Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley had a special message for non-Christian citizens immediately after his swearing in as governor: believe in Christ or do not consider me your brother.
Here is Bentley’s uplifting message: “Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”
His office later issued a statement explaining “The governor clearly stated that he will be the governor of all Alabamians Democrat, Republican and Independent, young, old, black and white, rich and poor.”
Perhaps they could have added Christian and Non-Christians to the list.
Bentley has since apologized.
Source: LA Times
Jonathan Turley
CM,
That an interesting take on it.
Not one I agree with, but interesting.
CM Tony Blair is also against the death penalty even for Saddam Hussein.
Buddah.
My point is that true Christians worship the good twin “Jesus Kerist”, fake Christians are followers of “Jesus of Nazareth” the evil twin.
The only reason I am not a devil worshiper is that I am an atheist, but I have a sneaking sympathy for Jesus of Nazareth and his followers, however I do not believe that any state in which a majority of citizens take the words of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the new testament seriously would last very long. Human nature is what it is and it is not what some think it is or hope that it is or hope that it one day might become. Human nature is nasty and brutal which is why true Christianity as practiced by Pat Robertson and George W Bush is needed to keep the dissident words of Jesus of Nazareth safely locked up in a New Testament that no true Christian reads without first disconnecting the comprehension circuits in his/her brain.
CM,
Really?
I didn’t realize you were an exclusionary Statist.
That’s . . . kinda sad. And oddly a bit contradictory considering some of your past statements on racism.
In the mail today came the February, 2011, Scientific American, with an article, on page 62, by Lera Boroditsky, “How Language Shapes Thought.”
A brief excerpt, from the last part of the third paragraph, may be instructive of the value of making scientific sense of language instead of using superstition bereft of science as the basis of law.
“…By the 1970s many scientists had become disenchanted with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it was all but abandoned as a new set of theories claiming that language and thought are universal muscled onto the scene. But now, decades later, a solid body of empirical evidence has finally emerged. The evidence overturns the long-standing dogma about universality and yields fascinating insights into the origins of knowledge and the construction of reality. The results have important implications for law, politics and education.”
So, I am not the only scientist asserting the notion that science and recent scientific research and its findings have important implications for law, and the law profession.
I am not alone! Whee!
The bad news is that there are more laws, aspects of laws interpretations of laws, and laws which violate other laws than there probably are people.
The good news is that there are more people who are not lawyers than there are people who are lawyers.
If purpose of The Law is To Serve Man, who gets Fed?
Not me, said Brian, cryin’.
Buddah.
What you call inclusory Christians, I call followers of that wicked, evil man, Joshua Ben Joseph of Nazareth who quite rightly was nailed to a tree.
Swathmore Mum.
Can one really take seriously that the leader of an organization that used to burn people at the stake is now against the death penalty.
In my view most true Christians come under the heading “God bothering moralizing humbugs”. They are mostly similar in the authoritarian ideas from a set of such ideas to which they hold. Of course some of them may actually not believe in one or two of the ideas in the set. I chose against abortion and for the death penalty as two ideas from the set to describe Christians in a snarky way. That one of the ideas does not apply to the current or previous popes is an unfortunate.
Swarthmore Mom,
I will agree on the death penalty and the Iraq War stances, but the one big item they could control, they refused to.
ShireNomad/James in LA/CM,
I submit that there are three forms of Christianity and that only one is truly a death cult while a second can be.
1) Inclusive Christianity – those who practice the teachings of love, compassion, acceptance and tolerance to all. They are never a death cult. They go by many names.
2) Exclusionary Christianity – usually Fundamentalists who practice love and compassion only to “the chosen” and are intolerant of any and all who are not allegedly chosen or who live lifestyles they consider contrary to their dogma. Also usually preoccupied the the Revelations of St. John, they are truly a death cult that wishes to usher end the Apocalypse so they can “meet Jesus” in person.
3) Bureaucratic Christianity – those who practice one of the above or are outright scam artists who are more interested in the church as a profit making business proposition and/or a political organization.
I have no problems with the first type, but the second and third types are inherently dangerous and socially irresponsible in addition to the second type predating specifically upon the mentally ill.
rafflaw They are usually wrong nut they are not wrong on the death penalty or the Iraq war.
Thanks for the clarification Swarthmore Mom. I wonder why the two Pontiff’s that you mentioned didn’t do the right thing when it came to protecting kids from predator priests?
Actually, methinks there is no proof that existence exists, since any proof that existence exists presumes the existence of the possibility of proof.
This is not quite accurate information about the popes and the death penalty, Carlyle. Pope John Paul II chided Bush about the death penalty and tried to intervene in some Texas cases. Pope Benedict is also on record as opposing the death penalty.
James in LA.
Definitely Christianity is a death cult every bit as much as the religion of ancient Egypt was a death cult.
One must distinguish between two different classes of people who call themselves Christian. First there are true Christians who oppose abortion but support the death penalty, people like George W Bush, Tony Blair, the current and previous popes, most Ku Klux Klan members and the man who righteously shot Dr Tiller dead. They worship Jesus Kerist because he is the son of God and rose from the dead, this removes any need for them to try to understand the words of Jesus Kerist’s pre-death evil twin Jesus of Nazareth.
Then there are followers of Jesus of Nazareth who mistakenly think that they are entitled to call themselves Christians. Such a one was my late father, a Presbyterian minister in Australia. I myself am an atheist and that I am an atheist is the only reason I am not a devil worshiper, however I found very little disagreement between my father and me on philosophical issues.
If Jesus of Nazareth were around today, true Christians would be in the forefront of the mob baying for his blood and requiring that he be locked up in a supermax prison as a supporter of terrorists. Jesus of Nazareth was a wicked man who sowed evil and seditious ideas which no state intent on its own survival and the maintenance of its proper privilege hierarchy could tolerate.
Dude needs to spend more time reading the Gospels and less time pontificate’n:
“If you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:47)
Or maybe this:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7.1-5 ESV)
Anonymously Yours
1, January 20, 2011 at 10:32 am
He looks like a perv….
=============================================
lol … I love your sick humor!
Shore Nomad, there exists no requirement that another must die such that my lot in the Multiverse may improve. A crucifix is a symbol of death, as there is usually a dead man hanging from it. It is also a symbol of power wielded by those who have the infant’s fantasy that so much as one atom of their existence is in any way divine.
It is not a symbol of life or sacrifice or renewal, however it was been warped. It is a symbol of violent death, in this case, if you believe the script, for practicing the unalienable right to free speech and assembly.
See, that’s where the problem begins: as soon as you sign on to the spark of divine crapulence, you are well on your way into the death cult.
Because let us be clear: divine power, even in the smallest measure, does not share. It dominates. It is the antithesis of service to existence through unconditional love.
Did someone kidnap AY?
Tootie, the point was not scriptural OR sound. Bentley was correct only in his statement that he hoped all might experience Christ and the joys that come with it. The instant he implied that non-Christians were not also children of God, loved by God, or that he was not called to love them as much as Christians (“But Lord, who is my neighbor?”), he missed the point.
If he did not establish up front that he was not speaking as governor (the article doesn’t say whether he tried, but given the timing of the speech, I doubt he could have done so convincingly), he also showed shockingly poor judgment. Governors shouldn’t preach as governors, even when their theology is sound; as governor Bentley speaks with the authority of the state, and the state can’t speak on spiritual matters, period.
Meanwhile, to James in LA, I have no idea where you get “death cult.” Christianity done right is centered around the unconditional love you praised in the same paragraph. Even Christianity done horribly wrong doesn’t glorify death. Could you explain?
Tootie:
“His point is scriptural and sound.”
******************
That’s exactly the problem with your religion.