Are Fundies, Bigots Trying to Hide Behind God?

[stepnw1f]

Poll question: Are Fundies, Bigots Trying to Hide Behind God?

[Catch22Dem]

1. Always have...

Since the birth of organized religion.

[YOY]

9. Hell...it doesn't even have to be organized now...

does it?

[tyedyeto]

2. Always have, always will n/t

[William769]

3. They may try to hide behind God

But will burn in hell for their sins.

[BattyDem]

4. Hell, yes!

That's what pisses me off the most about them. They hide behind their God and use him as an excuse to hate. :eyes:

[PatrioticLeftie]

5. God is their co-pilot, and excuse n/t

[realisticphish]

6. well duh

that's what they DO. It's in their contracts

[Az]

7. No

There really are religiously founded beliefs that certain types of behavious are evil, wicked, and against nature as god intended it.

This is not to say that someone that all people that get that are bigots get their ideas from their religious beliefs. But the fact of the matter is that some religious beliefs truly do find cause to abhore others because of their beliefs. In their eyes it is the others that are evil and corrupt. They truly believe that they are holding to good and righteous behaviour.

And that is the problem our society faces today. We adhere to a morally relativistic method of determining right and wrong in our society. It is adaptive and progressive. It changes over time. As we come to understand our natures better we come to see that different things may be moral or immoral as you understanding changes.

Those of the religious right believe that morallity is fixed and defined by god. They believe that the bible is very clear on certain things being immoral. They believe that tolerance of evil is evil. Thus they condemn acts that they come to believe are evil.

It is literally the collision of an ustopable force with an inmovable object. We represent a constantly moving and adapting society and we are colliding with their unmoving monolith.

We are going to have to find a way to deal with this. We see their intolerance as evil and they see our tolerance as evil. Something is going to have to give.

[Gildor Inglorion]

13. A perfectly legitimate question for fundamentalists of all stripes:

"What does your primitive superstition have to do with my rights as an American citizen?" If you think certain things are evil, fine; don't do them. Leave me the hell alone, or start paying taxes on your "religious institutions."

[Az]

15. But the problem is we are forcing our definitions of right and wrong

On them. We force them to hire people that they believe are evil. We force them to send their children to schools that teach things that are an anathema to their beliefs.

We find our definitions of right and wrong by way of reason. They reject our way and hold to their own. The longer two such social construct exist in the same environment the more they come to clash. Its the very reason our ancestors left England. It wasn't to find religious tolerance. That was the problem. England had become too tolerant and the Puritans could no longer abide the corruption. So they left.

We have the same situation brewing all over again. We have a conservative group of religious zealots and our society that we find to be good and progressive is snuffing out their beliefs. While we may see their beliefs as destructive and regressive they cannot help but see them as good and righteous. In their eyes we are the corrupt bad guys. Its the very nature of moral relativism.

[Gildor Inglorion]

18. Oh, bullcrap, and no offense to you, sincerely...

they're as morally relativistic as anyone if not more. They're just damn insufferable smug sneering hypocrites. I'm old enough to remember when "divorce" was an obscenity, whispered in corners. No divorced person would DARE step foot into a church in the rural south of the 1950's. Today's courageous "single mom" was nothing but a whore...and so on and so on. They ignore the scriptures they find inconvenient and emphasize the awfulness of things they don't want to do anyway. Ours would be a better planet if the fundamentalist "Christians" could be shipped to an offworld colony, much like the Puritans of the 1600's, "seeking religious freedom" (translation: let's burn some more witches and drag a few of those awful Baptists into Rhode Island!). *end of rant...sorry, but I was raised in the middle of Christian fundamentalism; my family, as Methodists, were looked upon as a bit odd, if harmless. There were NO Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, or Presbyterians in the little mountain county where I grew up.*

[Az]

21. You won't get an argument from me on that point

Yes they are just as mobile morally as any other relativistic group. But the trick is they do not recognise it in themself and believe they are sticking to the doctrine.

The problem comes from the fact that the interpretation of the doctrine is filtered through their values. But never forget that it feeds back on itself. The doctrine influences those values as well.

So you will come across ideas that crystalize within certain forms of interpretation. They will resist the changing forces of society. And they will become a crag upon which society becomes caught.

As the pressure builds it will become increasingly confrontational. They will percieve themself as being oppressed. They will cut themself off increasingly from societies influences. They will concentrate aspects of their are adversarial with the society due to the emotional relevance of it. This will further distance them from the society speeding the conflict along.

[thefloyd]

8. The whole

modern day Con party hides behind the cross everyday

[mmonk]

10. Depends on how big they make their god

I've noticed one flaw in the god they make. They've made their god transparent.

[MountainLaurel]

11. They're not hiding. n/t

[nookiemonster]

12. Of course! Hopefully God will deliver the ultimate "smite down"

on these hypocritical, self-righteous, blaspheming cretins.

[upi402]

14. Jesus was a socialist!

I like to tell them that.

[stevietheman]

16. Yes, the Bible is frequently used to mask bigotry.

[Mr_Spock]

17. Very good idea for a poll.

It's true and people are saying so.

[saltpoint]

19. Voted 'yes' on your question as it was written.

Seems to me that St. Francis, for example, would be a better model for Christian believers than whatever entity inspires Jim Dobson and Pat Robertson. Fundies hide behind authoritarian governments using their authoritarian God as a handy prop. Rove and Bush play them like a fiddle.

I have appreciated very much reading here on DU posters who use the "CHINO" label for "Christians in Name Only," and we all know who we mean -- those red voters who voted for Bush, actually thinking he's a born-again Christian, and who support ballot initiatives to condemn dicksucking as a greater moral peril than dropping bombs on unarmed civilians and then lying about it to the entire world.

[oasis]

20. The KKK's been doing it for decades. The ignorant fucks have morphed

into the GOP. Jesse Helms, David Duke, Strom Thurmond and the nazi from California, Metzger.