George W. Bush Is A Sexual Pervert As Are Many Of His Supporters

[Radicalman]

It's tough to be a Christian who posts on DU. The perception of Christianity is seen by most people through the lenses of the mass media which focus on Christian Right whack jobs as spokespersons for all Christians. It’s not entirely the fault of the mass media. Liberal and moderate Christians have allowed fundamentalist nut cases to hijack much of Christianity in the U.S.

Hopefully, with this post you can see how some of us mainstream Christians think by my writing about the issue of human sexuality.

Historically, the Roman Catholic church, and today some perverts of the Christian right, condemn birth control. The main argument is that it is “unnatural.” But isn't celibacy “unnatural” too? Life long celibacy, much admired by the Church of Rome, seems going against nature to this observer.

Christians have always been a very odd group historically, when it comes to sex. During the time of the fall of the Roman Empire the church fathers were more concerned about protecting a woman’s virginity than reforming the tax system and holding the frontiers. Now that we may be in the last days of the American Empire, many Christians are much more concerned about in vitro fertilization than genocidal activity against Iraq (I’m including the millions killed during the Clinton Administration), global warming, reforming the tax system, and dealing with the national deficit and debt.

The Christian attitude toward women has always been a curiosity. Because she caused the fall of Adam (supposedly) she is impure. In 19th century in America, Christians provided theological justification to deal with female impurity. Clitoridectomies were approved as the cure for female masturbation and other signs of female dis-rectitude. Female castration reached epidemic proportions.

Today, the Christian right contends that female ovaries belong to the state and that she is simply the custodian. The impregnated female should have no rights to privacy because that would be a violation of the will of the loving Christian God!! Women must surrender their private selves to the state.

Christianity has always provided an outlet for impulses of sadistic cruelty.

. A reading of radical right "Christian" literature leads to the conclusion that much of their opposition to sex education and birth control is a notion that people should be cruelly punished for their sins because their loving God demands it! They say that fornicators should be scourged by getting syphilis, genital herpes, STD's and by being compelled to carry unwanted embryos to term (even in the case of rape and incest). Too, echoing the ideas of medieval monks the concept is frequently advanced that sex should not be connected with pleasure, but should only be for the purpose of procreation. As one right wing Christian expressed it, "I would like to outlaw contraception... contraception is disgusting --people using each other for pleasure." This is Joseph Scheidler, Pro-Life Acton

With terrible consequences, the curricula of Abstinence Only Sex Ed programs - promoted by the evangelical right winger, President George W. Bush - provides inaccurate information on the effectiveness of condoms including extremely exaggerated failure rates and the false claim that HIV and other pathogens can "pass through" condoms. Such misinformation results in the increase of sexually transmitted diseases and aids. Who knows how much death an unnecessary suffering this Perverted President has caused?


Anti-Christian people who post here flay Christianity for good reasons. But they should know that some of the most devastating attacks on Christianity come from within mainline Christianity. In the patio of my Episcopal Church, after services, we discuss matters like human sexuality and the radical Christian right. We all know the kinds of things I have written in this post. How can we remain Christians? That is another story for another post.

[Ian David]

1. With prayer and repairative therapy, they can all eventually become Unitarians. n/t

[Az]

3. Or Universalists

:evilgrin:

[bluerum]

5. Or Universalist Unitarians. nt

[Az]

6. Or Unitarian Universalists

There are a few denoms out there that are persnickety about the order. :D

[bluerum]

7. Yes - but in general they are very tolerant ;-) nt

[Poiuyt]

8. I just say, UU's

[Az]

9. Around about this point

A typical UU response would be to call for a group hug :grouphug:

[Az]

2. Moderate and Liberal Christians need to speak up for tolerance

Its real simple. Those of us who are nonChristian are going to come to know Christianity based on whoever speaks loudest for it. If we come to know Christianity by those who are bashing, persecuting, and trying to marginalize us then that is the face of Christianity we are going to come to know. If instead when we are being bashed another Christian shows up and lites into the bashing Christian then we will come to know that the loud mouth bigot does not represent Christianity.

As to sexuality issues and more importantly the abortion/birth control issues its actually quite odd looking at the history of this particular issue. For most of history the Protestants held a similar view to the Jews concerning the beginning of life. The first breath was the criteria. As the OT suggested Adam was not a person until God placed the breath of life into him. This has been the criteria for most of history.

But then a series of events occurred in the Catholic church. First came the thing of the pope being infallible when pronouncing official church positions. Kind makes going back on such official things difficult. Then came Humana Vitae. This was an edict from the Pope concerning the issue of abortion and birth control. Its not quite an official position covered by the infallibility doctrine but the Vatican treats it as such because its too close in their opinion and undermining it creates problems for them.

But thats the Catholic church. What changed the Protestants long standing position? Well Roe V Wade came along and created a social catastrophy for the Vatican. WIth their history and understanding of what a social revolution can do to their base they saw the US as a threat to Humana Vitae. So they set about trying to undermine the laws of the United States. They conveined a council of US Cardinals and Bishops in order to create a grass roots movement to undermine Roe V Wade and the laws of our nation.

One of the first things this council did was to send representitives to various Protestant sects. Most importantly they approached Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They showed them how the issue of abortion could be used as an emotional issue to put people in the pews (and money in the donation boxes). Both televangelists took to this like a fish to water. They quickly ramped the issue up into one of near emotional histeria. And thus the Protestants were brought in to defend the Pope's position. And the NeoCons discovered a new ally to use to undermine the world.

[Leftisalwaysright]

4. Credit

People on this board (and everyone for that matter)should know very well not to judge all Christians based on the actions and words of the most radical element. If they don't, that is on them.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

10. a quote from Blaise Pascal, mathematician

"Men never do evil so cheerfully and efficiently as when they do it from religious conviction."

--Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, theologian, philosopher. Discoverer of probability theory and inventor of the roulette wheel. 1623-1662

[Az]

11. Its a pity

Pascal is more well known for his flawed wager than the positive things he came up with.

[uppityperson]

12. what is Christianity? Who are Christians?

To worship or to emulate or what combination? People who flay Christianity are not necessarily Anti-Christian but anti-christian-fundamentalists. What is, who is a christian or a Christian? Peace and merry happy.

[undergroundpanther]

13. Good post

BTW upfront I ain't a christian. I was once. I was liberal and also in the right-wing radical crap.

I find the problem with Christianity is the bible itself.
Manny words in the bible can be twisted to suit as bad person's intent, bible words are used to justify anything.And the reason this is so is because faith because it is taken as fact,leads people into manipulation.

Christ in ones heart goes not mean a person is good. It never should have been equated that way. But authoritarians in churches WANT it that way.It keeps people obedient.And that is what authoritarians seek.

The bible says alot about obedience to authority figures. Too much in sympathy with the authoritarians.Because God in some passages IS an authoritarian.

Every verse in the bible carries within it multiple interpretations.Depending on the inner ethical character of the believer it can show the character through which passages they choose to focus on the most-and the ones they omit.

Psychopathic authoritarian bullies love the fire and brimstone as long as it burns people not like themselves.
The bible because of it's reward and punishment doctrines leads some into narcissism. Others unable to stomach the bible's more unsavory parts into other ways of seeing god.I cannot read the book of Joshua and say that is a loving god's way. But the fundamentalists DO they want a cruel parent, or a doting one. They do not love spirituality they love power because ultimately it's all about narcissism and winning the game for them.

Liberal christianity is biblically correct.
Right wing extremist christianity is biblically correct.

My issue is when are christians going to give up worshiping the idol in the book? Stop studying gods alleged words , put down the book and go seek him and let him live through your actions in this world that are not like this world?

I'll tell ya right now , Your actions as a human being speak louder than the morally conflicted ambiguously interpreted verses of the bible.

Imagine for a moment there was no bible, no church no christianity.No religion to tell you who to be,how to live, what to believe in.
What kind of moral character would you have, especially when no one was looking, and you would not be caught? How about when a crowd is going along with whatever YOU wanted, and there was no one opposing your ideas,what kinds of things would you do with that power? Ask this inside, honestly?
How you answer that question speaks volumes about how close to divinity or how bound to this world you really are.

And Christ, Christianity and bible verses have nothing to do with virtue. There are virtuous pagans, satanists and Hindu, atheists and voudon..Religion does not make a bad person good.But it can make a good person bad under the influence of a charismatic authoritarian structure like those found in church hierarchies.Plato had it right long ago, You CANNOT teach sociopath people virtue.Just like nowadays psychologists realized, you cannot cure sociopaths.

The bible never made evil end, none of the many other religions have eradicated the evil problem either and none really have satisfying answers about evil without making god look like a monster or humankind the monster or some devil figure to play the scapegoat..Often religion blame the human ego for all the evil . Or they make up and point at devils, whatever works..On the topics of evil or suffering religions tend to guilt trip or project. And this type of thinking does NOTHING to stop evil, because all evil needs to prevail in this world is for good people, the virtuous among the wicked to do NOTHING, and too often good people when seeing evil let it slide...And it is sad how good people obey authority, even when it is doing wrong, rather than stand up and risk doing the right thing and intervening. Instead they become bystanders, good people doing nothing..I wonder how much of this is moral cowardice in the face of anxiety, or is it because they've been raised that way and never asked why. Just like people who read the bible and de emphasize the parts that offend them but insist the book is good .But they never ask why it matters so much the words that enchant as if they were magical , in that book, that idol.

[walldude]

14. The problem with my "perception" of Christianity

is that while people in this thread claim that the radical right wing on the Christian faith is basically in the minority and the majority are "true" Christians, I just don't see it. I see people like Fallwell, Robertson, Dobson and Haggard running giant "Mega-Churches" and television stations. It's hard to beliebve that the "liberal Christians" are in the majority. I see people who espouse their bigotry and homophobia on TV for millions of viewers. I see these Mega-Churches with tens of thousands of followers and I assume these people carry the same views as their leaders. I may be wrong but the perception is that the majority of Christians hold the views that their leaders do, and their leaders are all over the place making sure that their morality is my morality.

If you think it's tough being a Christian on DU try being a Jew who supports Palestine... hehe