No, I’m not talking about our UN ambassador making unauthorized appearances and statements, which is bad enough. This is far worse:

Two weeks ago, the London Sunday Times broke an exclusive story about FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel….

“I see the same tendency to paper over real religious differences in our churches every day .. from denominational leaders who are more interested in playing numbers games than sticking up for truth.”

Hmm. Maybe I’m not privy to who specifically Bryan and Lawrence might be referring to in the sub-context and thus at a disadvantage in appreciating the statement. Given the lack of a contextual reference, and possibly my ignorance of any obvious link, I think a broad statement questioning the motivation of those pursing peace between denominations, such as Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, or with-in religious sects, such as Mormons and evangelicals, or between religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam irresponsible and maybe even dangerous. If we are talking about specific individuals, judged on a case by case basis, I may join you in your condemnation, but the statement (to me at least) implies that pursuing peace with other people whose faith differs from ours, without compromising our own beliefs, is, well … I hesitate to say, pretty narrow thinking and much more representative of the traditional stereotype of people of faith.

Bryan – “I see the same tendency to paper over real religious differences in our churches every day .. from denominational leaders who are more interested in playing numbers games than sticking up for truth.”

ProdigalReflections – “Wow, that’s quite a broad stroke you are painting with and not one I am inclined to agree.”
- on January 17, 2008 at 9:24 AM

I am in complete agreement with Bryan on this. Reflect for a moment on the internal conflicts within North American Christendom which the political left so often uses as arguments against us.

The political left has a point. And it is foolish for the political right to ignore these problems.

Thanks, Bryan, for being honest about this in your post. This is our problem and if we do not deal with it is our own fault for it becoming a talking point of the secular left.

Update: Born-again Christian?

If we could just get rid of those damn Jews Guns Born-again Christians, everything would be okay.

{sigh}

Traitor?

Indeed. And that’s the point.

Whatever he called himself at points in the past, the truth shows him to be a traitor first.

If thats the case its a bummer that he seems to be representing his base more effectively than our supposed conservative representatives our representing ours.

There was a day when that was a hanging offense.

TheSitRep on January 17, 2008 at 5:26 AM

As much as I would reville in the justice of a summary execution, I can’t shake the want of some of our prison gangs getting ahold of this terd.

I see the same tendency to paper over real religious differences in our churches every day .. from denominational leaders who are more interested in playing numbers games than sticking up for truth.

Wow, that’s quite a broad stroke you are painting with and not one I am inclined to agree.

The love of money is the root of all evil…

SouthernGent on January 16, 2008 at 11:17 PM

I utterly disagree with SouthernGent here. It seems to me more likely that Siljander’s evil derives from some twisted religious idealism rather than from the love of money. Siljander’s statements have the tone of a deluded faith not of greed.

Sadly, the trouble with presenting more a convincing argument is that doing evil for money and doing evil for ideology sound so alike that it’s hard to make any case without vastly more detail than makes sense here. But let me just start by observing that people are motivated by more than simple greed or else Christianity, environmentalism, communism, and libertarianism wouldn’t exist.

I’ve never heard such outlandish foolishness outside of a clumsy madrassa.

Do you agree that Hagee’s anti Catholic rants and his whole spiel, that we must protect Israel to prepare for the rapture, is a rather dishonest way of distorting Christianity? I don’t think that religion should be used for foreign policy purposes on either side and you know damn well the few are using it as such. Do you think that Bin Laden is really religious, some of his operatives have been seen doing very questionable things such as womanizing, drinking, and gambling? They don’t buy the religious mumbo jumbo that they sell but it sure makes it easier for some schmuck to kill themselves for his cause, to expand his sphere of influence and power. Yes the muslim radicals that kill themselves go that much farther and are more zealous, but that is because it takes that much more belief to actually kill yourself for a cause than it is to simply agree with a war with voice, cash, and vote.

The other similarities of the religious zealots is their distaste for powerful women, their hatred of gays, and belief that this is a religious war for both sides. But like I said, the people that perpetuate this stuff are the few on both sides.

LevStrauss on January 16, 2008 at 7:49 PM

Someone drugged your Jesus Juice with a helpful of camel urine. You give out about the “Jesus Camp” and justify your confusion by referring to Islamic concepts.

both lay claim to the hand written word of God

No, Islam lays claim to the written (actually spoken) word of God.

We do know that God, may he be exalted, is not corporeal and does not actually possess a hand to write

This is your asinine attempt to obfuscate Islamic literalism. No one has ever claimed that God literally wrote the Bible or Koran by hand. However the Koran is considered to the literal word of Allah (the only God) as dictated to Mohammed by Gabriel and is not equivalent to the Bible in this sense.

yet sections of both factions use it for war and profit, but they are the few, not the many.

Bollocks. Compare Thomas Aquinas’ just war theory (based solidly on Christian theology) to Mohammed’s exhortations to conquer infidels in the Koran.

Helpful tip to Muslim trolls: try to avoid Koran-speak like “may he be exalted” to avoid future detection.

the religious right has been in line with Islamic terrorist doctrine for decades now

,
or that Christians as a group “hate” anybody.
I think crr6 is a Democrat.

Other verses can be found and are well-known to fundamentalist Christians.

Uh yeah but you can read Bible without necessarily being a fundamentalist, right? It seems to me that this term means different things to different people.

Is this really any surprise? The religious right has been in line with islamic terrorist doctrine for decades now, hatred for homosexuals, anti-choice, more religious involvement in government etc.

They’re certainly not synonymous but to say they have nothing in common is ridiculous. You can refer to the similarities I listed in my firstpost in the thread. Above all fundamentalist movements of any religion have in common a hatred for secularization. In fact most fundamentalist movements begin as a reaction to secularization.

crr6 your understanding of both Christianity and Islam is incredibly shallow. In Christianity sodomy is a sin that might, if not repented, prevent one from entering heaven. In Islam sodomy is a sin and both the one who is doing it and the one to whom it is being done must be punished by death here on earth. Meanwhile faithful men who follow Allah and enter heaven may have sex with young boys as their reward.

As far as the “choice” issue goes Christianity forbids it whereas in Islam it is never addressed as it would never crop up in the first place seeing as it is demographically suicidal. The colour of Islam is green representing the Springtime and fertility.

In Islam religion and government are inseparable and the Muslim mind is incapable of comprehending it. In contrast secularism is derived from the Bible, from the teachings of Jesus and there wouldn’t be secular governments in any part of the world today without Christianity including majority Buddhist and Hindu countries.

They’re certainly not synonymous but to say they have nothing in common is ridiculous.

On the contrary they have only the most shallow similarities that might seem significant to a myopic, uninformed ignoramus but to suggest that have some sort of commonality is beyond ridiculous.

crr6 on January 16, 2008 at 5:37 PM Above all fundamentalist movements of any religion have in common a hatred for secularization. In fact most fundamentalist movements begin as a reaction to secularization.

If by secularization you mean the forbidden public expression of relgious belief, I would hope that any liberty loving individual would feel the same as the fundamentalists you have in mind.

But if by secularization you mean a polity that does not recognize one religion over another, there is one highly appropriate example that proves you wrong: Christianity at the time of the founding of this nation. Christians relied upon the secular constitution as protection of their religious liberty. That the majority of states had religiously based constitutions does not nullify the fact that it was (and is) a secular constitution that protects (or at least ought to) religious liberty in this country.

And as for your other point, if anything, secularization is a reaction against fundamentalism.

He didn’t do it because he was or is a Christian or a Republican or even American. He did this because he was a greedy azzwipe. Gitmo is too good for the likes of someone like Siljander (if the charges are found to be true of course).

Christianity, even evangelical Christianity, is nothing like Islam and even less like fundamental Islam. Vengeance is mine is not kill the infidels.