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Slablizard2
Sport climber
Bay Area
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I'll never understand why in this country you are so mesmerized by this mass-hypnosys called religion.
Don't you ever grow up?
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Kilgore Trout
Trad climber
NJ
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"I wonder how long a thread bashing Jews would last."
I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people who posted here (on both sides) were raised as Christians.
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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"...the sleeping giant of christian zionism has been awakened..."
so they can claim such things-
and if we react to that in any negative way, or with any concern whatsoever, we are now christian bashers?
re:
"Bigotry aginst Christians is growing like a cancer in USA."
and
"people who are predisposed to being bigotted against ALL christians have a tendency to dredge up whackjobs who claim to be christians and hold them up as an overall example."
hey judy- if those "whackjobs" aren't "christians", then there is no christian bashing going on, you cannot have it both ways pal.
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bler
Boulder climber
Alamo, CA
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fattrad : you want to get into a discussion of 'owning' land by first habitiation?
thats what starts and continues wars, because people believe they 'own' land.. we use land and get new land and loose old land, its part of life, just like the cycle of life and death, no one can 'own' land they can only hold it and use it for a short time..
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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Mr. Jody Langford-
will you stand up and unequivocally state (electronically speaking), that John Hagee, the pastor of that CUFI group, and several of the other people interviewed on the 1st video in the OP are "whackjobs" and not representative of whatever it is that you personally view "christianity" to be?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Boy, after reading through some of these posts I find myself again asking who's the more hateful, fascistic one, the Christian or those who would silence him and call him names.
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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blu-
i'll betchya a dollar that you are reading those posts without having watched the 20 minute video they are responding to.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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I watched about 5 minutes of it, same old evangelical stuff. What's the big deal? That's partly why I stopped going to church. Doesn't mean the message of the Bible is a bad one. Doesn't mean Christians need to be silenced or ridiculed. Religion has been nothing but a good thing in my life and that of my familiy.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Christian fundamentalists of various stripes, and milleniarists, have been a feature of U.S. life ever since the Puritans established the "city on the hill" at Plymouth Rock in 1630. There are occasional revivalist waves, return to our roots waves, and such, but it's all part of a recurrent scene.
Pretty hard to accurately track, and of course many of these "Christians" like to be divisive and intolerant, but my guess overall is that the proportion of U.S. citizens who believe in the literal truth of the Bible (old & new testaments), or the Talmud, or the Quran, is lower now than it has ever been. Perhaps there's a sociologist or historian who could comment on this?
In the bigger picture, it is part of the inbuilt tension in U.S. society, history, and culture - by definition, those who advocate imposition of religious values (which ones?) can never win. No wonder they're frustrated.
The "End Times" crowd is simply millenarianism, informed by modern knowledge of what humans are doing to our planet. No surprise that they're fans of the Book of Revelations - the End Times as written by some Greek in the second century C.E. A recurring theme of Christianity, along with persecution and other cheery things.
One of the more fundamentalist groups is the Maranathas, which means "Lord come quickly". They've been hoping for that for two millenia, on the basis that humans are wicked and evil, and only the return of their god will fix things.
In the largest sense, it may be a part of the never-ending battle between free will (optimism) and determinism (pessimism). Christianity in most forms has elements of both, and can never reconcile them. The millenarianists are firmly in the deterministic camp - things are in a mess, we can't do anything about it, so let's get on with the Rapture and other fun stuff. They find the free will/free thinking crowd, which may include most SuperTopians, rather annoying. We actually feel we have to try to do something to help, and better society and the world - even when we know (Afghanistan, perhaps even the FaceLift) it may not do a lot of good.
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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blue-
maybe you shold start the video and just minimize it, just listen to the next 15 minutes as you work or whatever. the group is actively lobbying congress to preemptively attack iran, in no small part because they all believe a larger conflict in the middle east will lead to armegedon and rapture and all the various biblical prophecies, etc.
the beautiful irony, as pointed out in the 2nd video link, is that "christians united for israel" is "supporting jews in israel" and "israeli security", so they can bring about the rapture, at which time all jews who do not renounce their faith and convert to christianity will burn in hell
(so you can see how their ideas are quite different from osama bin laden's own! convert of die! my religion and NOT YOURS! but honestly, i am glad religion is so useful in your life)
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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An irrational fear of Christians - Christophobia.
Matt, so are bashing ALL Christians here or just Christians who support Israel, the birthplace of Christ? My simple Catholic mind is confused.
Also, telling someone they're gonna burn in hell shouldn't scare anyone , should it? You have nothing to fear because religion is made up - there is no heaven or hell. It could be worse too, they could send you there themselves by calling you an infidel before sawing your head off with a knife.
At least they just TELL you you're damned.
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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bluering,
Please apply what you have been discussing towards Islam.
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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re:
"Matt, so are bashing ALL Christians here or just Christians who support Israel, the birthplace of Christ?"
blue-
your ability to sound like an imbicile is peeking out again.
can you not read the 40 or so above posts for yourself?
if so, you do not need to ask such a vague and leading question as that.
there are not very many posts in this thread and they are almost all short, so seriously, give it an effort and have a fact based conversation. if you are offended by any posts in particular, cut and paste them into a post of your own, and direct your comment(s) to whomever wrote said posts (see my post directed toward jody, whom i view as a hypocrite, as an example).
clearly that tactic would be more productive than generalizing about this bashing or that bashing, and suggesting that i have bashed you and all other christians when in fact i suggested that you actually make yourself familiar with what people were commenting on!
thanks in advance.
edit
re: "Also, telling someone they're gonna burn in hell shouldn't scare anyone , should it? You have nothing to fear because religion is made up - there is no heaven or hell. It could be worse too, they could send you there themselves by calling you an infidel before sawing your head off with a knife."
you see pal, once again, because you are either too lazy or too distainful to actually make yourself familiar with the subject matter of the OP, and you conveniently over simplify to an "us vs. them" (i.e. "your either with us or you're against us"), you are unaware that it's NOT a matter of simply stating or believing that jews will burn in hell after the rapture, but in fact it's clearly the case that these particular CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS are openly and actively attempting to lobby the united states government to attack iran, with the full hope and expectation that such an action will immediately escalate to the END of TIMES, and the end of the world as we know it.
to be honest, i'll take a few journalists and/or a few international aid workers getting their heads severed-
HELL I WILL EVEN TAKE ANOTHER 9/11 TYPE OF ATTACK RIGHT HERE ON US SOIL- over "the end of the world".
try really hard to wrap your "simple catholic mind" around that.
UD- nice.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Doug, my last post had that in mind. It was implied, but I thought it was clear enough.
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Matt
Trad climber
never ever pissing into the wind
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it's your position that your last post in some way "implies" that all muslims deserve the same level of tollerance which you are complaining that some on ST are denying to all christians?
seriously?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Matt, maybe you can state clearly what your point is. That you don't like Hagee because he's lobbying the gov to bomb Iran.
This end of times crap, does that bother you really? Either way there's nothing you can do about it. While the rhetoric of these people is dramatic, it's just that...rhetoric. Have these people caused harm to anyone? They're free to worship as long as they don't incite violence. If what Hagee really espouses is for Iran to disappear (all of it's people), then that's out of bounds and completely un-Christian. If he wants to see Israel defended from all those who wish her harm, I don't see the problem.
Maybe you can help me with the exact wording of his 'threats'...if you could be so kind. I don't have time to hear the whole thing.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Matt, what I implied earlier was that when I complain about a murderous sect in Islam that openly calls for murdering infidels, I get called a bigot or that I implied that ALL muslims were this way.
I was expecting y'all to keep the evangelical firebrands seperated from other Judeo-Christian faiths.
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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bluering,
Right on.
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malabarista
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS are openly and actively attempting to lobby the united states government to attack iran.
I do think this is a problem and it should be exposed to the American public for the extremism that it is.
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