For those of you who labor under the false assumption that I am anti-Christian or anti-religious, I point you to this post by Misha which points to what someone who really does hate religious people looks like.
This is what an anti-religious bigot really looks like. And I don’t know if foul language upsets you, but if it does, just go read the story here. All Misha does is provide some, ahem, ‘color commentary.’
cminus
Yup.
If the NY Daily News article is accurate, that sure sounds like a genuine, USDA Prime Grade, anti-religious dipshit. What, did someone reverse-engineer James Dobson and set the “secular” switch to “ON?”
Molly
Is this a joke too?
John Cole
I don’t find Shortell very funny.
Randolph Fritz
Guy, Misha’s quotes–and the article Misha quotes–are all out of context. The New York Daily News was a rag 40 years ago, when I lived in the NYC area; it’s Murdoch paper now.
Sources, sources.
(This article is cranky because of sleep-dep. But the basic point stands.)
Mr.Ortiz
Rahdolph, I think your sleep deprivation caused you to confuse the Daily News with the Post. The News is owned by Mort Zuckerman, who is considerably more liberal than Murdoch. I know, that’s not saying much.
Funny fact about the Post: it’s not profitable. Murdoch uses his billions to keep it propped up for the simple fact that he thinks he needs a new york media outlet to be respectable. Or maybe he just enjoys annoying new yorkers. shrug.
foolishmortal
When Fucktards Collide…
“What I want to do is beat the asshole within an inch or four of his life, give him a major concussion which forces him to spend a couple weeks in the hospital thinking long and hard about the repercussions of calling Christians “moral retards”
Turn the other cheek indeed.
JPS
cminus: Brilliant.
Randolph: Is it assumed that any news in any way associated with Murdoch must be BS?
I wouldn’t say the attitudes behind such quotes are the norm, or even necessarily common, in academia, but from where I sit they’re by no means rare either. I hear remarks that nasty all the time.
As John Keegan wrote, in another context: “Scientists can be as prejudiced as any theologian.”
Al
Funny, I was thinking someone had reverse-engineered Misha and turned the “Justify And Focus Your Inner Hatred By Ridiculously Overgeneralizing From Non-Representative Examples Of:” knob from “Liberals” to “Christians”.
(if you can parse that) :/
Randolph Fritz
JPS, I stand corrected; it’s still a rag, though–maybe the Post has taken over the spot of most sensationalist major NYC newspaper. And, yes, Shortell is indeed anti-religious; he equates religious belief with religious radicalism. You can read the article at here.
The problem with Murdoch media–all the Murdoch media–is that they all sometimes run right-wing propaganda as news. They’re poisoned sources, in other words. (Yes, this includes FOX News.)
carpeicthus
A pox on both their houses. Misha and this tool both hate religious people. The prof is a bit more inclusive in his foolishness; Misha is a lot more in need of medication.
carpeicthus
Also, I’m not even sure if Misha is Christian — at least not how I’d definite it — but if ever there was a link to make the claim that “Christians claim that theirs is faith based on love, but they’ll just as soon kill you.” sound LESS foolish, you’ve provided it.
ppgaz
Maybe I’m dense (hold that thought) but ….
When you have a cultural war where the various “sides” think they are morally (and otherwise) superior to the others, isn’t gratuitous name-calling sort of part of the deal?
Any time the Dobsonites want to call off their rhetorical dogs, I’ll be glad to sign a verbal cease-fire. Mudslinging is a real energy drain.
But this cultural war, as it exists today, is all theirs. I didn’t start it. My wife and I met at church choir practice. I don’t have to take any moral browbeating from anybody, and I won’t. At the same time, anyone who uses their church or religious affiliation as a stick on somebody else … is going to get the heave-ho from me.
David Rossie
ppgaz,
Don’t hold your breath waiting for decency from the far-right. Anger is a winning marketing strategy, especially for the extremes. Without a culture-war, the religious right has no motivating cause, no glue, and people like Dobson lose their influence. People like Michael Moore on the left realize this too, so don’t expect calls for a cease-fire from anyone who needs politics to make a living.
syn
Dr.King was a moral retard? And indecent?
Civil rights would have never gotten off the ground if today’s Left were around. If they were, we’d be hearing things like ‘people like King always shoven their religious morality shit down our throats, who’s he to tell me about God and why the fuck do we secularists have to put up with his God shit!”
I am thankful Dr. King is no longer around to witness the perversion of what became of his Liberal followers.
John Cole
Please, Syn.
If Dr. King were arond, he would most certainly not be embracing the ‘in your face’evangelical movement that all too often dictates all religious discussions.
King’s civil rights movement contained a broad coalition of numerous branches of religion with a diverse ecumenical message.
At any rate, both sides need to stop invoking King in these fraudulent little disputes, because neither side really knows how King would have acted. But comparing today’s religious movement with the civil rights coalition of years gone by is, quite simply, farce.
Randolph Fritz
“But comparing today’s religious movement with the civil rights coalition of years gone by is, quite simply, farce.” Most especially because the civil rights movement, with King as its leader, embraced non-violence as a strategy. This lot wants violence–the more the better, as long as it is directed at what they see as “evil.”
And King won, and these are losing. Maybe Jesus knew something after all.
Randolph Fritz
“But comparing today’s religious movement with the civil rights coalition of years gone by is, quite simply, farce.” Most especially because the civil rights movement, with King as its leader, embraced non-violence as a strategy. This lot wants violence–the more the better, as long as it is directed at what they see as “evil.”
And King won, and these are losing. Maybe Jesus knew something after all.
Justin Faulkner
Give em hell, John.
Libertine
The professor made some legitimate points. There are some fundamentalists who do advocate violence.
To (accurately) paraphrase Randall Terry:
“I would be worried if I was them (abortion doctors). If I was elected they would all be executed.”
But to paint the whole fundamentalist movement with the same broad “Randall Terry” brush is patently unfair and feeds the misconception that people who favor separation of Church and State as “against people of faith”.
I am on the record for being in favor of complete separation of Church and State, but it isn’t from a position of hate. When government and religion is mixed it hurts believers and non-believers. It hurts non-believers by having a religious morality they don’t adhere to forced on them. It will hurt the believers because by allowing government to get involved in religion, which is always bad news. Breaking down the wall of separation is a lose-lose proposition.
And Professor Shortell’s comments aren’t helping the cause.
syn
The civil rights movement came from the church and was lead by the premise the all God’s children deserve equal rights under the law which I believe is the same rhetoric applied to the rights of the unborn found within the evangelical church.
You speak of such civil rights supported by a broad coalition however may I point out that any and all right’s granted to the male’s rights regarding reproductive issues were castrated in 1973 (imposed by the courts without a single vote from the majority)
One of the most egregious acts of unequal rights under the law is defended by so-called “women’s” choice, however, the male has no choice in reproductive issues with the exception of the power to influence the impregnated female into having an abortion by imposing threats of abandonment or declaring financial insecurity. How many of the 44 million abortions thus far were imposed by the male threatening to leave the female if she desired to keep the baby? We’ll never know because both Planned Parenthood and NOW have imposed such strict regulation over all reproductive rights. If you so wish for this seperation of church and state why not address the Church of NOW into easing the restrictions they have imposed upon basic reproductive rights while completely ignoring the rights of those babies living in the womb, excuse me…those clump of cells.
Until a man of God led the civil rights movement unto fundamental change using fundamental Christian morality, blacks in our country were treated as less than human beings which is very similiar to the way our society treats the baby in the womb hence the claim that the fetus is not a living being but just a clump of cells.
It should be noted that every cause for civil rights has had it’s perpetrators of violence as a means to change…Randall Terry and the Black Panthers.
cminus
…however, the male has no choice in reproductive issues with the exception of the power to influence the impregnated female into having an abortion by imposing threats of abandonment or declaring financial insecurity.
Well, yes, men have no other choices in reproductive issues. Because, Lord knows, if a man decided to NOT HAVE SEX, that wouldn’t stop a woman from getting pregnant by him, right? And then you know she’d get an abortion, too. Just to spite him. And then laugh in his face while the tears run down his cheeks as she cashes the bonus check NOW sends her for every abortion so that she can buy truffles and crystal meth on the way home from the witches’ sabbat.
Until medical science catches up with Greek myth or Schwarzenegger movies and men can carry children to term, men have a simple choice — put up or don’t put out.
And, what do you mean, we’ll never know how many abortions were the result of male pressure because “Planned Parenthood and NOW have imposed such strict regulation over all reproductive rights?” First off, Planned Parenthood and NOW oppose strict regulation of abortion rights. It’s conservatives who have interfered with the free market here.
Secondly, we’ll never know how many abortions meet your criteria not because of any female conspiracy but because nobody asks, and, even if they did, how would you confirm the accuracy of such a statement? Lie-detector tests at Planned Parenthood? Have the FBI do background checks on women of child-bearing age?