Saturday, October 06, 2012
Faith & Politics
OR leave your Bible at home. Been wondering though are liberal politicians ever motivated by their faith? and if so is this invalid too as when us Christian fundiecons do it and why is it never pointed out? Gay marriage, equal pay for equal work, social justice, reproductive rights, low-income housing (desegregation), immigration reform, health care and the liberal list goes on but can laws or legislation to pass these things have a religious underpinning and do liberal politicians ever get motivated by their very own personal liberal understanding of faith to take action politically on these and other important matters? So far nobody's sayin' Sure there's politics in the Catholic Church but is Nancy Pelosi ever inspired in her House actions by her Catholic faith? Certainly Martin Luther King Jr. was openly motivated by his faith and talked about it in marching for civil rights so that was a good thing but if a pro-lifer......well you get the picture. Bibles, Korans, Torahs I don't care put it on the table and while we're on the subject does that old fragment of a papyrus paper show Jesus had a wife perhaps Mary Magdalene? and oh btw why do atheists use God's name in vain from time to time say when they're stuck in traffic? Some new pro-Islam ads just went up in the NYC subways in some cases right next to the controversial ones about Support Israel and be against the savage. This is the RIGHT way to handle speech you don't like - GET IN THERE! I'm kinda tired of Tim Tebow wearing his celibacy on his sleeve, you can brag about your sluttery or your chastity and it's all the same to me and some woman's gonna seduce him and my other thing is if he's only the backup QB for the Jets why is he getting far more presstime than Mark Sanchez? These and other matters feel free, coffee's perkin':)
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"..oh btw why do atheists use God's name in vain from time to time say when they're stuck in traffic?" ..they do? OMG!
ReplyDeleteare liberal politicians ever motivated by their faith?
ReplyDeleteThe question is this: are they attempting to legislate their own religious beliefs?
Because if they are, it's invalid.
My religious beliefs teach me that a material perception of the body is ignorant. I can use this belief to work towards ensuring equality for all. See how different it is?
Instead of trying to transform America why don't you Liberals (aka: Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, Neo-Marxist) move somewhere already more Progressive than the USA?
ReplyDeleteWow... that's what the Loyalists said to the Patriots when the Revolution was fomenting!
ReplyDeleteWhen things stagnate, they die.
Saty: "Are liberal politicians ever motivated by their faith? The question is this: are they attempting to legislate their own religious beliefs?"
ReplyDeleteYES. If your version of God leads you to be and work for Pro-Choice or gay marriage and then that leads you to legislate in favor of Pro-choice or gay marriage then you are ipso facto legislating your own religious beliefs. It's only wrong when conservatives do it.
This is the Big Lie that liberals are neutral on these social issues. A true neutrality of position would be no position or a nonposition on abortion and gay marriage. Is that even possible? Isn't a nonposition a position? IF you're a religious liberal politician and you believe the fetus has the moral status of Hamburger Helper then you're legislating against the fetus at various stages to allow its killing. Of course the SCOTUS prempted all this but say you work to codify Roe vs. Wade and President Obama has said he'd do this once in office then your personal opinion of the fetus ever so surely weaves itself into legislating your religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteHere's the difference.
ReplyDeleteHere's the difference, using abortion as an example:
Legislating pro-choice does not mean people MUST have abortions. People are still free to choose according to their beliefs. Does your religion prohibit abortion? You are perfectly free to not have one.
However, the converse doesn't quite work the same way. What we're saying then is that because I don't believe in abortion, NO ONE may have one.
Does that make it a bit clearer to you?
It takes a Tea Party congressman to muddy the waters. He is strongly pro-life....except when
ReplyDeletehe is strongly pro-choice ...
That's the 'do as I say not as I do' Republican philosophy at work, BB.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, I dropped off my entry in the NC State Fair today.
I doubt I'll win anything, but it's fun to try.
Z-man... many liberals do indeed connect faith and a very clear respect for what the bible says to their actions.
ReplyDeleteA couple that come to mind for me are Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis.
Neither of these guys are weak on what one would call biblical, or theological understanding. However, both call for a more liberal approach to the problems of today.
And more liberals than not, would prefer to let God speak for Himself, rather than presuming to know what He was trying to say to us in the bible.
It is an approach more coated in gray, than the black/white understanding we more often see from conservatives.
I think by and large, liberal believers are more influenced by the Jesus we see in the New Testament. A God of compassion, understanding, second chances and peace, as opposed to the God of the Old Testament of judgement, war, and conquest.
At least, those are my broadstroke opinions...
Say what you will, but the leadership of our nation is incompetent.
ReplyDeleteBut I almost would not mind seeing Obama re-elected now so that he would be impeached and thrown out of office as he should be for allowing American citizens, including an AMBASSADOR, to be killed, and then lying about it..
Where was Romney the warrior after
ReplyDelete911, when a few more than 4 Americans were killed?
I don't know, Where was Obama when our embassies were under siege and a U.S. Ambassador was killed, where was America’s commander in chief? Was he in Los Vegas or on the Letterman show or perhaps he was on the View?
ReplyDeleteAs I watch what this president has done to this country and the lies and deceptions that are so obvious that even a child can see it and how people are so delusional and believe the lies, all I can say is that I can't believe my own President anymore.
And this is the man that was going to restore integrity to the White House? What a joke that is..
What he did was, disrespected Israel. He has spent our money on stupid things like his wife's vacations,. Created alsost no jobs. I could go deeper into it but I guess you already know these things I'm sure.
These people attacked AMERICAN'S on American soil,(Act of war much?) and he apologized to them for a video?. A true President would have apologized for the bomb we shot up their butts .
Saty: "Legislating pro-choice...", but that's legislating your belief system, no way around it. Continuing,
ReplyDelete"...does not mean people MUST have abortions." True but the fetus must die. Now if you consider the fetus as any kind of a being then you're legislating or imposing on that fetus and that's why the more nuanced pro-choicers always admit there's a kind of conflict of rights here. You're simplifying a more complex mathematical equation here.
I kind of wanted to get back to this and not have it evolve into another Obama Sucks thread. Dave you're right and I'm glad you admitted it that many liberals are motivated by faith to take the positions they do. You yourself have said in times past you feel Jesus was a liberal. Folks who insist that faith and politics never the 'twain shall meet and mix well that's not realistic when you get right down to it.
ReplyDeleteZ-man, it is realistic if you really don't want to commit your life to a faith...
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps, that is the problem... many people do not even want to be challenged when those two do not line up, so they keep them separate.
If your faith does not inform your politics, or everything else you do, then what good is it?
My faith may inform MY politics, but I refuse to let it inform YOURS.
ReplyDeleteMy religion prohibits alcohol. Should I attempt to legislate (again) Prohibition?
My religion also prohibits meat eating. Should I attempt to make meat eating illegal? (There are places in India where it actually IS illegal, and alcohol as well, on religious grounds.)
There's no difference. The restrictions and regulations that my faith places on me don't apply to you..have I any right to create laws to force you to live according to my religious beliefs?
The concern, IMO, is not faith per se, but pulpit organizing. For example,
ReplyDelete"Never before has U.S political coalition been so dominated by an array of outsider religious denominations caught up in biblical morality, distrust of science, and a global imperative of
political and religious evangelism." Kevin Phillips,
'American Theocracy' p 393
Further examination reveals Christian beliefs tend to divide
along lines of Old Testament/New Testament: the beatitudes of Christ, or the exultation of a
vengeful Jehova. Curiously, the folks that take the OT most seriously, the Jews, vote Democrat,
while as Phillips, above, notes
"Many of the fundamentalist, evanglical and the pentacostal faithful are too caught up in religion, theology and personal salvation to pay much attention to economics and they are easily rallied to self-help, free enterprise and disbelief in government. With much of the GOP's
low and middle income electorate listening to conservative preachers, the corporate and financial agenda not only prevails,
but often runs riot"
..just my opinion in the matter
(and why Ralph Reed raises my
ire)
Saty... you make good sense, and for that matter, perhaps that is why some religions discourage certain types of work, like politics, as a profession because of the inherent difficulty of reconciling the two.
ReplyDeleteZ-man, my issue with faith and politics comes to this... how do we deal in a pluralistic society without choosing one religion over another?
For instance, prayer in public schools. Christians seem to love this idea. But would they love the idea in Hawai'i where a majority of people follow Buddha? Would they support their kids praying to Buddha?
I am guessing not.
How about Utah? Would Christians be okay with a religion that denies the deity of Jesus and Trinity holding sway over their non Mormon kids?
Faith is good... for everyone. The stickler comes when we make public policy in a very diverse society based on it.
BB... That's a great book... you also might like Marsden's book on Fundamental Christianity. It's a classic. Maybe even Founding Faith by Waldman I think...
I pray that Obambi gets his ass whipped in the next 2 debates .....
ReplyDeleteDarth from the looks of last night if he debated his own VP Joe Biden he'd get his ass whipped.
ReplyDeleteSaty: "My faith may inform MY politics but I refuse to let it inform YOURS."
ReplyDeletehmmm
"have I any right to create laws to force you to live according to my religious beliefs?"
Two words, Sandra Fluke. I'm glad you'll let me have my Big Mac and Grey Goose but on the flipside she may want me to pay for her diaphragm and if memory serves you wildly supported her.
I do support her.
ReplyDeleteHow does other people having birth control violate your religious beliefs?
It must be the same way that you eating meat and drinking alcohol violate mine.
'Faith and Politics' ..how about the 'founders'? Of the 105 folk
ReplyDeleteon the Mayflower, 35 were puritans.
Americans that belong to a religion?
1776 17%
1850 34%
1890 45%
1926 56%
1980 62%
2000 62%
2007 78%
[sources; PEW Research, 'Churching America-Finke & Stark]
Z-man, you get a bill for that
diaphram yet?
Here's another thought, Z:
ReplyDeleteSandra Fluke was testifying about insurance companies being required to provide birth control.
She wasn't asking for taxpayer dollars, or some sort of collection being taken up from her neighbors.
She was asking that insurance companies, which are private, free market entities that make assloads of money, provide birth control.
Now, I'm not sure how petitioning an independent, not-run-by-the-government, free-market company to provide birth control somehow translates into you paying for it.
Can you explain that?
Saty: "How does other people having birth control violate your religious beliefs?"
ReplyDeleteNot me personally but the whole issue with religious institutions.
Um, it's not about asking or nicely petitioning insurance companies Saty. If that were the case that's well within the parameters of making your opinion heard in the free market. She's the poster woman for coercing and forcing religious institutions to violate a core belief most notably the Catholic Church's. Sat you don't think that when I pay my insurance premiums that my money somehow gets set aside in some safe place and won't mix with money to cover birth control? When you're talking money, funds, premiums that all gets mixed up, slushed up like when you pay taxes. Your taxes might pay for a bridge or to pave a highway but also might cover a poor woman's abortion. I can very well make the case Mr. BB that should ObamaCare not get repealed and gets the full force of the law behind it I may very well chip in for her diaphragm. Where your argument is disingenous you two is you act like she rang my doorbell or sent me a bill in the mail although that wouldn't surprise me either:)
ReplyDeleteLet's briefly review this again:
ReplyDeleteZ-man supports the Jehovah Witness
belief that blood transfusions are
biblically sinful. Ergo..Z-Man
will prevent us from ever getting a transfusion. Hey, the GOP come up with BigMac vouchers yet?
Is unplanned parenthood that much cheaper than some pills?
ReplyDeleteThank you for making the issue more crafty than it is. Difference here is and I believe we covered this but we'll recap:
ReplyDeleteSEX IS NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY
Now I know there are folks who'll disagree but I would posit that you may not sleep around and live to be 110 but somewhere along the line you might, just might need a blood transfusion to reach that 110.
Just sayin':)
BB occluding the Issue again. I'm not against the legal right for you to have your pills and potions and lotions but my God leave the RC Church out of it!
ReplyDeleteI take it you already had your breakfast at McDonald's, you seem ready today. Just went for an invigorating walk before in the crisp morning air so let's have at it.
ReplyDeleteYep, McDonalds at 6AM. Beats walking, ya know? Sex: not medically necessary. Of course without it we wouldn't be here
ReplyDeletediscussing it would we? Like that
old Shaker religion. Total celebacy. Shakers disappeared after
one generation. Sex: should women
serve on submarines. Yikes!
So does this mean that if, before all this fracas, if you has a policy with an insurance company that DID cover BC pills, you would have cancelled your policy? Cause likely as not you've had a policy with a company that did. OMG I bet they also covered mental health and rehab. You've paid for someones schok treatment!! The whole argument is so much BS on the part of these people who never cared before that insurance comppanies cover BC. Let's not get into all the OTHER indications for birth control.
ReplyDeleteAnd please, refresh my memory: do the worthy celibates of the RC patriarchy also refuse to cover Viagra, Cialis et al?
ReplyDeleteIf they do, why do they?
Meaning if they do cover then why do they? Also, do you see the hipocracy of religious exemptions for the RCs and not for other religious groups? Because quite honestly that's also a load of crap. If the RCs can pick and choose then every religious group should be able to. Claiming sex isn't medically necessary, I go back to do the RCs cover Viagra? Fas as I am aware they do.
ReplyDeleteYes, the RC heirachy is pro-viagra . In the nascent Church,
ReplyDeletewomen were equals. Somewhere between misogynist St. Paul and
the first formal priesthoods, women
were relegated to moms and nuns...
Soooooo... they're willing to pay for the men to have a not-medically-necessary erection so they can have not-medically-necessary sex, but the woman can't have any birth control.
ReplyDeleteThat is SO RC.
So RC? Apparently-other theologies
ReplyDeletelike Islam permit both BC and viagra, but frown on the use of either outside marriage. We should note that the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions tend male-oriented and seem to theologically
keep from empowering women. What's this I hear that Romney is suddenly
attracting women voters? Which shape-shift was that?
It's the propaganda shape shift that says if you yell a lie really loudly over and over people will begin to believe it.
ReplyDeleteNo... in reality the women voters Romney is attracting must be those that 'rape easy'... or haven't you heard about them?
Can I get a word in edgewise? Sat if an insurance co. covers BC then from a free market angle I don't see the prob. Again the issue is gov't coercion. Hey BB I don't agree with everything the RC Church says but it is the RC Church we're all familiar with and Sat just said above her religious beliefs shouldn't infuse itself into theirs or something to that effect so the Sandra Fluke thing is a no-brainer. This is also the reason I just started a Fat Thread, we'll never agree on politics. Now note dear people by saying that sex is not medically necessary that's not the same thing as saying don't have it just that it's a kind of equivalency stretch to equate BC with medicine. In other words a blood transfusion and an erection are not in the same category but I'm not against either of them.
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying that it's NOT a complete and utter travesty for the RCs to be okay with covering Viagra and Cialis but NOT covering bc?
ReplyDeleteAnd you wait one second. Birth control IS MEDICINE.
I'm gonna stop right there because that not equating birth control with medicine thing has pissed me off to a degree that really, really, I'm gonna say something hideous that I won't regret because it'll be the blessed truth.
Oh I know what it is, that somehow if you take the position that sex is not medically necessary you're not getting laid. Saw that somewheres on your blog once like you can't step back from the Act and look at it logically for a minute. I'm only sayin' if I were in charge of an insurance co. and were looking at stuff strictly objectively to save costs this is the way I would approach the issue but being a free market you can shop elsewhere:)
ReplyDeleteOn to your non ad-hominem points though that's kinda funny the RC covering Viagra in the wake of the whole priest/pajama games thing and why do you assume I'm somehow down with it? Frankly I've never thought about it. You see the thing for me is if the Church not covering birth control bothers you and Ms. Fluke so much make your case to the Church. This is really an absurd argument when you get right down to it since everyone's acting like if the RC doesn't cover BC then folks won't be able to get their contraceptive needs like the RC Church has all the condoms and diaphragms and pills locked up in a vault somewhere and Obama had to pass a law. Wondering though where in hell did I get personal with you to warrant a vague and veiled ad-hominism, just the shade of a promised insult? I mean I can see if I said something once but I think I go out of my way to be polite. Your next research on the vitriol scale about my blog should include the latest of course. I'm well aware of BC being used for medicinal reasons as you yourself have covered in some of your comments but am only working with the logical conclusion that most women use BC to prevent pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteZ-Man, I'll pay taxes for:
ReplyDelete•An increase from $12.45 million (2008) to $57.89 million (2011) in USDA food assistance to Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
•An increase from just over $440 million (2008) to more than $554 million (2010) to Catholic Charities USA
•Increases in Dept. of Labor grants to Catholic organizations such as Catholic Charities of Kansas for ex-offender reintegration and other programs from $300,000 (2009) to more than $5 million (2011)
•An increase of HHS funding for Catholic Medical Mission Board global health activities from $500,000 (2008) to $7 million (2011). [from a Catholic site]
[all increases under that contraceptive pushing Obama]...
if you will help with the few million for PBS...BTW, in an
argument with a Romneyguy elsewhere on the net, I calculated
that getting rid of Big Bird will
let Romney pay off the debt in only
12,700,000 years. St. Hannity! is
there no reality anymore? hey, wanna bet with the way nuns and priests are dwindling, somewhere in those 12,700,000 years, the sanctity of celibacy will disappear?
Oh BB but this all hearkens back to my point I made some time ago, you'll remember it and I said the Church and Gov't should never have gotten into bed together. Jack Kennedy warned about this so what happened? The Church and Gov't gets involved in low-income housing for instance and I made the point that with government money comes strings attached and those strings seem to go right back to Ms. Fluke's reproductive system:)
ReplyDeleteIt seems clear that when politics
ReplyDeleteand folks uro-genital plumbing mix, we know which side favors the
male. But theological voodoo aside,
what's good for the goose is good for the gander ..just sayin...
always the entertaining hyperlink.
ReplyDeleteRC is consistent; vasectomies are
ReplyDeletea sin. Goes against procreation.
....so does celibacy. :)
I once posted a blog that got seriously misinterpreted by SHAW but I said ever since the dawn of time and human history the Sex Act has been philosophically problematic for civilizations and religions. For the RC even sex between husband and wife simply for pleasure and love is wrong so this is why I think it accurate to say for most of Her history the RC has been anti-sex. Then ya got the fringe religious groups like some ultra-traditionalists who railed againt JP II for promoting NFP. These folks really mean sex should be reserved for procreation!!
ReplyDeleteIMO, the idea of sacrifice through
ReplyDeletechastity is ancient ..and folks gripe about giving up 16 oz. softdrinks....
Judging from your excellent observation above the RC should be against both artificial birth control and celibacy. Doesn't work that way.
ReplyDelete