if they had nothing to do with it are the true bigots.

As far as the Holocaust Museum's display of other genocides, I was not talking about American Holocaust museums. I was talking about the concentration camp museums in Germany. When they were established Darfur didn't exist, the Dalits were not heard of, nor was anything known other modern monstrosities. Those museums concentrate on the Jews as if the other twelve million people didn't matter. From what I have been told, the reason for this is that the Jewish community wanted their plight highlighted.

And now I am done with this subject. Before you call others a bigot, take a good look in the mirror.

Gaby wrote:

"Would that be the same bigotry that is ascribed to Arun Gandhi by the bigots themselves?????"

Take it as having been done, Gaby. Your inability to distinguish 6,000 from 6,000,000 which you demonstrated in your post to Gandhi's last "essay" should not be held against you. After all, it is not only bigots who have difficulty with numbers. That you follow a "Would that" construction with question marks, though regretable, is a sign of our illiterate times and does not go to bigotry.

That you knew nothing of the actual numbers and victims of the Holocaust is another matter. That you know nothing of the Holocaust Museums's work on various genocides, including Darfur, is another matter. That you know nothing of the Gypsies and Wiesenthal's efforts on their behalf is another matter (Observer12). You wish to accuse based on ignorance. You refuse to take steps to inform yourself for fear of having to rethink your prejudices. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc., it probably is a duck. Bigot.

You fail to discern what is offensive, racist, and hurtful in Gandhi's January 7th essay. You insist on remaining insensitive to the harm his language has done to others. You would not read Judea Perl's letter as had been suggested. You would, in short, consider nothing that the professor and others wrote. You have done and do nothing to lessen your ignorance so that you can continue to accuse persons, nearly six hundred, who have written to protest the offensiveness of Arun Gandhi. You are an accuser of victims, persons who have been hurt. Yes, you are a bigot. Something has hardened your heart, blinded you, and kept you in darkness.

Your wish, your "would that" has been granted, bigot. Bigot.

GARYD,

Would that be the same bigotry that is ascribed to Arun Gandhi by the bigots themselves?????

DZ

I love you!!!! You are a voice of moral value in the vast morass of religious virtue...

http://www.ferkelbuch.de/

Cal, this is especially for you and all the other nutcases who think they have eaten the wisdom with a silver spoon.

Read it carefully....beginning to end.

I did not take it in whole as an anti
Christian screed DZ, though there are plenty of those here.

I've read Mr. Thomas' columns for a very long time now I see no bigotry. Bigotry would seem to be another thing that seems to be largely in the eyes of the beholder these days.

"...he should have reached out for the Gideon Bible in the hotel room drawer instead of reaching out for prostitutes..."

No, he should have stayed at a Marriott and reached in the drawer for the Book of Mormon.

There he'd have learned that men having multiple sex partners is ordained and is part of God's plan for humanity.

Chill Out:

Atheism is not a religion. Your claim that it is demonstrates quite clearly that aren't qualified even to discuss it. Disbelief is just that, disbelief. It is nothing else. I worship nothing.

Chill Out:

Nope, wrong. It isn't me that's trying to impose my beliefs on other people. That would be Cal. I don't seek to deny equal rights to American citizens. That would be Cal. I am a pacifist, Cal is not. I oppose torturing people. Cal endorses it. The list goes on and on and on. You might want to read about Cal and what he says and writes. All you will find is hate. So, am I hostile toward Cal Thomas? You bet and fully justified in that belief.

GaryD:

Thanks for your note about my wife. We may and probably do disagree about everything else, but it seems that commitment to one's wife is something we share. It's only a sliver of common ground, but it is something.

I am still quite lost without my wife. I am functioning, but the impossible loneliness is almost too much to bear even when my house is filled with friends and family. The strangest part is that my daughters spark the greatest loneliness - I love them and want them here, but they look just like my wife did 30 years ago. Wonderful and painful at the same time. Again, thanks.

BTW, my post was not intended to be anti-Christian, because I'm not. I do believe, however, that Cal is one of the most hateful bigots in America, and my post was aimed at him.

You americans have just as much moral as the snake in paradise.

Pseudo,

The Freedom to Speak, Repeat and Preach!!!!
The Freedom to Speak, Repeat and Preach!!!!
The Freedom to Speak, Repeat and Preach!!!!

What else was in Mr. Spitzer's hotel room??? The stench and ghosts of JFK, Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Bill Cosby and every Muslim polygamist!!!!!!

Ah, yes, Gideon's. Then, he would not have engaged with prostitutes, but found the right guidance, like Bush and Cheney, born and reborn through the new testament, which led them to the promised land of oil, Iraq, where they kill and kill and kill. To the promised land of Afghanistan, where the numbers dead have grown too large to count.

Prostitution is not a victimless crime. The governor's resignation was appropriate, although why it was decided to confront him now and not before his election raises questions that should be investigated.

In the interim, Bush and Cheney, of Iraq and Afghanistan fame, have not been impeached, despite having lied to wage war for oil and enrich their economic idols, among them Haliburton. Impeachment and criminal prosecution are long overdue.

Althoug the conduct of the born and reborn do not exonerate Spitzer, it does suggest that Gideon's would not have done much to improve his sexual mores.

Concerned Cross Poster Now Repetitive:

Hmmm, what was you biggest mistake? Self righteousness? Self superiority? Hate speech? Boorishness? Repetitiveness? Mindless repetition?

Do the readers of On Faith a service. Quit the cut-and-paste. Are you a shell script or a moron?

Cross posting with repetitions from other blogs is an insult to the readers here.

Cross posting with repetitions from other blogs is an insult to the readers here.

Cross posting with repetitions from other blogs is an insult to the readers here.

Cross posting with repetitions from other blogs is an insult to the readers here.

Cross posting with repetitions from other blogs is an insult to the readers here.

Get a life.

Get a life.

Get a life.

Since Bush/Cheney/neocons have demonstrated that reality is composed, what if the "Old Testament" books were written and put together as a "Testament" to support the "New Testament"? Would that be any different from what is done here and now in our time? Is it all just like Disney World - just a means to make a transfer (money, power, authority) to another?

"When a small child disobeys a rule from their parent that the child may not understand fully, yet the parent knows it is for their own good and perhaps safety....the case at hand is not really much different - except that us 'big children' sometimes get it less than the little ones. One reason why this world is in the pitiful, immoral shape it is in."

No, treating fidelity as a mere rule goes against the whole concept of fidelity. A person who stays faithful to a spouse only because he believes it's a rule does not really love the spouse. I would not want to be married to someone who held that belief about fidelity.

>>Not a word in Thomas' piece about the harm that Spitzer's infidelity caused his family? The pain that he caused his wife was searingly obvious from the stricken look on her face. Thomas seems to care less about Spizer's family than about whether Spitzer disobeyed Thomas' god.

If, in fact, he had pulled out that bible and read
Eph 5:25 or Col 3:19 and their accompanying verses...he would have read "Husbands, love your wives"...etc. With a normal, humble conscience, reading such as that, in all likelihood, might.. just might bring one around to seeing the harm they had done to their family.

When a small child disobeys a rule from their parent that the child may not understand fully, yet the parent knows it is for their own good and perhaps safety....the case at hand is not really much different - except that us 'big children' sometimes get it less than the little ones. One reason why this world is in the pitiful, immoral shape it is in.

Not a word in Thomas' piece about the harm that Spitzer's infidelity caused his family? The pain that he caused his wife was searingly obvious from the stricken look on her face. Thomas seems to care less about Spizer's family than about whether Spitzer disobeyed Thomas' god.

I suppose that David Vitter should have reached for the Bible instead of the diaper genie, too. Why is Vitter still in the Senate, and Spitzer out?

The evidence of human history says otherwise Mr. James.

DZ gets it right.

Practice loving kindess and compassion. Those are human values.

Cal, let us bow our heads and thank God the better class of people never ever break, "laws he swore to uphold." That goes double for Yale grads that are members of "Skull and Bones" for sure. Don't you imagine?

It's bad enough when they break God's rules but when they break their own...leaves us almost speechless but not exactly -can't help but notice how wordy you are on this subject compared to others recently. Is that because he's a Jew, a Democrat or is there some other attraction you have to sex FUBARs?

The Bible is an excellent source of wisdom, "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23) Now take http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul for another bit wisdom straight from the Bible. Don't you expect the Devil made Spitzer do that just like the Devil made folks crucify the son of God? We know that Devil is dancing with glee at current events but nothing like He does at just the thought of crucifying the son of God.

We know the big money goes to those leading the multitudes to hell but $4,300 a trick is ridiculous. Of course they're investigating one of those mega-ministers with his multi million dollar mansions, one in Fla and another townhouse in New York City. So maybe that young woman wasn't so high after all. It was probably that $180,000 automobile that got their attention.

Hmmm, what was Mr. Spitzer's biggest mistake??

He did not become a Muslim. Had he, he could have declared his call girls his other wives and been above the law at least in the Islamic world.

Spreading disease and destroying lives that's what you get from promiscuity. Sure sounds harmless to me.

Thump Thump Thump....
Gideons Bible.
ugh

it's everything that's wrong with America.
This wouldn't even be an issue if not for our puritanical roots. Isn't the bible belt divorce capital? Since when did Gideons Bible help abused catholic altarboys? since when did the bible help every church that is ruined by philandering ministers, many of which my father has to take residency in to help repair the church community. Sex is natural and normal and gets most everyone in trouble at some point in their life with various levels of seriousness. Oh yeah that's all in the bible too. and KUDOS to the comment below or above i quote:

Fidelity and commitment are not religious values, they are human values, and the Bible offers nothing.

DZ:

Yes, he should have picked up that Bible. It might have helped him make a right choice. I'm not Christian, but admitting the Bible could have helped him in this situation is something I am willing to admit. I think the only bigot here is you, and no surprise that you're an Atheist. People like you give your religion a bad name, so keep your hate comments against Cal to yourself. This is a forum to debate topics, not to degrade others.

Don't go getting up on your high horse about how "evil" prostitution is.

Temple prostitution worked just fine in the Old Testament.

So did having multiple wives.

Try counting how many concubines our illustrious fathers of Israel had.

And by the way, if your brother died, are you prepared to have sex with his widow to ensure the continuation of his line?

There is only one sin associated with sexual activity of any kind; the failure to accept your responsibility for the consequences.

The consequences do not have to be, and are not, all bad either.

Eliot Spitzer might very well have a deathwish. It's not at all uncommon in our society. We've bought a lie - that "stuff", in its various forms, will make us happy. So we buy bigger houses, faster cars, sexier women, more exotic vacations, cooler gadgets, and so on. And in the end, we're still not very happy. In fact, we're miserable. And the stuff didn't work. Because we are beginning to doubt the lie we thought was true, that stuff can make us happy, we are beginning to doubt that there is any truth, any reason, any purpose. Life without a purpose is a living death, and a deathwish is not far behind.

It is also possible that Spitzer was acting out of some sort of compulsivity. Compulsivity is also something increasingly commonplace among Americans in particular, because of another lie - that by acting in certain ways we can control the world and gain a guarantee of a desired outcome. This thought is patently false, but goes undetected. So when things don't go well, when we hurt under the strain of disappointment and confusion, we find ways to medicate ourselves rather than uncover the lie. To medicate ourselves we shop and gamble, seclude ourselves from the world and seek inordinate risks for pleasure, eat and drink, work and "get involved", go to therapy, etc., all to extremely excessive levels. None of those things is bad, but we have almost entirely lost touch with their true purposes, and thus lost sight of what they can truly do for us. We try to use one or more of them as a panacea for our troubles, and find ourselves addicted to them. Maybe going with prostitutes is Spitzer's.

The compulsive person hides his problem, alcoholism, drug abuse, whatever, from the world, and puts up a front that he has no problem. Sometimes, the compulsive person even fools himself. In this way, a split life can develop, and maybe eventually even a split personality.

Spitzer was probably as sincere as he knew how to be in his fight against prostitution while he was actually conducting it; and just as sincerely convinced himself that he deserved a girl on the side because of all his stress, or his wife's coldness, or whatever. But a person divided by compulsivity hasn't the ability to be very sincere for very long.

In any event, we can't tell what's going on in his mind; nor apparently can we trust him for the time being to be honest about it. It's probably most prudent not to trust him, then, to enforce laws that he is in the habit of breaking.

Yeah right DZ. 8000 thousand years of recorded history says your premise is flawed at best.

By the way my condolences on your wife's passing. I've been married for 34 years closing on 35 myself. I don't know what I'd do without my wife.

No, Cal, he should not have reached for the Bible. It hasn't done you any good. In fact, you are one of the most disgusting and immoral bigots in America. Your hallmark is hatred, bigotry and intolerance.

No, Spitzer should have called me, an atheist. I was married for 37 years to the same woman and, not only did I never cheat, I was never even tempted. I was passionate about my wife the day I married her, and I was passionate about her the day she died 2 1/2 months ago. Fidelity and commitment are not religious values, they are human values, and the Bible offers nothing.