Making Men A Bit Less Devilish

I am sorry to say that I must agree with the comments of DMZ1, except that I would dare to judge you as a Chrsitan: I cannot imagine that you think you are a Christian at all. What is there about anything that you have ever written here that has anything to do with Christ?

What you front as Christianity is terribly distorted, twisted, and tormented.

I guess what is most offensive about you is your causual and unconscious intolerance. Of course, I know you pride yourself on you tolerance, and are not even aware of how ugly you may seem to others. But I have found that the most intolerant of people are completely unawawre of their intolerance, and do not "get it."

It is sort of a Helen Keller complex.

I wish that the Washington Post would give your spot to someone who could make a better effort.

JMR:

I have read every essay that you have posted on this forum. I used to respond, but your arrogance, hypocrisy and bigotry have made responding a futile and worthless exercise. This particular essay is so offensive that a response is required.

You call yourslef a Christian, but you support wars of aggression, torture, massive subversion of the Constitution, social Darwinist economics, imposed religion, denial of equality under the law for American citizens and on and on. As an atheist, I am in no position to judge you as a Christian nor would I care to do so, but my mother, a devout Christian, also reads your essays, and her comment about you just last week was "if Jesus Christ had known that people like him (meaning you) were going to call themselves Christians, he would have got down off the cross and refused to die". That's harsher than anything I could say.

You are also a truly hard core religious bigot. Every essay you post just oozes with hateful, exclusionary rhetoric. You may or may not be a good Christian - you say yes, my mother says no - but you are an execrable excuse for an American.

This article is rambling gibberish, disconnected and meaninless babble. It appeals to all that is primitive and backward in the world, and is a rejection of America, and modernisty. It is anti-American.

And what is the deal with the extended argument against terrorism? Such an argument is ridiculously unneccesary, unless it is to talk the religious-minded out of it.

I do not know what is John Mark Reynolds's purpose; no one seems to understand or like his point of view. Even his own conservative Christian brethren are not able to come to the defense of his obtuse thinking, even though I am sure many of them must stop by and read what he is wrtiing.

As far as Christians go, Wycliffe was better than most:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe

It is their founding expropriation of the Tanakh, their antisemitic NT, their doctrine of typology, their self-forgivenss and tendency to side with perpetrators as long as they were not the victims that has underwritten their bloodthirsty history.
My way or the highway.

At least Wycliffe was genuinely interested in the poor, a secularist. No single human being, though, no hero could ever redeem christianity.

Digging in to archived documents, one can find commentary on most events that have plagued the History of 'civilized' human cultures. I found this etext at Project Gutenberg, which was published in the early 20th century; namely, a study of Biblical literacy in early England. This quote was clipped and posted for interest in the light of the recurrence of troubling violence in human History.

"It is true that
Chaucer himself accepted Wiclif's teaching, and
some of the wise men think that the "parson"
of whom he speaks so finely as one who taught
the lore of Christ and His apostles twelve, but
first followed it himself, was Wiclif. But the version
had far more than literary influence; it had
tremendous power in keeping alive in England
that spirit of free inquiry which is the only safeguard
of free institutions. Here was the entire
source of the Christian faith available for the
judgment of common men, and they became at
once judges of religious and political dogma.
Dr. Ladd thinks it was not the reading of the
Bible which produced the Reformation; it was
the Reformation itself which procured the reading
of the Bible.[1] But Dr. Rashdall and Professor
Pollard and others are right when they
insist that the English Reformation received less
from Luther than from the secret reading of the
Scripture over the whole country. What we
call the English spirit of free inquiry was fostered
and developed by Wiclif and his Lollards
with the English Scripture in their hands. Out
of it has grown as out of no other one root the
freedom of the English and American people.
-THE GREATEST
ENGLISH CLASSIC

A STUDY OF THE
KING JAMES VERSION OF THE BIBLE
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON LIFE
AND LITERATURE

BY
CLELAND BOYD McAFEE, D.D., Brooklyn, New York, May,

1912.

coloradodog:

The burr I have somewhere is the intolerance and exclusion demonstrated by the Abrahamic ¨religious
toward others. This is especially offensive from so called Christians if one puts cherry picking Leviticus (except verse 19:33, of course) above the inclusive and loving words of Jesus

Excuse me. Is this a joke? The NT has underwritten more violence, more hatred, more suffering than any other text in history. "Believe" in me, whatever that means, and no matter what you have done you will be saved. Don't believe, and no matter what good you may have done, you will be damned forever. Lovely. Just lovely.

Then we have the fake Pharisees, who at the time, were in the process of ending Temple culture, the "last supper" that could not have happened, etc., etc. Blaming "the Jews" in words Die Sturmer found useful in WWII.

All of this has been posted before, more extensively, and with extensive sources on this blog. I would add this. The christians expropriated (stole) the Tanakh, mistranslated it and misinterpreted it. As Edward Said has written, the sine qua non of imperialism is theft of another people's culture followed by an explanation of that culture by the thieves to the victims.

Ask me why I left the church. The loving NT. Right. Get some of your other facts straight. Jews do not convert, may not. Only the christians and Muslims do.

Much of the above has been posted ad infinitum and much more thoroughly by Farnaz. However, not infinity is evidently not enough time for some to get it. What the Christians have done is rape the world, and forgiven themselves for it immediately. Nice. But then that's what the NT [sic] is about, isn't it?

Dr. Reynolds, it seems to me that the outgoing administration attempted to subordinate terrorists with just the theological rhetoric you propose. Our enemies were characterized as "evil-doers" who "hate freedom" and have a false sense of their own religion, which is peaceful, they admonished. It seems to me that this tactic hasn't been terribly successful in the Muslim world. The American people understand that we need a different approach, which is part of the reason Barack Obama was elected by a landslide. An approach that deals with the core causes of terrorism, not one that fans the flames of xenophobia.

Counterww,
The burr I have somewhere is the intolerance and exclusion demonstrated by the Abrahamic ¨religious
toward others. This is especially offensive from so called Christians if one puts cherry picking Leviticus (except verse 19:33, of course) above the inclusive and loving words of Jesus. If you don`t think Christians kill for their cause, look at the neochristian mercenaries Blackwater and their evangelical commander Eric Prince.

I have no objection if you go primp, pray, posture, pose and pretend with your own on Sunday.
Why can´t you just leave the rest of us the hell alone?

"The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History"
by Ibn Warraq and Andrew Bostom

Extensive, almost exhaustive, analysis of anti-Jewish racism in the Hadith and Sira of the Qur'an, and their centuries old applications, up to the present. Available for purchase everywhere, available at university and other libraries.

Several Quranic sentiments on Christians and Jews have already been posted on this blog, of course.
However, "The Legacy" is a thorough scholarly work that contextualizes Quranic antisemitism.
Moreover, unlike events depicted in the Tanakh, the Quranic depictions of violence against Jews have been verified as accurate by historians and archaeologists, whose findings are discussed in the book and are easily accessed on the web.

While Quranic propaganda is used by anti-Jewish and anti-Christian Muslim extremists, it is not the basis for contemporary anti-semitism or even for the antisemitism of the last two centuries. It has been combined with Christian anti-Jewish racism to give modern Islamic racists their contemporary propagandistic starting point.

Posts on Quoranic anti-Christian prejudice to follow.

(None of this is to say, of course, that all one finds in the Quran is racism; that is simply not the case.)

Counterww,

Coloradodog has a point, and you may not have heard it fully while you focused on where you disagreed.

"Muslims, Christians and Jews all want others to be converted to their faith and those who don't excluded or even killed."

Excluded. or even killed.

All these religions have a drive to convert, especially your christianity. Convert of lose your soul to the Devil, and such beliefs. Christianity has a long history of killing those that did not convert, and it is not so long ago in history. It will take some time to shake that legacy. Some radical sects of muslims appear to be practicing that philosophy now.
But all practice some form of exclusion with the groups that do not convert.
'Conservative' evangelists have a very exclusive mindset, devaluing all believers but their own and working toward the End Days. Many do not practice "love thy neighbor", but rather they hate them and some imagined alignment the neighbor has with the Devil.

Coloradodog said: "Religion is the cause of most of the evil and suffering in the world and the American versions of religious extremism are the punitive neocon brands of Catholicism, evangelicalism and Mormonism."

There is a point in this. Burr in the arse or no.

Hello Counterww :

"Basically you take the OT out of context. The people back then- nomadic people- were , according the OT, the only ones that were worshiping the true and only true God, Yehweh. The others were tribes that went back and forth and denied God, and were basically evil people. God chose to let the Jews destroy them. This happened due to their evil very evil nature."

Is it really that easy for you to justify and accept these teachings? In your mind all others disbelieved in Yahweh, so God said "Kill them". Decimate all that breath.
How beauteous. And you know this is because of their evil very evil nature...

Divine justification for killing those that believe in a different God goes way back. And you believe that God asks for that, right?

This is not out of context. Mr. Reynolds was condemning 'terrorists' for lacking the appropriate moral character of the warrior:

"Second, terrorism is inconsistent with the moral teachings of the great monotheistic faiths. Terrorism, which intentionally targets noncombatants, lacks the virtues of the warrior: courage and the defense of a just society using just means."

This quote is an appropriate counter, as it is considered the Word of God and as such timeless, as applicable today as then.
Mr. Reynolds is a believer and supporter of military force, and the Iraqi invasion, (though I do not know if his support for it remains today, I hope not). Evangelicals on the whole believe in war, (even when not justified, as we have seen), and the death penalty. Still happy to kill.

Quote not out of context.

Juststillthen-

Basically you take the OT out of context. The people back then- nomadic people- were , according the OT, the only ones that were worshiping the true and only true God, Yehweh. The others were tribes that went back and forth and denied God, and were basically evil people. God chose to let the Jews destroy them. This happened due to their evil very evil nature.

Colorado dog(ashamed that you have the moniker, given my CU alum status)- the "extreme" brands of Catholicism, Evangelicals, and Mormonism CANNOT be compared to the terrorists mindthink . Christians don't believe in killing others if they don't come to Christ. PERIOD.

You paint the picture with a wide brush, and obviously have not read up on the NEW TESTAMENT at all , which does not call for death for the unconverted but to "Love your enemy" etc. etc.

You sound like you have a burr you know where about all religions. you may want to have to have that looked at.

The reason we have religious terror is the idea, furthered by Dr. Reynolds, that those who do not believe in the exclusionary religions of Abraham "can be converted to better ideas." Muslims, Christians and Jews all want others to be converted to their faith and those who don't excluded or even killed.

Religion is the cause of most of the evil and suffering in the world and the American versions of religious extremism are the punitive neocon brands of Catholicism, evangelicalism and Mormonism.

Dr. Reynolds.

"Second, terrorism is inconsistent with the moral teachings of the great monotheistic faiths. Terrorism, which intentionally targets noncombatants, lacks the virtues of the warrior: courage and the defense of a just society using just means."

I will bring up a Biblical quote from a poster on a different thread:

Deuteronomy 20 - 10 -18
10 When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. 11If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you in forced labour. 12If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; 13and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. 14You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. 15Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here. 16But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, 18so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.

So, this is one of your biblical Scriptures clarifying what are moral teachings of one of the great monotheistic religions?

Eh, Dr. Reynolds? I am not sure that I heard you.

"First, terrorism demeans religious faith. It is the product of fear and not love. It is the strategy of the fearful and not those secure in the righteousness of their cause. Terrorism concedes the intellectual battle is lost and so insults the religion it purports to defend."

I actually like the beauty of the formulation of this paragraph, and I agree with it.

"The terrorist is arrogant in his individualism. He refuses the virtue of prudence and patience."

Terrorism, therefore, is doomed to failure."

Are we not individuals in our relationship with the Lord, Dr. Reynolds, or are we supposed to be subservient to the theocracy of our church?

Just a question.

Prudence and patience are virtues that you may be inserting here to forward your ideals.
If you were practicing prudence and patience you would not have so enthusiastically supported President Bush's march to war in the middle east. You were enraptured in your religious passion. It fit your religious view.

That does not apply to the terrorist? Because he has so many fewer options? Because he calls God another name?

"He refuses to submit to God's will and tries to wrest history into his own control."

Are you allowing current events to unfold without your own input? Do you encourage your flock to work to affect the world toward your own views? Do you not, Mr. Reynolds, seek to affect history by your actions and the actions of your people?

Mr. Reynolds,

I apologize for the interrupted post.

Secularism may well be the best message by far. Are you bent on religious confrontation? What good would be done by it? Beyond your fixation on some Armageddon, (which is not good), will religious confrontation bring anything of value?
You probably believe yes, being a indoctrinated believer in these philosophies of confrontation and conflict.
What does GOD have to do with your addiction with confrontation and conflict?
Take away your Bible for just a moment, and consider Jesus and His direction, and tell me about bombing the hell out of the evildoers...

Secularism allows for an unbiased and loving discourse to occur. If you include religiosity in any way that is exclusive, ( and we both know that is second nature for you, Mr. Reynolds), then you insure failure in dialogue with disenfranchised groups that are seeking recognition through terrorism.

If healing and peace are primary, then one must do what is required to realize those ends. I do not believe that healing and peace are primary for you, or you would posture completely differently.
And so...hypocricy.

I cannot say how much I am challenged by this essay. Are you just challenging? Must be the Jesus in you.

"If your neighbor has bad ideas, then he is likely to do bad things."

Feeding fear, Mr. Reynolds? Tell me, how many people have, at some point, "bad ideas"? You have said that you often failed to live to your better aspirations. Ever had "bad ideas", Dr.?

"...terrorists motivated by false religious beliefs must not just lose on the battlefield, but intellectually."

One, who defines what is a false religious belief? Are you the expert here? Two, other than the fixation that descendants of Abraham have on the friggin' battlefield, what place does a minister of the teachings of the master Jesus have dialoguing battlefield wins? I am serious. This is why you evangelicals are hypocrites.
Please do not put Jesus and battlefields together, because they do not belong together. Never have. You know this, but your hateful humanity wants to live.

"Secularism will not be useful intellectually or culturally. It is the wrong message to send."

Secularism may well be the best message by far. Are y

BiBiJon:

"I Cannot imagine any person of the book anywhere to disagree with the cogent arguments that Dr. John Mark Reynolds has made in this column. He ably unmasks the jewel within Western cultures as he identifies the tumor within other cultures to be lanced."

Are you serious? I am afraid that you are. Unmask the jewel? Identify the tumor of others? How utterly conventional and expected.

Your statement in support of a review of perception of Iran, and your link is appreciated.

Jeez Louise Mark, and i mean Jeez Louise.

"Secularism will not be useful intellectually or culturally. It is the wrong message to send"

From a government secularism is exactly the RIGHT message to send. By sending a 'religious' message you are saying that your religion is bigger/better thean their religion. This is exactly how religious wars are started and sustained. A government that tolerates all religions within it's borders, and treats all it's citizens, all their religions all the other countries and all their religions equally is exactly the formula for successful government. This can only be done with a secular/non-religious message. It says "I have my religion, you have yours, but that's not the issue we are here to address, we are here to address poverty/disease/war, etc. We don't care what you or your citizens pray to, we are here to encourage the distribution of food, clean water, adequate shelter."
That is a secular message. What's so wrong with it? What's missing?

"Much of the world's population associates secularism with features of American culture they understandably reject, such as our consumerism and broken families. Second, right or not the vast majority of the world views Western secularism as intellectually wrong and personally unappealing. They rightly reject the indefensible idea that they should compartmentalize their religious beliefs from the rest of their lives."

Yes- as we have seen over and over again how that religious thing works out. Terrorism in the name of G-d, suppression of other's rights (Prop 8, women's right to choose), decimation of native populations, forced conversions, stoning women who have been raped, honor killings- yes, secularism is just so much worse. give me a nice 50" flatscreen over that religion in daily life crap anytime. I won't be eating my heart out everytime some gay couple exercises their right to marry or a woman decides what to do with her own body. I'll be able to walk into a pharmacy or a hospital confident I'll get my birth control pills or the medical care I need because, thankfully, a fellow believer in equal rights is on the job.

Oh and about that no sex education/abstinence only thing, and the teaching of christianity in the science lab- that'll be gone. Yeah- give me a secularist over a religious conservative everytime.

I Cannot imagine any person of the book anywhere to disagree with the cogent arguments that Dr. John Mark Reynolds has made in this column. He ably unmasks the jewel within Western cultures as he identifies the tumor within other cultures to be lanced.

Unfortunately, one unbalanced statement detracts from the whole. A great many facets and dimensions of present day Iran must be ignored to accept at face value that:

"Where extremists have gained power, such as in Iran, they have proven incapable of ruling well and have done nothing to provide a plausible alternative to Western secularism."

A little homework will hopefully avoid future rhetorical blemishes.

http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/