Comments on Religion Dispatches
nightgaunt • 2 days ago
Judaism-Christianity-Islam are all related very closely. Sharia Law came directly from Leviticus Law. And they both took it from the Jews. So they are all of the same cloth, though the offshoots-Christianity and Islam added their own weaves to it.
The Crusades, Inquisition and witch finders came from Christianity and was picked up by various fascist groups with the Nazis being the most prominent and memorable. I think the US is one country ripe to become a Holy American Empire any time soon. (I hope it doesn't, but it should be watched out for.)
Camera Obscura nightgaunt • a minute ago
Oh, so the Nazis were inspired by the Jews.
I was going to say that all haters and hate groups come from the same country and all speak the same language and your comment is a totally predictable demonstration of it.
The Nazis were explicit haters of all things Jewish, including Jesus and his followers named in the Second Testament, they were in the process of trying to destroy the Christian religion in Germany and Europe, they hoped to do that through propagandizing the young through the Hitler Youth which was vehemently and viciously anti-Christian as well as antisemitic.
Neo-atheism is as openly and clearly all about hate - of religion and religious people as can be,in the case of atheism - as are such cults recognized for what they also are, right-wing hate cults like (Glenn)Beck's.
"The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God."
Leviticus 19:34. That, alone pretty much destroys your contention that the Nazis were inspired by Leviticus. Not to mention the entire range of verses on how the poor and those unable to work were to be treated, such as 25:35
"If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you." Which would destroy the Republican-right-atheist-right version of the gospel of hate you are pushing.
I give up. It's a tidal wave of stupid, there's no holding it back.
ReplyDeleteOn Salon this morning there are nearly 650 comments (by now) about Bill Maher once again arguing Ahmed didn't "invent" that clock which LOOKED LIKE A BOMB BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THEY LOOK IN THE MOVIES! QED, MOTHER F*CKER!!!!!. Most seem to be arguing Maher is right.
Then there's an article about whether or not thinking persons can be believers, in which the author seems to interview the most mush-brained "liberal" thinkers possible, and all that did was stir the loonies to decry "faith" and uphold "science," as if they knew what either term meant.
And I didn't even get to the pastor baring her weaknesses (which makes her unfaithful because all religious believers are assured by their faith that they know "truth"! I mean, all atheists are sure they know truth, so why doesn't she?), or Jeffrey Teyler's weekly screed (why bother?).
It's an epic flood of morons. It's a forest fire to stupidity. It's a hurricane of howling ignorance.
It might as well be a force of nature. There was a time when Christianity promoted rigorous thought. Right now, I'm convinced nobody does.
It is a question of whether the internet made people stupid bigots if of it just allowed the stupid bigots to expose themselves. There was a time these people would be filtered out of the editing of the comments at Mother Jones, The Progressive, The Nation - though they sometimes got to write columns and articles for those and other alleged venues of the left.
ReplyDeleteI have, as mentioned, learned a lot about why liberals lost power in the past fifty years from reading such nonsense which will have to be given up if liberals are to ever be a real force in public life again. I really don't see that happening with such folk being part of the mix. We're always speculating about when the worst elements of the Republican Party are going to defeat them, politically, ignoring that they've been doing better with those liabilities than the left has been doing with ours.
I have to admit that reading the incredible mix of stupidity and lies has me wondering if some supernatural agency of evil isn't at work. Perhaps if people were given free will so we could be truly autonomous beings the angels were too, Given how stupid those who choose evil are in the human population, I'm beginning to doubt we could have gotten it so very wrong without some malicious forces egging us on.
I do think the new atheism is the product of a mix with the requirements of having a big, impressive and reputable career in science precluding really becoming familiar with real history and real philosophy and the banal appeal of the vast wasteland of pop media. It's no shock that, as was pointed out, Richard Dawkins had more citations of Douglas Adams and Carl Sagan's pop-sci than he did to any relevant sources of what he was attacking. And that he did that while occupying a chair at friggin' Oxford. My dear old atheist Latin teacher used to lament the pathetic standards of scholarship among monoglot English speaking scholars and he was talking about the ones from his generation which was literate instead of post-literate.
Saw a Salon article praising Dawkins (before wondering why he was such a crank, now) for his best-selling book, which apparently is the apotheosis of his science knowledge.
DeleteWhich is kinda like praising Hawking as a scientist because of "A Brief History of Time." Huh?
These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.....
You can't write a coherent sentence on ANY subject, Sparky, so criticizing other folks for post-literacy is a bit of a horselaugh.
ReplyDeleteSays the man whose substance is equine flatus.
DeleteI'm sure I've written at least five coherent sentences. Including the last two.