You have more than enough links in the post, but I wanted to note Glenn Greenwald's piece [No need to fix link this time. WD] on this hideous idiocy, which I thought was very very good.
The thing is, many of the positions that get liberals upset aren't straightforward separation-of-church-and-state questions. School prayer, sure. These jackasses in Delaware, sure.
But being anti-abortion? Seems a little less clear that it counts as separation of church and state. What about religious motivation for opposing the death penalty? Euthanasia? Alcohol? (I think the concept of a dry county is an abomination unto God, but many disagree.) I don't think the classic straw atheist liberal has a problem with a religious motivation for opposing the death penalty, but religion will probably be trotted out pretty fast in a debate about euthanasia as a reason to dismiss one's opponent.
Too often, separation-of-church-and-state is used sloppily as a defeater for all religiously-motivated positions. It should be used more narrowly and the other positions argued on the merits.
The people who need to take the lead and raise their profile are liberal protestants. This debate needs to be from the center of the culture, using rhetorical leverage they will be best-positioned for.
In that connection, consider the link below, which was excerpted in the June Harper's also. I know a lot of people here don't share this background, and will sympathize but consider themselves onlookers, but this is the heart of it:
I don't think the classic straw atheist liberal has a problem with a religious motivation for opposing the death penalty, but religion will probably be trotted out pretty fast in a debate about euthanasia as a reason to dismiss one's opponent.
The deal is that atheists think that arguments based on religion are bad arguments because they are based on false assumptions. So an atheist dismissing a religious argument isn't necessarily dismissing it because it is improper to make it in public, but because it is categorically unconvincing. And an atheist overlooking such an argument from a religious ally is overlooking it because one unconvincing argument is unimportant when there are other, stronger arguments. That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion.
Likewise, you see a lot of religious liberals attacking religious conservative arguments as being bad arguments from the point of view of the religion the liberal espouses. That's also not hostility to religion, that's disagreement with a particular religious argument.
That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion
Do you think that the religious right would say this disctinction is a valid one? 'Cause I feel like a lot of religious people (not all, of course) think these two things are one and the same.
Then make them say that. If what they want is for me to defer to the dictates of a religion I don't share and whose preferred policies (e.g., oppression of gays) I think are immoral, I don't believe my resistance reflects hostility to religion, but opposition to religious oppression. They can be present in the public square as much as anyone -- they just can't expect to be treated with special deference by those who disagree with them because their motivations are religious rather than secular.
You will concede at least when someone says I believe such and such and the other person says 'Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism', that just maybe the subtle nuance gets lost.
Likewise, you see a lot of religious liberals attacking religious conservative arguments as being bad arguments from the point of view of the religion the liberal espouses.
These tend to be closer to in-house debates where both sides accept religious authority but disagree on what it should mean. not when one side rejects it out of hand as a bad place to begin arguing.
I'm inclined to tell those religious conservatives who expect me to be deferential to their religion to shove it, though.
A lot of mileage can be had from explaining the difference between showing people's opinions due respect on the one hand and expecting special treatment for those opinions *because* of their religious origin, on the other.
Well, LB, I agree with you in principle, but the fact is that deference to religion is not something that's totally foreign to our constitution. Of course, people can not expect their religion to be treated with deference by individuals, but there are some reasonable legal arguments that it is treated with some deference by the state.
I'll be completely honest. I don't like it. The first amendment scares me a little bit. Plus, I'm still pissed off from last year after reading Yoder.
You will concede at least when someone says I believe such and such and the other person says 'Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism', that just maybe the subtle nuance gets lost.
Oh, the confusion on this point isn't all coming from one side. There are plenty of liberals, including religious liberals, with no problem with religion generally, who are hostile enough to religious conservatives and who have heard that hostility characterized as hostility to religion generally that they've bought in to the characterization: "Fine, if that's hostility to religion, I'm hostile to religion." I'm trying to encourage liberals to see that the characterization doesn't make sense.
14: I think there are differing meanings of 'defer' going on here. 'Deference' in the sense of making an effort to freely allow any (reasonable) mode of worship, sure. Deference in the sense of treating religious arguments as worthy of special respect in the political sphere simply because they are religious? Not in the Constitution.
I realize I'm getting slightly off-topic here, but I don't think it's just any reasonable mode of worship. The state can't have a law that interferes with people's desired practice of their religion, even if it isn't designed to curtail religious activity. Like the Yoder case, where the Quakers got an exemption from mandatory education laws.
But yeah, I don't think they're worthy of any special respect in the political sphere, for sure. However, people are pretty quick to cry "interfering with my religious freedom!" The bastards.
The state can't have a law that interferes with people's desired practice of their religion, even if it isn't designed to curtail religious activity.
That can't be true, can it? If David Koresh has a religion that mandates that the kids of followers have sex with him, he's not all good. Just on the basis of googling, Yoder doesn't seem terribly troubling. You can, AFAIK, homeschool on any basis at all.
>Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism
That's awesome.
Also, on church/state separation, there was the whole "equal access" debate, where I think proponents of equal access were fair to characterize the interpretation of establishment as being explicitly anti-religious. (e.g., you can have a secular club, not a religious club)
Wait wait wait... I think I totally disagree. I think you *are* hostile to their religion. You may not be hostile to the idea of somone believing in God, per se, or praying or going to Church or whatnot. But you are nevertheless hostile to their religion and there is no way to avoid being labeled as such (without completely compromising your values).
You have to understand that these people hear in Church every Sunday that gays are evil and immoral, that we have not descended from monkeys, that prayer was removed from school as part of a vast conspiracy to secularize America, that environmentalism is basically neo-pagan worship of the "earth-goddess", that Jesus' parable of the talents is an endorsement of naked capitalism, etc. etc. etc. etc. This is coming from their pastor, the man (maybe woman, but likely man) from whom they recieve their religious teaching. It *is* their religion. Unfortunately, that *is* modern American evangelical christianity. (I was raised in this culture, so I know it fairly well.) These things are part of their religious teachings.
So anyone who is hostile to these ideas is basically viewed as hostile to their religion. (And, by the way-- no one thinks liberals are hostile to "religion", generically. The stereotype is that liberals love and cuddle buddhism and paganism and Islam and Hinduism, but are very hostile to Christianity.) A secularist just cannot frame this debate in a way that is not going to leave an anti-Christian aftertaste (when "Christian" is defined as above). On the other hand, there is some room for someone to offer alternative religious teachings ("no, I read the Bible and I see Jesus being concerned for the poor and downtrodden, and asking us to help them"), which is why it would IMO be wonderful if those voices were a little louder in our national political debate.
Also, on church/state separation, there was the whole "equal access" debate, where I think proponents of equal access were fair to characterize the interpretation of establishment as being explicitly anti-religious.
So anyone who is hostile to these ideas is basically viewed as hostile to their religion. (And, by the way-- no one thinks liberals are hostile to "religion", generically. The stereotype is that liberals love and cuddle buddhism and paganism and Islam and Hinduism, but are very hostile to Christianity.)
But I'm not hostile to Christianity generally. I'm hostile to (purely in the sense that I don't want their policy preferences imposed on me or others. They can do whatever they like so long as it doesn't affect me) certain conservative sects of Christianity. I have no problem at all with, for example, most American Episcopalians, and neither do most liberals.
That's the point -- it's not about religion, or about Christianity generally, it's about the political goals of some particular sect of Christianity. If religious conservatives want to stand up and say that their sects deserve more political power and respect than other sects of Christianity, other non-Christian religions, and secularists generally, let them say that. But it's not about Christianity as a whole, it's about some Christians who stand in opposition to other Christians.
Urple, let's say someone says "You, liberal who supports homosexual marriage, are hostile to religion" and LWSHM responds, "I assume by religion you mean Chrisitanity, and while I disagree with the religious argument against religion, I am very happy with anyone who wants to going to a Christian church and worshipping the Christian God, and the more important biblical teachings, to my understanding, aren't about human sexuality, but more about the things Jesus said in the sermon on the mount."
I thought this comment had a point, but have changed my mind.
I have written and deleted several longer, and more contentious comments. Can I start by noting that to the extent liberals frame the debate by complaining about fundamentalists or the evil Christian right, they hardly can complain when they are accused of being hostile to religion. If the argument were reframed as you suggest:
people doing or advocating things we strongly disapprove of, like co-opting the power of the state to proselytize for a particular sect, in the service of their religious beliefs,
Can I start by noting that to the extent liberals frame the debate by complaining about fundamentalists or the evil Christian right, they hardly can complain when they are accused of being hostile to religion.
Yes we can. "Fundamentalists" != "religion". "The Christian Right" != "religion".
The problem is that the fundamentalist Christian right are powerful and paranoid. Despite exercising a vast amount of power they believe themselves to be a persecuted minority.
That's a difficult combination to deal with if you want to i) engage in open and honest debate while ii) remaining civil.
No, but I'm referring to a particular sect, not to the religious generally. Does all of the rhetoric about fundamentalist Islam reflect a hostility to "religion"? No.
I'm not saying there's no hostility, I'm saying that it's not hostility to religion, or Christianity. It's political hostility to the political goals of a definable group of religions people.
26 - There are a frighteningly large number of right-wing Christians who dismiss the denominations you name as basically watered-down "liberal" Christianity. Again, you can say "I'm not hostile to your religion" all day long, but what I'm trying to say is that inside the heads of many believers these two statements sound the same:
"I'm not hostile to your religion, but I support equal civil rights for homosexual citizens."
"I'm not hostile to your religion, but it's ignorant to believe that a man named Jesus rose from the dead."
What I'm saying (clumsily, admittedly) is that there is not in their minds the clear spearation between the religious and the political that you are positing. The political *is* religious! Hence, the "culture wars", etc. And hence, if you are hostile to their (religiously-inspired) political views you will inevitably be viewed as hostile to their religion.
I guess here's what I'm asking, LB: who is it that you are trying to convince that you are not hostile to their religion? If it's evangelical christians, it's not going to work, because you are hostile to their religion. If it's the liberal Episcopalians, okay, you've got a winning argument, but I'm pretty sure they're already largely on your side.
33 -- I understand you, and I think you're absolutely right about how many conservative Christians perceive it (and how many people who aren't conservative Christians, but nonetheless are subject to the same framing of the debate perceive it). I am trying (from the incredibly powerful soapbox I occupy) to point out that that framing is just flat wrong unless you take as a premise that the One True Religion is that espoused by conservative, and only conservative, Christians, and that anyone who doesn't believe that to be the case shouldn't accept the frame.
To those people I'd be inclined to say, 'Yes, I am opposed to your religion. I find *your* religious views repugnant and your paranoid persecution fantasies laughable. You are in the moral wrong on just about every issue I care about and it is my intention to defeat you at every turn'.
If there doesn't seem to be anything you can say to those people that will allow them to view you as anything other than hostile to their religion then why bother? Just get on with defeating them.
However, I presume LB (and others) point is that if you want to win over the *moderate* Christians who've bought into the 'hostile to Christianity' theme then some kind of rhetoric that makes clear the difference between religion and Christianity (in general) and a particular flavour of right-wing Christianity on the other, is bound to be necessary.
31 and 32 make my point quite well. You say that you are not hostile to religion, but then choose to attack people by reference to their religion. If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs. Do you honestly believe that everyone who belongs to certain sects (could you list them please, so we know who to hate) has the same political beliefs?
To insist upon describing your opponents by their religion makes it a bit hard to claim the purity of heart regarding religious intolerance which you are claiming.
36: I want to make it explicit to conservative evangelical Christians that the only thing I'm hostile to is the political goals of theirs that I disagree with. If they want to say that that means that I'm hostile to 'their religion', fine. If they claim I'm hostile to Christianity generally, they're lying, unless they want to explicitly claim that american Episcopalians are un-Christian.
If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs.
I've been referring to conservative Christians -- i.e., those who hold views that I politically disagree with. I know there are liberals who belong to evangelical churches. I've voted for them.
To insist upon describing your opponents by their religion makes it a bit hard to claim the purity of heart regarding religious intolerance which you are claiming.
And honestly, are you claiming that it's wrongful or intolerant to talk about the existence of the religious Right as a political force?
I want to make it explicit to conservative evangelical Christians that the only thing I'm hostile to is the political goals of theirs that I disagree with.
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs.
That's completely wrong. Or just a wierd way to analyze things. We make bets on people's politics on the basis of other characteristics all of the time. That's the way it works in a nation of 300 million.
The point is not to win the evangelical Christians, but to win other Christians who sort of think the evangelicals are crazy, but think Dems are dismissive of and rude about Christianity.
The point is that it is those very people who make explicit the link between their religious views and their political views.
It's a pretty cool trick to link one's political views with one's religion and then claim that anyone with opposing political views who makes the self-same link is 'disrespecting' the religion.
The point is not to win the evangelical Christians, but to win other Christians who sort of think the evangelicals are crazy, but think Dems are dismissive of and rude about Christianity.
Precisely, except that evangelical should be conservative evangelical.
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
Wow, LB's getting it from both sides right now. Um, I sort of forced her into that box, Idealist. See above. And, for the record, I think these political goals are *religious beliefs* for many people. They aren't particularly interested in listening to evidence, they're just interested in listening to their pastor.
And, lest I be unclear, I am personally religious.
48: Well, he's asserting that my identification of a political bloc by its religious affiliation is somehow improper from a 'hostility to religion' point of view. In a world where the Christian Coalition is a political pressure group that identifies itself quite openly by its religious affiliation, his squeamishness seems poorly placed.
the Christian Coalition is a political pressure group identifies itself quite openly by its religious affiliation, his squeamishness seems poorly placed
My squeamishness would be poorly placed if you had made the target of your contempt the Christian Coalition (all caps--the organization) rather than evangelicals and fundamentalists, which are terms which describe people solely by their religioous beliefs.
I don't know that you've mentioned it, but it's a fair guess from hard-line anti-abortion but otherwise fairly liberal. I had made the same guess without any more basis.
For some of us this is tricky. I agree there are principled reasons to want separation of church and religion that have nothing to do with an aversion to religion. I even try, as best I can, to stick to those. But the truth is I want religion out of the public square because I think it's wrong-headed. If, 100 years from now, the US is going the way of Europe - with religion fading into nothing, I will be satisfied. Dead, but satisifed.
So... I can pay lip service to this neutral principle, but it isn't what motivates me.
Not explicitly, but the only arguments I remember you getting into are the abortion ones. I tend to assume that anyone who's hanging around here a lot and not being visibly argumentative is somewhere to the left of center.
If you aren't, you need to pipe up more when Idealist and baa are feeling beleaguered.
True statement: most conservative Christians hold sufficiently similar political views to form a voting block, and there aren't enough of the rest left to count.
True statement: those similar political views are either hostile to consensus Dem views or effectively hostile to consensus Dem views.
Those points seem true, and nothing from the above seems lost. (Actually, the first statement is more hardline than the one LB's taking.)
Urple, I think it was when you referred to me as a "Huguenot dog."
But his implication that we've been making those statements is false.
Um, you cannot insist that you oppose a religious group because of its political views unless you believe that all people who hold those particular beliefs also hold the same political views.
For example: It's political hostility to the political goals of a definable group of religions people.
"definable group of religious people" != "religious group"
A "definable group of religious people" is "those conservative Christians who have organized themselves into pressure groups within or parallel to the Republican party, including but not limited to the membership of the Christian Coalition, and often referred to as the Religious Right". That definition does not assume that all, e.g., Southern Baptists vote Republican or favor mandatory school prayer.
you cannot insist that you oppose a religious group because of its political views unless you believe that all people who hold those particular beliefs also hold the same political views.
On reflection: Well you can, I suppose, but it is a bit much for you to get all huffy when people accuse you of being against certain people's religions.
It is an interesting idea, that someone right of center would feel comfortable here, freely bantering and confessing as we all do, without ever being drawn into battles about exactly what is being said and how. I mean, I think GB, and Cala, and Yamamoto, and I are left-of-center yet often engaged in these controversies, apparently on the side of the jack boots. Somebody side-stepping all that would be remarkable.
Presumably one of the goals of this sort of "it's not hostility to religion" discourse would be to separate Catholics from evangelicals, by appealing to the social justice instincts of the former. Religion started to take over the public sphere again when the political wall between Catholics and evangelicals came down.
I suppose it depends on what one means by "liberal." If you mean supportive of liberty, fraternity and equality and all that, then I guess the label is reasonably fair. On the other hand, "Uneasy Rider" by the Charlie Daniels Band is perhaps my favorite song of all time. I'm pretty sure that disqualifies me right there.
Also, I'm not a bit Al-Qaeda sympathizer like most liberals.
Is this a really slow day in the Mineshaft or is it just me?
What about point-by-point hostility to explicitly religious arguments ? I'm hostile to Bible-verse prescriptions for policy, but not to thinly veiled religious arguments. IMHO it's incumbent upon believers to dress up for the public square.
I think that a lot of what Urple says in 23 is right.
I have no problem at all with, for example, most American Episcopalians, and neither do most liberals.
Thanks for saying kind things about my denomination, LB, but I think that the Presbytereans, the Lutherans and most of the Methodists are OK too.
(As an aside, because it's an internal religious argument not related to religion and the public sphere, I will note that General Convention of the Episcopal Church just elected a woman as our presiding bishop (our primate who meets with all of the other Anglican primates every so often). The conservative bishops of Fort Worth and Pittsburgh have declared that they are not in communion with her. (Sigh.)
Urple is also right that liberal Protestants have done a really bad job of articulating a competing vision, partly because a lot of us are wary of arguing for certain values in the public sphere based on our religious beliefs. This goes both ways. We don't want to impose our religion on other people, and we tend to be wary of bringing political views into religious discussions. At its worst, this can lead to the impression that religion is only about personal piety.
The big problem, from the point of those of us who woulr like to see a more prominent voice for liberal Protestants and Catholics in shaping some of these debates is that the mainline churches are shrinking.
Note that I see this as a problem on two levels. (1.) I don't like the effects of the unchallenged prominence of the right-wingers on public policy. (2.) It saddens me as a Christian, because (without being al loosy goosey and liberal--cause ina number of areas I'm pretty traditionalist) I don't think that's what Christianiy is all about. I hate the fact that huge swathes of the population see Christianity as a hateful religion.
by appealing to the social justice instincts of the former
Careful, there. There are, and have been, evangelical Christians with social justice instincts (remember the Civil Rights movement?).
At the risk of sounding too academically respectable, I'd say there's a terminological problem here. "Protestant fundamentalists" ≠ "evangelical Christians".
I don't think it's out of line to say that Protestant fundamentalism is inherently a politics as much as it is a religion. The point of being a fundamentalist is to insist on a supernatural source of morality and to oppose accommodation to modern conditions. So when you oppose "fundamentalism" you're opposing a religious strain whose leaders and adherents have set themselves a political agenda. It's really hard to pick the religion and the politics apart.
I hate the fact that huge swathes of the population see Christianity as a hateful religion.
If it makes you feel better, I really don't think this is true. I think huge swathes of the population think (if conservative) that 'liberals' think Christianity generally is a hateful religion or (if liberal) that other liberals think Christianity generally is a hateful religion. I don't think (which is sort of my point generally) that there are many people out there who actually do forget the existence of Epsicopalians, Presbyterians, all the millions of people in the evangelical sects whose political beliefs are unexceptionable, and end up thinking bad things about Christianity generally.
You say that you are not hostile to religion, but then choose to attack people by reference to their religion.
right, LB's making a distinction between "religion" (general), and "their religion" (particular). Your argument here is tantamount to "any hostility to any religion is hostility to religion." I doubt that's what you meant, but it seems that's what you wrote.
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
May we dub this The Infuriating Circular Argument? It goes like this:
Religious Person X: I take polititcal position C because of my religion, Z. You can't attack C, because it's based solely on my belief in Z. And if you attack Z, you hate religion, upon which this country was founded! And you're intolerent. And you don't share my values, because you hate religion!
Of course, I am hostile to religion, in general. I refuse to respect!
I didn't think I was getting worked up! I need to work on my rhetorical stance. My point in 45 was the same as LBs in 52.
Anyway ...
FWIW, I used to work for a Baptist religious college. I don't have a problem with Christians or even evangelical Christians.
However, you can't just talk about 'the right' -- contra what Idealist and others have described as a more desirable way to carry out political discourse. This is because there's a real distinction to be made between the secular right-wing and the religious right-wing and there's a specific policy agenda that the latter group has which is often distinct from the agenda of the secular right.
I don't think there's any way to clearly express one's opposition to that particular sub-species of right-wing policy agenda without also referring to the religious element and religious inspiration of that policy agenda.
Well you can, I suppose, but it is a bit much for you to get all huffy when people accuse you of being against certain people's religions.
oh, yes, yes you can. I had a wonderful Godwin's Law violation all worked up!
And, Idealist, here's the thing: "Being hostile to religion" doesn't make sense, in a way, because liberals just about never complain about religions practices, only their political activities. If liberals were really hostile to religion, then that hostility would manifest itself in myriad ways, none of which do I think we are seeing. Liberals are hostile to religious political activity, of course.
Liberals are hostile to religious political activity, of course.
Where they disagree with the political goals sought. There was not, for example, widespread liberal disapproval of Obama's "awesome God" speech -- might conceivably have been some, but nothing like a majority position.
re: evangelical Christians with social justice instincts.
Of course. To the extent that I was aware of the specific political views of my colleagues when I worked for the religious college mentioned above, they slanted pretty far to the left on issues of social justice, racial equality, wealth redistribution, etc. Most of them would have been of the 'socioeconomic' left while remaining fairly conservative on a number of social issues: abortion, to pick one notable example.
I think I'm the type of person that you might be addressing, LB, because I certainly think I'm hostile to religion. Not individual religious people, generally (with exceptions, of course), but I just really don't like organized religion, don't like the political power it wields and tries to wield, and have a lot of bad feelings about religious organizations from back in my Mormon days.
And I was pissed off at Obama. I think I even said something about that here, too lazy to find it though.
If we want to get into a terminological dispute, though, I'd like to see a solution to it. How should we linguistically separate the christians who propose, agitate, and lobby for fascist social policies from those who share similar religious beliefs, but are slightly more liberatarian in their politics? Baa and Ideals seem very concerned that we are slighting the latter group. But how can we separate the wheat from the chaff?
Religious Person X: I take polititcal position C because of my religion, Z. You can't attack C, because it's based solely on my belief in Z. And if you attack Z, you hate religion, upon which this country was founded! And you're intolerent. And you don't share my values, because you hate religion!
I'm not sure how many people besides the fringe make this argument. But if we take another religious person, Y:
Y: I take political position C because of my religion Z. I'm up for you attacking C, but if you attack it merelybecause it's grounded in Z rather than addressing it as policy, I have no reason to believe you're arguing in good faith, any more than you would if I attacked your position by saying 'you're a woman' or 'you're black' or 'you've been brainwashed by the liberal academy'.
I think we can distinguish X from Y. So let's just hate on X, you say? But here's the splatter problem. Y probably knows X better than you do. Y may go to church with X. And Y may not really like being told she's a harmless good Christian who doesn't rock the boat. It comes across rather like 'I hate all Christians; oh, not you. You're a good one. I'm just saying in general.'
Replace 'Christians' with 'feminists' or 'blacks' or what have you if you don't see why it's not working. No one wants to be the acceptable token of a despised group.
I take political position C because of my religion Z. I'm up for you attacking C, but if you attack it merelybecause it's grounded in Z rather than addressing it as policy...
Cala, how can this work? How can I attack an argument by critcizing reasons which are not the reasons said person supports the argument? I know too many christians who will say, "I understand your reasons E,F,G and H, and I'm sympathetic, but I'm sticking with position C, because of religion Z. Sorry."
or, just as often, "i don't know how to reconcile observations m ans n with virtue W, which Z believes in, but Z demands C, so I have to believe, though I can't see why, that C leads to W, and I'll just have to ignore m and n." Otherwise smart people frequently make this argument.
Careful, there. There are, and have been, evangelical Christians with social justice instincts (remember the Civil Rights movement?).
It's hard to be very careful in a short comment! What I meant was that with televangelism and megachurches and whatnot there is a much more capitalist flavor to large swathes of evangelical life, today if not always historically, and much of the teaching Urple describes in 23 is not Catholic doctrine.
I didn't mean to derail this very good discussion. I thought I had mentioned my former Mormon-status here before? Maybe not. Yeah, to make a long story short, my mother was an American and teen convert to the LDS church who, when she married my father, who is Coptic Catholic and Egyptian, agreed with him to raise the kids Mormon cause she was more into her religion than he into his, and they bought thought bringing kids up religiously was important. She actually was one of the first Mormons in Egypt, back in the 70s, and as more expatriates moved in and the Oil industry grew and the Diplomatic mission, the number of Mormons grew (especially 'cause the CIA has a habit of hiring mormons). I'd say when I was in high school, there was a branch of about 150-200 Mormons there. Mostly Americans, with a sizeable group of Nigerian/Senegalese/Ghanaian converts (they weren't allowed by the government to convert any Egyptians). I probably kept going to church until I was about 14, and by that point my siblings had moved away and my father not going to church with me anymore (and my mother dead), but he still wanted me to attend, so I would pretend like I was going and walk for hours around Cairo, 'cause I hated it that much.
On preview: 100, yeah. Stakes are regional, and groups of "wards." But we weren't even big enough to have a ward, we just had a "branch," which had, instead of a "bishop" (who is the head of a ward), a "branch president." So much terminology.
Legal ambiguity also concerns the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or Mormons, in Cairo. The LDS Church has maintained an organized congregation in Egypt for over 30 years, though without formal legal recognition. The Government is aware of the activities of the congregation and has raised no objection so long as no proselytizing of citizens occurs; however, excessive attention from State Security has been a problem for individual citizen members who attempted to participate in meetings, particularly those who have converted to the LDS Church overseas and then returned to Egypt. According to credible sources in the LDS community, citizen members sometimes avoid meetings out of fear of harassment from State Security.
150-200 wasn't considered big enough for a ward? That's strange because my ward was about 60 people. On a full day. I think it used to be bigger back when real estate was affordable in the area.
98: When X argues that policy C is the right policy because it's supported by their religion, often their reasoning is that C leads to desirable outcomes, and their religion's support for C, let's call it R, is evidence of that. The reason they dismiss evidence to the contrary is that they think that R is extremely strong evidence. But I don't think any X supports C even though they think it leads to bad outcomes. So if you were able to convince them that C does does lead to bad outcomes (which is really hard because they ignore evidence that it does) then they would abandon C. And probably have a crisis of faith or two.
Ah, given 107, I understand a bit better. I wondered whether the "branch" designation mightn't have been a bit of soft racism. (Ethnic congregations often end up as branches and get shuffled between various ward buildings. My ward building had a Laotian branch that met after the "regular" ward meeting.)
then they would abandon C. And probably have a crisis of faith or two.
This, of course, is the subtext to Book 6 of The Republic, one specific analogy being the philosopher leading the savage out of the dark cave of religion to see the Good of practical atheism.
philosopher leading the savage out of the dark cave of religion
This is precisely where you will get written off as condescending, and the conversation ends. For many among the religious, it is not a matter of philosophical inquiry. It is faith. Period.
(Note: others, notably my very-libera-Catholic mother, have done the philosophical legwork and still decide to believe.)
98: Look, you're not trying to win them over, necessarily. All the nicety-nice talk in the world probably won't convince someone that liberals are pro-life. But if you're trying to convince them that liberals are pro-choice and that doesn't entail anti-Christian sentiment, it may be better just to treat their reasons as legitimate close-held reasons. If you don't think they're legitimate, all well and good, but that makes you kind of hostile.
Depending on the church, that's the problem.
Maybe. Catholicism is a really big tent. Assemblies of God, not so much. But the point is just that if Z rants about those idiot Whatevers to Y, a practicing Whatever, even if Y agrees with Z that the idiot X is a bad Whatever, there's going to be a fair amount of hostility perceived simply because religion forms a pretty strong part of most practioners' identity.
I'm a liberal and an ex-Christian, with a somewhat ambivalent relationship to the idea of religion. I recognize that if the liberals, as a group, are going to persuade (some) conservatives to change their minds, some of the argument will have to be religious. That is, the speech across the liberal-conservative gap will have to include discussions between Christians who share a lot of religious and cultural assumptions that I don't. So, in the hope that the politically liberal view will prevail, I have to accept the collaboration of many people who differ from me in practically every way except the political goal. It's in my political interest to put up with -- sometimes even, in effect, to endorse -- rhetorical style and assertions of identity that alienate me.
And I should say that I'm not asserting that no liberal is hostile to religion -- PZ Myers, Emerson, and Silvana are holding up the militant atheists banner. Give me a minute and I can find some militant atheists on the right. (Does Derbyshire qualify? I'd have to read more of his stuff.)
It's just that the general liberal hostility toward the religious right doesn't have a thing to do with hostility to religion, and shouldn't be thought of as being on the same spectrum. Atheist liberals, agnostic liberals, and profoundly Christian liberals all have hostility toward the religious right -- it't not about the religion, it's about the politics driven by that religion.
I want to march under the militant athiest banner, too. It makes me sore that I should have to consider, even strategically, the merits of a political opinion rooted in chapter and verse. I think it's fine for children and good for philanthropy, but fuzzy things like "respect for life" are so far from the appopriate purview of the government.
In the case in question, though, the problem was that the public schools were imposing one religion on those of a different religion. It's not religion as such that is being opposed by liberals.
Conservative Christians do not believe that theirs is one among many religions. They believe that theirs is the only true religion. So do Muslims, and possibly a few others. The American political system does not allow government to recognize this kind of claim, but it's exactly what the most militant Christians are demanding.
Does it seriously annoy you when you agree with the conclusions? I think you're too young to have voted for Clinton, but does that sort of 'God wants us to take care of the poor' rhetoric bother you generally? Or does it just not do much for you?
One more thing: I think that another part of the problem here may be that many prominent liberal organizations are run by people who are hostile to religion, and not just to the religious right. (I'd throw out the ACLU as an example here, but I don't know who runs that. I'm really just speaking based on experiences with friends.) These are the managers' personal beliefs, not necessarily the motivating principles of the organization, but these things sort of come out nonetheless. And then when liberals support these organizations there is some degree of guilt by association, at least in terms of public perception. After all, why would you support this person who hates religion if you yourself don't hate it? (I'm not saying that's really logical, just that I think it's a perception that I think exists.)
(I'd throw out the ACLU as an example here, but I don't know who runs that. I'm really just speaking based on experiences with friends.)
They're out there protecting the rights of religious groups to equal access in schools. They're protecting the right to religious freedom of people like the family in the linked story. What has the ACLU done lately that's struck you as anti-religious?
The ACLU hasn't done anything that's struck me as anti-religious-- that's part of my point (their org. is reasonably fair to fight for liberties for the religious and non-religious alike). Some people who work for the ALCU have struck me as personally very anti-religious, however, and I don't think that's out of the ordinary. A lot of liberal activists are personally very anti-religious. And liberal "activists" are, almost by definition, the face of liberalism that many people will see.
125: Ceremonial deism doesn't annoy me. But appeals to God when the policy is reasonable on the merits do bug me. Not so much that I'd ever throw the baby out with the holy water, but it definitely grates.
Part of what Urple may be getting at (please correct me if I'm wrong, Urple) is that "liberal culture" does seem somewhat hostile to people who take their Christian faith seriously. It may not be an attack on that faith directly, but rather an attack on attitudes likely shared by such people. So, if you don't believe in sex before marriage, you're a freak. If you think (pace Hirshman) a mother at home is a positive good, you're a freak. And so on. If the only place people who are serious Christians find like-minded people is at church, those people are likely to associate those lifestyle choices with the church, whether or not the choices are based on church doctrine.
Also, Smasher personally cost us the '04 election.
There are certainly some militant atheists who are more hailed on the right than the left these days - Christopher Hitchens and Oriana Fallaci, for two.
133: But there are plenty of serious Christians who don't find liberal culture alienating. I don't deny the alienation, but I do say that it applies to a subset only of Christians.
I really think that by worrying that we're being seen as "hostile to religion" when discussing the alleged asshattery in Delaware we are in fact feeding the beast that is the lie that we are hostile to all religion. Those people, if the story as reported by that family is true, are already hostile. I really don't think we need to worry ourselves with whether we're being hostile in return. Of course, I'm not much of a cheek-turner, so hey.
I am a member of a religion, but it is not Christianity. Some of my political ideals are rooted in or at least bolstered by my religious beliefs, and some are not, and either way it is not my place to go around pointing out which are which to anyone else. I generally appreciate the same from others.
But by the same token, I would love to see more charismatic Christian leftists take the stage and try to point out to their fellow believers that a lot of good work would come from enacting liberal ideals (Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values is an excellent example of just that). If they want to look at it as serving a religious goal as well as a political one, more power to them. However, I don't think it's my job to do that, and I don't think it's our fault when some members of some religions are openly hostile to the point of driving someone out of their town, or otherwise picking a fight, especially when the second someone criticizes them for it the right-wing fringe of said religion (or any other body) claims that suddenly it makes them the victim.
Rather than worry about how to present ourselves in regards to religion, I wish we could figure out a way to point out that the Christian Coalition does not represent all of religion, or all religious people, in a way that undermined their rhetoric of representing some silent majority. If we could expose that fringe as being a fringe, I think it would do a lot to neuter them as a force for stagnation and regression.
That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion.
And that's exactly where this all stems from. As silvana said, to many religious people these are one and the same.
Liberals aren't hostile to religion, we're hostile to the notion that people should be able to legislate their religious beliefs based solely upon arguments made from their religion. "Because the Bible says so" isn't a fucking argument. But God forbid any liberal point that out, because now they're "hostile to religion."
It's never enough that they are free to believe what they want. The government in their eyes should actively promote their beliefs. They believe in prayer, so schools should lead students in prayer. They don't believe in pre-marital sex, so schools shouldn't teach sex ed. They believe in talking snakes and magic fruit trees, so schools should teach creationism.
And anyone who opposes such measures is immediately tarred as"hostile to religion." Because if there's anything religious screwballs like more than pushing their nonsense on others, it's crying about how victimized they are.
I just want to second Urple's 127 and 131. I would almost even say it's a problem of manners -- there are definitely subgroups of (in my experience) college-educated, politically liberal, urban Americans who feel comfortable openly expressing contempt for religious faith.
But "manners" doesn't quite cut it. It's not just about being courteous to religiously observant people even if you don't agree with them. I would almost say it's a problem of liberalism not to be able to acknowledge that a person of faith may also be rational.
I would almost say it's a problem of liberalism not to be able to acknowledge that a person of faith may also be rational.
See, I just don't see any substantial group of liberals (or snooty urbanites, or any other obvious category of people) out there refusing to acknowledge that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter etc. can be rational. I think the statement you made there is flatly false, unless 'person of faith' means something very restricted to you. That's exactly the sort of generalization I think is so pernicious. (When I say it's pernicious, I don't mean to attack you personally. I think it's very common, just wrong.)
I would almost even say it's a problem of manners -- there are definitely subgroups of (in my experience) college-educated, politically liberal, urban Americans who feel comfortable openly expressing contempt for religious faith.
Man, I don't know if I should say this, but hey, I'm apparently marching under the militant atheist band already, so I might as well. Look, some people (not me as much, because although I'm hostile toward organized religion, I'm probably an agnostic more than an atheist) see religious belief as patently false and harmful. I see nothing "rude" about expressing contempt for religious belief if you see it as patently false and harmful, just as there is nothing rude about my expressing contempt for the opinion that Iraq has WMDs, back when we still didn't know whether they did or not.
Having read gswift's 143, I now think we're describing two different phenomena.
a) the false positive of "anti-religionism" detected by religious extremists (of whatever stripe) when the rest of society fails to accommodate their particular wishes.
b) the genuine "anti-religionism" shown by (a small subset of) liberals people who seem not to have experience or knowledge of any religiously observant people whose intelligence they respect.
(OK, I see LB and Michael's points - but I honestly have experience of sitting among a group of people, in a college class or a nonprofit organization, who think they are safe among friends who share their prejudices, and therefore say things about "religious" people that they would never say if they knew I was a Quaker who attended services every week. Or perhaps, they would do what Cala mentioned and claim I was one of the "good ones.")
I also really don't have a problem with people who are openly contemptuous of religion. There are people who are openly contemptuous of my existence as a gay man, but that's not stopping me. I have friends who know that I have religious beliefs who will state openly that they believe religious beliefs are a sign of a weak intellect, but somehow I survive. Getting out of bed in the morning, for everyone, no matter who they are, everywhere, is to some degree an exercise in being the object of someone's contempt. Suck it up! Deal!, we should say to the people who cry victim because we don't go to their specific church and we are not interested in a copy of their newsletter. I don't think anyone who's contemptuous of religion should be made to hide that as long as they don't try to legislate that contempt - outlawing religious observance, for example - and I don't know anyone who has ever seriously suggested such a thing. Yeah, great, they hate religion. And there are people who, for religious reasons, hate them. Life, in its {eternal wonder,remarkable series of coincidences} continues to go on for everyone involved. There should be no need to apologize for taking the position that the legislation of religion - whether for or against - is wrong.
We're liberals, right? It's all about options, right? Let people live the way they want to live and leave everybody the hell alone, right? That's a message that requires no apologies, and anyone who demands an apology for that message has either misunderstood it or confessed that their faith is too weak to withstand another's noncompliance. In either case, their problem is not our problem.
See, I just don't see any substantial group of liberals (or snooty urbanites, or any other obvious category of people) out there refusing to acknowledge that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter etc. can be rational.
Yeah, we're all so intolerant of religion that we put evangelicals in the White House. Liberals are seriously tricky that way.
150: Is it possible that they're using 'religious people' as shorthand for 'The Religious Right' (or that they're explicitly talking about 'The Religious Right' and you're taking it the wrong way)? If they are, they're doing something stupid, and one of the things I'm trying to warn people against in this post, but my guess is that they don't, in fact, have a problem with religious people generally. There just can't be that many people who do, judging by the election results.
150: Is it possible that they're using 'religious people' as shorthand for 'The Religious Right'
It's certainly possible. I don't think it's always the case, though.
my guess is that they don't, in fact, have a problem with religious people generally. There just can't be that many people who do, judging by the election results.
I think that's a little bit of a logical leap. What was the great West Wing where the Marlee Matlin character explained to Josh why 90% of Americans oppose flag-burning but then those same 90% turn around and rank it like 29th on their list of priorities? (I'm making up those numbers.) Point being, even people who genuinely hate religion may not be single-issue voters. (Yes, yes, I know religion is not a stand-alone "issue." Simplifying! Comity!)
I feel responsible for helping to drag the discussion away from the main theme of your post, that separation of church and state need not be even slightly hostile to religion (and in its own way actually protects minority faiths). And that sometimes people yell "I'm being persecuted!" as a distraction, somewhat akin to how one's "right" to hit one's spouse gets one "persecuted" by those darned assault laws.
I don't know, LB. I think a lot of liberals, myself included, if the only piece of information they got about someone was "X is very religious," there would be an automatic negative impression formed. There are certainly tons of people who happen to be religious that I like, but other people that I dislike precisely because of their religiosity.
So, I don't think that many people will dislike any religious person, but I do think their overall impression of "religious people" is a bad one. For better or for worse. I think you are trying to hard to ascribe pure motives to all mainstream liberals. Some of us are pretty bitter about religion. I think a lot.
I see nothing "rude" about expressing contempt for religious belief if you see it as patently false and harmful and Suck it up! Deal! bother me, because they're fine postures to take when you have the whip hand. But we don't, and, unless your primary concern about the US is tossing away votes we can get, expressing contempt is not helpful in getting the whip.
So it wasn't just Smasher, but also Pants and silvana who put GWB back in the White House.
Smasher, isn't the color scheme gone, too? And the picture was awesome.
I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such, or to expect them to object to politics when the religious right is the group that's identified "christianity" with a narrow and bigoted political agenda.
I mean, it's valid for those of us who hate the religious right to say, repeatedly, that we aren't hostile to religion per se, and to identify our own religions leanings if that helps make that argument. But we aren't the ones that have made the argument--fairly successfully--that "christian" means "right-wing politics" in this country. The religious right did that, and they did that precisely *in order to* make it impossible to effectively argue against them without getting the "you're hostile to religion!" nonsense. If folks object to equation of "christian" with "right wing," then they need to criticize the people who made that equation, not those that object to it.
158: "unless your primary concern about the US is tossing away votes we can get" s/b somets,hing like "unless your primary concern is the growth and influence of religion in the public sphere, we're tossing away votes, and..."
You've caught me, SCMT. My religious beliefs reached for the (D) lever, but then my contempt for religion got in an argument with my religious beliefs, and I ended up bumping the machine in my struggle and my sleeve caught on the (R) lever and then it was party-line all the way down the page. Next time I plan to tie both hands behind my back and vote with my teeth. They almost never fight with each other.
But we aren't the ones that have made the argument--fairly successfully--that "christian" means "right-wing politics" in this country. The religious right did that
I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such, or to expect them to object to politics when the religious right is the group that's identified "christianity" with a narrow and bigoted political agenda.
You know, I see where you're coming from; they started it, we didn't.
On the other hand, life ain't fair. If a politician were criticizing abuses under shari'a law she'd have to take care not to simply call the problem a problem with Islam, even though shari'a interpretations insist they're the only correct way to read Islam. It wouldn't play well, not to mention being pretty foolish, to say 'Muslims are murderers' and then, when challenged by moderate Muslims, tell them that they're just using the term narrowly like the other side claims.
I think you are trying to hard to ascribe pure motives to all mainstream liberals. Some of us are pretty bitter about religion. I think a lot.
I've actually been surprised by the number of people expressing direct hostility. Of people I know IRL, crazed secularists every one, the most negative emotion about religion I've heard expressed is a sort of puzzled bemusement ('Why do they believe that stuff?') not translating into having any particular problem with people who do. But there's a good chance my experiences have been shaped by living in the most liberal and urban places possible -- no one in my social circle is likely to have been significantly hassled in the name of religion.
I think that's a little bit of a logical leap. What was the great West Wing where the Marlee Matlin character explained to Josh why 90% of Americans oppose flag-burning but then those same 90% turn around and rank it like 29th on their list of priorities? (I'm making up those numbers.) Point being, even people who genuinely hate religion may not be single-issue voters.
Yeah, but the polls show that something crazy like 90% of the country believes in God. While I'll believe in the existence of the hardcore antireligionists, there just can't possibly be that many of them.
Okay, seriously, stop. Not long ago John Emerson wisely upbraided us all for falling into the right-wing rhetoric trap over and over again. Nobody---not even most of the pundits who spew this garbage---really thinks that "liberal"=="hostile to religion". But if you say it does, ooh, watch the liberals turn purple and spout steam from their ears! It's awesome!
Seriously (I say again) we need some other way of engaging basically unserious assertions.
(Scratch that, I'm going to sneak up on a feminist and call her a man-hater. Oh Prof B, where are you....)
Of course, but I don't think we're saying "the political beliefs of Christians are wrong." I think that by and large, "we" ("the left") are pretty darn careful to say, at minimum, "the political beliefs of fundamentalist christians are wrong" or "the political beliefs of the religious right are wrong" and so on. That's in the political arena.
On the other hand, in the cultural arena (e.g., the comment thread over at my place), I think it's useless to say, "those people aren't really Christians" and assume that's the end of the discussion. There, you can say, "yeah, fine, they're Christians (at least, one kind of christians)--and under the constitution, they are not allowed to dominate public arenas to the exclusion of others."
159: But I do get frustrated with this sort of thing: I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such.
I am not really talking about or worried about responsibilities, or the morality of stands in this arena, or anything like it. I'm worried about winning. A lot of this has to do with (a) how worried you are about the direction the country is headed, and (b) what worries you about the direction the country is headed. I'm (a) really worried, and (b) not very worried about religious people generally. I'm willing to bend a lot of ways to get the current Republican coalition out.
What I was trying to say above in #161 is that your perspective on this is a function of what you're worried about. If you are worried that religious people, broadly, have a pernicious effect on US politics, you're not going to agree with me. It doesn't mean you are wrong in some moral sense; it means that you and I pragmatically disagree about what winning coalition we can and should build, and how to go about building it.
168: No, I honestly think that there are liberals who are, in fact, hostile to religion. They're entitled to be hostile to religion, especially given that a lot of religious folks have made a lot of hay in the last few years out of hating on gays, feminists, and so on. But that doesn't mean that liberalism, as such, is hostile to religion as such.
Likewise, there are surely feminists who hate men. I'm not one of them (well, most of the time), and I'd certainly argue that feminism as such is not hostile to men. But I'm not so stupid as to fail to realize that women who do hate men often do so (erroneously, imho) under the guise of feminism.
170, oh, I agree. And given that religion is a really powerful way of talking about morality, I think we oughta get out there and start using religious language to make moral claims about tolerance and concern for the poor and ecuminicalism and all the rest of it.
Just to be clear, by "suck it up" I didn't mean that secularists should accept the legislation of religion, but that they should accept the incursion of religion into political discourse. (One question, of course, is how to do that without ceding the rhetorical high ground to those who know how to wield it.)
170: The thing is that being apologetic about liberal hostility to religion buys into the frame (as slol says) and hurts us. Saying it's all crap (and I hereby dismiss the lot of you as anecdotal evidence), even though it seems more confrontational, I think helps us more in the end.
You're making the Yglesias argument -- give a little on the soft church/state issues, who really cares? But then someone's going to get run out of town over them, as in the linked story, and we'll have to fight -- we don't get anywhere by giving in.
Yeah, but look. The people who are currently using Christianity to hate on homosexuals would be hating on homosexuals anyway. (If it makes you feel better, you can substitute "oppress women" for "hate on homosexuals".)
Seriously, they don't need a few stray passages in the Bible to help them do it. Think about it from a reverse angle: long before Darwin, there were people who said that the rich owed nothing to the poor, and that free competition in society was the only measure of progress. And those people will be around long after they've expunged Darwin from the curriculum. There's really no point, as a liberal, blaming Darwinism for that belief.
But then someone's going to get run out of town over them, as in the linked story, and we'll have to fight -- we don't get anywhere by giving in.
Incidents like that in the story will help us more than they hurt us. The (IIRC) 25% of American Jews who voted for Bush last time around? A little closer to coming back to the fold.
We're just not in a position to enforce much, these days, including things that are really, really important to me. (Insert Padilla rant.) I think I'm closer to slol's view than you--I say don't respond to provocations, which is what I read him to be saying (roughly). That said, slol hates America, so I'm not sure his advice is sound.
176: Keep the ACLU, have them do exactly what they're doing. Whenever some member of the religious right talks about liberals wanting to keep religion out of the public sphere, point and laugh, saying "Like when Clinton talks about religion? Or Obama talks about religion? Or Martin Luther King talked about religion? Sweetheart, liberals don't have a problem with religion, we've got a problem with you. Entirely different."
Hey, I like the middle ground. It's comfy and you can watch the two sides fire at each other and it looks like pretty fireworks.
Seriously, they don't need a few stray passages in the Bible to help them do it.
This is a really good point. Bigots are going to be bigots whether someone's telling them God says so or not. Some'll do it even if God tells them otherwise; this is why churches fracture. I think that some religious groups are reachable, and I'm convinced that a lot of the moderate religious types who have bought into the right-wing 'must vote Republican to be Christian' will come back if given an alternative.
You know that if you really tried to absorb the UK as states 51 through 54 you'd just find yourself bowing down before your kilted overlords within a year or two.
The only strange thing is that this surprises people. First thing I discovered on immigrating here forty years ago is how many people didn't get why Canada existed. It's just invisible, like the way weather disappears on the weather channel when it goes over Canada.
Although, you know, in fairness to those of us south of the border, there are fewer Canadians than there are Californians, and some ridiculously large percentage of them---15%, maybe?---live in metro Toronto. So.
201: Dude, you've (basically) copped to being an academic--there is no doubt about (or aboot, as they case may be) your anti-American credentials. I just thought it was interesting.
People used to make fun of me for saying Molson Golden was my favorite beer, back when Molson Golden was my favorite beer. I gather Canadians see it as the equivalent of Budweiser. But I would always think of the vast frozen tundra as I drank, and it pleased me.
Favorite Kids in the Hall moment: a Filipino kid asks Dave Foley's character if he's American, and Foley replies, "I'm Canadian - just like an American, but without the gun."
It may depend on where you are in Canada. My impression is that rural Canada likes their shotguns, and that a rather large national registration program failed miserably.
#6: Actually, I posted "Amen" in hopes it would be the first comment, and hence be funny, given the subject matter of the post. But alas, by the time I posted it, four comments had already been posted ahead of it.
The people who are currently using Christianity to hate on homosexuals would be hating on homosexuals anyway.
Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that they've successfully managed to convince the world that Christianity = anti-gay. See, e.g., the current pope, and the Anglican church's current crisis.
Canada: just like a lot of the midwest, only even colder.
We are, however, the most violent people in the developed world
That article is awesome. My favorite passage.
"While violent crime has decreased recently in Scotland, people are still the victims of violence, especially knife crime."
"That's why we will address the culture of violence by doubling the maximum penalty for carrying a knife to four years, by strengthening police powers of arrest for people suspected of carrying a knife, and by raising the age at which a person can buy a non-domestic knife from 16 to 18."
Yeah, doubtless the underlying problem is the ready availability of pointy objects.
If it turned out that that those sort of silly-sounding knife-carrying and purchasing regulations had a fairly robust correlation with decreases in either the frequency of assaults, the severity of assaults, or both, would you be all right with them? By robust I mean something like: not only does the frequency or severity go down as the rules go into effect, but it's also the case that in areas which currently have equivalent rates or severity of assaults the one's which have these rules better enforced (enforcement measure in some way other than frequency or severity of assaults) experience a greater decrease. Oh, and there's no confounding variables, like they tripled the police presence in one place and not in the other.
If it turned out that that those sort of silly-sounding knife-carrying and purchasing regulations had a fairly robust correlation with decreases in either the frequency of assaults, the severity of assaults, or both, would you be all right with them? By robust I mean something like: not only does the frequency or severity go down as the rules go into effect, but it's also the case that in areas which currently have equivalent rates or severity of assaults the one's which have these rules better enforced (enforcement measure in some way other than frequency or severity of assaults) experience a greater decrease. Oh, and there's no confounding variables, like they tripled the police presence in one place and not in the other.
If you've got such data, go ahead and post it. But in this country it doesn't seem to work out that way. D.C. and L.A. aren't exactly reaping great benefits from having strict gun laws.
I was also struck by that passage. I have to say that here in NYC, my nightmares aren't populated by knife-wielding brawlers. However, I sure wouldn't want to have to assume as a matter of course that random thugs are carrying wicked Bowie knives.
(It's the idea that you could be arrested on "suspicion of carrying a knife" that trips me out.)
Personally, I'm quite happy if they make it a lot harder for 14 year olds to buy combat knives.
Knives weren't, as far as I remember, carried that frequently when I was growing up. None of my friends, as far as I know, carried one. Despite that, and despite not being involved with gang culture, I was still threatened with one, more than once. An ex g/friend of mine, who (ironically) grew up in a much more comfortable area than I did, knew a couple of kids who had been murdered with knives and several friends at university had been slashed or stabbed at some point in the past.
I can joke about articles like that, living as I do now in a fairly comfortable Oxford suburb. The reality, on the ground, is not actually very funny, obviously.
The same applies to religious bigotry. Every second or third Saturday, for example, we had an Orange Walk come round our street. It's not so easy to be tolerant of religious expression if it involves a bunch of bigots marching round your street beating drums and blowing flutes in an act of intimidation (or of celebration depending on which side of the sectarian divide one is from).
#219
The UK has all kinds of bizarre knife regulations. In the U.S. you can buy pretty much anything you want in a knife, with a few exceptions. CA bans "switchblades" and some other stuff. It's like they base legislation off of bad 80's movies or something.
I'm not really sure the legislation is necessarily bizarre.
I can think of shops in Glasgow that used to do a roaring trade in 'combat' knives and machetes. They weren't being used for hunting or jungle expeditions, you know.
Yes. The Catholic/Protestant divide was, unfortunately, exported to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the form of plantations of Scots Protestants deliberately moved to Northern Ireland (in a divide and conquer move) in the 17th century.
The divide was then reimported back to Scotland again in the 19th century when fairly large waves of Catholic immigrants from Northern Ireland starting moving to Scotland's west coast.
I can think of shops in Glasgow that used to do a roaring trade in 'combat' knives and machetes. They weren't being used for hunting or jungle expeditions, you know.
And yet according to the article assaults have taken a 50 percent jump in the last ten years. I'm not advocating no age restrictions or anything, but in my opinion attempts to reduce crime that take the form of "less guns" and "less knives" are approaching the problem from the wrong end.
Most of the legislation has, to the best of my knowledge, been concentrated on increased penalties for those actually carrying knives. I don't think anyone realistically believes that teenagers can be completely prevented from acquiring knives. They just want to make it a little less easy and then combine that with more stringent penalties for their possession or use.
Note the specific exemptions for religious costume, national dress and anyone who has a reason to carry the knife for purposes of work.
This is to cover the fact that Scots national dress involves knives (in the form of the skean dubh for example) and the fact that Sikhs often carry knives as part of their religious obligations.
If you've got such data, go ahead and post it. But in this country it doesn't seem to work out that way. D.C. and L.A. aren't exactly reaping great benefits from having strict gun laws.
Obviously because they don't have strict border control; you just go to Virginia or Bakersfield or whatever.
218: I went away for a bit, sorry. I certainly don't have such data, and was only describing what good data would look like in order to ask in an oblique way if you were opposing the laws on the grounds of their consequences or for more rights based reasons. And lot's of places have odd knife laws, New York state for instance.
The Catholic/Protestant divide was, unfortunately, exported to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the form of plantations of Scots Protestants deliberately moved to Northern Ireland (in a divide and conquer move) in the 17th century.
These would be the Scots-Irish, who later played an important role in the settlement of America.
The divide was then reimported back to Scotland again in the 19th century when fairly large waves of Catholic immigrants from Northern Ireland starting moving to Scotland's west coast.
Where do the Gaels (who as far as I know are mostly Catholic) fit into this?
Good point, but I'm not sure how feasible keeping out guns in the whole U.S. would be given that we can barely control our borders as it is and guns are teeny.
231: Well, other countries manage. I don't think the issue is "barely controlling our borders"; I think the issue is that realistically, given the 2nd amendment, we are not going to see nationwide gun control laws.
I had reason to look up the NYC knife laws a while ago, and the exemptions are pretty broad. You get a pass if you're going to a theatrical rehearsal or if you're a Boy or Girl Scout.
If it would give us control of the federal government, I'd support a law that provided every adult in America with a tax credit for gun ownership. As it is, crime's down.
If you mean people who've been Gaelic speaking in the past 200 years, there aren't really many of them -- in contrast to all images of 'historic' Scotland in the media, of course. The vast majority of Scots live in the central belt, up the east coast and across the south of the country and haven't really been 'Gaels' for many hundreds of years, if ,arguably, they were ever 'Gaels' at all.
Also, the Gaelic people on the Hebrides (by far the largest concentration of Gaelic speakers) aren't Catholic at all but Free Church.
The vast majority of Scots Catholics will descend from irish immigrants.
By the way, I just got back from the corner store, and on my way across the street, I glanced into the idling car outside my building--right next to the cute kids playing--and realized that that guy bending over from the driver's seat wasn't picking something up from the ground and wasn't asleep--he was methodically licking the pussy of the woman in reclined in the front seat.
Well, other countries manage.
Perhaps less than the U.S. due to having less to start with, but still have issues. The UK still saw increases in handgun violence after they banned them.
236: That's pretty much what I figured, although I didn't realize the Hebridean Gaels were Protestant (although upon reflection I probably knew that at some point and had forgotten).
241: I'd forgotten about part of that thread, and reading through it, I no longer feel the crushing weight of defeat from all the times (at least twice) that LB has pwned me on mistaken geometric assertions. Not to say that LB made a mistaken geometric assertion in that thread, and if she had it wouldn't be what I was referring to.
238: Obviously banning the things isn't going to get rid of gun crime altogether, but a blanket ban would, eventually reduce it. I think this would be worth it, as I don't really see what, in a modern urban culture, people gain from having the damn things, and I think the cost/benefit analysis weighs pretty heavily towards banning. But hey, like I said, it's not going to happen. I just think it's kind of silly to pretend that a blanket prohibition wouldn't reduce gun deaths.
240--Well, a hotel room around here would probably be prohibitively expensive, but there is a nice park with dim lighting a block over. It really wouldn't have fazed me much if I hadn't then gone and chatted a bit with the eight year-old who'd been playing (with her six siblings) loudly up and down the block.
I don't really see what, in a modern urban culture, people gain from having the damn things
Criminals, who don't tend to respect gun bans, gain by using the damn things to commit crimes. And the rest of us gain by using the damn things to stop or deter them.
That's really workin' for ya, over there in the US, eh?
[Don't mean to be facetious but all possible evidence suggests that it's not. I realise the debate isn't really that simple, of course, but it's certainly not straightfowardly true that 'the damn things stop or deter' crime.]
Scotlands high rate of non-lethal assault combined with a moderate murder rate suggests that the gun ban over there has had some effect, and perhaps limits on knives of certain types would help even more.
Guns are sacramental in the US and arguing about the question is like arguing with a Catholic about miracles. Forget it.
You rarely get a one-factor cause for any social phenomena, which means that quibblers will usually be able to prove that no law whatever has any positive effect. But in certain circumstances, good restrictive gun laws, as part of a package of other good laws, can have a positive effect.
Assuming that criminals are already armed and then arming everyone else to defend themselves is an attractive solution for people who want the possibility of high drama in their lives. Places where it has been tried include Colombia, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
And there are some places where gun ownership is not a problem, e.g. here in Minnesota, and even more so in North Dakota. A friend who visited from New Jersey was astounded that guns are sold here in hardware stores like garden tools -- not even locked up. No pistols, though.
I'm confused. Is the site linked in 251 distinct from the "Jews for Jesus" people I saw running around my college campus, or have they reversed their name?
You have more than enough links in the post, but I wanted to note Glenn Greenwald's piece [No need to fix link this time. WD] on this hideous idiocy, which I thought was very very good.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:04 AM
Having now googled it, I am glad that I did not try to coin hidiocy. Hideoecy, on the other hand.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:12 AM
Damn, I thought I had it in there. You're right that it's good -- it was on my clipboard and slipped out of the post somehow.l
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:12 AM
I also couldn't find the Unfogged discussion the other day -- it's deep in some comment thread, but I couldn't remember where.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:13 AM
Amen.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:13 AM
5 to 4, I presume. A comment on how these comment threads are really ballooning recently, making it very hard to keep track of everything therein.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:17 AM
The thing is, many of the positions that get liberals upset aren't straightforward separation-of-church-and-state questions. School prayer, sure. These jackasses in Delaware, sure.
But being anti-abortion? Seems a little less clear that it counts as separation of church and state. What about religious motivation for opposing the death penalty? Euthanasia? Alcohol? (I think the concept of a dry county is an abomination unto God, but many disagree.) I don't think the classic straw atheist liberal has a problem with a religious motivation for opposing the death penalty, but religion will probably be trotted out pretty fast in a debate about euthanasia as a reason to dismiss one's opponent.
Too often, separation-of-church-and-state is used sloppily as a defeater for all religiously-motivated positions. It should be used more narrowly and the other positions argued on the merits.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:23 AM
The people who need to take the lead and raise their profile are liberal protestants. This debate needs to be from the center of the culture, using rhetorical leverage they will be best-positioned for.
In that connection, consider the link below, which was excerpted in the June Harper's also. I know a lot of people here don't share this background, and will sympathize but consider themselves onlookers, but this is the heart of it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/102-6636991-2571310?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00D&asin=0807077216
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:31 AM
I don't think the classic straw atheist liberal has a problem with a religious motivation for opposing the death penalty, but religion will probably be trotted out pretty fast in a debate about euthanasia as a reason to dismiss one's opponent.
The deal is that atheists think that arguments based on religion are bad arguments because they are based on false assumptions. So an atheist dismissing a religious argument isn't necessarily dismissing it because it is improper to make it in public, but because it is categorically unconvincing. And an atheist overlooking such an argument from a religious ally is overlooking it because one unconvincing argument is unimportant when there are other, stronger arguments. That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion.
Likewise, you see a lot of religious liberals attacking religious conservative arguments as being bad arguments from the point of view of the religion the liberal espouses. That's also not hostility to religion, that's disagreement with a particular religious argument.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:31 AM
That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion
Do you think that the religious right would say this disctinction is a valid one? 'Cause I feel like a lot of religious people (not all, of course) think these two things are one and the same.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:33 AM
Then make them say that. If what they want is for me to defer to the dictates of a religion I don't share and whose preferred policies (e.g., oppression of gays) I think are immoral, I don't believe my resistance reflects hostility to religion, but opposition to religious oppression. They can be present in the public square as much as anyone -- they just can't expect to be treated with special deference by those who disagree with them because their motivations are religious rather than secular.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:37 AM
You will concede at least when someone says I believe such and such and the other person says 'Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism', that just maybe the subtle nuance gets lost.
Likewise, you see a lot of religious liberals attacking religious conservative arguments as being bad arguments from the point of view of the religion the liberal espouses.
These tend to be closer to in-house debates where both sides accept religious authority but disagree on what it should mean. not when one side rejects it out of hand as a bad place to begin arguing.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:39 AM
re: 10
I'm inclined to tell those religious conservatives who expect me to be deferential to their religion to shove it, though.
A lot of mileage can be had from explaining the difference between showing people's opinions due respect on the one hand and expecting special treatment for those opinions *because* of their religious origin, on the other.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:39 AM
Well, LB, I agree with you in principle, but the fact is that deference to religion is not something that's totally foreign to our constitution. Of course, people can not expect their religion to be treated with deference by individuals, but there are some reasonable legal arguments that it is treated with some deference by the state.
I'll be completely honest. I don't like it. The first amendment scares me a little bit. Plus, I'm still pissed off from last year after reading Yoder.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:40 AM
14 to 11.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:41 AM
You will concede at least when someone says I believe such and such and the other person says 'Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism', that just maybe the subtle nuance gets lost.
Oh, the confusion on this point isn't all coming from one side. There are plenty of liberals, including religious liberals, with no problem with religion generally, who are hostile enough to religious conservatives and who have heard that hostility characterized as hostility to religion generally that they've bought in to the characterization: "Fine, if that's hostility to religion, I'm hostile to religion." I'm trying to encourage liberals to see that the characterization doesn't make sense.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:43 AM
14: I think there are differing meanings of 'defer' going on here. 'Deference' in the sense of making an effort to freely allow any (reasonable) mode of worship, sure. Deference in the sense of treating religious arguments as worthy of special respect in the political sphere simply because they are religious? Not in the Constitution.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:47 AM
I realize I'm getting slightly off-topic here, but I don't think it's just any reasonable mode of worship. The state can't have a law that interferes with people's desired practice of their religion, even if it isn't designed to curtail religious activity. Like the Yoder case, where the Quakers got an exemption from mandatory education laws.
But yeah, I don't think they're worthy of any special respect in the political sphere, for sure. However, people are pretty quick to cry "interfering with my religious freedom!" The bastards.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:50 AM
The state can't have a law that interferes with people's desired practice of their religion, even if it isn't designed to curtail religious activity.
Human sacrifice?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:55 AM
The state can't have a law that interferes with people's desired practice of their religion, even if it isn't designed to curtail religious activity.
That can't be true, can it? If David Koresh has a religion that mandates that the kids of followers have sex with him, he's not all good. Just on the basis of googling, Yoder doesn't seem terribly troubling. You can, AFAIK, homeschool on any basis at all.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:56 AM
Quakers? I thought Yoder was about Amish/Mennonites, whose way of life really does conflict.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 10:56 AM
>Backward thinker, I refute thee with consequentialism
That's awesome.
Also, on church/state separation, there was the whole "equal access" debate, where I think proponents of equal access were fair to characterize the interpretation of establishment as being explicitly anti-religious. (e.g., you can have a secular club, not a religious club)
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:00 AM
Wait wait wait... I think I totally disagree. I think you *are* hostile to their religion. You may not be hostile to the idea of somone believing in God, per se, or praying or going to Church or whatnot. But you are nevertheless hostile to their religion and there is no way to avoid being labeled as such (without completely compromising your values).
You have to understand that these people hear in Church every Sunday that gays are evil and immoral, that we have not descended from monkeys, that prayer was removed from school as part of a vast conspiracy to secularize America, that environmentalism is basically neo-pagan worship of the "earth-goddess", that Jesus' parable of the talents is an endorsement of naked capitalism, etc. etc. etc. etc. This is coming from their pastor, the man (maybe woman, but likely man) from whom they recieve their religious teaching. It *is* their religion. Unfortunately, that *is* modern American evangelical christianity. (I was raised in this culture, so I know it fairly well.) These things are part of their religious teachings.
So anyone who is hostile to these ideas is basically viewed as hostile to their religion. (And, by the way-- no one thinks liberals are hostile to "religion", generically. The stereotype is that liberals love and cuddle buddhism and paganism and Islam and Hinduism, but are very hostile to Christianity.) A secularist just cannot frame this debate in a way that is not going to leave an anti-Christian aftertaste (when "Christian" is defined as above). On the other hand, there is some room for someone to offer alternative religious teachings ("no, I read the Bible and I see Jesus being concerned for the poor and downtrodden, and asking us to help them"), which is why it would IMO be wonderful if those voices were a little louder in our national political debate.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:01 AM
Also, on church/state separation, there was the whole "equal access" debate, where I think proponents of equal access were fair to characterize the interpretation of establishment as being explicitly anti-religious.
That seems right.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:04 AM
So anyone who is hostile to these ideas is basically viewed as hostile to their religion. (And, by the way-- no one thinks liberals are hostile to "religion", generically. The stereotype is that liberals love and cuddle buddhism and paganism and Islam and Hinduism, but are very hostile to Christianity.)
But I'm not hostile to Christianity generally. I'm hostile to (purely in the sense that I don't want their policy preferences imposed on me or others. They can do whatever they like so long as it doesn't affect me) certain conservative sects of Christianity. I have no problem at all with, for example, most American Episcopalians, and neither do most liberals.
That's the point -- it's not about religion, or about Christianity generally, it's about the political goals of some particular sect of Christianity. If religious conservatives want to stand up and say that their sects deserve more political power and respect than other sects of Christianity, other non-Christian religions, and secularists generally, let them say that. But it's not about Christianity as a whole, it's about some Christians who stand in opposition to other Christians.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:10 AM
Urple, let's say someone says "You, liberal who supports homosexual marriage, are hostile to religion" and LWSHM responds, "I assume by religion you mean Chrisitanity, and while I disagree with the religious argument against religion, I am very happy with anyone who wants to going to a Christian church and worshipping the Christian God, and the more important biblical teachings, to my understanding, aren't about human sexuality, but more about the things Jesus said in the sermon on the mount."
I thought this comment had a point, but have changed my mind.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:11 AM
22, 24: There's been some of that -- the ACLU has generally been on the right (that is, the promoting-equal-access) side of the cases.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:11 AM
I have written and deleted several longer, and more contentious comments. Can I start by noting that to the extent liberals frame the debate by complaining about fundamentalists or the evil Christian right, they hardly can complain when they are accused of being hostile to religion. If the argument were reframed as you suggest:
it would be a good start.
And what baa said in 22.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:13 AM
Can I start by noting that to the extent liberals frame the debate by complaining about fundamentalists or the evil Christian right, they hardly can complain when they are accused of being hostile to religion.
Yes we can. "Fundamentalists" != "religion". "The Christian Right" != "religion".
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:14 AM
"Fundamentalists" != "religion". "The Christian Right" != "religion".
Oh please. Are you saying that when you refer to someone as a fundamentalist Christian you are not referring to them by their religious beliefs?
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:17 AM
The problem is that the fundamentalist Christian right are powerful and paranoid. Despite exercising a vast amount of power they believe themselves to be a persecuted minority.
That's a difficult combination to deal with if you want to i) engage in open and honest debate while ii) remaining civil.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:17 AM
No, but I'm referring to a particular sect, not to the religious generally. Does all of the rhetoric about fundamentalist Islam reflect a hostility to "religion"? No.
I'm not saying there's no hostility, I'm saying that it's not hostility to religion, or Christianity. It's political hostility to the political goals of a definable group of religions people.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:19 AM
26 - There are a frighteningly large number of right-wing Christians who dismiss the denominations you name as basically watered-down "liberal" Christianity. Again, you can say "I'm not hostile to your religion" all day long, but what I'm trying to say is that inside the heads of many believers these two statements sound the same:
"I'm not hostile to your religion, but I support equal civil rights for homosexual citizens."
"I'm not hostile to your religion, but it's ignorant to believe that a man named Jesus rose from the dead."
What I'm saying (clumsily, admittedly) is that there is not in their minds the clear spearation between the religious and the political that you are positing. The political *is* religious! Hence, the "culture wars", etc. And hence, if you are hostile to their (religiously-inspired) political views you will inevitably be viewed as hostile to their religion.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:20 AM
OT I know, but where has the Putin-blogging been? This story has been in the news for at least a day now. "Like a kitten," indeed.
Posted by arthegall | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:22 AM
33 was to 25, not 26. I don't really understand 26.
Also, I note that Dr. B has already said basically what I'm trying to say, only far more elegently.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:23 AM
I guess here's what I'm asking, LB: who is it that you are trying to convince that you are not hostile to their religion? If it's evangelical christians, it's not going to work, because you are hostile to their religion. If it's the liberal Episcopalians, okay, you've got a winning argument, but I'm pretty sure they're already largely on your side.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:25 AM
33 -- I understand you, and I think you're absolutely right about how many conservative Christians perceive it (and how many people who aren't conservative Christians, but nonetheless are subject to the same framing of the debate perceive it). I am trying (from the incredibly powerful soapbox I occupy) to point out that that framing is just flat wrong unless you take as a premise that the One True Religion is that espoused by conservative, and only conservative, Christians, and that anyone who doesn't believe that to be the case shouldn't accept the frame.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:25 AM
re: 33
To those people I'd be inclined to say, 'Yes, I am opposed to your religion. I find *your* religious views repugnant and your paranoid persecution fantasies laughable. You are in the moral wrong on just about every issue I care about and it is my intention to defeat you at every turn'.
If there doesn't seem to be anything you can say to those people that will allow them to view you as anything other than hostile to their religion then why bother? Just get on with defeating them.
However, I presume LB (and others) point is that if you want to win over the *moderate* Christians who've bought into the 'hostile to Christianity' theme then some kind of rhetoric that makes clear the difference between religion and Christianity (in general) and a particular flavour of right-wing Christianity on the other, is bound to be necessary.
The hardcore Christian right are a lost cause.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:27 AM
31 and 32 make my point quite well. You say that you are not hostile to religion, but then choose to attack people by reference to their religion. If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs. Do you honestly believe that everyone who belongs to certain sects (could you list them please, so we know who to hate) has the same political beliefs?
To insist upon describing your opponents by their religion makes it a bit hard to claim the purity of heart regarding religious intolerance which you are claiming.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:29 AM
36: I want to make it explicit to conservative evangelical Christians that the only thing I'm hostile to is the political goals of theirs that I disagree with. If they want to say that that means that I'm hostile to 'their religion', fine. If they claim I'm hostile to Christianity generally, they're lying, unless they want to explicitly claim that american Episcopalians are un-Christian.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:29 AM
If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs.
I've been referring to conservative Christians -- i.e., those who hold views that I politically disagree with. I know there are liberals who belong to evangelical churches. I've voted for them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:31 AM
To insist upon describing your opponents by their religion makes it a bit hard to claim the purity of heart regarding religious intolerance which you are claiming.
And honestly, are you claiming that it's wrongful or intolerant to talk about the existence of the religious Right as a political force?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:32 AM
I want to make it explicit to conservative evangelical Christians that the only thing I'm hostile to is the political goals of theirs that I disagree with.
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:32 AM
If you think each and every fundamentalist Christian holds the political beliefs with which you disagree and for which you have contempt, you have proved your ignorance of those people and their beliefs.
That's completely wrong. Or just a wierd way to analyze things. We make bets on people's politics on the basis of other characteristics all of the time. That's the way it works in a nation of 300 million.
The point is not to win the evangelical Christians, but to win other Christians who sort of think the evangelicals are crazy, but think Dems are dismissive of and rude about Christianity.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:33 AM
re: 43
The point is that it is those very people who make explicit the link between their religious views and their political views.
It's a pretty cool trick to link one's political views with one's religion and then claim that anyone with opposing political views who makes the self-same link is 'disrespecting' the religion.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:34 AM
The point is not to win the evangelical Christians, but to win other Christians who sort of think the evangelicals are crazy, but think Dems are dismissive of and rude about Christianity.
Precisely, except that evangelical should be conservative evangelical.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:36 AM
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
Wow, LB's getting it from both sides right now. Um, I sort of forced her into that box, Idealist. See above. And, for the record, I think these political goals are *religious beliefs* for many people. They aren't particularly interested in listening to evidence, they're just interested in listening to their pastor.
And, lest I be unclear, I am personally religious.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:36 AM
McGrattan, what are you getting so worked up about? Ideal hasn't said anything tricksy, I don't think. Wrong, but not tricksy.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:37 AM
I sort of forced her into that box,
Really not the thread for that sort of thing.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:37 AM
There should have been italics in 47. Precisely where I shall leave to your imaginations.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:38 AM
And, lest I be unclear, I am personally religious.
At least to the extent that we're willing to believe that Catholicism is a religion (IIRC).
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:40 AM
48: Well, he's asserting that my identification of a political bloc by its religious affiliation is somehow improper from a 'hostility to religion' point of view. In a world where the Christian Coalition is a political pressure group that identifies itself quite openly by its religious affiliation, his squeamishness seems poorly placed.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:41 AM
51 is both potentially correct and troubling. When have I ever mentioned that before?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:43 AM
the Christian Coalition is a political pressure group identifies itself quite openly by its religious affiliation, his squeamishness seems poorly placed
My squeamishness would be poorly placed if you had made the target of your contempt the Christian Coalition (all caps--the organization) rather than evangelicals and fundamentalists, which are terms which describe people solely by their religioous beliefs.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:44 AM
I don't know that you've mentioned it, but it's a fair guess from hard-line anti-abortion but otherwise fairly liberal. I had made the same guess without any more basis.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:45 AM
54: Wanna search the post, or the thread, for examples of contempt directed at 'evangelicals' or 'fundamentalists'?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:46 AM
d if you had made the target of your contempt the Christian Coalition (all caps--the organization) rather than evangelicals and fundamentalists
But, of course, it's not the organization that anyone cares about; it's the votes the organization controls.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:46 AM
False statement: all conservative christians hold the same political views
False (and bigoted) statement: all conservative christians "are paranoid"
These are what I take as Idealist's points. And aren't they just obviously true?
Increase the peace!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:47 AM
For some of us this is tricky. I agree there are principled reasons to want separation of church and religion that have nothing to do with an aversion to religion. I even try, as best I can, to stick to those. But the truth is I want religion out of the public square because I think it's wrong-headed. If, 100 years from now, the US is going the way of Europe - with religion fading into nothing, I will be satisfied. Dead, but satisifed.
So... I can pay lip service to this neutral principle, but it isn't what motivates me.
Posted by Golabki | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:48 AM
58: But his implication that we've been making those statements is false.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:48 AM
55- Have I said things here before to give the impression that am fairly liberal?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:49 AM
Not explicitly, but the only arguments I remember you getting into are the abortion ones. I tend to assume that anyone who's hanging around here a lot and not being visibly argumentative is somewhere to the left of center.
If you aren't, you need to pipe up more when Idealist and baa are feeling beleaguered.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:52 AM
True statement: most conservative Christians hold sufficiently similar political views to form a voting block, and there aren't enough of the rest left to count.
True statement: those similar political views are either hostile to consensus Dem views or effectively hostile to consensus Dem views.
Those points seem true, and nothing from the above seems lost. (Actually, the first statement is more hardline than the one LB's taking.)
Urple, I think it was when you referred to me as a "Huguenot dog."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:52 AM
But his implication that we've been making those statements is false.
Um, you cannot insist that you oppose a religious group because of its political views unless you believe that all people who hold those particular beliefs also hold the same political views.
For example: It's political hostility to the political goals of a definable group of religions people.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:52 AM
"definable group of religious people" != "religious group"
A "definable group of religious people" is "those conservative Christians who have organized themselves into pressure groups within or parallel to the Republican party, including but not limited to the membership of the Christian Coalition, and often referred to as the Religious Right". That definition does not assume that all, e.g., Southern Baptists vote Republican or favor mandatory school prayer.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:55 AM
you cannot insist that you oppose a religious group because of its political views unless you believe that all people who hold those particular beliefs also hold the same political views.
On reflection: Well you can, I suppose, but it is a bit much for you to get all huffy when people accuse you of being against certain people's religions.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:55 AM
it is a bit much for you to get all huffy when people accuse you of being against certain people's religions.
See my 40.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 11:57 AM
It is an interesting idea, that someone right of center would feel comfortable here, freely bantering and confessing as we all do, without ever being drawn into battles about exactly what is being said and how. I mean, I think GB, and Cala, and Yamamoto, and I are left-of-center yet often engaged in these controversies, apparently on the side of the jack boots. Somebody side-stepping all that would be remarkable.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:07 PM
Presumably one of the goals of this sort of "it's not hostility to religion" discourse would be to separate Catholics from evangelicals, by appealing to the social justice instincts of the former. Religion started to take over the public sphere again when the political wall between Catholics and evangelicals came down.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:08 PM
63: What did you do, call him a papist?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:11 PM
I suppose it depends on what one means by "liberal." If you mean supportive of liberty, fraternity and equality and all that, then I guess the label is reasonably fair. On the other hand, "Uneasy Rider" by the Charlie Daniels Band is perhaps my favorite song of all time. I'm pretty sure that disqualifies me right there.
Also, I'm not a bit Al-Qaeda sympathizer like most liberals.
Is this a really slow day in the Mineshaft or is it just me?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:16 PM
What about point-by-point hostility to explicitly religious arguments ? I'm hostile to Bible-verse prescriptions for policy, but not to thinly veiled religious arguments. IMHO it's incumbent upon believers to dress up for the public square.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:17 PM
I think that a lot of what Urple says in 23 is right.
I have no problem at all with, for example, most American Episcopalians, and neither do most liberals.
Thanks for saying kind things about my denomination, LB, but I think that the Presbytereans, the Lutherans and most of the Methodists are OK too.
(As an aside, because it's an internal religious argument not related to religion and the public sphere, I will note that General Convention of the Episcopal Church just elected a woman as our presiding bishop (our primate who meets with all of the other Anglican primates every so often). The conservative bishops of Fort Worth and Pittsburgh have declared that they are not in communion with her. (Sigh.)
Urple is also right that liberal Protestants have done a really bad job of articulating a competing vision, partly because a lot of us are wary of arguing for certain values in the public sphere based on our religious beliefs. This goes both ways. We don't want to impose our religion on other people, and we tend to be wary of bringing political views into religious discussions. At its worst, this can lead to the impression that religion is only about personal piety.
The big problem, from the point of those of us who woulr like to see a more prominent voice for liberal Protestants and Catholics in shaping some of these debates is that the mainline churches are shrinking.
Note that I see this as a problem on two levels. (1.) I don't like the effects of the unchallenged prominence of the right-wingers on public policy. (2.) It saddens me as a Christian, because (without being al loosy goosey and liberal--cause ina number of areas I'm pretty traditionalist) I don't think that's what Christianiy is all about. I hate the fact that huge swathes of the population see Christianity as a hateful religion.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:18 PM
Did anybody read the Marilynne Robinson piece I linked in 8, or in Harper's?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:22 PM
by appealing to the social justice instincts of the former
Careful, there. There are, and have been, evangelical Christians with social justice instincts (remember the Civil Rights movement?).
At the risk of sounding too academically respectable, I'd say there's a terminological problem here. "Protestant fundamentalists" ≠ "evangelical Christians".
I don't think it's out of line to say that Protestant fundamentalism is inherently a politics as much as it is a religion. The point of being a fundamentalist is to insist on a supernatural source of morality and to oppose accommodation to modern conditions. So when you oppose "fundamentalism" you're opposing a religious strain whose leaders and adherents have set themselves a political agenda. It's really hard to pick the religion and the politics apart.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:24 PM
Your link doesn't work for me, idp.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:24 PM
I hate the fact that huge swathes of the population see Christianity as a hateful religion.
If it makes you feel better, I really don't think this is true. I think huge swathes of the population think (if conservative) that 'liberals' think Christianity generally is a hateful religion or (if liberal) that other liberals think Christianity generally is a hateful religion. I don't think (which is sort of my point generally) that there are many people out there who actually do forget the existence of Epsicopalians, Presbyterians, all the millions of people in the evangelical sects whose political beliefs are unexceptionable, and end up thinking bad things about Christianity generally.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:26 PM
You say that you are not hostile to religion, but then choose to attack people by reference to their religion.
right, LB's making a distinction between "religion" (general), and "their religion" (particular). Your argument here is tantamount to "any hostility to any religion is hostility to religion." I doubt that's what you meant, but it seems that's what you wrote.
Well wouldn't it be easier to talk about the political goals with which you disagree rather than to conflate them with religious beliefs.
May we dub this The Infuriating Circular Argument? It goes like this:
Religious Person X: I take polititcal position C because of my religion, Z. You can't attack C, because it's based solely on my belief in Z. And if you attack Z, you hate religion, upon which this country was founded! And you're intolerent. And you don't share my values, because you hate religion!
Of course, I am hostile to religion, in general. I refuse to respect!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:28 PM
re: 48
I didn't think I was getting worked up! I need to work on my rhetorical stance. My point in 45 was the same as LBs in 52.
Anyway ...
FWIW, I used to work for a Baptist religious college. I don't have a problem with Christians or even evangelical Christians.
However, you can't just talk about 'the right' -- contra what Idealist and others have described as a more desirable way to carry out political discourse. This is because there's a real distinction to be made between the secular right-wing and the religious right-wing and there's a specific policy agenda that the latter group has which is often distinct from the agenda of the secular right.
I don't think there's any way to clearly express one's opposition to that particular sub-species of right-wing policy agenda without also referring to the religious element and religious inspiration of that policy agenda.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:29 PM
76: hmm. The link works on my other machine, linking direct from the comment.
Anybody else have trouble?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:32 PM
Well you can, I suppose, but it is a bit much for you to get all huffy when people accuse you of being against certain people's religions.
oh, yes, yes you can. I had a wonderful Godwin's Law violation all worked up!
And, Idealist, here's the thing: "Being hostile to religion" doesn't make sense, in a way, because liberals just about never complain about religions practices, only their political activities. If liberals were really hostile to religion, then that hostility would manifest itself in myriad ways, none of which do I think we are seeing. Liberals are hostile to religious political activity, of course.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:38 PM
Liberals are hostile to religious political activity, of course.
Where they disagree with the political goals sought. There was not, for example, widespread liberal disapproval of Obama's "awesome God" speech -- might conceivably have been some, but nothing like a majority position.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:40 PM
Ought to have been, but people don't realize what code words those are.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:41 PM
Careful, there. There are, and have been, evangelical Christians with social justice instincts (remember the Civil Rights movement?)
You mean the guys referenced here?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:42 PM
I suppose it depends on what one means by "liberal."
"liberal" = oral sex
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:43 PM
re: evangelical Christians with social justice instincts.
Of course. To the extent that I was aware of the specific political views of my colleagues when I worked for the religious college mentioned above, they slanted pretty far to the left on issues of social justice, racial equality, wealth redistribution, etc. Most of them would have been of the 'socioeconomic' left while remaining fairly conservative on a number of social issues: abortion, to pick one notable example.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:45 PM
and end up thinking bad things about Christianity generally.
college students.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:50 PM
I think I'm the type of person that you might be addressing, LB, because I certainly think I'm hostile to religion. Not individual religious people, generally (with exceptions, of course), but I just really don't like organized religion, don't like the political power it wields and tries to wield, and have a lot of bad feelings about religious organizations from back in my Mormon days.
And I was pissed off at Obama. I think I even said something about that here, too lazy to find it though.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:57 PM
If we want to get into a terminological dispute, though, I'd like to see a solution to it. How should we linguistically separate the christians who propose, agitate, and lobby for fascist social policies from those who share similar religious beliefs, but are slightly more liberatarian in their politics? Baa and Ideals seem very concerned that we are slighting the latter group. But how can we separate the wheat from the chaff?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 12:59 PM
There's a splatter problem.
Religious Person X: I take polititcal position C because of my religion, Z. You can't attack C, because it's based solely on my belief in Z. And if you attack Z, you hate religion, upon which this country was founded! And you're intolerent. And you don't share my values, because you hate religion!
I'm not sure how many people besides the fringe make this argument. But if we take another religious person, Y:
Y: I take political position C because of my religion Z. I'm up for you attacking C, but if you attack it merelybecause it's grounded in Z rather than addressing it as policy, I have no reason to believe you're arguing in good faith, any more than you would if I attacked your position by saying 'you're a woman' or 'you're black' or 'you've been brainwashed by the liberal academy'.
I think we can distinguish X from Y. So let's just hate on X, you say? But here's the splatter problem. Y probably knows X better than you do. Y may go to church with X. And Y may not really like being told she's a harmless good Christian who doesn't rock the boat. It comes across rather like 'I hate all Christians; oh, not you. You're a good one. I'm just saying in general.'
Replace 'Christians' with 'feminists' or 'blacks' or what have you if you don't see why it's not working. No one wants to be the acceptable token of a despised group.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:00 PM
Also, I'm not a bit Al-Qaeda sympathizer like most liberals.
OK, I just have to ask: WTF?
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:00 PM
and have a lot of bad feelings about religious organizations from back in my Mormon days.
You're an Egyptian Mormon? Great Jehosephat!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:02 PM
an egyptian mormon? I had no idea. (I'm made glad that Silvana joins me in my intolerance, though!)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:02 PM
91: It was a joke. He totally sympathizes with Al Qaeda.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:02 PM
As I often say, I think the only Arab-American ex-Mormons in this country are probably me and my siblings.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:03 PM
94: Now that I stop and look again, I think I misread it originally, and apologize to Urple. But I'm apologizing through the giggles that 94 inspired.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:05 PM
and have a lot of bad feelings about religious organizations from back in my Mormon days
Not to get off topic, but you had "Mormon days", Silvana? Growing up in Egypt as a Mormon must have been way weird.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:05 PM
I take political position C because of my religion Z. I'm up for you attacking C, but if you attack it merelybecause it's grounded in Z rather than addressing it as policy...
Cala, how can this work? How can I attack an argument by critcizing reasons which are not the reasons said person supports the argument? I know too many christians who will say, "I understand your reasons E,F,G and H, and I'm sympathetic, but I'm sticking with position C, because of religion Z. Sorry."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:06 PM
or, just as often, "i don't know how to reconcile observations m ans n with virtue W, which Z believes in, but Z demands C, so I have to believe, though I can't see why, that C leads to W, and I'll just have to ignore m and n." Otherwise smart people frequently make this argument.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:11 PM
Re: Mormonism. Are "stakes" a territorial, organizational subdivision, like parishes or presbytries or dioceses?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:13 PM
Arab-American ex-Mormons
I'm afraid now.
Y may go to church with X.
Depending on the church, that's the problem. We more or less have to right off Y.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:14 PM
Careful, there. There are, and have been, evangelical Christians with social justice instincts (remember the Civil Rights movement?).
It's hard to be very careful in a short comment! What I meant was that with televangelism and megachurches and whatnot there is a much more capitalist flavor to large swathes of evangelical life, today if not always historically, and much of the teaching Urple describes in 23 is not Catholic doctrine.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:14 PM
Jesus. I had no idea the church even had a presence in Egypt--or was it just you and your sister?
I get pretty nervous about religious institutions for similar reasons, although I wouldn't think of myself as exactly "hostile."
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:14 PM
I didn't mean to derail this very good discussion. I thought I had mentioned my former Mormon-status here before? Maybe not. Yeah, to make a long story short, my mother was an American and teen convert to the LDS church who, when she married my father, who is Coptic Catholic and Egyptian, agreed with him to raise the kids Mormon cause she was more into her religion than he into his, and they bought thought bringing kids up religiously was important. She actually was one of the first Mormons in Egypt, back in the 70s, and as more expatriates moved in and the Oil industry grew and the Diplomatic mission, the number of Mormons grew (especially 'cause the CIA has a habit of hiring mormons). I'd say when I was in high school, there was a branch of about 150-200 Mormons there. Mostly Americans, with a sizeable group of Nigerian/Senegalese/Ghanaian converts (they weren't allowed by the government to convert any Egyptians). I probably kept going to church until I was about 14, and by that point my siblings had moved away and my father not going to church with me anymore (and my mother dead), but he still wanted me to attend, so I would pretend like I was going and walk for hours around Cairo, 'cause I hated it that much.
On preview: 100, yeah. Stakes are regional, and groups of "wards." But we weren't even big enough to have a ward, we just had a "branch," which had, instead of a "bishop" (who is the head of a ward), a "branch president." So much terminology.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:15 PM
"bought" s/b "both"
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:17 PM
100--An individual church and congregation is a "ward." A bunch of wards in an area form a "stake." Then there's a regional grouping, I think.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:17 PM
JM, more on the Mormons in Egypt, from here:
Legal ambiguity also concerns the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or Mormons, in Cairo. The LDS Church has maintained an organized congregation in Egypt for over 30 years, though without formal legal recognition. The Government is aware of the activities of the congregation and has raised no objection so long as no proselytizing of citizens occurs; however, excessive attention from State Security has been a problem for individual citizen members who attempted to participate in meetings, particularly those who have converted to the LDS Church overseas and then returned to Egypt. According to credible sources in the LDS community, citizen members sometimes avoid meetings out of fear of harassment from State Security.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:20 PM
150-200 wasn't considered big enough for a ward? That's strange because my ward was about 60 people. On a full day. I think it used to be bigger back when real estate was affordable in the area.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:23 PM
98: When X argues that policy C is the right policy because it's supported by their religion, often their reasoning is that C leads to desirable outcomes, and their religion's support for C, let's call it R, is evidence of that. The reason they dismiss evidence to the contrary is that they think that R is extremely strong evidence. But I don't think any X supports C even though they think it leads to bad outcomes. So if you were able to convince them that C does does lead to bad outcomes (which is really hard because they ignore evidence that it does) then they would abandon C. And probably have a crisis of faith or two.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:23 PM
98: In other words, there's a Catch-22 in arguing with these people, and your objection to Cala's comment is halfway recognizing that.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:26 PM
Ah, given 107, I understand a bit better. I wondered whether the "branch" designation mightn't have been a bit of soft racism. (Ethnic congregations often end up as branches and get shuffled between various ward buildings. My ward building had a Laotian branch that met after the "regular" ward meeting.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:28 PM
then they would abandon C. And probably have a crisis of faith or two.
This, of course, is the subtext to Book 6 of The Republic, one specific analogy being the philosopher leading the savage out of the dark cave of religion to see the Good of practical atheism.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:29 PM
philosopher leading the savage out of the dark cave of religion
This is precisely where you will get written off as condescending, and the conversation ends. For many among the religious, it is not a matter of philosophical inquiry. It is faith. Period.
(Note: others, notably my very-libera-Catholic mother, have done the philosophical legwork and still decide to believe.)
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:38 PM
98: Look, you're not trying to win them over, necessarily. All the nicety-nice talk in the world probably won't convince someone that liberals are pro-life. But if you're trying to convince them that liberals are pro-choice and that doesn't entail anti-Christian sentiment, it may be better just to treat their reasons as legitimate close-held reasons. If you don't think they're legitimate, all well and good, but that makes you kind of hostile.
Depending on the church, that's the problem.
Maybe. Catholicism is a really big tent. Assemblies of God, not so much. But the point is just that if Z rants about those idiot Whatevers to Y, a practicing Whatever, even if Y agrees with Z that the idiot X is a bad Whatever, there's going to be a fair amount of hostility perceived simply because religion forms a pretty strong part of most practioners' identity.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:40 PM
"libera" s/b something else, but I kind of like it; it's easy-on-the-eyes.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:40 PM
It's just me, Bartcop, and PZ Meyers who have hostility to all religion.
For a fee, we're willing to hand out liberal-weeny certificates attesting to inadequate hostility to religion.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 1:46 PM
I'm a liberal and an ex-Christian, with a somewhat ambivalent relationship to the idea of religion. I recognize that if the liberals, as a group, are going to persuade (some) conservatives to change their minds, some of the argument will have to be religious. That is, the speech across the liberal-conservative gap will have to include discussions between Christians who share a lot of religious and cultural assumptions that I don't. So, in the hope that the politically liberal view will prevail, I have to accept the collaboration of many people who differ from me in practically every way except the political goal. It's in my political interest to put up with -- sometimes even, in effect, to endorse -- rhetorical style and assertions of identity that alienate me.
I believe this is called a "coalition".
Posted by Vance Maverick | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:06 PM
You guys have got nothing on the seminarians.
Kotsko can out-hate all of you, for example.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:22 PM
And I should say that I'm not asserting that no liberal is hostile to religion -- PZ Myers, Emerson, and Silvana are holding up the militant atheists banner. Give me a minute and I can find some militant atheists on the right. (Does Derbyshire qualify? I'd have to read more of his stuff.)
It's just that the general liberal hostility toward the religious right doesn't have a thing to do with hostility to religion, and shouldn't be thought of as being on the same spectrum. Atheist liberals, agnostic liberals, and profoundly Christian liberals all have hostility toward the religious right -- it't not about the religion, it's about the politics driven by that religion.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:27 PM
Razib and the even more notorious GC at GNXP are right-wing atheists, though Razib seems to be going soft.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:36 PM
Oh, the whole Ayn Rand cult. Anyone out there taking Ayn Rand seriously has got to be a right-wing militant atheist.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:37 PM
I want to march under the militant athiest banner, too. It makes me sore that I should have to consider, even strategically, the merits of a political opinion rooted in chapter and verse. I think it's fine for children and good for philanthropy, but fuzzy things like "respect for life" are so far from the appopriate purview of the government.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:38 PM
. Anyone out there taking Ayn Rand seriously has got to be a right-wing militant atheist.
I don't know if that's quite true. The Randoids endow Rand with deific powers: the ability to transmute rape into not-rape, for example.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:41 PM
In the case in question, though, the problem was that the public schools were imposing one religion on those of a different religion. It's not religion as such that is being opposed by liberals.
Conservative Christians do not believe that theirs is one among many religions. They believe that theirs is the only true religion. So do Muslims, and possibly a few others. The American political system does not allow government to recognize this kind of claim, but it's exactly what the most militant Christians are demanding.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:41 PM
Does it seriously annoy you when you agree with the conclusions? I think you're too young to have voted for Clinton, but does that sort of 'God wants us to take care of the poor' rhetoric bother you generally? Or does it just not do much for you?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:42 PM
122: My point is that we've just got to suck it up. Trying to exclude religion from the argument is suicidal (regardless of whether it's hostile).
Posted by Vance Maverick | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:43 PM
One more thing: I think that another part of the problem here may be that many prominent liberal organizations are run by people who are hostile to religion, and not just to the religious right. (I'd throw out the ACLU as an example here, but I don't know who runs that. I'm really just speaking based on experiences with friends.) These are the managers' personal beliefs, not necessarily the motivating principles of the organization, but these things sort of come out nonetheless. And then when liberals support these organizations there is some degree of guilt by association, at least in terms of public perception. After all, why would you support this person who hates religion if you yourself don't hate it? (I'm not saying that's really logical, just that I think it's a perception that I think exists.)
So that's another problem.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:44 PM
Then there was that Ten Commandments monument idiocy. I was hostile towards that.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:45 PM
(I'd throw out the ACLU as an example here, but I don't know who runs that. I'm really just speaking based on experiences with friends.)
They're out there protecting the rights of religious groups to equal access in schools. They're protecting the right to religious freedom of people like the family in the linked story. What has the ACLU done lately that's struck you as anti-religious?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:46 PM
I did a little too much thinking and too little proofreading in the last parenthetical of 127.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:47 PM
The ACLU hasn't done anything that's struck me as anti-religious-- that's part of my point (their org. is reasonably fair to fight for liberties for the religious and non-religious alike). Some people who work for the ALCU have struck me as personally very anti-religious, however, and I don't think that's out of the ordinary. A lot of liberal activists are personally very anti-religious. And liberal "activists" are, almost by definition, the face of liberalism that many people will see.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:52 PM
125: Ceremonial deism doesn't annoy me. But appeals to God when the policy is reasonable on the merits do bug me. Not so much that I'd ever throw the baby out with the holy water, but it definitely grates.
128: If I may, some religious iterations of the Statue of Liberty.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:53 PM
Part of what Urple may be getting at (please correct me if I'm wrong, Urple) is that "liberal culture" does seem somewhat hostile to people who take their Christian faith seriously. It may not be an attack on that faith directly, but rather an attack on attitudes likely shared by such people. So, if you don't believe in sex before marriage, you're a freak. If you think (pace Hirshman) a mother at home is a positive good, you're a freak. And so on. If the only place people who are serious Christians find like-minded people is at church, those people are likely to associate those lifestyle choices with the church, whether or not the choices are based on church doctrine.
Also, Smasher personally cost us the '04 election.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:56 PM
Why is your blog no longer pretty, Smasher?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 2:58 PM
There are certainly some militant atheists who are more hailed on the right than the left these days - Christopher Hitchens and Oriana Fallaci, for two.
Posted by Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:01 PM
133: But there are plenty of serious Christians who don't find liberal culture alienating. I don't deny the alienation, but I do say that it applies to a subset only of Christians.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:04 PM
131: This, I have no idea of what to do about.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:12 PM
What do you mean, it's not pretty?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:20 PM
SCMT used to gaze at your picture while playing "Ask". Now the picture is gone....
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:22 PM
Oh, yeah, the picture banner—dude, that was too vain even for me.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:26 PM
I really think that by worrying that we're being seen as "hostile to religion" when discussing the alleged asshattery in Delaware we are in fact feeding the beast that is the lie that we are hostile to all religion. Those people, if the story as reported by that family is true, are already hostile. I really don't think we need to worry ourselves with whether we're being hostile in return. Of course, I'm not much of a cheek-turner, so hey.
I am a member of a religion, but it is not Christianity. Some of my political ideals are rooted in or at least bolstered by my religious beliefs, and some are not, and either way it is not my place to go around pointing out which are which to anyone else. I generally appreciate the same from others.
But by the same token, I would love to see more charismatic Christian leftists take the stage and try to point out to their fellow believers that a lot of good work would come from enacting liberal ideals (Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values is an excellent example of just that). If they want to look at it as serving a religious goal as well as a political one, more power to them. However, I don't think it's my job to do that, and I don't think it's our fault when some members of some religions are openly hostile to the point of driving someone out of their town, or otherwise picking a fight, especially when the second someone criticizes them for it the right-wing fringe of said religion (or any other body) claims that suddenly it makes them the victim.
Rather than worry about how to present ourselves in regards to religion, I wish we could figure out a way to point out that the Christian Coalition does not represent all of religion, or all religious people, in a way that undermined their rhetoric of representing some silent majority. If we could expose that fringe as being a fringe, I think it would do a lot to neuter them as a force for stagnation and regression.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:30 PM
If you don't think they're legitimate, all well and good, but that makes you kind of hostile.
It's just me, Bartcop, and PZ Meyers who have hostility to all religion.
I'm not asserting that no liberal is hostile to religion -- PZ Myers, Emerson, and Silvana are holding up the militant atheists banner.
Why do I get no credit? I am an enraged teddy bear - ready to kill, but no one will take me seriously.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:32 PM
That's not hostility to religion, that's lack of deference to religion.
And that's exactly where this all stems from. As silvana said, to many religious people these are one and the same.
Liberals aren't hostile to religion, we're hostile to the notion that people should be able to legislate their religious beliefs based solely upon arguments made from their religion. "Because the Bible says so" isn't a fucking argument. But God forbid any liberal point that out, because now they're "hostile to religion."
It's never enough that they are free to believe what they want. The government in their eyes should actively promote their beliefs. They believe in prayer, so schools should lead students in prayer. They don't believe in pre-marital sex, so schools shouldn't teach sex ed. They believe in talking snakes and magic fruit trees, so schools should teach creationism.
And anyone who opposes such measures is immediately tarred as"hostile to religion." Because if there's anything religious screwballs like more than pushing their nonsense on others, it's crying about how victimized they are.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:33 PM
I just want to second Urple's 127 and 131. I would almost even say it's a problem of manners -- there are definitely subgroups of (in my experience) college-educated, politically liberal, urban Americans who feel comfortable openly expressing contempt for religious faith.
But "manners" doesn't quite cut it. It's not just about being courteous to religiously observant people even if you don't agree with them. I would almost say it's a problem of liberalism not to be able to acknowledge that a person of faith may also be rational.
Maybe liberalism is the wrong word too.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:35 PM
I spy a small kitten.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:37 PM
"huge swathes of the population see Christianity as a hateful religion"
I'm not sure about "huge swathes", but a number of us see Christianity as a hateful religion because of you know, the whole Bible thing.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:40 PM
I find 144 overly hostile to liberals. (kinda seriously.)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:42 PM
I would almost say it's a problem of liberalism not to be able to acknowledge that a person of faith may also be rational.
See, I just don't see any substantial group of liberals (or snooty urbanites, or any other obvious category of people) out there refusing to acknowledge that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter etc. can be rational. I think the statement you made there is flatly false, unless 'person of faith' means something very restricted to you. That's exactly the sort of generalization I think is so pernicious. (When I say it's pernicious, I don't mean to attack you personally. I think it's very common, just wrong.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:42 PM
I would almost even say it's a problem of manners -- there are definitely subgroups of (in my experience) college-educated, politically liberal, urban Americans who feel comfortable openly expressing contempt for religious faith.
Man, I don't know if I should say this, but hey, I'm apparently marching under the militant atheist band already, so I might as well. Look, some people (not me as much, because although I'm hostile toward organized religion, I'm probably an agnostic more than an atheist) see religious belief as patently false and harmful. I see nothing "rude" about expressing contempt for religious belief if you see it as patently false and harmful, just as there is nothing rude about my expressing contempt for the opinion that Iraq has WMDs, back when we still didn't know whether they did or not.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:47 PM
Having read gswift's 143, I now think we're describing two different phenomena.
a) the false positive of "anti-religionism" detected by religious extremists (of whatever stripe) when the rest of society fails to accommodate their particular wishes.
b) the genuine "anti-religionism" shown by (a small subset of)
liberalspeople who seem not to have experience or knowledge of any religiously observant people whose intelligence they respect.(OK, I see LB and Michael's points - but I honestly have experience of sitting among a group of people, in a college class or a nonprofit organization, who think they are safe among friends who share their prejudices, and therefore say things about "religious" people that they would never say if they knew I was a Quaker who attended services every week. Or perhaps, they would do what Cala mentioned and claim I was one of the "good ones.")
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:48 PM
I also really don't have a problem with people who are openly contemptuous of religion. There are people who are openly contemptuous of my existence as a gay man, but that's not stopping me. I have friends who know that I have religious beliefs who will state openly that they believe religious beliefs are a sign of a weak intellect, but somehow I survive. Getting out of bed in the morning, for everyone, no matter who they are, everywhere, is to some degree an exercise in being the object of someone's contempt. Suck it up! Deal!, we should say to the people who cry victim because we don't go to their specific church and we are not interested in a copy of their newsletter. I don't think anyone who's contemptuous of religion should be made to hide that as long as they don't try to legislate that contempt - outlawing religious observance, for example - and I don't know anyone who has ever seriously suggested such a thing. Yeah, great, they hate religion. And there are people who, for religious reasons, hate them. Life, in its {eternal wonder,remarkable series of coincidences} continues to go on for everyone involved. There should be no need to apologize for taking the position that the legislation of religion - whether for or against - is wrong.
We're liberals, right? It's all about options, right? Let people live the way they want to live and leave everybody the hell alone, right? That's a message that requires no apologies, and anyone who demands an apology for that message has either misunderstood it or confessed that their faith is too weak to withstand another's noncompliance. In either case, their problem is not our problem.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:52 PM
Hey, where the hell is apostropher?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:52 PM
See, I just don't see any substantial group of liberals (or snooty urbanites, or any other obvious category of people) out there refusing to acknowledge that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter etc. can be rational.
Yeah, we're all so intolerant of religion that we put evangelicals in the White House. Liberals are seriously tricky that way.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:53 PM
Oh yeah, he's on vacation. RTFP, me.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:54 PM
150: Is it possible that they're using 'religious people' as shorthand for 'The Religious Right' (or that they're explicitly talking about 'The Religious Right' and you're taking it the wrong way)? If they are, they're doing something stupid, and one of the things I'm trying to warn people against in this post, but my guess is that they don't, in fact, have a problem with religious people generally. There just can't be that many people who do, judging by the election results.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 3:58 PM
150: Is it possible that they're using 'religious people' as shorthand for 'The Religious Right'
It's certainly possible. I don't think it's always the case, though.
my guess is that they don't, in fact, have a problem with religious people generally. There just can't be that many people who do, judging by the election results.
I think that's a little bit of a logical leap. What was the great West Wing where the Marlee Matlin character explained to Josh why 90% of Americans oppose flag-burning but then those same 90% turn around and rank it like 29th on their list of priorities? (I'm making up those numbers.) Point being, even people who genuinely hate religion may not be single-issue voters. (Yes, yes, I know religion is not a stand-alone "issue." Simplifying! Comity!)
I feel responsible for helping to drag the discussion away from the main theme of your post, that separation of church and state need not be even slightly hostile to religion (and in its own way actually protects minority faiths). And that sometimes people yell "I'm being persecuted!" as a distraction, somewhat akin to how one's "right" to hit one's spouse gets one "persecuted" by those darned assault laws.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:14 PM
I don't know, LB. I think a lot of liberals, myself included, if the only piece of information they got about someone was "X is very religious," there would be an automatic negative impression formed. There are certainly tons of people who happen to be religious that I like, but other people that I dislike precisely because of their religiosity.
So, I don't think that many people will dislike any religious person, but I do think their overall impression of "religious people" is a bad one. For better or for worse. I think you are trying to hard to ascribe pure motives to all mainstream liberals. Some of us are pretty bitter about religion. I think a lot.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:15 PM
I see nothing "rude" about expressing contempt for religious belief if you see it as patently false and harmful and Suck it up! Deal! bother me, because they're fine postures to take when you have the whip hand. But we don't, and, unless your primary concern about the US is tossing away votes we can get, expressing contempt is not helpful in getting the whip.
So it wasn't just Smasher, but also Pants and silvana who put GWB back in the White House.
Smasher, isn't the color scheme gone, too? And the picture was awesome.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:15 PM
I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such, or to expect them to object to politics when the religious right is the group that's identified "christianity" with a narrow and bigoted political agenda.
I mean, it's valid for those of us who hate the religious right to say, repeatedly, that we aren't hostile to religion per se, and to identify our own religions leanings if that helps make that argument. But we aren't the ones that have made the argument--fairly successfully--that "christian" means "right-wing politics" in this country. The religious right did that, and they did that precisely *in order to* make it impossible to effectively argue against them without getting the "you're hostile to religion!" nonsense. If folks object to equation of "christian" with "right wing," then they need to criticize the people who made that equation, not those that object to it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:15 PM
So it wasn't just Smasher, but also Pants and silvana who put GWB back in the White House.
This isn't serious, right?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:16 PM
158: "unless your primary concern about the US is tossing away votes we can get" s/b somets,hing like "unless your primary concern is the growth and influence of religion in the public sphere, we're tossing away votes, and..."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:18 PM
160: Not unless you voted a number of times in Ohio. For Bush.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:19 PM
You've caught me, SCMT. My religious beliefs reached for the (D) lever, but then my contempt for religion got in an argument with my religious beliefs, and I ended up bumping the machine in my struggle and my sleeve caught on the (R) lever and then it was party-line all the way down the page. Next time I plan to tie both hands behind my back and vote with my teeth. They almost never fight with each other.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:21 PM
But we aren't the ones that have made the argument--fairly successfully--that "christian" means "right-wing politics" in this country. The religious right did that
Hey! This is totally right!
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:22 PM
tie both hands behind my back and vote with my teeth
ATM
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:22 PM
I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such, or to expect them to object to politics when the religious right is the group that's identified "christianity" with a narrow and bigoted political agenda.
You know, I see where you're coming from; they started it, we didn't.
On the other hand, life ain't fair. If a politician were criticizing abuses under shari'a law she'd have to take care not to simply call the problem a problem with Islam, even though shari'a interpretations insist they're the only correct way to read Islam. It wouldn't play well, not to mention being pretty foolish, to say 'Muslims are murderers' and then, when challenged by moderate Muslims, tell them that they're just using the term narrowly like the other side claims.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:25 PM
I think you are trying to hard to ascribe pure motives to all mainstream liberals. Some of us are pretty bitter about religion. I think a lot.
I've actually been surprised by the number of people expressing direct hostility. Of people I know IRL, crazed secularists every one, the most negative emotion about religion I've heard expressed is a sort of puzzled bemusement ('Why do they believe that stuff?') not translating into having any particular problem with people who do. But there's a good chance my experiences have been shaped by living in the most liberal and urban places possible -- no one in my social circle is likely to have been significantly hassled in the name of religion.
I think that's a little bit of a logical leap. What was the great West Wing where the Marlee Matlin character explained to Josh why 90% of Americans oppose flag-burning but then those same 90% turn around and rank it like 29th on their list of priorities? (I'm making up those numbers.) Point being, even people who genuinely hate religion may not be single-issue voters.
Yeah, but the polls show that something crazy like 90% of the country believes in God. While I'll believe in the existence of the hardcore antireligionists, there just can't possibly be that many of them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:27 PM
Okay, seriously, stop. Not long ago John Emerson wisely upbraided us all for falling into the right-wing rhetoric trap over and over again. Nobody---not even most of the pundits who spew this garbage---really thinks that "liberal"=="hostile to religion". But if you say it does, ooh, watch the liberals turn purple and spout steam from their ears! It's awesome!
Seriously (I say again) we need some other way of engaging basically unserious assertions.
(Scratch that, I'm going to sneak up on a feminist and call her a man-hater. Oh Prof B, where are you....)
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:28 PM
Of course, but I don't think we're saying "the political beliefs of Christians are wrong." I think that by and large, "we" ("the left") are pretty darn careful to say, at minimum, "the political beliefs of fundamentalist christians are wrong" or "the political beliefs of the religious right are wrong" and so on. That's in the political arena.
On the other hand, in the cultural arena (e.g., the comment thread over at my place), I think it's useless to say, "those people aren't really Christians" and assume that's the end of the discussion. There, you can say, "yeah, fine, they're Christians (at least, one kind of christians)--and under the constitution, they are not allowed to dominate public arenas to the exclusion of others."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:30 PM
159: But I do get frustrated with this sort of thing: I don't think that it's fair to say that it's the responsibility of people who are *critical* of the religious right to make it clear that they're not hostile to religion as such.
I am not really talking about or worried about responsibilities, or the morality of stands in this arena, or anything like it. I'm worried about winning. A lot of this has to do with (a) how worried you are about the direction the country is headed, and (b) what worries you about the direction the country is headed. I'm (a) really worried, and (b) not very worried about religious people generally. I'm willing to bend a lot of ways to get the current Republican coalition out.
What I was trying to say above in #161 is that your perspective on this is a function of what you're worried about. If you are worried that religious people, broadly, have a pernicious effect on US politics, you're not going to agree with me. It doesn't mean you are wrong in some moral sense; it means that you and I pragmatically disagree about what winning coalition we can and should build, and how to go about building it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:31 PM
168: No, I honestly think that there are liberals who are, in fact, hostile to religion. They're entitled to be hostile to religion, especially given that a lot of religious folks have made a lot of hay in the last few years out of hating on gays, feminists, and so on. But that doesn't mean that liberalism, as such, is hostile to religion as such.
Likewise, there are surely feminists who hate men. I'm not one of them (well, most of the time), and I'd certainly argue that feminism as such is not hostile to men. But I'm not so stupid as to fail to realize that women who do hate men often do so (erroneously, imho) under the guise of feminism.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:34 PM
170, oh, I agree. And given that religion is a really powerful way of talking about morality, I think we oughta get out there and start using religious language to make moral claims about tolerance and concern for the poor and ecuminicalism and all the rest of it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:36 PM
Just to be clear, by "suck it up" I didn't mean that secularists should accept the legislation of religion, but that they should accept the incursion of religion into political discourse. (One question, of course, is how to do that without ceding the rhetorical high ground to those who know how to wield it.)
Posted by Vance Maverick | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:36 PM
170: The thing is that being apologetic about liberal hostility to religion buys into the frame (as slol says) and hurts us. Saying it's all crap (and I hereby dismiss the lot of you as anecdotal evidence), even though it seems more confrontational, I think helps us more in the end.
You're making the Yglesias argument -- give a little on the soft church/state issues, who really cares? But then someone's going to get run out of town over them, as in the linked story, and we'll have to fight -- we don't get anywhere by giving in.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:36 PM
Yeah, but look. The people who are currently using Christianity to hate on homosexuals would be hating on homosexuals anyway. (If it makes you feel better, you can substitute "oppress women" for "hate on homosexuals".)
Seriously, they don't need a few stray passages in the Bible to help them do it. Think about it from a reverse angle: long before Darwin, there were people who said that the rich owed nothing to the poor, and that free competition in society was the only measure of progress. And those people will be around long after they've expunged Darwin from the curriculum. There's really no point, as a liberal, blaming Darwinism for that belief.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:40 PM
Look, there's got to be a middle ground between disbanding the ACLU and calling religious people savages. No one's saying give in here.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:40 PM
there's got to be a middle ground
Typical wishy-washy liberal.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:42 PM
But then someone's going to get run out of town over them, as in the linked story, and we'll have to fight -- we don't get anywhere by giving in.
Incidents like that in the story will help us more than they hurt us. The (IIRC) 25% of American Jews who voted for Bush last time around? A little closer to coming back to the fold.
We're just not in a position to enforce much, these days, including things that are really, really important to me. (Insert Padilla rant.) I think I'm closer to slol's view than you--I say don't respond to provocations, which is what I read him to be saying (roughly). That said, slol hates America, so I'm not sure his advice is sound.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:43 PM
176: Keep the ACLU, have them do exactly what they're doing. Whenever some member of the religious right talks about liberals wanting to keep religion out of the public sphere, point and laugh, saying "Like when Clinton talks about religion? Or Obama talks about religion? Or Martin Luther King talked about religion? Sweetheart, liberals don't have a problem with religion, we've got a problem with you. Entirely different."
There's the middle ground.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:45 PM
Hey, I like the middle ground. It's comfy and you can watch the two sides fire at each other and it looks like pretty fireworks.
Seriously, they don't need a few stray passages in the Bible to help them do it.
This is a really good point. Bigots are going to be bigots whether someone's telling them God says so or not. Some'll do it even if God tells them otherwise; this is why churches fracture. I think that some religious groups are reachable, and I'm convinced that a lot of the moderate religious types who have bought into the right-wing 'must vote Republican to be Christian' will come back if given an alternative.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:50 PM
slol hates America
You do know that the Smiths are British, right?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:50 PM
181: The last five years have shown that the UK is our 51st state, and you know it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:52 PM
the UK is our 51st state
I, for one, welcome our gap-toothed underlings.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:53 PM
Shurely it should be 51-54th states, right? We can't lump them all in the same state, they'd get cranky.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 4:55 PM
Don't call Tim Shirley. And anyway, I'm in favor of admitting them in as many states as we can get.
Really, I'm just marking time until nattarGcM, 1FE, or dsquared can tear himself away from Doctor Who long enough to get insulted.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:00 PM
185: A Scot, an Englishman, and Welshman: there's a joke in there somewhere. That is, beyond the fact of the UK.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:02 PM
If apparently, but not really assimilable countries are what we want, we've got a contiguous one we could try first (again).
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:02 PM
What'd they do to the Irish guy?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:02 PM
You know that if you really tried to absorb the UK as states 51 through 54 you'd just find yourself bowing down before your kilted overlords within a year or two.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:03 PM
Oh, and we could teach you a thing or two about religious hatred as well.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:04 PM
What'd they do to the Irish guy?
Don't step on the punchline, LB.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:05 PM
We could try Alberta, the 51st state of conservative wet-dreams.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:06 PM
189: What, really, can be said to this other than 'ATM'?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:06 PM
we've got a contiguous one we could try first
Oh, because that worked so well the last few times. Strangely resistant, is the True North.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:06 PM
your kilted overlords
Dude, Scotland weren't even in the World Cup, were they?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:08 PM
The only strange thing is that this surprises people. First thing I discovered on immigrating here forty years ago is how many people didn't get why Canada existed. It's just invisible, like the way weather disappears on the weather channel when it goes over Canada.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:12 PM
That's a very important border. As that video rather neatly illustrates, not being American is the essential part of being Canadian.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:14 PM
people didn't get why Canada existed
Although, you know, in fairness to those of us south of the border, there are fewer Canadians than there are Californians, and some ridiculously large percentage of them---15%, maybe?---live in metro Toronto. So.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:18 PM
Just as I suspected: Phil Hartman, Canadian.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:19 PM
The only strange thing is that this surprises people.
That's what comes of disrespecting Benjamin Franklin. When he comes to ask you to join the revolution, join.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:19 PM
Just as I suspected
Does this mean something to you, though? Like, for example, that it is not I, but you, who hate America?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:21 PM
201: Dude, you've (basically) copped to being an academic--there is no doubt about (or aboot, as they case may be) your anti-American credentials. I just thought it was interesting.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:24 PM
re: 195
No, we didn't make the world cup.
We are, however, the most violent people in the developed world and one of the best educated. It's a wierd combination.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:32 PM
Canad aexists because Montcalm and Aaron Burr both screwed up. The fuckers.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:32 PM
People used to make fun of me for saying Molson Golden was my favorite beer, back when Molson Golden was my favorite beer. I gather Canadians see it as the equivalent of Budweiser. But I would always think of the vast frozen tundra as I drank, and it pleased me.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:34 PM
Favorite Kids in the Hall moment: a Filipino kid asks Dave Foley's character if he's American, and Foley replies, "I'm Canadian - just like an American, but without the gun."
I see this as a point in Canada's favor.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:39 PM
What'd they do to the Irish guy?
This.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:39 PM
"I'm Canadian - just like an American, but without the gun"
Except it's not really true. Handguns, maybe. My brother had a prodigious arsenal by the time he was sixteen.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:41 PM
It may depend on where you are in Canada. My impression is that rural Canada likes their shotguns, and that a rather large national registration program failed miserably.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:43 PM
Ah, Canadian beer. In my teenage years I used to like Molson Triple X. It's the one that's 7% alcohol.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:44 PM
Well, in a land filled with (rape)bears and moose, I imagine it's inaccurate. Still a funny punchline to the sketch, though.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:49 PM
Møøse bites are råther nasty.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 5:52 PM
#6: Actually, I posted "Amen" in hopes it would be the first comment, and hence be funny, given the subject matter of the post. But alas, by the time I posted it, four comments had already been posted ahead of it.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 6:41 PM
The people who are currently using Christianity to hate on homosexuals would be hating on homosexuals anyway.
Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that they've successfully managed to convince the world that Christianity = anti-gay. See, e.g., the current pope, and the Anglican church's current crisis.
Canada: just like a lot of the midwest, only even colder.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 6:48 PM
We are, however, the most violent people in the developed world
That article is awesome. My favorite passage.
"While violent crime has decreased recently in Scotland, people are still the victims of violence, especially knife crime."
"That's why we will address the culture of violence by doubling the maximum penalty for carrying a knife to four years, by strengthening police powers of arrest for people suspected of carrying a knife, and by raising the age at which a person can buy a non-domestic knife from 16 to 18."
Yeah, doubtless the underlying problem is the ready availability of pointy objects.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 6:51 PM
If it turned out that that those sort of silly-sounding knife-carrying and purchasing regulations had a fairly robust correlation with decreases in either the frequency of assaults, the severity of assaults, or both, would you be all right with them? By robust I mean something like: not only does the frequency or severity go down as the rules go into effect, but it's also the case that in areas which currently have equivalent rates or severity of assaults the one's which have these rules better enforced (enforcement measure in some way other than frequency or severity of assaults) experience a greater decrease. Oh, and there's no confounding variables, like they tripled the police presence in one place and not in the other.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:01 PM
If it turned out that that those sort of silly-sounding knife-carrying and purchasing regulations had a fairly robust correlation with decreases in either the frequency of assaults, the severity of assaults, or both, would you be all right with them? By robust I mean something like: not only does the frequency or severity go down as the rules go into effect, but it's also the case that in areas which currently have equivalent rates or severity of assaults the one's which have these rules better enforced (enforcement measure in some way other than frequency or severity of assaults) experience a greater decrease. Oh, and there's no confounding variables, like they tripled the police presence in one place and not in the other.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:01 PM
If you've got such data, go ahead and post it. But in this country it doesn't seem to work out that way. D.C. and L.A. aren't exactly reaping great benefits from having strict gun laws.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:11 PM
I was also struck by that passage. I have to say that here in NYC, my nightmares aren't populated by knife-wielding brawlers. However, I sure wouldn't want to have to assume as a matter of course that random thugs are carrying wicked Bowie knives.
(It's the idea that you could be arrested on "suspicion of carrying a knife" that trips me out.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:15 PM
Personally, I'm quite happy if they make it a lot harder for 14 year olds to buy combat knives.
Knives weren't, as far as I remember, carried that frequently when I was growing up. None of my friends, as far as I know, carried one. Despite that, and despite not being involved with gang culture, I was still threatened with one, more than once. An ex g/friend of mine, who (ironically) grew up in a much more comfortable area than I did, knew a couple of kids who had been murdered with knives and several friends at university had been slashed or stabbed at some point in the past.
I can joke about articles like that, living as I do now in a fairly comfortable Oxford suburb. The reality, on the ground, is not actually very funny, obviously.
The same applies to religious bigotry. Every second or third Saturday, for example, we had an Orange Walk come round our street. It's not so easy to be tolerant of religious expression if it involves a bunch of bigots marching round your street beating drums and blowing flutes in an act of intimidation (or of celebration depending on which side of the sectarian divide one is from).
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:21 PM
#219
The UK has all kinds of bizarre knife regulations. In the U.S. you can buy pretty much anything you want in a knife, with a few exceptions. CA bans "switchblades" and some other stuff. It's like they base legislation off of bad 80's movies or something.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:23 PM
re: 221
I'm not really sure the legislation is necessarily bizarre.
I can think of shops in Glasgow that used to do a roaring trade in 'combat' knives and machetes. They weren't being used for hunting or jungle expeditions, you know.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:24 PM
So do the Scots have the same Catholic (read, for Urple's sake, "papist pawn") / Protestant divide that Ireland has?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:25 PM
re: 223
Yes. The Catholic/Protestant divide was, unfortunately, exported to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the form of plantations of Scots Protestants deliberately moved to Northern Ireland (in a divide and conquer move) in the 17th century.
The divide was then reimported back to Scotland again in the 19th century when fairly large waves of Catholic immigrants from Northern Ireland starting moving to Scotland's west coast.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:28 PM
I can think of shops in Glasgow that used to do a roaring trade in 'combat' knives and machetes. They weren't being used for hunting or jungle expeditions, you know.
And yet according to the article assaults have taken a 50 percent jump in the last ten years. I'm not advocating no age restrictions or anything, but in my opinion attempts to reduce crime that take the form of "less guns" and "less knives" are approaching the problem from the wrong end.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:31 PM
Most of the legislation has, to the best of my knowledge, been concentrated on increased penalties for those actually carrying knives. I don't think anyone realistically believes that teenagers can be completely prevented from acquiring knives. They just want to make it a little less easy and then combine that with more stringent penalties for their possession or use.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:33 PM
Summaries of existing knife legislation:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1993/Ukpga_19930013_en_1.htm
and
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/ssi2005/20050483.htm
Note the specific exemptions for religious costume, national dress and anyone who has a reason to carry the knife for purposes of work.
This is to cover the fact that Scots national dress involves knives (in the form of the skean dubh for example) and the fact that Sikhs often carry knives as part of their religious obligations.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:38 PM
If you've got such data, go ahead and post it. But in this country it doesn't seem to work out that way. D.C. and L.A. aren't exactly reaping great benefits from having strict gun laws.
Obviously because they don't have strict border control; you just go to Virginia or Bakersfield or whatever.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:43 PM
218: I went away for a bit, sorry. I certainly don't have such data, and was only describing what good data would look like in order to ask in an oblique way if you were opposing the laws on the grounds of their consequences or for more rights based reasons. And lot's of places have odd knife laws, New York state for instance.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:46 PM
The Catholic/Protestant divide was, unfortunately, exported to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the form of plantations of Scots Protestants deliberately moved to Northern Ireland (in a divide and conquer move) in the 17th century.
These would be the Scots-Irish, who later played an important role in the settlement of America.
The divide was then reimported back to Scotland again in the 19th century when fairly large waves of Catholic immigrants from Northern Ireland starting moving to Scotland's west coast.
Where do the Gaels (who as far as I know are mostly Catholic) fit into this?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:47 PM
Good point, but I'm not sure how feasible keeping out guns in the whole U.S. would be given that we can barely control our borders as it is and guns are teeny.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:48 PM
231: Well, other countries manage. I don't think the issue is "barely controlling our borders"; I think the issue is that realistically, given the 2nd amendment, we are not going to see nationwide gun control laws.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:50 PM
I've heard (via a roommate) that Toronto has gun problems despite strict gun laws because it's not that hard to secure guns from the U.S.
But the 2nd amendment is there, so, yeah.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:53 PM
I had reason to look up the NYC knife laws a while ago, and the exemptions are pretty broad. You get a pass if you're going to a theatrical rehearsal or if you're a Boy or Girl Scout.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:54 PM
If it would give us control of the federal government, I'd support a law that provided every adult in America with a tax credit for gun ownership. As it is, crime's down.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:56 PM
re: 230
They don't really fit into it that much.
If you mean people who've been Gaelic speaking in the past 200 years, there aren't really many of them -- in contrast to all images of 'historic' Scotland in the media, of course. The vast majority of Scots live in the central belt, up the east coast and across the south of the country and haven't really been 'Gaels' for many hundreds of years, if ,arguably, they were ever 'Gaels' at all.
Also, the Gaelic people on the Hebrides (by far the largest concentration of Gaelic speakers) aren't Catholic at all but Free Church.
The vast majority of Scots Catholics will descend from irish immigrants.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 7:57 PM
By the way, I just got back from the corner store, and on my way across the street, I glanced into the idling car outside my building--right next to the cute kids playing--and realized that that guy bending over from the driver's seat wasn't picking something up from the ground and wasn't asleep--he was methodically licking the pussy of the woman in reclined in the front seat.
Wow.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:00 PM
Well, other countries manage.
Perhaps less than the U.S. due to having less to start with, but still have issues. The UK still saw increases in handgun violence after they banned them.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:00 PM
If it would give us control of the federal government, I'd support a law that provided every adult in America with a tax credit for gun ownership.
It would probably work too. I bet we'd take a bunch of Western and borderline Midwest states like Ohio.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:03 PM
#237
Wow indeed. Is every hotel in town full or something?
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:06 PM
Møøse bites are råther nasty.
That's what they tell me.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:08 PM
236: That's pretty much what I figured, although I didn't realize the Hebridean Gaels were Protestant (although upon reflection I probably knew that at some point and had forgotten).
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:11 PM
241: I'd forgotten about part of that thread, and reading through it, I no longer feel the crushing weight of defeat from all the times (at least twice) that LB has pwned me on mistaken geometric assertions. Not to say that LB made a mistaken geometric assertion in that thread, and if she had it wouldn't be what I was referring to.
I wish comments in old threads could be reopened.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:22 PM
238: Obviously banning the things isn't going to get rid of gun crime altogether, but a blanket ban would, eventually reduce it. I think this would be worth it, as I don't really see what, in a modern urban culture, people gain from having the damn things, and I think the cost/benefit analysis weighs pretty heavily towards banning. But hey, like I said, it's not going to happen. I just think it's kind of silly to pretend that a blanket prohibition wouldn't reduce gun deaths.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:28 PM
240--Well, a hotel room around here would probably be prohibitively expensive, but there is a nice park with dim lighting a block over. It really wouldn't have fazed me much if I hadn't then gone and chatted a bit with the eight year-old who'd been playing (with her six siblings) loudly up and down the block.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 8:30 PM
Good lord, seven kids? Who in NY has 7 kids anymore?
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 9:01 PM
I may have exaggerated. Maybe the family has about four-five children. And some of the kids on the sidewalk might have been neighbors.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 6-06 9:14 PM
I don't really see what, in a modern urban culture, people gain from having the damn things
Criminals, who don't tend to respect gun bans, gain by using the damn things to commit crimes. And the rest of us gain by using the damn things to stop or deter them.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 07- 7-06 1:13 AM
re: 248
That's really workin' for ya, over there in the US, eh?
[Don't mean to be facetious but all possible evidence suggests that it's not. I realise the debate isn't really that simple, of course, but it's certainly not straightfowardly true that 'the damn things stop or deter' crime.]
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 07- 7-06 2:51 AM
Scotlands high rate of non-lethal assault combined with a moderate murder rate suggests that the gun ban over there has had some effect, and perhaps limits on knives of certain types would help even more.
Guns are sacramental in the US and arguing about the question is like arguing with a Catholic about miracles. Forget it.
You rarely get a one-factor cause for any social phenomena, which means that quibblers will usually be able to prove that no law whatever has any positive effect. But in certain circumstances, good restrictive gun laws, as part of a package of other good laws, can have a positive effect.
Assuming that criminals are already armed and then arming everyone else to defend themselves is an attractive solution for people who want the possibility of high drama in their lives. Places where it has been tried include Colombia, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
And there are some places where gun ownership is not a problem, e.g. here in Minnesota, and even more so in North Dakota. A friend who visited from New Jersey was astounded that guns are sold here in hardware stores like garden tools -- not even locked up. No pistols, though.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 7-06 5:04 AM
On the subway this morning, I saw some ads that are part of this campaign. Now there's a religion I am hostile to. Very hostile, in fact.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07- 7-06 8:43 AM
Oh, those are creepy. They bought all the ad spaces in the long hallway between Times Square and 7th Ave. Weird.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 7-06 8:45 AM
I'm confused. Is the site linked in 251 distinct from the "Jews for Jesus" people I saw running around my college campus, or have they reversed their name?
Posted by silvana |