The problem is that some religions demand that you whip them out and display them as ostentatiously as possible, i.e. proselytize, and followers of those religions get upset when you tell them to stop it. Telling them to stop getting in your face with their religion is worse persecution than the Holocaust.
You don’t really need religion for any of that crap. The late and unlamented Soviet Union was pretty unfriendly to homosexuals even by American standards of the time. They also got in quite a lot of killing even if it didn’t involve suicide bombers. Russia currently manages to be hostile to women without a whole lot of religion. Christopher Hitchens managed to be a warmongering misogynistic asshole and a card carrying atheist all at the same time. Ayn Rand was the most commercially successful atheist writer ever, explicitly hostile to Christianity and an idol of the Right. In her fiction at least she was very enthusiastic about killing off those who rejected her philosophy. There are an awful lot of science fiction writers who manage to combine atheism with appalling personal politics. For more recent (if milder) examples, google Richard Dawkins and Elevatorgate. Evidence suggests that people are the problem.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to play the game of “Objectivism/Marxism/Evolutionary Pyschology/ etc is a religion” please give me a precise definition of religion so we know what we’re talking about. I’m assuming we’re going with belief in God/Gods.
10.
StringOnAStick
“Wave the flag, wave the bible, wave your sex or your business degree.
Whatever you want, but don’t wave that thing at me.”
– Bruce Cockburn
It doesn’t get any clearer than that. And he’s a serious Christian.
11.
Liberty60
As a churchgoing believer, I endorse this also.
Coincidently I am reading a book on social justice, and it speaks about the tension between wanting to speak and act fearlessly to defend [what we perceive] as the truth of human dignity, and the error of the “crusading spirit”.
It isn’t always a bright shining line- the takeaway is, we need to be ever willing to debate and listen to opposing views.
I guess I’m just an old crank, but I’m sure that religion was considered a private matter about fifty years ago.
Well, sort of. Fifty years ago, restrictive covenants that barred Jews from buying houses in certain neighborhoods were still legal, so it’s more that religion was a private matter as long as you belonged to the right (Christian) one.
18.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Stella B.: Yes, because Martin Luther King, Jr. never mentioned religion in his speeches.
As usual, most people want those that disagree with them to shut up.
19.
Kyle
Science gives us airplanes.
Religion flies them into buildings.
20.
Fuzzy
@Stella B.: Yeah, it was where I grew up and then I spent some time in the South.
Science gives us airplanes birth control.
Religion flies them into buildings gives us teen pregnancy.
Fix’d. I hate when it seems like people are discounting the fact that our own homegrown religious fuckers have done far more long-term damage to the country than a small group of fanatics in a few airplanes.
A. Russian culture is heavily influenced by the orthodox church, even during Soviet times. I’m certain that homophobia and misogyny came at least in part from that.
B. The Soviets embraced science pretty heavily for the most part, so they’ve got that going for them at least.
C. The USSR did in fact kill a lot of people, but 1) unlike religion they never claimed to be a compassionate organization predicated on salvation, and 2) every country on earth has killed lots of people at one time or another.
D. Lots of people (i.e. Hitchens, Rand, Dawkins, etc.) are assholes, but they’re individually assholes, not an entire congregation of assholes spreading an organized pantheon of assholishness and constantly trying to recruit the rest of the world and covert them into assholes, too.
23.
JoyfulA
@Mnemosyne: 50 years ago, Howdy Doody signed off on Fridays reminding kids to go to their church or synagogue this weekend.
@Stella B.: “In God We Trust” was adopted as the national motto in 1956, in response to those Godless Commies. There was plenty of proselytizing in the 50s and 60s, but it hadn’t made it into the politics as much as today.
Billy Graham’s heyday was in the 50’s and 60’s, when he was bringing his crusades to Godless places like New York.
Jimmy Carter made a splash as the first “born-again” President, but it turned out that he actually pays attention to the New Testament, unlike say Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson.
34.
Crouchback
@Arclite: A. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to blame the sins of the Soviet Union on the orthodox church. For a while at least, the Soviets embraced feminism so the potential was there. Over the long run they chose otherwise. The fact remains an aggressively atheistic government remained homophobic and in the long run misogynistic.
B. Saying the Soviets embraced science (often bad science) is kind of my point. Being pro-science and atheistic didn’t stop them from doing horrible things.
C. Seriously? By its official ideology, the USSR was supposed to be creating a communist utopia and leading a worldwide revolution. All the killing and suffering was justified by a supposedly better tomorrow. Ditto China and the Cultural Revolution as well as Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. And yes most countries kill a lot of people sooner or later but there’s usually more to them than mass murder. For the Soviets there wasn’t really much else going on. The Soviet Union managed to be more efficient at brutality and oppression than Tsarist Russia but that was about all they really improved on.
D. Hitchens was part of a largely secular elite than led us into the invasion of Iraq. Fundamentalist preachers weren’t the ones who led us into the Iraq war – it was the editorial pages of the Washington Post and New York Times, the leaders of think tanks, etc. .And as previously noted, the Soviets fit the organized assholes model. For that matter so does the modern day atheistic People’s Republic of China. Heck, you could argue there’s more freedom in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in China.And I’d say Dawkins among others is trying to convert people to his point of view. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
35.
dantoujours
My pen1s didn’t establish some of the world’s great universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and la Sorbonne (R Catholic), Harvard (Puritan, now United Church of Christ), Yale (ditto), Georgetown (R Catholic), U of Toronto (Anglican/Episcopalian), Brown (Northern Baptist), Columbia (Anglican/Episcopalian) and Northwestern (Methodist), nor did it establish 80% of this country’s hospitals. It’s also not responsible for running 80% of this country’s food banks and homeless shelters.
I wish it did, but it’s a bit lazy.
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Roger Moore
The problem is that some religions demand that you whip them out and display them as ostentatiously as possible, i.e. proselytize, and followers of those religions get upset when you tell them to stop it. Telling them to stop getting in your face with their religion is worse persecution than the Holocaust.
Joel
Especially when your religion is Church of Christ, Scientist.
(Link leads to satellite photo of dick-shaped church).
Villago Delenda Est
Please leave your pen1s in the box.
Thank you.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Yah, that is a huge (ahem) problem with some of them. If they can’t ram their religion down your throat, they’re being oppressed.
OK, I’ll stop now.
metricpenny
John, Good to have you banging out the posts again. It was hard coming here and not getting much from you.
Roger Moore
In vaguely related news, Pastor And ‘Snake Salvation’ Star Dies From Snake Bite. Nobody could have foreseen, hoocoodanode, etc.
mai naem
Any update on Betty Cracker’s mom?
justdale
The billboard left out the fifth line….
Crouchback
You don’t really need religion for any of that crap. The late and unlamented Soviet Union was pretty unfriendly to homosexuals even by American standards of the time. They also got in quite a lot of killing even if it didn’t involve suicide bombers. Russia currently manages to be hostile to women without a whole lot of religion. Christopher Hitchens managed to be a warmongering misogynistic asshole and a card carrying atheist all at the same time. Ayn Rand was the most commercially successful atheist writer ever, explicitly hostile to Christianity and an idol of the Right. In her fiction at least she was very enthusiastic about killing off those who rejected her philosophy. There are an awful lot of science fiction writers who manage to combine atheism with appalling personal politics. For more recent (if milder) examples, google Richard Dawkins and Elevatorgate. Evidence suggests that people are the problem.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to play the game of “Objectivism/Marxism/Evolutionary Pyschology/ etc is a religion” please give me a precise definition of religion so we know what we’re talking about. I’m assuming we’re going with belief in God/Gods.
StringOnAStick
“Wave the flag, wave the bible, wave your sex or your business degree.
Whatever you want, but don’t wave that thing at me.”
– Bruce Cockburn
It doesn’t get any clearer than that. And he’s a serious Christian.
Liberty60
As a churchgoing believer, I endorse this also.
Coincidently I am reading a book on social justice, and it speaks about the tension between wanting to speak and act fearlessly to defend [what we perceive] as the truth of human dignity, and the error of the “crusading spirit”.
It isn’t always a bright shining line- the takeaway is, we need to be ever willing to debate and listen to opposing views.
Bill E Pilgrim
@justdale:
“In both cases, when getting involved with one remember to use protection”?
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: Uh, already covered here, dude…..
ShadeTail
The comment at the bottom is the true gold nugget in the image.
Citizen_X
@Crouchback:
also got pretty good at that denying-science thing.
Stella B.
I guess I’m just an old crank, but I’m sure that religion was considered a private matter about fifty years ago.
Mnemosyne
@Stella B.:
Well, sort of. Fifty years ago, restrictive covenants that barred Jews from buying houses in certain neighborhoods were still legal, so it’s more that religion was a private matter as long as you belonged to the right (Christian) one.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Stella B.: Yes, because Martin Luther King, Jr. never mentioned religion in his speeches.
As usual, most people want those that disagree with them to shut up.
Kyle
Science gives us airplanes.
Religion flies them into buildings.
Fuzzy
@Stella B.: Yeah, it was where I grew up and then I spent some time in the South.
Mnemosyne
@Kyle:
Fix’d. I hate when it seems like people are discounting the fact that our own homegrown religious fuckers have done far more long-term damage to the country than a small group of fanatics in a few airplanes.
Arclite
@Crouchback:
A. Russian culture is heavily influenced by the orthodox church, even during Soviet times. I’m certain that homophobia and misogyny came at least in part from that.
B. The Soviets embraced science pretty heavily for the most part, so they’ve got that going for them at least.
C. The USSR did in fact kill a lot of people, but 1) unlike religion they never claimed to be a compassionate organization predicated on salvation, and 2) every country on earth has killed lots of people at one time or another.
D. Lots of people (i.e. Hitchens, Rand, Dawkins, etc.) are assholes, but they’re individually assholes, not an entire congregation of assholes spreading an organized pantheon of assholishness and constantly trying to recruit the rest of the world and covert them into assholes, too.
JoyfulA
@Mnemosyne: 50 years ago, Howdy Doody signed off on Fridays reminding kids to go to their church or synagogue this weekend.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
America got the Puritans
Australia got the murderers, thieves, and whores.
Australia wins!
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Some in the old country even joke about that to this day.
Fred
I forget which Bushie said, “Our God is bigger than theirs.” but it seems to fit in here.
Mustang Bobby
I heard that the fifth line is “Don’t ram it down other people’s throats.”
Hawes
Is this why bishop’s hats look like that?
Punchy
I’d think religion is more like a vagina; warm, comforting, feel-good, but often producing unwanted results and sometimes mocked when overused.
greennotGreen
Okay, I’ll change the spelling.
For women, all peenuses are bomb-delivery devices – baby bombs.
PurpleGirl
@Fred: It was a general.
Origuy
@Stella B.: “In God We Trust” was adopted as the national motto in 1956, in response to those Godless Commies. There was plenty of proselytizing in the 50s and 60s, but it hadn’t made it into the politics as much as today.
Villago Delenda Est
@Origuy:
Billy Graham’s heyday was in the 50’s and 60’s, when he was bringing his crusades to Godless places like New York.
Jimmy Carter made a splash as the first “born-again” President, but it turned out that he actually pays attention to the New Testament, unlike say Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson.
Crouchback
@Arclite: A. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to blame the sins of the Soviet Union on the orthodox church. For a while at least, the Soviets embraced feminism so the potential was there. Over the long run they chose otherwise. The fact remains an aggressively atheistic government remained homophobic and in the long run misogynistic.
B. Saying the Soviets embraced science (often bad science) is kind of my point. Being pro-science and atheistic didn’t stop them from doing horrible things.
C. Seriously? By its official ideology, the USSR was supposed to be creating a communist utopia and leading a worldwide revolution. All the killing and suffering was justified by a supposedly better tomorrow. Ditto China and the Cultural Revolution as well as Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. And yes most countries kill a lot of people sooner or later but there’s usually more to them than mass murder. For the Soviets there wasn’t really much else going on. The Soviet Union managed to be more efficient at brutality and oppression than Tsarist Russia but that was about all they really improved on.
D. Hitchens was part of a largely secular elite than led us into the invasion of Iraq. Fundamentalist preachers weren’t the ones who led us into the Iraq war – it was the editorial pages of the Washington Post and New York Times, the leaders of think tanks, etc. .And as previously noted, the Soviets fit the organized assholes model. For that matter so does the modern day atheistic People’s Republic of China. Heck, you could argue there’s more freedom in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in China.And I’d say Dawkins among others is trying to convert people to his point of view. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
dantoujours
My pen1s didn’t establish some of the world’s great universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and la Sorbonne (R Catholic), Harvard (Puritan, now United Church of Christ), Yale (ditto), Georgetown (R Catholic), U of Toronto (Anglican/Episcopalian), Brown (Northern Baptist), Columbia (Anglican/Episcopalian) and Northwestern (Methodist), nor did it establish 80% of this country’s hospitals. It’s also not responsible for running 80% of this country’s food banks and homeless shelters.
I wish it did, but it’s a bit lazy.