At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, conservatives accused President Barack Obama of comparing Christianity to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS when he observed that many religions had been used to justify violence throughout history.
“So we’re responsible for the Crusades a thousand years ago?” Carlson complained. “Who’s ‘us’ anyway? And by the way, who ended slavery and Jim Crow? Christians. The Rev. Martin Luther King. Christians.”
“Christianity is the reason we don’t have slavery in the world today,” he added. “I mean, talk about ahistorical.”
Dear Mr. Carlson:
First of all, please take the time to educate yourself about the practices of modern slavery and human trafficking. A good place to start that education is right here in Cincinnati at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Believe me when I say slavery is very much alive in the world today and is a scourge that ruins millions of lives yearly. There are many activists, lawmakers, and NGO leaders who are working to end modern slavery today. They could use our help.
Secondly, as Eric Loomis points out at Lawyers, Guns and Money:
Good thing none of those slaveholders were Christian. Because there’s no way that Christians would hold slaves or create a Christian doctrine around defending slavery.
Of course, like everything else in Christianity, slaveowners decided for themselves to what extent they would adhere to this ideology, so throwing an old slave out into the swamps to die or beating a slave to death, well, these things just happen. Praise Jesus.
And finally, really awful things are still called for by “Christians” here in America in God’s name on a pretty regular basis. Religion as a cover to justify acts ranging from bigotry and discrimination (hello Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum!) to brutality, slavery and genocide is a game as old as religion itself. This was President Obama’s point, but you either chose to ignore it, or are too full of your fake outrage to even comprehend it.
Joey Maloney
I prefer “dumb as a box of rocks with all the smart rocks taken out”.
I also prefer to watch this classic than listen to anything Tucker Carlson has to say.
Iowa Old Lady
Tucker Carlson is a silly man. That he has a national platform is an indictment of our media and possibly us.
oldster
So Obama is taking flack for
being blacksaying that the antebellum slave-owners were practicing, orthodox Christians, entirely in step with the religious mainstream of their day.This has the right-wing up in arms because…they want to deny that the antebellum slave-owners were Christians?
Can you imagine the sh•tstorm that would have occurred if Obama had gone to the prayer-breakfast and said, ‘you know, the antebellum slave-owners–people like Lee, Washington, all of the Confederate leaders and the Southern aristocracy–you know they really were not Christians, right?”
We’d never hear the end of it.
Keith G
I am unmoved by argumentation along the line of, “Religion (one or all) is good because….” or “Religion is bad because….”
Being human is a messy business. That means that the legacy of such human activity as religious observances and practices is also very messy. No way around that.
My messy human life is much better when I am not thinking about Tucker Carlson.
Litlebritdifrnt
Saw a clever tweet over the weekend about burning crosses. Can’t remember exactly what it said but it made a good point.
Ben Cisco
Who’s got the over/under on when the pivot to “the slaveholders were DEMOCRATS!!!” occurs?
Or is it already too late?
TR
I like how Obama’s getting called “not a true Christian” for basically saying, hey, let’s not point out the mote in the other guy’s eye when we have a plank in our own.
Where have I heard that before? Oh, right: http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-5.htm
dmsilev
@Ben Cisco: I think that pivot usually centers around Jim Crow rather than slavery, but yeah, it’s pretty predictable.
Bobby B.
When every “liberal” news show spends all its time with “pundits” yammering about possible republican presidential candidates, i can only assume it’s Crazy Stupid Love. .
Woodrowfan
@Ben Cisco: point out that the Vice President of the Confederacy was a Whig, and so was one of Abraham Lincoln’s colleagues in Congress…
Patrick
@TR:
The same people who are criticizing him are also the same people that are screaming about homosexuality and abortion because their bible supposedly condemns it. This is yet another example of them choosing what to believe from their own bible.
Mike Furlan
Please show me where Jesus says that slavery is wrong.
He thought that a lot of things were evil, but slavery wasn’t one of them.
Spinwheel
Dear Mr. Zandar:
The only thing used to justify genocide, slavery, and brutality more than religion is politics, so I’m sure you can see the hypocrisy of any American president complaining about religion being used to justify war crimes.
Considering America was born in bloody rebellion, nurtured in the genocide of Native Americans, built on slavery, tempered in war, guilty of nuclear mass murder and today keeps a massive underclass captive through the prison system and the death penalty, you can see why any objective response to the president’s comments on the Crusades should consist of “Please shut the fuck up”, particularly while he’s busy bombing the shit out of Yemen and Syria.
Thanks.
Professor
Jesus Christ on a bike, haven’t you figured/sussed out that Fox ‘Noise’ and the so-called Conservative media are selling you ABSURDITIES and you always fall for them. They always troll you and you give them joy of getting angry. Just pipe it down.
Tommy
Why does the right always try to act like slavery wasn’t that bad. Almost like it didn’t happen. Well it did happen. I had distant family members that owned slaves. How hard is for “white” people to say we really messed up and we’re really, really, really sorry.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith G: As an atheist, I have very little use for the Bill Mahers and Richard Dawkins of the world for the exact same reason. If, as I do, you believe that religion is a creation of man (“If God didn’t exist, we would create one.” Einstein?), you would have to admit that religions do not cause any of the evils that currently exist in the world and never have. That man is solely responsible for the evils and sometimes justifies them thru religious expression. But without religion, they would find other reasons to justify their heinous acts just as 2 of mankind’s greatest monsters, Stalin and Pol Pot, most certainly did.
If Maher or Dawkins had even the slightest bit of intellectual honesty they would admit this. But then they wouldn’t be able to hate on 1.6 billion Muslims in the process nor would they be able to justify their supposed superiority over those less enlightened than they.
greennotGreen
I heard about this story years ago on NPR. A cantor and his wife received threatening phone calls from a leader of the KKK…and reacted by reaching out to him, ultimately transforming this lonely and angry man.
That made me realize that religion does not create righteous people, but righteous people may express their goodness through their religion…or through secular works. One’s spiritual evolution is (perhaps sadly) independent from any religious beliefs, so you have caring, loving people who are Christians or Buddhists or Muslims or pagans or atheists…and total jerks in the same groups.
ETA: Kind of what OzarkHillbilly said, but from the other side.
Patrick
@Professor:
MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell slammed President Barack Obama for mentioning the Crusades at the National Prayer Breakfast on Sunday’s edition of “Meet The Press.”
After New York Times columnist David Brooks heaped a good deal of praise on the speech, Mitchell condemned the President’s remarks.
“You don’t use the word ‘crusade,’ number one, in any context right now,” the host of “Andrew Mitchell Reports” said. “It’s too fraught.”
“And the week after a pilot is burned alive in a video shown, you don’t lean over backwards to be philosophical about the sins of the fathers,” she added.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andrea-mitchell-obama-crusades-breakfast
justawriter
I have a great title for any historian out there who is doing a serious history of the Southern American Church (Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, Missouri Synod Lutherans and their hellspawn, the evangelical movement, and how it only exists because of the desire to combat Christian abolitionists. It should be called Conceived in Sin.
Tenar Darell
I truly don’t comprehend the “…show me the exact same terrible act in our history.” However, since it is required, Bill Moyers had the story about the lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas In 1916. This detail: those good Christian townsfolk, sold pieces of his body as souvenirs! This was under/with the police and town officials looking on.
And if that’s not helpful, the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. was likely done by ostensible Christians in 1998.
And if he requires contemporary barbarity by state sanctioned Christians l think Uganda would provide him some examples. Hey, it’s not like quite a few of our fellow citizens have some responsibility for spreading anti-gay hate, right?
NonyNony
@Tommy:
When has a conservative ever said they were sorry?
That’s actually not a rhetorical question – I’d like to see a conservative apology since, oh I dunno, 1970. I’m sure they’re out there, but I can’t think of any.
And a real apology too – not the kind of weaselword nonpology you get in general from folks like “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” bullshit that you know that they’re only saying because saying nothing would be worse.
I think it’s actually counter to their ideology to apologize for anything. Hell in the last few presidential elections wasn’t “refusing to apologize” actually one of their big talking points?
Belafon
@Spinwheel: I see that jet flying right over your head must have been pretty loud.
There is no hypocrisy because the difference is that using religion as a justification is the ultimate appeal to authority. Slaveowners were using God to justify their actions. How are you supposed to argue with that?
And where would it be wrong to say “Past presidents have justified the use of slavery, and they were wrong”? Oh, yeah, that’s right, us Democrats do say that, and the people that were in the party that advocated for mistreating minorities ran to the Republicans.
Svensker
@Keith G:
Amen.
Nicole
One of the interesting tidbits I learned from an anthropology textbook is that as a society’s economic prospects increase, so does the amount of secularism in that society.
Viewed through that lens, the GOP’s union of wealthy elite and raging Christianists makes a lot more sense.
greennotGreen
@Mike Furlan: “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12.
Of course, in a society where a conquered people might expect to be held in slavery, this might have been interpreted as no more than “Treat your slave as you would want to be treated if you were a slave.”
Napoleon
@Woodrowfan:
I thought Lincoln and Stephens got along and worked together on issues when in Congress together. None the less, by the time of the Civil War the Whigs were gone and hadn’t Stephens basically thrown his lot in with the Democrats after GA succeeded.
aimai
It woudl be more accurate for TC to argue “slavery among the English started with the English and it took the English to end slavery among the English. Ditto the Americans.” Who should have stopped slavery in their countries but the slavers? Its not like the African end of slavery was forcing slaves onto those boats.
Tommy
@NonyNony: I think they believe it is a sign of weakness. That is what a former boss, far right, used to say. When I made a mistake I’d say I was sorry and he get pissed at me. Saying it showed weakness on my part. I then said I was sorry for being sorry just to rub his nose in it. He didn’t get the humor in that.
Comrade Dread
That modern fundamentalists have only recently stopped taking the bible literally with regards to slavery is solely because they lost a war over the question.
Until that point, when their cities were burning and blood was spilled across the country, pastors, teachers, and ‘good’ Christians were pointing to the key texts in the bible dealing with slavery and using them as proof-texts to justify the practice as being in line with Christianity and the nature of God. Southern Christians condemned their abolitionist brothers as denying the clear word of God in favor of more esoteric concepts like justice, mercy, and righteousness.
For the many years afterwards, Christian pastors and followers cited biblical creation texts to argue that the human race should be separated by color because God created the white kind of human and the black kind of human and never the two should mix.
We have, of course, sanitized that whole stance in the ensuing years with many more palpable and polite lies in the years that followed so that now the only true Christians were abolitionists (untrue), the South just wanted to secede over tariffs (bullshit, read their statements on secession), slavery wasn’t all that bad for most people (also bullshit, read the primary documents from escaped slaves), and even if it were, the biblical kind of slavery was completely different (spoiler alert: it really wasn’t.)
Maybe fundamentalists do this to cope with the fact that if a literal reading of the bible endorsed or permitted a great moral evil, it calls into question the validity of everything else they believe. Or maybe it’s done because of the uncomfortable truth that if one were born a 170 years ago and was still a bible believing, fundamentalist Christian, there’s more than a good chance that one would also have been a slave owner or fighting for the rights of the slave owner against the clear moral good of abolition.
Professor
@Patrick: Maybe they do not know the history of religious pogrom in Europe generally and England in particular. I cannot link to them right now, but please search for the following: York Castle massacre 1190, the Statute of Jewry 1275, the Edit of Expulsion 1290, the gun powder plot 1605, Regnan in Excelsisi 1570 by Pope Pius V etc etc.Oh I forgot about the IRA (they were Catholics but we did not want to tar all Catholics about their atrocities).
Gex
Only a straight American can view Christianity as a religion that is not violent.
For thousands of years, all Christians imposed the worst violence on us, and many more still want to. Gay kids end up suicidal because death feels like it would be better than what society deals us. That’s something I have struggled with and still struggle with.
Tucker himself probably spoken “on behalf of traditional marriage” a convenient phrasing that will let him remain in denial that he too inflicted harm in the name of his God but doesn’t want to be held to account the way he would others.
There’s a reason why gays get brutalized and mutilated when they get murdered and it relates to Christian people’s attitudes towards us.
Patrick
One doesn’t have to go back centuries to find sickening behavior from Christians. How about the Christians that harass poor women at abortion clinics? Hell, some of these Christians even go as far as kill doctors.
I am reminded of this quote from Mahatma Gandh:
Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians – you are not like him.
Big Kudos to President Obama for saying what he said.
OzarkHillbilly
@aimai:
Ummm, not quite true. There was quite a lot of buying and selling going on. Tribes raided each other quite often.
kwAwk
Put more simply. It was not possible in 1860 to determine if someone was pro- or anti- slavery simply by ascertaining whether they were a Christian or not, just as in 2015 it is not possible to determine if someone is pro- or anti- terrorism simply by ascertaining whether they are Muslim.
Crone
Thank you for the reference to “The South, the War and ‘Christian Slavery” by Thom Bassett. I find that few of the younger people I meet today know much about our history. This is NOT NOT NOT because they’re uneducated/ignorant/lazy/whatever. I think it’s because history becomes important as we age. (I’m “aged” and am somewhat surprised at how interesting the past has become to me & my peers.) When I engage with anyone under 45 or so on current politics, my ability to link attitudes & actions to real events (that they very vaguely remember from history classes) almost always causes them to rethink their opinions & biases.
Helmut Monotreme
@justawriter: I am surprised that you grouped the Missouri Synod Lutherans in with the Southern Baptists. I was raised in that church, and the God I no longer believe in still is the one I learned about in that church. This may be a result of ignorance on my part. Can you point to any references that link them with support of slavery?
Tommy
@Gex: My opening gay aunt and her partner of like 30 years moved back to the town my folks live in. I wasn’t so sure how this would work out with my parents. They are now pretty much best friends.
Well she asked to attend church with my parents. Keep in mind my family built the darn church and been going there for a hundred plus years. We bought all the Bibles. The front doors. The wheelchair ramp. For a lack of a better word you would have thought we had “bought” some goodwill.
The polite version I got was they were not welcomed with open arms. My father had some choice words for a few people and they have never gone back. Pretty proud of them for that!
Keith G
@OzarkHillbilly: That is a very apt summary.
Botsplainer
Being a fundamentalist modern Christian of Southron extract means never having to apologize or change your behavior, because Jesus will make it all better in the afterlife.
Cheap grace is a wonderful theology for sociopaths.
Spinwheel
@Belafon:
If you would kindly get the fuck over yourself, you’d notice I was talking about all American presidents being genocidal hypocrites, not just Obama. We’re still the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against a civilian population. This country is neck deep in the blood of tens of millions.
Obama’s hypocrisy is only notable for being the most recent. So when any American president talks about getting off a high horse over religious genocide, it’s 100% hypocrisy because the entire history of this country is one long war crime after another.
Obama is just the latest face of that horror.
GregB
Can we conclude that forced anal feeding and waterboarding and mock murders are Christian doctrines? Tucker? Bueller?
Lee
I posted something about this on FB, apparently the wingnuts are focusing on the Crusades part of the comment. When I ask about the more modern examples all I get are crickets.
Hal
So America is a Christian nation, founded by Christians, with laws based on Christian principles; according to most right wingers. Except for slave owners. OK then.
Citizen_X
So, the Civil War was about slavery. Huh.
Citizen_X
@Spinwheel: Your version of American Exceptionalism is just as unbalanced, livid and boring as the other version.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gex:
A couple of years ago, there was a meme claiming he tweeted “Obama thinks it’s fine for women to die in combat, but won’t let their husbands beat them? Is he protecting women or not?” Turns out, that was a bit of satiric hyperbole, but what he evidently did actually tweet was “The administration boasts about sending women to the front
lines on the same day Democrats push the Violence Against Women Act.”
Tommy
@Citizen_X: Yes, yes it was and I have my father’s 700-page Dissertation arguing this point on the shelf to my right. Anybody that says the Civil War wasn’t about slavery doesn’t know what they are talking about. Were there other factors involved, sure. But at the core the south wanted basically free labor by enslaving people. Worried they’d not have that any longer they committed treason and started a war where hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Period. There isn’t a way to revise history and put a pretty bow on it. There just isn’t.
Elizabelle
@Tommy: Was your dad’s dissertation ever published? Or available through a library link? Would love to cruise through it.
Elizabelle
Breaking: The Supreme Court won’t stop same-sex marriage in Alabama. NYTimes alert.
On their front page, under “Watching” column at top right (aka breaking news): a judge who performed a same-sex wedding asked to be photographed with the newlyweds. Very sweet. White male judge, in Alabama. As Andrew Sullivan would tell us (!), Know hope.
http://www.nytimes.com
Belafon
@Spinwheel: And, just like Bob in Portland’s need to turn everything into an issue with Ukraine, you obviously need to turn every issue into a critique of the Worst.President.Ever. Obama: “The traffic lights aren’t as green as they used to be.” You: “When will this president stop using so many green lights on his Christmas tree so light manufacturers will have more to work with.”
BGinCHI
See also, Missionaries, A History of.
Also, Colonialism, Christian Rationale for and Supporter of.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Every so often, some mainstream media person like Carlson reminds me of the ingrained, base racism of so many people on this planet.
I recall when Obama mentioned that if he had a son, that boy would look like Trayvon Martin. Various and sundry people lost some or all of their minds when BHO said that. You would have thought Obama was holding a baton outside of a Philadelphia polling place.
The president is a ni CLANG. For some, it appears this blackness is the unforgivable kind. There are far too many people like Carlson who’d react the same way Carlson did if the president said that shooting unarmed people for the crime of walking down a staircase in a New York building is a bad thing.
Belafon
@Spinwheel:
Also
Bullshit. I’m pretty sure you’ve broken a few laws in your lifetime. Therefore, you need to get off Balloon Juice and stop making comments because otherwise your hypocrisy renders any and all comment moot.
debbie
@Patrick:
Greenspan’s gotten into her head.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
Alabama Chief Justice defies US Supreme Court.
(Via The Daily Beast.)
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Nope. Only four copies. I have one. Mom and dad have two. LSU has the other. Not so sure you’d want to read it. Isn’t what I’d call a “page turner.” The LSU Press has been hounding him for the better part of 20 years to shorten it and turn it into a book. I honestly think it was such a labor of love he doesn’t want to come back to the topic again.
Oh happy/funny sidenote. My mom typed the entire thing. Many revisions. Even to this day, almost 50 years later, if dad asks something of my mom and she doesn’t want to do it, and he nags her a little, she throws out the “I typed your dissertation darn it!”
Chris
@oldster:
I think the whole thing just illustrates the absurdity of using “THIS group was Christian, THEREFORE, Christianity is good/bad/wev” (or whatever religion was involved). Yes, of course the abolitionists and their descendants the civil rights movement were (mostly) Christian, and so were the slave owners and their descendants the Ku Klux Klan, and so were all the bystanders who didn’t really have an opinion. In a society where the vast majority of people were Christian, saying “these people were Christian” is about as useful as saying “these people breathe oxygen” – Christianity, far from being a set of norms that made everybody agree to be Good People, was the rationale for pretty much every possible viewpoint from best to worst.
Which was kind of Obama’s point.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Tommy: Anyone who attempts to make the “Civil War was about slavery” argument should be told to read the Preamble to the Constitution of the CSA. That generally closes the case, but willful ignorance can be difficult to overcome.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: I am a straight guy. Not that emotional. But when I see these same sex marriage pics or people waiting in line for a marriage license my eyes start to leak a little.
NCSteve
The reason we have Southern Baptists as a distinct denomination from northern Baptists is because of slavery. One side thought it was wrong and the other thought it was Godly.
RP
Isn’t Carlson just proving Obama’s point? I thought Obama was saying that judging Islam by pointing at ISIS is just as silly as judging Christianity by pointing at the crusades or the Inquisition. IOW, all religions have good and bad in them.
The Pale Scot
@Tommy:
I think that’s a Gibb’s Rule #16
When first saw that watching NCIS with dad my only thought is Gibbs is a fucking moron.
dmsilev
@The Ancient Randonneur: Or the declarations of succession from the various states. Most of them are very specific that preserving slavery was the primary reason for leaving the Union.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah. I tend to be of the viewpoint that religion makes absolutely not one bit of difference to how people behave, because my observation is that no matter what they’re raised with, good people will always find rationalizations to do good things, and bad people will always find rationalizations to do bad things. The slavery/Christianity debate would be a case in point, where one side was waving around the parts of the Bible about treating people as you’d want to be treated and ignoring the parts that were okay with slavery, and the other side was waving around the parts of the Bible that were okay with slavery and ignoring the parts about treating people as you’d want to be treated. People believe what they want to believe. The presence or absence of religion isn’t going to change that.
Chris
@The Pale Scot:
“Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness?”
Yeah. I only watch NCIS occasionally, but that rule stuck out in my head because of the fucking stupidity and hubris in it.
Elizabelle
@debbie: I don’t watch MSNBC anymore, and am so much happier for it. Will turn there to see an Obama speech live, if C-Span is not carrying it at the time.
I will not watch Andrea Mitchell. I don’t care what Joe Scarborough and his very important, very hip, very status quo panelists have to say.
Rachel Maddow is very, very smart, but she takes too long to get to the point and she sneers. I don’t like that, even when those being sneered at actually deserve a guillotine or trial for treason or corruption.
Chris Hayes is hysterical.
I think one of the reasons I like blogs is that I can read them — more quickly than one can listen — and literary sneering is far more satisfying than oral sneering, which can sound mean.
ETA: And if something really important happens on an MSNBC show, you guys and other blogs will alert me. Can watch the segment or even find a transcript.
I am so much happier and more tranquil. Although no less inspired to fight back against the Kochs and other nonsense in this world.
Woodrowfan
@Napoleon: they did, I just like the irony of how their fates worked out…
Tommy
@The Pale Scot: I am a huge fan of NCIS and I must have missed that show. Because I would have thought the same thing.
I always felt it was a sign of strength. That I was self-aware. Realized I made a mistake. Admitted it and didn’t pass the buck. Said I was sorry. Sorry I might have cost the company money. Made a mistake that might have kept the single women that reported to me missing her kids t-ball game to fix my mistake.
Those are work related examples but try the same in my non-work life.
The Pale Scot
@OzarkHillbilly:
The catalyst for that was the Portuguese etc selling firearms only to those tribes who provided slaves. Any tribe that didn’t do business was put at a severe disadvantage.
Cacti
If the POTUS was really trying to be inflammatory, he could have pointed out how Scott Roeder and Eric Rudolph were acting on their sincerely held religious beliefs when they were bombing women’s clinics and gunning down doctors in public.
GregB
@Elizabelle:
Rachel’s ability to belabor a point is epic. I really don’t see the need to spend 10 minutes repeating the exact same point over and over and yet that is what she does.
Original Lee
@Tommy: Some distant ancestors of mine owned and operated slave transport ships. I am not proud of that at all, but I also do not deny that it happened and that it was horrible.
I’m really glad I can say it was a long time ago, though.
Elizabelle
@Tommy: Maybe your mom should do the revising down into book length.
Thanks re the info.
SRW1
Whenever you wonder about what might possibly go on in the mind of people like Tucker Carlson when they talk about Obama, this scene might help.
Kristin
@BGinCHI: I was at the Oakland Museum of California a couple of weeks ago, and one of the exhibits discussed how the Native Americans were beaten by missionaries, and other fun stuff like that.
Elizabelle
@GregB: Yes. And a lot of her audience has seen blogs and is aware of the newspaper/other reporting on whatever topic.
We have not all been released by the Shining Path after a 6 year news blackout.
Chris
@dmsilev:
One of the bleakest outlooks on the Civil War I’ve heard came from an undergrad professor who said that the narratives were basically exactly backwards – it’s the South that was fighting over slavery (albeit to preserve it, not destroy it) and the North that was fighting over states’ rights (or rather the rights that states did not have, like leaving the Union). And over time, the narratives got reversed, because Southerners were uncomfortable with the idea that their ancestors were a pack of racists, and Northerners were uncomfortable with the idea that their ancestors were just a pack of autocrats.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: That was Judge Roy Moore, of Ten Commandments fame. His order is being ignored by most, apparently.
Kristin
These are the same people who want to change history textbooks so that they reflect only their beliefs. Otherwise, their fee fees get hurt.
If their beliefs are so righteous, though, why are they so defensive of them?
Comrade Dread
@Cacti: Or he could mention the slightly more recent incidents of Christian on Christian violence during the Troubles in North Ireland.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: From Amir’s link (Daily Beast):
The prosaic:
And the profound:
Tearing up, right along with Tommy and others, proud America got to this moment.
Which is why Tucker Carlson and all his loud idiots are screaming about The Crusades. They’re losing every time they turn around, and it’s becoming ever more obvious their economic and social ideas are full of shit.
Patrick
@RP:
Amen. Does Tucker or Andrea Mitchell really, really think all Christians are perfect? Maybe those two should study the bible a bit more. And what does Mitchell as a woman think about the Christians who harass women outside abortion clinics?
Cacti
@Chris:
A fair assessment.
One of the biggest southern grievances with the northern states was their refusal to honor or assist with enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act. The Dred Scott case was also about the free states’ and territories’ refusal to recognize Scott’s slave status when his owner transported him into their jurisdiction. Other slaves had successfully sued for their freedom, arguing that they became free upon crossing into a free state.
Slave owning Chief Justice Roger Taney, made sure he nipped that in the bud.
A Ghost To Most
@greennotGreen:
Religion creates self-righteous people.
Gin & Tonic
@Comrade Dread: Here’s a nice recent example of Christianity being a peaceful force.
Tommy
@Original Lee: Clearly you and I can’t be held to cause for what our family members did almost 150 years ago. BUT we ought to be able to admit it.
I was talking to my 90-year-old great, great grandmother. I must have been 12 or so. Early 80s. I asked her about my family and slavery. She said something I will never forget. Cut to the bone.
Isn’t that at the core of what Tucker is thinking? Or those of his ilk. Slavery wasn’t that bad. We treated our slaves well.
GregB
@Elizabelle:
10 points for a Sendero Luminosa reference.
Gin & Tonic
@Comrade Dread: I tried to post a link to an article in The Guardian about the role of the Russian Orthodox church in politics and war, which is headed by a great picture of a priest blessing a table full of Kalashnikovs. Unfortunately the article is primarily about a women’s musical and protest group from Moscow, whose name is a no-no in FYWP-land. But if you Google something like Guardian Ilana Ozernoy P*ssy Riot it will come up at or near the top (substitute a “u” in the right place.)
Cacti
@Tommy:
All of my family members who fought in the Civil War, wore confederate gray. One even died from wounds he received at the battle of Vicksburg.
Some of them were also slave owners.
They were wrong, period, full stop. I do not honor them or the cause they fought for. I am grateful that their side was defeated.
justawriter
@Helmut Monotreme: A quick google of “Missouri Synod slavery” has many relevant results. The most common phrase seems to be “they believed the Bible taught to neither approve nor condemn slavery so they opposed abolitionism, the campaign against slavery.” It is splitting hairs, I think, to distinguish opposing abolition from supporting slavery. I do think, in my experience, that the LCMS was driven more by anti-Catholicism than anti-black sentiment. Even in this millennium, a LCMS minister in my region called for the dismissal of the head of the synod because he appeared on the same stage with Catholics, praying with them, (and other religious leaders) to denounce the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Personally, I believe that religion just channels the best and worst of our personalities. It doesn’t create evil or good, it just enables the good and evil of its adherents. The church makes monsters and saints evenhandedly.
geg6
@Citizen_X:
Exactly what I was thinking. Ignorant self-importance! It’s not just for wingnuts!
evodevo
@Comrade Dread: Yes. This. Expressed much more clearly than I could have. Thank you.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
I like MSNBC, but admittedly only watch every so often.
Way off topic… This made me laugh (from last night’s Grammy thread):
geg6
@Gin & Tonic:
He’s the textbook example of why electing judges, especially state supreme court justices, is the stupidest idea ever. And I say that as a resident of a state that elects all of its judges. Nothing but stupidity and corruption can ensue in such circumstances.
geg6
@A Ghost To Most:
Heh, best comment of all here. Completely and utterly true.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kristin:
For the same reason they want their beliefs about the origin of man to be validated by science (see the entire “intelligent design” movement).
They know, deep deep down, that it’s all bullshit. Made up. By humans. This disturbs them greatly. So they’ve got this third party with omniscience who projects the human need to find patterns and order on a universe that may have an order, but it’s one that we can’t relate to as humans, because none of us live at the sub-atomic level.
So they make one up.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy:
I fully understand your mother’s pov. I used to type mathematical dissertations. On an IBM Selectric. The copy that the student handed in to the school had to be perfect — no corrections, no white-out. It meant typing and re-typing. And you, of course, introduce new typos. I was able to often make a correction that you couldn’t see. I was able to get a dissertation accepted at Polytech University because i made the correction so cleaning. But if the woman in charge of checking papers decided I had to retype something, I had to retype .I haven’t typed a dissertation in decades but I swear that computers have made the process so much easier. (I have typed other types of papers on computers, play scripts, for example.)
CONGRATULATIONS!
And the problem is…it’s true? Sorry, Fucker Carlson, guess you need a refund on that portion of your education that involved any history at all.
I can go to any number of conservative hate sites, and find a “Christian” defense/explanation of the inferiority of black folks, and be back here in fifteen seconds.
Villago Delenda Est
From the NYT Link that Zandar provides from Eric Loomis:
Slavery cannot be failed…it can only be failed.
Hmmm….I’m detecting a pattern here…
Villago Delenda Est
Erm…Should read “Slavery cannot fail, it can only be failed”.
Need coffee. And some editing in the five minute window.
Villago Delenda Est
@SRW1: Yup, that’s pretty much it. It’s an outrage that anyone blah is in a position of authority
This is why I’m in favor of flaying alive people like Fucker Carlson.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@GregB: Either Rachel needs to spend more time interviewing her guests, or she needs to have the show cut to 30 minutes. She does too often take far too long to get to the point, and it seems to mainly be due to the fact that she has to fill an hour every day.
MHP’s format would seem to be a much better fit for Rachel’s seeming desire to talk a lot about a topic. I guess it’s an artifact of her radio show (which I assume was an hour or longer). It’s not working well, for me anyway, in her current show’s format.
When Rachel is good, she’s excellent. But too often she just seems to be filling time.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
Mark Twain had these guys’ number over a hundred years ago.
“All right then, I’ll go to hell.”
Paul in KY
@Mike Furlan: I think Jesus felt that regulated chattel slavery was part of the ‘render unto Caesar..’
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Good point, there.
catclub
@Mike Furlan:
Now you work out how he approved of slavery.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Defending & believing that a state cannot unilaterally exit the Union does not make one an autocrat, IMO.
catclub
@Chris: Four statements lead to wisdom:
I was wrong
I’m sorry
I don’t know
I need help
Paul in KY
@Tommy: However, you or Tucker or maybe even your great grandmother didn’t really (through 1st hand observing) know if in fact they did treat their slaves well.
Treating them ‘well’ is definitely much better than treating them as Simon LeGree would have.
gocart mozart
http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
Paul in KY
@geg6: Which is why the powers-that-be are generally for electing judges.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I would certainly like to see his face if he thought he was being given to someone like Ramsey Bolton.
Helmut Monotreme
@justawriter: Well, as you suggested, following up those google links gave me a lot to think about, certainly one of the most important figures of the LCMS church in the US was anti abolition (objectively pro-slavery). It seems like cowardice to me, for the leader of a church that claims to be the final arbiter of morality to refuse to take a stand on whether or not slavery is evil. The church apparently had a schism at the time of the civil war with many adherents leaving for Synods unafraid to side with the Union and abolitionism.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
That’s very true, and there was actually a thread here a couple years ago that went into the whole moral argument for preserving the Union. But, I still think it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, rightly or wrongly. “You don’t have the right to leave the Union” just doesn’t have the same ring of moral authority to it that “free the slaves!” does, which is why a lot of us choose to play up that part of history instead. Personally, I don’t find arguments for secession in and of themselves to be objectionable. I had no particular problem with what the Scots were doing last year – I’d have been sorry, even as an outsider, to see the United Kingdom broken up, and I had my doubts that an independent Scotland would’ve been viable, but I didn’t think they should be prevented from leaving if most of them voted that way.
Of course… in the South, a whole chunk of the population (the majority, in several states) wasn’t being allowed to have an opinion, which cast secession in a different light morally if not legally, plus, the whole firing on Fort Sumter thing elevated it from secession to armed rebellion – less Scottish Independence and more IRA, if you will. (It’s why I find the whole “war of Northern aggression” phrasing to be hilariously bullshit even before you bring the whole slavery question into play – who fired on Fort Sumter, again?)
There’s also a pragmatic and strategic argument that I’m surprised I don’t hear brought up more often – splitting the U.S. up and creating two major nations hostile towards each other, would’ve been playing right into the hands of the British. In Europe, their whole shtick was to be an “offshore balancer” – alternatively ally with this or that power, as soon as one country starts gaining too much power throw in with its enemies until it’s been cut down to size, and in that way be the determining factor in who ruled Europe. In North America, they couldn’t do that because there was only one real player. But secession would’ve allowed them to play the U.S. and C.S. off against each other and regain their power over the continent that way. And American policymakers were very aware of the British factor in those days; we accepted Texas into the Union at least partly because Sam Houston started hinting that he’d align with the British if we didn’t, and much of Lincoln’s foreign policy during the war revolved around making sure that the South didn’t get any help from across the ocean. It’s not a moral or legal argument, but it’s another factor that deserves mention.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: Applause, applause, applause!!
I take this “religious people are so evil and dumb” meme to be just another way for certain atheists to play the superiority game. I see it as no different than when certain Whites claim that Blacks/Browns are dumb and criminally inclined.
Being religious doesn’t make one less intelligent than not being religious. Just look at atheist Bill Maher’s stance on vaccinations. Religious beliefs are often used as a justification for bad behavior. But non-religious folks have been known to engage in horrible acts for non-religious reasons. That’s basically all President Obama was pointing out in his Prayer Breakfast speech.
Patricia Kayden
@Patrick: It’s not the sins of the fathers. There are people alive today who witnessed lynchings and Jim Crow. I have co-workers who talk about being in the back of the bus and not being able to go into certain business establishments because they are Black. It’s not that far back in time. Ms. Mitchell should know this.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
I used to believe that a lot of the problems with the Republican Party were traceable to the religious right, and that if that were someday no longer a factor, most of what made the GOP bad would be gone and it’d be a more or less normal party.
Then I read Ayn Rand.
“… so THAT’s what a non-religious Republican Party would look like. I stand corrected.”
Death Panel Truck
@Patrick: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” –Mahatma Gandhi
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden:
Yet Mike Huckabee is having a fucking conniption fit over this…all he heard was “Christian” and knew the speaker was that Muslim Obama and boy howdy, look out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
That vile Nazi-Commie Lincoln, IIRC the appropriate passages from “The Totally True History of the Southron Nation”.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Interesting comments, Chris.
Paul in KY
@Chris: I am starting on Atlas Shrugged (finally got a free copy). Man, it is going to be a slog. Initial comment: Mr. Reardon sure has a passive-aggressive family. Also, the older Taggert (James?), don’t think there has ever been a real-life capitalist like him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul in KY: “Wha?…No. Pork sausage. Do you think I’m some kind of savage?
michael talley
@Mike Furlan: …do unto others….
Patricia Kayden
@Villago Delenda Est: President Obama is simultaneously someone who attended a racist Black church for eons (remember Pastor Jeremiah Wright?) and a Muslim extremist. Wonder how that works.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden: The same way he needs a teleprompter and he’s the most cunning and evil blah man since Sheriff Bart.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I guess that’s one of Ramsey’s lines?! I’m awaiting Season 4 to hit blue-ray.
sm*t cl*de
Who’s ‘us’ anyway? And by the way, who ended slavery and Jim Crow?
Those christians of previous centuries doing all that bad stuff, they had nothing to do with us, and give
themus credit when we stopped doing all that bad stuff.I didn’t do it. No one saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
Thanks!
@Paul in KY:
I should qualify that – I didn’t actually read any of her books all the way through. Don’t have the patience. Just quotes and individual passages were more than enough, though.
@sm*t cl*de:
This is what kills me – about conservatives’ relation to the past, and to their group identities in general. It’s an endless flip-flop between “I’m an individual! You can’t judge me!” when trying to avoid blame, and “I’m one of Them! Appreciate me!” when they’re trying to get credit.
Thus… bring up World War Two, and you’re told that France, Belgium, Holland and whoever somehow still “owe” America because America liberated them during World War Two, even though most Americans weren’t even born back then, and even among those who were, most weren’t actually fighting in the war. Bring up slavery and the Indian genocide, though, and it’s all “well, my ancestors never owned slaves. My ancestors never killed any Indians.” They want all the credit for what the collective does or has ever done, and none of the responsibility.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
It makes sense if you figure that the conservative worldview isn’t about good and bad actions, just good and bad people, with people preferably delineated by their group identities – whether racial, religious, professional, wev, you’re supposed to be able to fit into a broader category that’ll explain whether you’re good or bad. Christians are good, Muslims are bad. Small towners are “good people, with honesty and dignity,” big city urbanites aren’t. Soldiers and cops are righteous heroes, diplomats and lawyers are untrustworthy pond scum. Etc.
By admitting that there’s anything to criticize at all about Team Christian, by saying that we should react to crimes committed by Christians and crimes committed by Muslims the same way, Obama is taking a giant dump all over their notion of right and wrong by refusing to accept that Christians are just right and good and better and Muslims are just wrong and bad and worse.
(To a certain extent this can even extend beyond believing or practicing Christians, or even Christians per se. Anders Breivik admitted that he wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but considered himself a big fan of “Christian civilization” – the religion is one thing, but the tribe, that’s all-important).
Paul in KY
@Chris: I’m going to finish the damn thing (at least that’s what I’m saying now), but damn, that is a long book & so far, the writing hasn’t been scintillating.
jimmiraybob
@Tenar Darell:
Don’t forget the persecution, torturing and killing of witches by African Christians, also, too.
Tree With Water
A King’s Edict: To be broadcast nationally once a year on Easter Sunday eve, the film Inherit The Wind (the March, Tracy, Kelly version) will be required viewing for grades 1 thru 12.
Mike Furlan
@oldster: “Can you imagine the sh•tstorm that would have occurred if Obama had gone to the prayer-breakfast and said, ‘you know, the antebellum slave-owners–people like Lee, Washington, all of the Confederate leaders and the Southern aristocracy–you know they really were not Christians, right?””
So, all those people who have been quoting Bible verses that they think show that Jesus was antislavery, please tell me why Lee and Washington were confused on the issue?
Mike Furlan
@greennotGreen: You are a good person, but on the slavery issue a bad Christian. Which is a good thing.
Mike Furlan
@Paul in KY: Possible. But again, Jesus had not problem expressing an opinion. He drove the money changers out of the temple. He said nothing specifically about slavery.
Mike Furlan
@catclub: I didn’t say that he approved of slavery. I said that you cannot find him ever condemning it. He condemned the Pharisees, and he drove the money changers out of the temple.
This is why our founding fathers and the venerated Confederate white supremacists could feel that they were good and sincere Christians while owning slaves.
Mike Furlan
@michael talley: “Do unto others”. Robert E. Lee was clear about it. He thought slavery hurt the white man worse than the slaves. So he thought that he was going above and beyond the “Do unto others” commandment.
sm*t cl*de
There is Tony Blair’s position, that the atrocities performed in the course of the Crusades were not a reflection of true
Scotsmanhoodchristianity. The Crusaders thought they were christians… the Popes thought they were christians… but Tony Blair is the ultimate arbiter, and has the power of retrospective excommunication.Villago Delenda Est
@Paul in KY: Yeah, he’s waving this sausage around while talking about Theon’s lost dick and says that.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mike Furlan: The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas has Jesus using a slave in a couple of stories. The implication, as I read it, is that slavery is a natural arrangement at the time.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike Furlan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks Scott. And sorry to disappoint so many people. You can be anti-slavery, but you have to come to your conclusion without much support from Christian doctrine.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mike Furlan: Just to be clear, when I said “… Jesus using a slave in a couple of stories” I meant using one as a literary device to make a point. Not that he was a slave-owner. ;-)
The Jesus in the Bible is a pretty good dude in many respects. But he is a character of his time. It was probably inconceivable to him, and his writers, to consider a world without slavery. His statements about treating others as you wish to be treated isn’t inconsistent with that, I don’t think.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike Furlan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Agreed Jesus was not a slave owner. Nor did he say anything that would bother the conscience of a Simon Legree (Yankee BTW).
See, slavery was a “Positive Good.”
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/fitz/COURSES/calhoun.html
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, OK. Sure I will see that when I get to watching season 4.
Paul in KY
@Mike Furlan: The slavery of the antebellum South was not the slavery of Jesus’ time. You actually had more rights & it was easier to get out of back in Jesus’ day.