Newt Gingrich is on a roll. Only a couple of weeks ago, Gingrich explained how his “passion” for the country led to his repeated adulterous affairs. Now, he is warning about the importance of the next presidential election — and presumably his election: “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” There you have it. Atheists and Islamic radicals will take over — a curious alliance to be sure.
What is always striking is the failure of religious conservatives to recognize that they have much more in common with radical Islamists than do liberals or secularists. Islamic radicals love the attacks on the separation of church and state, crackdowns on free speech in the arts, the anti-homosexual measures, and other morality issues pushed by some conservatives.
Gingrich also threw in the scourge of intellectuals — an issue that he picked up from Sarah Palin who made being smart a virtual sign of subversion. He reportedly warned about “college professors” who are secretly undermining Christian values. Anti-intellectualism has been the sign of radicalized movements throughout history. The Cultural Revolution was based on it. The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot actually arrested people for wearing glasses. In our country, we have had Joe McCarthy and others who told people not to trust intellectuals — and instead follow their own agendas. We are now seeing a concerted effort to demonize intellectuals and reporters to deflect criticism over the lack of knowledge or factual support shown by some candidates.
While speaking at the Cornerstone Church with the rabidly anti-homosexual, evangelical pastor John Hagee, Gingrich heralded his own Catholic faith (ignoring Hagee’s history of intense anti-Catholicism). It seemed to work. Without mentioning his multiple wives and admitted lifelong pattern of adultery, Gingrich insisted that the election was about protecting the faith and our Judeo-Christian beliefs — adding “bravery will come from our churches, our synagogues, everyday folks. It won’t come from the elites.”
It seemed to work. One member of the congregation told Politico “I was really impressed with his sincere faith. He didn’t brag, but you can tell he’s a man of God.”
Atheists appear to be the new specter for politicians and clergy alike from Tony Blair to a wide array of U.S. conservatives. Gingrich appears to want to create a trifecta of hate with atheists, intellectuals, and Muslims. (He will occasionally throw in “mainstream media” to encourage supporters not to watch news other than Fox). That has a nice ring to it . . . Atheists, Intellectuals, and Muslims, oh my . . . one can almost see Dorothy walking hand in hand with Gingrich through the forest now.
Source: Politico
If Newt is elected president, I’m seeking duel citizenship – between Mexico and Canada!
Actually, Tony, Jesus said he was the “new covenant” meaning the old one (as outlined in the OT) was past. He issued new commandments and a new rules on the relationship with the Father.
Christian history says that God rend the barrier separating the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple at the moment of Jesus death.
So, yeah, He did replace the OT.
I honestly believe that our Nation has lost everything that it was founded on. I believe that we are headed to more of a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT. Where radicals rule the land and our freedoms as we know is will be stripped away from us. Our “fearless” and I say that completely being a smart@ss is destroying the country from the inside out. The very moral fiber of our country is being stricken and we have lost our nerve as Americans and have bought into the political BULL@@@@ that people watch on CNN and CNBC. People just take things and run with them and have no clue what the true is! They hear it so it must be true this is the way of the MINDLESS Democratic Party.
Our country is gutless and weak and it is the Democratic Party and those who just believe them are the culprits. Let just ignore that there are entire countries at WAR and yet lets give them what they want. Lets just ignore that most teenagers didn’t even know who Bin Laden was and had to google who got killed. Lets just ignore the term “SOCIAL JUSTICE” and not realize that it means lets fight for a Socialistic/Marxist Society. One that is ran by the Government! One that wants nothing but for Americans to be fully reliant on them for health care and for Money. A Government that in the last 20 years has made the dollar drop 20 Cents because they can’t stop spending TAX PAYERS MONEY. So just raise the debt ceiling, that’s the answer! Do you realize that we have incurred more debt in the last 6 years than we have from George Washington until 6 years ago. George Bush doubled the National debt in his term and when he left in January 20, 2009, was $10.618 and NOW we are at a crises with raising the debt ceiling. We are now at 14.30 trillion and the government wants more money.
All the while the giving a billion dollars to a foreign country and a large surplus of wheat… What? When the Mississippi river is flooding and we are worried about not having enough food because hundreds of thousands of acres of farm land is under water. We are giving food to other countries?
Amongst all this Obama wants to go back to the 1967 lines in the West and give the Palestinians more land and part of Jerusalem. This means that we will not have access to the Whaling wall, the upper room, the room of the last supper, or Golgotha where Christ was Crucified. Many of the sites that Christians tour every year to see where all of these biblical events took place will be off limits. Including the Church of Holy Sepulcher! Not only this the Palestinians want to Massacre the Jewish Race very much like Hitler did. Do some research and you will see along with them celebrating a brutal killing of the Fogal family. Then they went around handing out cookies celebrating it! So what this all amounts to is that the world as we know and the American Idea is under attack! So just do some research and realize how messed up our world is! We need to stand up and have morals get rid of the Socialist and Marxist who are “Leading US” and get back to the basics that we were founded on!
@Brian: I do not believe that dogma or doctrine are always false; I see accepting them as a defect in somebody’s comprehension. If I accept a claim simply because somebody else told me it is true, I really do not believe in that claim: I only believe that the person making the claim of truth is infallible.
I personally cannot maintain a belief of infallibility in any system, most especially humans and human systems.
How about a simple religious trinity?
1: If it is a dogma, it is false.
2: If it is a doctrine, it is false.
3: If it is not false, it may or may not be true.
@Tk: I will say that many of the supposed comparison/rip offs between Jesus and other ancient religious figures (Krishna, Horus, etc) I find not to be true.
I don’t understand that; the correlations are both obvious and it is essentially impossible they occur by accident, and these 16 crucified “saviors” all predate Christ, some by over 1000 years.
If you do not believe the Christ story ripped them off, you are denying independently verifiable fact. Which I suspect means you are in emotional denial, you want to believe Jesus was unique so you search for reasons to do that. But it is like searching for differences between two romance novels: You can find those differences, but the plot is pretty much the same. Only the set dressing and makeup is changing. (Okay, there are three or four plots for ten thousand stories, but you get the idea).
You get to believe what you want. I get to point out how ridiculous it is. That is what freedom of speech and freedom of religion are all about.
@Rafflaw: I thank my father (by which I mean my biological male parent) for sparing me that. My father was big on independent thinking. When it came to religion (and politics), his opinion was nobody should decide on anything before they were about 22. He was an agnostic, but insisted we had to learn enough to be able to find our own answers, without anybody telling us what to believe, including him.
So my funniest religious awakening occurred when I was in the second grade. A school friend of mine went to Sunday school, his mother invited me to go with them and I did. We basically played religious based games. But I was new, so the church sent some young men to my house to talk to my father about joining the church.
My father invited them in, he got us all some coffee (a staple in my house, even for kids), and he smoked unfiltered cigarettes and heard them out, without interruption. I had to sit there for the whole pitch. At the end, he told them that he wasn’t interested in joining or contributing, and he wasn’t the one they should be selling on the idea.
Then he turns to me. “So these boys say if you want to go to this church and play these games and all, you have to give them some money every week. For you, your allowance is one dollar a week, so they want you to give them a dime. Every week. I think maybe you can do it for a nickel. You want to do that?”
Me (horrified): “NO.”
Dad stands and turns back to the young men. “The boy says no. Thanks for stopping by.”
It was burned into my memory. I have no idea what happened after that, because I bolted.
@Tk: Why me…
Matthew is the first book in the New Testament. Jesus endorsed the Old Testament as practically the first thing he said in the New Testament.
Numbers 15:38 gave you a direct order from God himself via Moses; if you disobey that order you are disobeying Jesus.
You can stop Bibling me. Anybody that claims Jesus rejected the Old Testament or toned it down or diluted its demands is either illiterate or a liar, Jesus specifically endorsed every jot and tittle of the Old Testament and every despicable action of Lot and Moses, RIGHT THERE.
Of course it ain’t too tough to be more righteous than Lot (banged his daughters) or Moses, unless Jesus means “self righteous,” in which case they are damn hard to beat.
@Buddha: The shift from the contemplative mode of finding the nature of God within one’s self to the dictatorial edicts of a patriarchal church is – to my mind – responsible for a large amount of the really crappy and evil things that have been done over the centuries in the name of the RCC and other similarly top-down doctrinal churches.
I think a similar thing; patriarchal top-down religion was the first big business I can think of outside of straight domination by force of arms (which had been going on for thousands of years).
It was quite a clever run around the kings and dictators; this idea of being in charge of a supernatural realm. However, like all businesses that essentially allow new people in that can then rise to power and control, they created a competitive environment. And like all competitive environments, when the stakes got high enough (there was enough free floating money to control) the ruthless pretenders rose faster than the sensitive devout, because the ruthless will do anything to win. So in time the church became dominated by dominators, liars and literally ruthless killers.
It is not an accident that the Vatican (and I have been) is the most opulent place on Earth and holds the greatest collection of stolen art on the planet. It is not an accident that so many priests are sexually assaulting little boys; they go into the church with identity problems created by the church and the church doesn’t give a shit about them as long as they keep the money rolling in. It has been a scam for 1800 years, and it was preceded by smaller scams before it that worked the kinks out. But they’ve had it working smoothly for quite some time. That whole idea of turning the Vatican into a sovereign country was a master stroke. Now they just have to deal with the information revolution, which is really inhibiting the cover-ups of their various sexual exploits. But I am sure they will come up with something; they have the advantage of being able to tell the most outrageous lies and get away with it.
Holy cow. I haven’t read this amount of religious material since the good Benedictine nuns were trying to convince me to give a crap about catechism clas. They didn’t succeed, but I appreciated their efforts.
@Tony: I don’t know if Jesus ever existed, but I believe it to be so. However, even though I have no proof of His existence, I will say that many of the supposed comparison/rip offs between Jesus and other ancient religious figures (Krishna, Horus, etc) I find not to be true. And the claims that points to these comparisons not being correct, is usually when they try to compare Jesus’ birthday with other deity’s birthdays. It’s a myth created by the Catholic Church that Jesus was born on December 25th. They made this up in an attempt to combat Ancient Pagan winter solstice celebrations (which didn’t work since we basically celebrate Yule here in the U.S). In fact, Jesus was not even born in the winter time. As for the solar myth, I will look it up. It sounds fascinating.
@ Tony: “If that were true, then good Christians would follow the bible verbatim at least when it did nobody any harm”
According to whom Tony? Jesus only gave two official commandments: Love God with all of your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. He did not say that one must follow all of scripture verbatim in order to be a Christian. To be a ‘devout’ Christian, is to simply believe that Christ has secured a second chance for you through His sacrifice; to Love God with all your heart; and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. Through the love you have for your neighbor, you would never oppress or condemn them for their beliefs. For the mere fact that one does not have empirical proof that any other worldly being exists, is perhaps the most prime reason why atheists should not be discriminated against or held in contempt. Matthew 22:34-40 is where Jesus tells the Pharisees what the Greatest commandments of the Law are.
Also Matthew 19:17-22 says: “17And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. 19Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 20The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? 21Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. 22But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.” Here, Jesus lists many of the laws, in which we recognize are said to be personally authored by God (Ten commandments). He didn’t say “kill gay men”, or “wear tassels”.
“Mostly because they are ignorant of it, which I find simultaneously laughable and incomprensible: Somebody believes the Bible is the one and only WORD OF GOD, a supreme universal infallible and omniscient being to whom they have surrendered their life and judgment, and they keep this one and only WORD in their home and even on their person like a talisman, but have never found the time in their entire life to READ what this God has to tell them?
I find that to be an unfathomable lack of curiosity; that somebody can believe they will be judged and possibly face an eternity in hell, and still can’t be bothered to go to the original source, but just trusts whatever the preacher says.”
This I agree with to the highest levels.
“As for the Old Testament; Christ believed in slavery”
Christ recognized slavery as a modern practice of that time. I too though, am curious as to why He didn’t proclaim the practice of slavery to be an evil one. Even going as far as to say that Christian slaves should obey their masters. He did say that Masters should not treat their slaves badly though. But does that mean that he believed that slavery was a necessary or good practice? I’m not sure. But if I go by His commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and scripture’s proclamation that you should do unto others as you would have them to do unto you, then I would think that he was not in favor of slavery. After all, how can a human be able to enslave his/her neighbor, if he/she would most likely not want their neighbor to enslave them? It’s an instance of moral relativity. That’s exactly why I’m more of an exegesis bible reader, instead of a literalist.
“and practically the first words out of his mouth in the New Testament is that nothing he says will change a “jot or tittle” of the Old Testament (tiny marks like a comma or an apostrophe in their alphabet and writing), and all those laws must be obeyed”
Jesus says: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law,’TILL ALL BE FULFILLED’ (Matthew 5:17-18).”
Jesus fulfilled the law by following all of God’s commandments (which as I mentioned before probably had nothing to do with killing non-virgin women, killing homosexuals, and making women sacrifice pigeons for their ‘sin’ of menstruating. But are more likely the commandments that God physically authored Himself). This was something that no other human had yet to achieve. Thereby a covenant was made by God on behalf of Humanity, to where he would essentially sacrifice this perfect harbinger of His commandments (Jesus, a manifestation of God), to pay, from that day on, for the sins of all people. In doing this, now humans are no longer under the yoke of the law, but are under grace and salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Roman 6:14, Rom 7:4-6,Galatians 3:23-25,ephesians 2:8-9). So no, Jesus was not sent to destroy God’s commandments or His prophets. He was sent to fulfill the law (God’s commandments), which allowed him to be the only candidate that could, in God’s view, wash away the sins of Man.
Take the story of the woman with the issue of blood (luke 8:43-48). As anyone who has read the first five books of the Bible knows, it was seen as a ritually unclean thing for a woman to touch another person while she was on her period (which is ridiculous) . But this woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touched Jesus. Instead of Jesus condemning her and quoting ‘the law’ (Man’s authored law) to chastise her, He simply responded:”Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace”. This symbolizes that one can only be ‘healed’ and ‘made whole’ by faith, not by following Moses’ Law. One can only truly be a devout Christian by faith in Jesus, Love for God, and genuine love for all human beings. The ‘Law'(mosaic) results in death, power corruption, and hypocrisy. It didn’t help the Israelites, and it certainly won’t help us now.
“A Christian is not devout if they only obey the rules that are convenient or do not embarrass them”
I agree. A true devout Christian would not have such contempt for those who are different than them. A true Christian’s belief should not be threatened by the fact that other people with different views exist. Not to say that a true Christ believer will be perfect, but in their imperfection, the love they have for all of humanity should still be intact. The Bible also says that you can tell a tree by the fruits it bears. Gingrich has no love for anyone but himself. He wants power, and he’ll hold any group out to the hungry religious wolves to get their votes. And a lot of Christians are too busy boasting about their apparent ‘political might’, and justifying their abuse of others with scripture. But we’re not all like that. I may not be an Atheist, but I’m gay AND a woman, so I know what it feels like to be used as political bait for the crazies. What I hope to achieve in the future, is to create an American atmosphere where we can all stand united regardless of religious belief/or lack there of/Gender/Ethnicity/sexual orientation, etc.
Tony,
I don’t disagree that much of the Bible is pure myth and that it steals quite liberally from other traditions. For example, Genesis is almost exactly the Sumerian creation story. However, ever since taking several religious studies courses in college, I’ve always been interested in whether or not there was a historical Jesus. Not because I believe in organized religion. I think Simon Peter was a rat bastard politician and that one of my professors said a simple truth when he said that “whether or not there was a historical Jesus is irrelevant as the character – real or fictional – has still had a demonstrable and dramatic effect on Western culture.” My interest is purely in discovering the deviation of any historical teachings should they exist as compared to the second hand confabulation that this the New Testament. In this respect, I’ve always found it interesting that Jesus as portrayed by the collected sayings in Thomas is much more about an internal process of discovery and self-actualization and that the Gnostic traditions were essentially wiped out by the Council of Nicea in favor of the external validation provided (or withheld) by a hierarchical church structure. The shift from the contemplative mode of finding the nature of God within one’s self to the dictatorial edicts of a patriarchal church is – to my mind – responsible for a large amount of the really crappy and evil things that have been done over the centuries in the name of the RCC and other similarly top-down doctrinal churches. If the Gnostic traditions had not been attacked by the forces of organized religion, Western civilization would have taken a wildly different – and probably better – path.
@Rafflaw: I’d pay 50%. Notice Moses didn’t tax everybody; just the rich! (soldiers with looted riches).
@Buddha: One of my fellow atheists brought that up a few years back. I more subscribe to the view (which falls into the category of an educated guess) that Jesus, Moses, and other biblical figures are simply mythical; invented sometime between 250 AD and 300 AD. There is some evidence for that, and it would explain some of the historical anachronisms about towns and historical events that are in the Bible.
I believe the Christ story is a rip from the Krishna story; at least 1000 years older, which itself was a characterization of an even older myth, called the Solar Myth. There are artifacts with drawings that indicate the Solar Myth was being told before 2000 BC.
The story of the Solar Myth is the story of the Sun traveling through the Constellations; which were given as various characters, and the Sun had various adventures with the characters. At the end of the story the Sun is betrayed and ends up on a Constellation called the Cross between two stars, called The Two Thieves. Of course this happens at the Winter Solstice, December 22nd, and in three days the Sun is reborn (days get longer) and begins his journey again. This is why Christ (and Krishna) are crucified, and why they have December 25th as a Birthday. The Solar Myth was popular, Kersey Graves has a book called “The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors [Christianity Before Christ]”.
It is presumed the Solar Myth was told as a verbal memory tool, to remember the order of the Constellations. Many people do not realize that the early Constellations were not named for what they looked like, but for what they foretold: Aries, for example, is the Ram, and foretold something about Sheep mating (I do not recall which event, mating or birthing) that happened when the Sun was in Aries.
Anyway, the 250-300 date sounded plausible to me; it was the best guess of an atheist archaeologist I read (many years ago).
Tony,
Have you read the excised “heretic” gospel of Thomas? researchers suspect it may be as old as 1st Century, but they can only find proof of it as far back as the 3rd Century. What makes Thomas interesting is it isn’t stories or anything like that, but rather simply sayings attributed directly to Jesus. It was part of the Gnostic gospels and paints a considerably different portrait of Jesus. In Thomas, he’s oddly (or perhaps not) a lot more like Buddha than the Jesus of the New Testament.
@Tk: I think Christians have created a fallacy for themselves, in which a good Christian only follows the bible verbatim.
If that were true, then good Christians would follow the bible verbatim at least when it did nobody any harm; but they do not. That is part of my point with the Tassles requirement. God mandates it in the Old Testament. Actually wearing tassles, with one blue thread, would be completely harmless for Christians. It would hurt nobody and break no laws. Yet Christians ignore it.
Mostly because they are ignorant of it, which I find simultaneously laughable and incomprensible: Somebody believes the Bible is the one and only WORD OF GOD, a supreme universal infallible and omniscient being to whom they have surrendered their life and judgment, and they keep this one and only WORD in their home and even on their person like a talisman, but have never found the time in their entire life to READ what this God has to tell them?
I find that to be an unfathomable lack of curiosity; that somebody can believe they will be judged and possibly face an eternity in hell, and still can’t be bothered to go to the original source, but just trusts whatever the preacher says.
As for the Old Testament; Christ believed in slavery, and practically the first words out of his mouth in the New Testament is that nothing he says will change a “jot or tittle” of the Old Testament (tiny marks like a comma or an apostrophe in their alphabet and writing), and all those laws must be obeyed. So Tassles are no more exempt from being in the Old Testament than are the Ten Commandments, or the demand that homosexuals be put to death: Christ endorsed these explicitly.
A Christian is not devout if they only obey the rules that are convenient or do not embarrass them. Just like a citizen is not law-abiding if they break the laws that get in their way.
Elaine M,
Watched “TDS” last night … Stewart hits another home run!
Tony C.,
I like the idea of a 50per cent tax on the wealthy. We could call it the Moses Tax Fairness Act!