Abortion and gay rights were activated as issues by the left, stop lying.
I dunno. Britain, Germany, Spain, Greece, and Italy all have religion explicitly written into their national charters and it seems to do well there! The US, Turkey, and Sadam’s Iraq are/were all secular states from the position of their national charter and the influence of religion in those areas is difficult to downplay.
You listed a “narrow band of interests” because those are the bands that the RR focus on. That is true, they are groups seeking a common series of goals as opposed to a political platform per se, though there are some movements like the Family that also espouse a particular political platform (and some absurdly high number of senators say that the Family is their most influential religious activist party). I already listed some other historical groups in the American political scene that were expressly religious but had a different set of goals.
I think you are also naively neglecting the two-party system in America. Love Jesus? Good! You are also in favor of regressive taxation! Wanna keep the rivers clean so you can eat the fish you catch in them? Sure hope you don’t hunt, because if you want clean rivers we’re gonna take away your guns! Do you think all life is sacred? Good! You are also in favor of executing people! The absurdities go on and on and on.
Good going guys. Get out the 4" house brush and paint liberals as God’s anethema. 
What the hell? Has Imp been proselytizing again? 
There is a reason christian “groups” are scattered to hell and gone. They can barely agree what day it is. But keep those Jesus glasses on. I’m sure there is comfort knowing that the second coming is right around the corner.
This is actually a huge influence on religion in American, and it's response to politics. You'll notice that older, more traditional groups like the Catholics and the Orthodox seem to have a harder time fitting into one political party or another, I think specifically for these reasons. Honestly, I think it limits their influence on the political system, as well as influencing the ability of politics to sculpt them. There really is no perfect fit, the abortion/capital punishment thing is very expressive of that alone. On the other hand, you've got the newer groups that exhibit the plasticity and fragmentation that tentative talks about, and it's less of an issue for them to mold themselves into a perfect 'spiritual wing' of whatever party they are ultimately loyal to. And it's happening on both sides, obviously - look at a typical black church.
So you've got this interesting paradigm where a seperation of Church and State + Protestantism leads to denominations forming around party lines. Personally, I think a religious body developing to support a political movement sounds [i]much[/i] more dangerous than it happening the other way around, though I don't know if history would bear that out or not.
As a total anti-revealed religionist(?), I don’t believe in either one. Jesus’ merely, inadvertently, continued a Jewish sect which would have probably faded back into mainstream Judiaism soon enough. He was a rebel, and the most historically significant event in the NT is the cleansing of the Temple which brought about his execution–one I’m sure he didn’t want. But when James was murdered and Jerusalem was destroyed, the field was left wide open to exploitation of the Jesus legend. My beef with Paul is that he took a half-way decent revealed religion and totally corrupted it into whatever helped him sell it to the gentiles. My beef with Jesus is his demagoguing of poverty and class envy, which ball has been picked up and carried by the socialists–replacing the magnanimity of God’s sympathy (and little else) for the poor in spirit, with the state’s.
I can only reiterate Irrellus’ suggestion that you read Tabor’s book, and add The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyam Maccoby. The latter is a gold mine of “OMG” moments. I use the highlighter in reverse, for the parts that don’t need highlighting.
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As a total anti-revealed religionist(?), I don’t believe in either one. Jesus’ merely, inadvertently, continued a Jewish sect which would have probably faded back into mainstream Judiaism soon enough. He was a rebel, and the most historically significant event in the NT is the cleansing of the Temple which brought about his execution–one I’m sure he didn’t want. But when James was murdered and Jerusalem was destroyed, the field was left wide open to exploitation of the Jesus legend. My beef with Paul is that he took a half-way decent revealed religion and totally corrupted it into whatever helped him sell it to the gentiles. My beef with Jesus is his demagoguing of poverty and class envy, which ball has been picked up and carried by the socialists–replacing the magnanimity of God’s sympathy (and little else) for the poor in spirit, with the state’s.
I can only reiterate Irrellus’ suggestion that you read Tabor’s book, and add The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyam Maccoby. The latter is a gold mine of “OMG” moments. I used the highlighter in reverse, for the parts that didn’t need highlighting.
As a total anti-revealed religionist(?), I don’t believe in either one. Jesus’ merely, inadvertently, continued a Jewish sect which would have probably faded back into mainstream Judiaism soon enough. He was a rebel, and the most historically significant event in the NT is the cleansing of the Temple which brought about his execution–one I’m sure he didn’t want. But when James was murdered and Jerusalem was destroyed, the field was left wide open to exploitation of the Jesus legend. My beef with Paul is that he took a half-way decent revealed religion and totally corrupted it into whatever helped him sell it to the gentiles. My beef with Jesus is his demagoguing of poverty and class envy, which ball has been picked up and carried by the socialists–replacing the magnanimity of God’s sympathy (and little else) for the poor in spirit, with the state’s.
I can only reiterate Irrellus’ suggestion that you read Tabor’s book, and add The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyam Maccoby. The latter is a gold mine of “OMG” moments. I used the highlighter in reverse, for the parts that didn’t need highlighting.
Well said, this is exactly my point.
I agree completely.
The only thing I don’t understand is how “The RR” slips almost imperciptably into being necessarily equal with “religion” within two sentences. Religion is actually a powerful tool in overcoming small-mindedness, even if it can and often does make that same dangerous slip into its opposite - a validation of small-mindedness.
As a total anti-revealed religionist(?), I don’t believe in either one. Jesus’ merely, inadvertently, continued a Jewish sect which would have probably faded back into mainstream Judiaism soon enough. He was a rebel, and the most historically significant event in the NT is the cleansing of the Temple which brought about his execution–one I’m sure he didn’t want. But when James was murdered and Jerusalem was destroyed, the field was left wide open to exploitation of the Jesus legend. My beef with Paul is that he took a half-way decent revealed religion and totally corrupted it into whatever helped him sell it to the gentiles. My beef with Jesus is his demagoguing of poverty and class envy, which ball has been picked up and carried by the socialists–replacing the magnanimity of God’s sympathy (and little else) for the poor in spirit, with the state’s.
I can only reiterate Irrellus’ suggestion that you read Tabor’s book, and add The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyam Maccoby. The latter is a gold mine of “OMG” moments. I used the highlighter in reverse, for the parts that didn’t need highlighting.
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Thank you, sir. I’ll read the book you recommend. BTW, I wish more Americans could understand Thomas Paine.
Anon,
I made the distinction of religious groups that organize themselves politically. There are any number of religious factions that support right-to-life, gay marraige, renounce creationism, etc. But who get’s the headlines? The religious right.
At this time, there is a backlash among the RR leadership to move toward personal relationships with their god, and away from being the toadies of political organizations. I hope it continues. It’s one thing to vote your values and quite another to wave placards in front of an abortion clinic.
If the RR wants to play power politics, they damn well better be sure they can win. The separation of church and state was to protect religion, not to bury it. One can hate the secularization of this society, the influence of religions other than christianity, the hated liberals that call themselves “christians”, but we are a pluralistic society up to and including heathens like me. .
I agree with your comment that we need to get away from the left-right polarization and look for a common base from which to rally ALL of the people. My original point was that religion is the least likely place to go looking for that common rallying point.
I agree, especially with your assessment of the necessity of secular values in protecting religious expression. And I don’t even mean that just politically. I think people’s spiritual lives could really flower and grow if they would put more emphasis on “joining heaven and earth”.
Anon,
I think the RR is simply a good example of this phenomenon in play currently – so the gloss is an easy (if mistaken) one to make. And even they managed to do some mind-expanding. I mean, getting not only various Protestant sects to work together but throwing Catholics into the mix as well? While I admittedly don’t understand the politics of the matter, if those pamphlets that crazies leave around are any indication, there is still a good deal of animosity between those groups. Now, they overcame those differences to accomplish just what you said, to validate small-mindedness. Which isn’t always the case and hopefully won’t continue to be. Though I would point out that what constitutes “small-mindedness” is often a matter of perspective.
Ucci,
I imagine the various popular Christian parties in Europe would be a good example of what you are talking about. The CDU in Germany comes to mind. Indeed, I thought the wiki article on Christian Democracy was very interesting.
I think such a platform has a healthy mix of views that we would consider both “liberal” and “conservative”. Of course I’m biased on this issue, since they agree with me on the particular areas that I care most about and disagree with me on issues that I care less about. I think it makes sense as a natural outgrowth of Christian doctrines, as I am familiar with them as opposed to the Protestant Problem you identified in America, where Christian doctrines are retrofitted onto various political ideologies.
Kind of a slippery point of course, but I can accept that.
Yeah, I just think it is good sometimes to keep that in the back of your mind. I think small-mindness is bad and I think the RR is bad, so I put them together. In this case, I think the glove also happens to fit quite well. But there are probably other situations where my bias creates less clear glosses.
I beg your pardon.
Abortion rights were ‘activated’ by feminists, because abortion has been around since time immemorial and always will be…and women were tired of dying in back allies from rusty knives.
It was the RELIGIOUS RIGHT that determined it was a religious issue rather than a political one. But they took it to the legislatures and that’s where a particular form of religion in the U.S. changed its stripes from religion to politics.
Gay rights were ‘activated’ by gay people, so that they could get and keep jobs, buy property, be protected from being beaten to death by sick homophobes, etc.
It was the RELIGIOUS RIGHT that determined gay people having legally established rights was a religious issue rather than a political one. Why? Because, as they said in their political framework, the Bible says homosexuality’s a sin.
The RELIGIOUS RIGHT decided these were to be called ‘left’ issues, which is a political characterization from a political entity that develops its political platforms on a Biblical foundation. Despte the fact that a majority of American citizens have supported the right to abortion and gay rights.
Well, to be thorough, you could go back a little further, to when the old school feminists (women’s sufferage) fought to have abortion made illegal in the first place, because they were tired of the men in their lives forcing/pressuring them to have the procedure done. But yeah, in either case, it was the left RAISING the issue, and the right reaction to the issue the raised. Which is the opposite of what Tentative said, and considering the fact that he knows better, that means he’s lying.
Gay rights is exactly the same. The left raised the issue, trying to change society from what it had always been, and the right has responded. That’s why we call it the Gay Rights movement, and not the Gay Oppression movement, you see.
It’s cool to not like conservatives, but you don’t have to defend every little statement made against them even if it’s obvious bullshit, do you? Just like, stick to the true stuff, there’s plenty there.
Ingenium,
Talking to a fence post would be more beneficial. The post doesn’t wear colored glasses… 
Ucc,
You are buying the line - the bullshit RR line.
Abortion and gay rights weren’t either left or right issues. It was PEOPLE in need of redress of their particular issues that initiated their drive for equal treatment. There was nothing left or right about it until the RR politicalization because it wasn’t in their owners manual.
Congrats. You’ve confirmed the OP. There ARE two christianities. One that looks at people as people, and one that sees nothing but devils and angels. Get out of the tunnel - please? 
I think the difference may be one of frame as opposed to actuality. Gay rights, ect. represent a change to the (often unspoken or unrealized) status-quo. As a rule, progressives are more likely to embrace changes to the status-quo whereas conservatives are unlikely to embrace changes to the status-quo. That is one of the major points of division between leftist and rightist positions in politics, pretty much as a matter of definition.
So when these changes begin to occur or are, in some cases, actively initiated, conservatives will go out of their way to try and prevent these changes from occurring. So who introduced what? I don’t think it is too controversial to suggest that gay rights started because homosexuals were tired of living in the closet and felt they were being unfairly treated from a legal perspective. So they tried to change the status-quo. Now the backlash against that attempt has been larger than the attempt itself (see: DOMA and DOMA-related referenda in things like the 2004 election).
Abortion is a trickier issue, since abortion/exposure has existed in all societies in various forms as long as we have records of it. These activities were/are generally frowned upon for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that they all carry a certain degree of risk with them. So it generally made sense to make those things illegal/stigmatized from a pragmatic standpoint. That changed with modern abortion techniques, where their efficacy actually reverses the pragmatic argument (as in, they are safer when legal, less safe when illegal). It isn’t a new thing, per se, but a change in a pre-existing thing that may cause us to re-evaluate our relationship to it.
De nada, and I wish the same. Even Adams admitted that “History is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine”. But he wrote The Age of Reason under the shadow of the guillotine, only to be converted from hero to infidel at home, his deathbed and even his grave for his Paineful Truth.