Left Activists and Anti-Christianist Ethos

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Left Activists and Anti-Christianist Ethos

Opinion - Global Warning

Lisa Jain Thompson

Wednesday, 06 April 2011 09:00

Fairfax, VA, USA. I am not a believer. I see no proof that any god exists. But I owe my classical education to the Roman Catholic Church and a prep school run by the good Christian Brothers.

I harbor no resentment towards the Catholic Church even as I question its sometimes arbitrary reliance on a book written two millennium past and the guidance of aging popes and cardinals with agendas of their own.

I harbor no illusions about the religion I was raised in. Nor do I take fundamentalists of any breeding gently. When scientific fact addresses areas only known previously from personal revelation and theological speculation, religious belief must accommodate the confirmed science and incorporate the findings of science into its ecclesiastical framework.

Mother Teresa

If you start judging people, you will be having no time to love them.

the Buddha

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

— AttributedThe world is not 5000 years old. Mankind is not a product of special creation. Yeshua ben Miriam was a Jewish rabbi adopted by a tea-party-like movement as their messiah. He never claimed to be God, only his followers proclaimed him so.

But all religions have their creation stories, whether that be Abraham or Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, Zoroaster, or Yeshua. I do not argue creation stories: you either believe or you do not. You accept John Smith as a prophet and the Latter Day Saints as the true Church or you decline to do so. You either believe Henry VIII founded the Anglican Church out of religious convictions or you do not.

I do not.

But that the gift of faith has not been given me does not mean that I am anti-religious. Nor does it mean I remain silent when assumptive religious proclamations distort reality or bring harm to the world around me. I would be martyr for science and rationality as much for any religion I might someday find myself willing to believe.

There is an open and widespread knee jerk reaction among American Left activists, an anti-christianist venom that pervades and colors their philosophy, that publicly and loudly decries — if not condemns — various Christian beliefs and sects. [N1] Religion finds itself strung together with other the other isms disfavored by the Left.

Republi-Nazi-Crypto-Fascist-Christo-Supremacist Tea Bagger

It’s a little long for a bumper sticker, but you get the idea.

I am a Recovered Catholic but I’m willing accept what is good in religion and discard those beliefs grounded in ignorance or irrationality.

And that is not to say that that the activist Left isn’t once in a while correct when they aren’t busy being completely over the top about things.

It’s all fine and good if your religion believes that homosexuality is a sin, but you have no right to impose your religious beliefs on anyone outside of your place of worship. This is the United States of America, we make no laws prohibiting profession of any religion nor do we allow laws that enforce any particular religious belief upon the population as a whole. Preach what you will from your pulpit but the inviolable truth of your words stop at the church door. The only sacred scripture recognized by the United States is our constitution.

But the Left is wrong when it asserts that any particular religious belief is morally wrong. What is right or wrong within any particular belief system is determined by that system and remains valid within the structure of that belief system. Outside of that religious structure, right and wrong is determined only by the evolving legal system.

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.

— Stuart Chase

To adamantly argue that God does not exist is just as irrational as arguing that he does. Both are matters of absolute personal belief. To make opposition to your opponent’s religious beliefs a key tenet of your own political belief structure is little more than substituting one personal belief system for another and serves no useful purpose.

Yet the anti-christianist ethos of the Left remains pervasive and highly visible among activists (just as the pro-christianist ethos informs the misdirected and bigoted fundamentalist wing of the right). How much of this anti-christianist attitude is rooted in the rampant Marxism and anti-American, anti-capitalist rhetoric prevalent on the activist Left would be an interesting subject for a doctorate. [N2]

As long as the activist Left continues to react hysterically to world we find ourselves, I cannot take them seriously as a political philosophy. Power to the People and Workers Unite are the historic slogans of dictators and mass murders not the foundations of a working democracy. Religion may well be the opiate of the people but the anti-christianist rhetoric of the Left is the babble of an angry adolescent rebelling against the world in general.

I am tomorrow, or perhaps some future day, a believer. But as of today, at this point in time and space, I cannot bring myself to embrace either the catechism of my childhood religion or the political cant of the activist Left.

Notes[N1] Activists tend to denounce religion in general. Islam is often a target but this is America and Jesus is King (and we are just coming out of our millennial uprising of true belief).

[N2] But I doubt that such a subject would be approved as a thesis topic at most American Universities which, like people, are victims of their religious belief systems.

Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is a Co-Founder & Principal of TS-Si. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. She maintains another site, StarPoet.com, for her poetry and literary works.

Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. Use the form below or email via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.

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Left Activists and Anti-Christianist Ethos
Wednesday, 06 April 2011

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Left-Red links, We tend to forget that in the pre-McCart

06 April 2011

and yet Jesus promoted, a decidedly leftest view - anti-

12 April 2011

..., Sorry DesireeG, but Jesus did not promote a "decide

12 April 2011

Unfortunately as far as first century Palestine is conce

12 April 2011

..., Sorry Pamela, the left/right divide is entirely art

13 April 2011

Sorry Pamela, the left/right divide is entirely artificial and conflates many different political views: economic, military, social. One can be a military hawk, socially liberal and economically a capitalist or one can be a dove, socially conservative and a sociallist. Are such people "left" or "right"? left/right is a horrible oversimplification latched onto by people who want an "us vs. them" approach to the world rather than actually dealing with people in all their complexities. And regardless of this, religion has no business in politics or in deciding if someone is "left" or "right" as there are plenty of socialist who believe they are doing God's work just as there are right-wingers who think they are.

As for the tenets of Christianity not being socialist, i suggest you reread the book of Acts, and maybe try doing so in the original Greek rather than whatever transliteration is available now. The Church created in Acts is almost a textbook example of a socialist commune with people working not to gain wealth for themselves, but taking all that they earned and putting it into the collective.

Jesus spoke against wealth and specifically blessed the poor. He said it was easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to go to heaven. How exactly is this ambiguous? Rich people will not go to heaven, according to Jesus (unless you have found a herd of really small camels). He told his disciples to cast away their worldly goods and follow him, living off of what was giving to them by the people they visited.

As for immigration, boy are you not understand the parable of the good Samaritan. Or the very idea of taking the news of Jesus the Christ to the Gentiles. Jesus (and his disciples) didn't care about political subdivisions of land.

You are of course free to believe that Jesus supports George Bush et al and I of course am free to think you have a distorted "modern" view of what you want Christianity to be rather than what it actually was in 1st century Palestine.

DesireeG

..., Sorry for you DesireeG, but saying that it is easie

13 April 2011

Sorry for you DesireeG, but saying that it is easier for a camel than a rich man does NOT in any way shape or fashion show a prejudice against the rich, but merely states a fact about the life styles of the rich.
Claim what you like, but the left favors certain things like a powerful STATE/FEDERAL government that controls all aspects of a citizens life, provides all the needs and has first claim on any earnings which it re-distributes as it sees fit and those of the right that favor a minimal federal government, the right of the citizen to make his own choices and the right of the citizen to retain control of his earnings. You may want to reconsider your words if you stop to realize that the words of Jesus were directed to his "DISCIPLES" and NOT to his followers in general. The Disciples were a specific group of Twelve that were charged with spreading his words and leading others to Christ, they were as a group granted specific powers that Jesus had displayed and were able to pass it on to one other person, but it went no further from there. The other followers were encouraged to do good works and to be charitable, but stretching it to call it a commune is again a really a false claim to attempt to provide cover for a leftist belief.
Again, you are wrong, the church and acts advocates that Christians cooperate and contribute to the well being of others, that does NOT make them into a "Socialist" commune; me thinks you try to read too much into the text of the Bible and to slant it to a socialist view point.

No, sorry again but there is NO WAY you can read into the parable about the good Samaritan an endorsement of being "pro-immigrant"; It is simply an admonition to do good works no matter what the nationality of the person needing aid as that is something a christian should do.

Now you are adding offensive words that I never wrote or implied, shame on you. I simply rejected your very distorted left wing view of the bible and am probably as familiar with the Bible and its meanings as you are if not more so. being a PK's kid all my life taught me a lot about the bible as well as a stint in a Christian College with mandatory bible classes.
So take the lefty "views" you learned somewhere and believe what ever turns you on, wrong as it may be.
God Bless your heart.

Pamela

..., I find it quite funny that you think i have a "left

14 April 2011

I find it quite funny that you think i have a "left wing view" or that you are more familiar with the bible than I am - a religious studies student who has studied the NT in the original Greek. So we can debate credentials all you want. As for my personal views, I never mentioned them. You just assumed that because I disagreed with you, I must be a leftist. I am in fact an Objectivist libertarian atheist.

I ask again, is someone who is socially liberal (supports drug legalization, legalized prostitution, marriage equality, etc) but believes in capitalism, lower taxes, less government - is that person "left" or "right"? What about someone who believe the government should control everything - social and economic? left/right is too simple a reduction of varied political ideologies (and both are contradictory - the "right" claims to be in favor of less government except in regards to social issues in which case they want government to limit actions, the "left" want the opposite. There are at least 3 axis to measure - social, economic, military. There are probably more.

I have no "leftist views" except when they overlap with the idea of less government (i.e. drug legalization or removing the ban on prostitution) and I am not trying to impose leftist views on the bible. I am reading the bible as it was written and how it was interpreted by 1st century Palestinians. It is modern "right-wing" Republican Christians who want to impose their views on the bible. But that is the problem isn't it? Everyone attempting to say the bible supports whatever modern political system they support, and almost no one reading it in historical context. The bible, as written, has nothing to do with modern political life in the US and I privately snicker at people who think it does. Sorry if that offends you.

I am an atheist not because of "leftist" or Marxist views, but because I recognize Christianity as incompatible with capitalism and personal autonomy. (and technically, I'm not an atheist, I'm a theological noncognitivist; since there is no definition of the word "god" I can no more say whether "god" exists than I can say whether a "florgth" exists. They are nonsense words)

Point being you can no more claim that right-wing/Republican=Christian any more than you can claim that left-wing/Democrat=atheist It's a distorted "us vs. them" mentality that avoids difficult truths and replaces them with sloganeering. Reality is for more interesting and complicated than your simple left/right divide.

DesireeG

A Randy message thread indeed , Like many, I flirted wit

14 April 2011

Looking backward, I think it is hazardous to impose cond

16 April 2011

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