Arkansas Blog

Yet another example of how the Republican party has destroyed the freedom of religion in this country.

Indeed, the notion of freedom itself has changed to freedom to act only within the parameters defined by the unholy alliance between the Republican party and Evangelical Christianity.

I know I am assuming that the killer would vote Republican, but I think I'm safe with that.

Yet another reason why I left the Republican party.

Nothing is scarier than a christian red neck nut with a gun!

I've perused all the links here relating to this tragedy and see no evidence that the shooter does or does not claim to be a Christian. However, I'll grant that he is a redneck. Not all conservatives are Christians, however.

Please be careful painting with broad and indiscriminate strokes. Please don't equate Christians with this senseless and hateful murderer.

You're right, Perplexed.

I listened to several news reports today--one from the reporter with the Knoxville paper--that suggest this man had/has a very scathing view of religion in general. I would not rush to paint him as an Evangelical. That simply is not fair, even if many within that movement do not have a true sense of fairness.

He is a disturbed human being. Let's leave it at that for the time being.

Perplexed has a point. The early stories quoted neighbors of the killer as being very bitter about Christianity and about parents who'd made him attend church. There are a lot of things to be said about this killing, but Christian-bashing is not one of them. (Note: I am not a Christian. I am a Unitarian Universalist. My daughter's favorite video right now is Annie. If we'd lived in Knoxville, we'd've been there. This hits home and heart for me.)

Hey BWC, suck it up. We have at least a million of such in Arkansas.

This Tenn shooter was trying to redeem him self. He can't face what's been done to his country
and the complicity of his own peer group so he does what he's been conditioned to do, directs his
own guilt-fear-anger outwardly.

I was visiting one RWingnut website/blog back 7-8 years ago and they were inferring that killing
a liberal gay should be 'justifiable homocide.' This what happens to grown men when they consistently
vote themselves out of a job, have nothing productive to do and have been conditioned by the
Rwing media that it's all the fault of libs, gays, etc. Nice, large-scale magician's trick the elites
have pulled off. Chen/Bush only needed to fix a few machines in Ohio to continue the atrocity.
This shooter is truly to be pitied but not released.
I expect more like him as a neo-con America bottoms out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guns don't kill.......
.

Yeah, the christians were the victims. Strange that both the left and the right hate moderate to liberal christians.

America has espoused the high ideals of democracy but has seldom lived up to them. Slavery remained for a hundred years, repression of blacks, women, homosexuals has been constant in our society. This is nothing new or different that began with an idiot as President. We have had those before too, just not recently.

What we have is an absense of leadership at any level, in any area of public discourse. That is why Obama is such a rock star. He talks like a leader.

To add to Perplexed's point, not all Christians are republicans, or conservative. Many of us are liberal democrats. I hate that one party tries to "own" Christianity. I'm quite sure the Jesus I know from the Gospels was/is a liberal. You know, that love thy neighbor, do unto others stuff. Words that are quaint to some, powerful to this liberal democrat.

The guy was crazy. You can't predict, explain or stop crazy.

Fletch: I hope you don't feel I'm putting too fine a point on this, but Universal Unitarians are not "Christians." You don't have to believe in Christ to be a member of that group. There is no prescribed "confession of faith."

And with proper respect, I note that John A Arkansawyer made this perfectly clear: "Note: I am not a Christian. I am a Unitarian Universalist."

I have wondered why the group refers to itself as a "church." And I say that in respect, not to denigrate, criticize, or provoke argument. I have just wondered. "Church" is so universally connected to "Christian" and "Christ" that it seems strange to me for another religious group to adopt the term.

I stand corrected.

It does raise an interesting question to me. Would gays still be hated with the same passion if fundamentalists did not have such a hold on our society?

Possible hate crime.....ya think? I'm not going to play the Victim Game, the favorite pastime of Christian wingnuts, but I have about a 10% worry going on every time I blog. I've painted the Republicans as all alike a few times in frustration, but since most of my long time friends are Republicans, I know they're not all bad....just misguided at this point. Half aren't paying any attention, the other 25% are a combination of low/no information voters and those who always vote a straight ticket cause daddy did it. But the rest are pretty freaky people who feel victimized out of thin air and blame liberals if their milk turns sour. Those....I worry about.

I've done a pretty lousy job of keeping my true identity secret, but what measures I've taken, I took to protect my family. I've had a black eye before, my women folks haven't. I'd like to keep it that way. Years ago when this Rush Limbaugh gas bag came along, I studied him like I used to study TV preachers. It didn't take long to see Rush was a pompous prick who'd found suckers willing to fork over millions per year to get him to spew whatever he made up in his mind that day. Rush doesn't scare me, some of his glassy-eyed followers do. No doubt this church shooter can quote everything Rush has said the last month. He took seriously what Rush never does....Rush is a circus performer and says anything he thinks will get him an extra million out of wingnuts with more money than sense.

I have to admit I feel pretty violent at all times. I'm sorry as hell that I started paying attention to politics. It's removed happiness from my life much like the fear of germs drove Howard Hughes crazy. Germs are everywhere.....in politics crooks and liars are everywhere.....you can't wash your hands enough. You'd think a country that could invent the light bulb, colored condoms and send a man to the moon could invent a better system of taking care of bidness. Nothing on earth works as poorly as the American-AT&T political system. Over the last 8 years the system has become constipated, it hardly works at all.

Now we got wingnuts acting like Columbine kids. I don't like churches, but it still has a chilling effect to think some nut would walk into one and start shooting. If only that town had had a big ACLU building or something. Gee....if I can modify one of them duck shooting target games and replace the ducks with pictures of well known liberals, I might hit the county fair circuit and get rich overnight! There is opportunity in every crisis if you just look close enough! Anyone think Kevlar thongs might catch on???

You watch. Wayne LaPierre will say the shootings illustrate the need for a MUST-carry amendment to the Constitution.

He'll say if the Supreme Court would only widen its recent gun ruling to FORCE people to pack heat the congregants would have shot the guy before he could squeeze off a second or third shot.

Moxiemoron,

You figure that guy just woke up some day a crazed killer? You figure it just happens without any cause?

I'm sick of despair and hopelessness and "you can't do anything about it" as an excuse for not doing anything about anything.

You can stop some craziness. You can explain some craziness. You can predict some craziness.

Don't tell me to lie down and die.

I will also note that it was an alliance between religious fundamentalists and the state that crucified Jesus.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a Democrat. Your reasoning is dumbass!

I always thought being a liberal had something to do with acceptance of others. You know... we love everyone. If that's so, why is it that this blog -- and many of those who comment to it -- are so happy to disparage large groups of people at the drop of a hat?

If someone bashes something you guys believe in, you all are quick to pounce. But then you're also quick to do the same sort of bashing that the other side does to you. And what's most disappointing to me is that you let your bashing of Republicans (which is understood to a degree on a liberal blog) extend to Christianity.

How can some of your preach the message that everyone is equal when you tack on an asterisk for Christians. Although many of you are angered when people paint liberals with a broad brush, you more than willing to do the same thing when it comes to religion. I've lurked (and posted every now and then) for a long while. I've seen this happen many times and I'm yet to understand it.

OK, Billary, let's see if we can sort this out.

"Jeffrey Dahmer was a Democrat."

Does that mean the Tennessee shooter was a Democrat?

Jeffrey Dahmer was also a serial killer.

Does that mean that the Tennessee shooter was a serial killer?

Or does it mean that all Democrats are shooters?

Or all shooters are Democrats?

Or that all Democrats are serial killers?

Or that all serial killers are Democrats?

Just which reasoning is it that you're labeling as "dumbass"?

And just what is your reasoning here, Billary? Would you care to clarify?

Dear John A Arkansawyer,

Please lay down and die if you don't mind.

Seriously though, I'm open to ideas. What should be done to prevent the next guy from attempting a mass murder?

Don't lump gun owners into the crazy rightwing crowd. I have a bear problem so I have a gun and appreciate the right to have one but I am a liberal just to the right of the Libertarians.

Crazy ass people do crazy ass things.

We shouldn't say all white men are suspect even though this fellow appears to be a white man.

We equally shouldn't assume all late 50's people should be suspected of this type thing even thoogh he is reported to be 58.

This appears to be a loser who would rather blame everyone else than admit he is reason he is a failure at life.

ARK. BLOG: In my experience: 1) All gun owners are not irresponsible right-wingers. 2) All right-wing screamers I've encountered have been gun nuts.

Oops. Silly me.

Of course. I overlooked it.

Billary's reasoning is "name-calling."

"The church also hosts the Knoxville Monday Gay Men's Group. There is some speculation among congregation members that this may have been a motivation."

Again, the lyrics from the South Pacific tune may help explain it:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

SkyPilot,

I wish, in retrospect, I'd said, "I am a Unitarian Universalist who is not a Christian." The way I phrased it sounded as though the two were mutually exclusive. Some Unitarian Universalists are Christians; others are not. (Me? I'm an Atheist for Jesus.)

Both the Unitarian and Universalist churches have long roots back into Christianity. The points on which they differed with the official Christianity of the Roman Empire were the denial that Jesus was God (unitarianism, rather than trinitarianism) and the belief that all souls would return to the embrace of a loving god (universalism, rather than eternal damnation). The idea that Jesus is the only way to salvation is one particular Christian belief not unanimously shared.

(Yes, you can define Christian to be belief in Jesus as the only way to salvation. I'm talking about what people who've called themselves Christians for the last few hundred years have said, and they've said a lot of stuff!)

Unitarians and Universalists both have a historical claim to the word "church". Some of the earliest churches in America were Unitarian, and many of them survive to this day. There is a debate within some Unitarian Universalist congregations about whether use of the word "church" is too specifically Christian. I see merit on both sides of that debate. However, your characterization of Unitarian Universalism having "adopt[ed] the term", while not ill-meant, is not historically accurate.

Moxiemoron,

Thank you! That made me laugh. I'd kind of like to lie down and die, actually, as I'm home sick with a summer cold.

I promise you, I'll answer your question (maybe not as directly as you'd like, but it'll be a good-faith effort on my part), but it'll take some time and space. Probably I'll link it from here rather than paste the whole damn essay onto Max's blog.

Hey Maxs you called them the lowest life form so I tell you it takes one to know one...
You are always promoting homos. You say they are being punished for not being able to adopt.. I say to hell with your thinking because it would be much much worst on a child that is planced in a homos home...
damn your thinking... God would have to applogize to sodom and gomorah for destroying them if he changed his mind.
God does not changed, max, and you'd be better off not to forget it.
REPENT MAX before God's wrath is kindled against you for running a website mainly for queers.

Thanks O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, and other conservative a$$holes! Your constant liberal-bashing to an audience of low-foreheads, homophobes, gun nuts, misogynists, racists, rednecks, neo-Confederates and other assorted social bottom feeders has finally borne fruit. If you can't beat 'em, kill 'em!

>>Last week, hanging up on one of the angry right-wingers who call here periodically to curse the Times for its politics, I wondered briefly about the threat such people might pose."

Have you reported a terroristic threat to the local police? It could help get a trace/tap on your phone.

John: Thanks for your reply and explanation. I appreciate it/them.

I certainly would not split hairs with you over "adopt the term." I simply assumed that at some point the group decided to use it. Having its roots in churches, I can understand their reason for continuing its use.

And I appreciate both the courtesy and clarity of your response.

I am aware that some people who are Christians belong to the UUC fellowship. My only intent at that point was to indicate that the organization itself is not Christian, in the sense that it requires a belief in Christ or a confession of faith in him as a condition of membership.

By the same token, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has many members who are Christians, as well as many who are not, yet it is neither a "Christian" organization, nor does it consider itself a "church."

My interests at this point are more semantic than theological.

My impression is that Christians typically hark back to Jesus' words, "Upon this rock I will build my church" (my "ecclesia," my "called-out ones"). So I've been curious as to the reasoning of others to use the term. I have taken the term "church" to indicate those who identify themselves with Christ and consider themselves his called-out ones. But perhaps my interpretation has been too narrow.

And thanks again for your clarification of your position. Additional light always helps push back the darkness.

If Christians don't like being painted with a broad brush, tough. They did it to themselves. The "left" didn't stand up for their beliefs and allowed the "right" to create the current public image of Christianity.

For example, contrast the passion and power of the "left" to the "right" over any public issue you care to name. The "right" wins every time, while the "left" cries about it on blogs.

My issue is with any faction of any denomination of any religion who takes on political power and takes away my freedom.

cozmo,

Liberals are accepting of others?

Liberals want freedom from gov't such as:

forced prayer in schools
restrictions on who can marry (interracial, gay etc.)
attacking foreign countries after spreading numerous lies

I am no more "accepting" of people that infringe on my rights to be left alone than evangelicals accepting of what two consenting adults do behind closed doors.

Johnalawyer church does not mean christian. Jesus said He will build HIS Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
There are churches of all kinds everywhere but if it is not the church Jesus is building it may not be christian.
Durango stop your bald face lying. We are not taught to hate homos. We are not animals or beast that can't see. We see the perverted ways of the homos... shut the hell up about it.. it all a lie.

Oops. We've awakened chasv, my favorite blogger who uses profanity in his defense of his angry God.

But then, Peter was suspected of being a follower of Christ until he used profanity to deny it.

The poor little servant girl then evidently decided she must have been mistaken.

Chasv,

If AR Times Blog is a site run for queers, why are you checking it out all the time?

Do you have a lot of other sites for queers that you "checkout" all the time?

Finally we know an extra tidbit about Chasv, he constantly checks out queer websites. I hope his momma don't find out.

chasv,

"Johnalawyer"? I guess that's just a typo--but if you really want to insult me, try "JohnAnMBA".

Chasv,

To quote you, "we see the perverted ways of the homos" seems to me you are checking out those homo/queer websites.

Maybe for those of us who frequent political blogs instead of the ones you check out, maybe you could keep us up to date on the perverted ones. Is there one that is your favorite or do you like them all pretty much the same?

Sky Pilot,

It seems you got my point!

1) All gun owners are not irresponsible right-wingers.<<

I hope not. In NWA I'm a proud founding member of Liberals With Guns.
Our organization has two founding principles;
1) be of liberal-progressive political persuasion
2) you must own a gun, at least an air rifle. Well, one guy is a Civil War buff and has
a working replica of a CW cannon so we allowed that & counted him in.

We meet once per year in Dec.to celebrate our liberation,to respect our guns and honor the Prince of Peace, well, almost. One guy is a Jew and sits out that part.
.

Seems to me, if dude was upset about not being able to find a job, he would direct his anger at conservatives, rather than libs. But what the hell do I know? I guess I'm just another queer on this queer website for queers. Queer as that is...

charleneV
Most of us know that the Bible says the only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ of Nazareth. However, the Bible DOES NOT say the only way to Jesus of Nazareth is through
you.

Keep blogging those gay websites charV. and keep your closet door nailed shut.

.

I was wondering how long it would take you moonbats to start salivating over this. It provides you an opportunity to perform your 'jujitsu logic'. Let me see. This guy hated liberals and homosexuals so he must be a Republican and a Christian. Consequently, all or most Republicans and Christians would support the murder of homosexuals or liberals. Does that about get it?

I know many Republicans, Christians and conservatives and I have yet to find one who condones this sort of hideous behavior. If the converse of this were true i would not leap to the conclusion that all or most democrats and liberals condone the murder of people because of their beliefs.

Republicans for Obama yo mama----What you are proposing was tried during the last century by the Nazis. They were called concentration camps and were used for the systematic elimination of jews. However, I think that you are a prophet---of a sort---because I think that the next attempt by the population will be exactly that directed at Christians.

John A Arkansawyer,

I also had it in my head from back posts that you were a lawyer. Dang, I have something in common with ChasV other than a given name. That is if his is Charles, and I guess that also assumes he is a he.

Maybe someone with a similar blog name has me confused. Or maybe I read a post of yours too fast long ago and steel trap mind snapped shut.

Yes, strange, when I wrote my post I was indeed thinking about the pictures I have seen of swastikas on church alters in Nazi Germany.

I walked into a church several months ago and saw an American flag by the pulpit.

Nothing good can happen when we begin worshiping our government.

I only wish I were a prophet of a sort. I'm mainly bitter.

The man accused of a mass church shooting this morning was described by his Powell neighbors as a helpful and kind man, but one who had issues with Christianity.

This is from the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

"Jim D. Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which killed one and injured eight others.

"He is being held on $1 million bond.

"He had his own sense of belief about religion, that's the impression I got of him," said neighbor Karen Massey. "We were talking one day when my daughter graduated from Bible college, and I told him I was a Christian, then he almost turned angry.

"He seemed to get angry at that."

Hmmmmmm. So those quick to jump to conclusions (including our own Max Brantley, who knows better than to indulge quick conclusions) were wrong to say the shooter was an evangelical Christian. It seems to be turning out that the shooter was a hater of evangelicals, not a hating evangelical. Just like some of the folks on this blog.

>>For example, contrast the passion and power of the "left" to the "right" over any public issue you care to name. The "right" wins every time, while the "left" cries about it on blogs.<<
by Repub for Obama

I'm afraid you don't get it. Long ago in a gov created by man was a thing called the Constitution of the United States. It was and is based upon REASON, not passion.
It contains constraints placed upon leaders and a clear separation of powers between the
THREE agencies of government. The only real issues being debated is if the separation of powers will remain in tact. It is a good test for this Democratic Republic.

Many "issues" currently debated are manufactured by the Rwing for purposes of avoiding debate on real issues. That is why you are assuming "The "right" wins every time,..." They do not.

.

So the American Flag is equivalent to the Nazi Flag? Hmmmmm, I guess that 'jujitsu logic' is still alive and well in moonbat land.

Citizen home: The confusion in names may stem from similarities.

There's John A Arkansawyer.

And there's reallawyer.

Maybe it's the "awyer" that caused the brain click.

It can happen. For some reason I occasionally find myself using the name "Dean" when my intention was to use "McCain." How much more weird and cross-wired can you get?!

That same Constitution that you so pretend to embrace is permeated with the concept of 'Federalism'. That concept that runs throughout the Constitution embraces a sharing of power between the central government and the state government. In fact, it gives all powers to the states except those reserved for individuals or enumerated as belonging to the central government. In other words, it defaults to the states not the central government. This was the cornerstone of Madison's thinking.

dbi - Irony note.. That particular church funded their towns chapter of the ACLU and a whole lot of other progressive activities. Really quite an active and inspired bunch.

I'm sure Limbaugh will honor and encourage great sympathy for that whacko this week.

Eureka----your brain is in the moonbat cycle. Rush will never condone the murder of people by this whacko regardless of the politics of the church. Another example of 'jujitsu logic' that you guys specialize in.

Kind of interesting this wing-nut just had his food stamps revoked... The GOP modus operandi --- starve the people into madness... Madness and chaos in Iraq works so well for them. (oil prices are sky high aren't they...and those no bid contracts are very lucrative). I have always been certain it is their long term goal here (Shock Doctrine).. Only people who hate government, yet feed upon it while destroying it... could or would do what they have done at home and around the world..

"Shock doctrine" really works for the rich... while the poor attack each other.

Thanks, John. I guess I could explain myself a bit better as well. It just seems to me that anytime something like this happens (Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Post Office shootings in the 80's) people tend to treat it as a blank slate on which they project whatever it is they think is wrong with the world. More guns could have prevented it... no guns could have prevented it... it's because we tolerate hatred of Christians (Columbine)... it's because we tolerate hatred of liberals (this case). I guess I am a bit of a fatalist in that sense. I tend to think crazy is the reason and everything else is the excuse. This guy was angry about losing his job (that's the story so far, more could come out) and looked for someone to blame. How do you stop a guy from snapping and looking for a scapegoat to take it out on? You can't preemptively arrest loners with chips on their shoulders. I guess you could completely ban guns but that didn't stop that Japanese guy from killing seven people in May with a truck and a knife. Ultimately, I think passing any kind of sweeping legislation in response to such isolated incidents ends up leading to the surrendering of basic freedoms. I'm thinking specifically about the Patriot Act here. See, I'm pretty much a fatalist about terrorist attacks as well.

See there, guys--and gals: You just can't out-maneuver strangelove's omniscience.

He ALREADY KNOWS what Rush Limbaugh will and will not do for the rest of his life.

He said so: Rush will never condone the murder of people by this whacko regardless of the politics of the church.

Notice, "Rush will never condone. . . ."

That's the end of it.

strangelove has spoken.

The more I read, the more I am convinced the Chasv's on this (and many other blogs) should be considered as potentially dangerous as the shooter.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

PZ Myers (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/) did some digging and found out that the guy posted on "Liberty Forum":

People keep writing to me about this wretched scumbag who shot up a Unitarian church in Tennessee, killing two people there to watch a children's play. I don't know what happened, but despite it happening in a church, I don't get the impression that it's a consequence of a conflict between Christians and an atheist. It was a Unitarian church, full of secular humanists and deists and non-specific theists, not exactly a prime target for a psychotic atheist. More likely issues are that the place had a sign out front saying "Gays welcome", that he was a Confederate South sympathizer, that he was insane, and that he "was motivated by frustration over being unable to obtain a job and hatred for the liberal movement." At least, that's the word that has leaked out of a long note he left behind.

So until we know more specifics, it sounds to me like this is the work of a far right-wing nut who targeted a particular church not because it was religious, but because this is the kind of church where you'll find the highest concentration of bleeding heart liberals. We'll have to wait until more details are made available, though, to know for sure.

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=296384630

Casimir Pulaski,

When you say, "So those quick to jump to conclusions (including our own Max Brantley, who knows better than to indulge quick conclusions) were wrong to say the shooter was an evangelical Christian," you are wrong so far as Max is concerned. What he actually referred to were "angry right-wingers" and "the politically deranged". He didn't say a thing about what religion the killer might've practiced.

Homophobic Christians are some of the most dangerous people in this world. He's probably a closet homosexual who is either so ashamed of himself that he had to act out, or envies those who are able to live as who they are.

I work for one of those...and very grateful that he, as far as I know, owns no gun. Of course, it makes my job hell to hear the things he says about "us" behind my back. He's too stupid to realize that 1) I overhear him, and 2) coworkers tell me what he says. He says just as bad about blacks so I don't feel special.

I could swear that in all the Bible teachings I have heard, Jesus never condemed anyone...what gives these people the right to judge?

"...Many "issues" currently debated are manufactured by the Rwing for purposes of avoiding debate on real issues. That is why you are assuming "The "right" wins every time,..." They do not.--eLwood

Thank you, eLwood, for saving me the time/effort.

The 'right' wins all the time because they've appointed themselves judge/jury of all things moral/patriotic. Plus, the left gets bogged down in all that fairness/openness stuff...stuff the right wingers, in general, don't bother themselves with. They're right, after all, 'cause they said they were right.

strange strange strange - Bless your little dark heart... Limbaugh won't be blatant about it.. he knows the legal rules.. But he walks the line all the time... been suggesting and hoping for riots in Denver for months now.

I don't know whether you are truly naive, stupid..or just want folks like Limbaugh to continue to poison the national well without question.. but you can't fool all the people... even when you actually respond directly to a point someone made.

Jesus was the exception... as long as these wing-nuts commit atrocities in his name..on behalf of him or even the old testament.. they are exempt and always justified. Fundies don't actually listen to Jesus... geesh man, get a grip. /s

The lesson learned by fundies.. is tht you can beat, belittle, even kill lil old liberals like Jesus..and if it was a mistake..the lil old poor liberals will be brought back by God and all will be forgiven.

Since those dead children didn't return from the dead.. there is no need to worry... the wing-nut must have been doing Gods work.

Maybe those kids were gay and just didn't know it yet... I'm sure chasv will tell us when he returns from his top secret gay Ouijii blog

So, now we're all Moonbat Queers?
That has a nice ring to it. I think it'd make a great name for a band: The Moonbat Queers.
Meantime, people with issues - not unlike name-calling, I guess - with "liberals", are shooting up churches. And the only name-calling being directed at that guy is "republican". Hmmm.
I s'pose I'd rather be called a "moonbat queer" than a "republican". Matter of fact, you republicans will have a hard time coming up with anything to call me that would be so offensive.
I don't blame you for being bitter.
Keep trying.

Moxiemoron,

You're singing my song here:

"people tend to treat it as a blank slate on which they project whatever it is they think is wrong with the world. More guns could have prevented it... no guns could have prevented it..."

In particular, I'd like to hitch those two asses to a wheel and grind grain, or generate clean electricity, or anything more useful than pro-gun/anti-gun.

Now, I'll add that I'm going to do some of what you may think of as projection when I write about what I think about what happened, but I'm going to try to stay fact-based and hew to what is known about the incident and the killer.

So you never met a Christian who thinks a whole segment of the population should be rounded up and shot? strangelove, meet chasv. And I do want to borrow yer crystal ball so I can see what Rush is going to say on tomorrow's program. Might also check out the stock market while I'm at it.

Regardless of what tag we put on the TN shooter, it's very clear to all that the man is nuts. There is no protection from crazies. Science and Huckabee's church have yet to find the cause for crazy or how to see them coming or how to ward them off. 50 years ago in Fort Baptist a guy cut his mother's head off and put it in the big Catholic Church on Garrison, boiled her eyeballs on the stove, plugged a Zenith radio into her neck hole and then walked over the bridge to Oklahoma for a nap. We've had 50 years to figure that one out and we still haven't a clue. It seems the more American life sucks, the more of these people pop up, so there has to be a connection there.

I personally believe a person who can believe in an imaginary friend is one step closer to batshit crazy than I am, but that is just my personal opinion. The other day life was so hard and scary.....for a minute I understood why man invented God.....sometimes you just gots to find some kind of relief. But needing don't always make it so.

We spend most of our time worrying about this group or that group.....our history shows it's the loners we should be worrying about. Time after time odd men who hole up by themselves are the ones who show up in town with a gun or a tank or a bulldozer and kill a bunch of people. Maybe we need a National Buddy System to make sure every loner is talked to at least once a day. A human mind left all alone usually comes up with some scary shit. Someone quick....go check on chasv, while I Google strangelove's address! National Buddy System.....yes sir.....that's what we need.

"If that's so, why is it that this blog -- and many of those who comment to it -- are so happy to disparage large groups of people at the drop of a hat?" ---cozmosis

THIS is a great question, and the answer is layered = No 'magic-bullet' "rationale." For me, personally, as a Christian, it began with the real damage done to the "social fabric" of the US when ---
[] JFK was shot and LBJ tried to "fix everything," implementing programs SO distasteful to the right, the pendulum swung to Nixon

[] Who WAS a crook...stumbling into Ford.

[] When the "moral," but inept Jimmy Carter was elected, it was a reverse "swing" of the inevitable pendulum, which has to come back.

[] The worst probably began when Reagan and the "anti-empathy" crowd started to take over the government, growing it in the process despite pledging the opposite. The basic tenet I'm speaking about, specifically, is: "The ___a's___ are to blame for being ___a's___." That's when I, too, left the Republican Party:

a = poor
....sick
....old
....crazy
..whatever..

I'll just skip over Poppy and The Bill.in order to be briefer.

Many times the right was able to convince more people to vote against their own self-interest with over-hyped crap from Dukakis in a tank to our new and all-time favorite the dreaded "gay agenda." With each switch, the R's got 3 notches, the Dem's only 1 or 2. Which led to the Constitution-stomping, almost-literate toadie we have now. Each time I see this happen I become more saddened, disenchanted and ultimately pissed off that this country is going down the tubes, quickly - THAT'S why I (occasionally) AM "so happy to disparage large groups of people at the drop of a hat." I hate the sin AND the sinner who created the bastard child of religion F-ing government, and government just lying down and enjoying it!

My (next Open-Line) challenge to you current R's: name a few things in our society which are actually IMPROVING, and I'm speaking of the common good, NOT the subset represented by, just for example, small but powerful Humvee buyers.

Now, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, we're about to elect O'Bama for exactly the reason stated by Fletch ".because he talks like a leader." We just all need to pray he's not another Jimmy Carter, as admirable as he is/was he was almost as inept as Bush, without the "bad intentions."

That's my story.
|

Robert Novak has a brain tumor. Nuff said.

Jimmy Carter's "incompetence," while assumed by most folks at this point in time, was, in my opinion, simply our unwillingness to follow him. If we had taken his prescient advice about energy and implemented his visionary policy, we wouldn't be worried at all about what was and is going on in the MIddle East, because the oil-producing nations wouldn't have the funds to be a threat to anyone. We have and are currently funding our own political opponents. Carter's "incompetence" was simply being unable to get us to see what he could see. He basically gets blamed for the public's unwillingness to see beyond the short-term.

He was a long-term thinker leading a short-term thinking populace and couldn't understand why people wouldn't look past their noses.

Republicans for Obama, you ask, "Would gays still be hated with the same passion if fundamentalists did not have such a hold on our society?"

No.

Hatred of those who are tagged as different in a demeaning way is learned hatred.

Which means someone has to teach such hatred.

In our society, it's far and away the churches who teach hatred of those who are gay. Since they do so in the name of God, they have influence that surpasses that of any other institution that teaches hatred of gays.

It'll take generations for the churches to undo what they have done at this time in history, in inculcating hatred of gays--just as it has taken generations for the churches to begin unraveling the screed of hatred they previously pronounced against Jews, women, "witches," people of color, and on and on.

1). The depraved was mad 'cause his lost his food stamps.

2). Is not that a liberal program?

3). And for God's sake, let's not execute these type of guys. After all, execution is a greater crime/sin than what justified it.

Muddling, you are truly muddling here. Your broad, ad hominem attack on churches as the source for all attacks on those who are "different" from the culture as a whole is an example of the kind of evil you are opposing. It doesn't even work if you limit it to fundamentalist churches. (Fundamentalism didn't even exist until the early 20th century.) The church has no monopoly on ostracizing people who are different. It just happens that the church is visible and easily targeted. The fact that you and I don't agree with them on this issue doesn't give either of us license to attack them(us) as a whole.

I should have said "don't agree with SOME of them" when referring to churches above.

Your reasoning is dumbass!
Dumbass, is you reasoning?

God does not changed, max, and you'd be better off not to forget it.
Impeccably peer reviewed are your Aramaic, Greek & Hebrew translations.

It could help get a trace/tap on your phone.
Lacking enough of right-wing extremist, your phone tapped is already.

'Jujitsu logic': All poodles are not dogs, but all dogs are poodles?

This guy hated "our freedom" and "way of life" so he must be a terrorist and a Muslim?

So the American Flag is equivalent to the Nazi Flag?
Flying over your capitol or over your alter?

Rush will never condone the murder of people.
Wanted to execute druggies until he got caught drugging, Rush did.

The church has no monopoly on ostracizing people who are different
A victim it was, having a monopoly on power?

I wish to express my gratitude to the many trolls who, through Freudian slips and sophistry, inadvertently provide humor to this blog.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" Obi-Wan Kenobi

Perplexed, I stand by what I wrote.

It was the churches that brought us the Inquistion, burning of heretics, Jews, and witches. And it's the churches that are bringing us homophobia today.

Just as with abolition of slavery and then the ending of segregation, the churches are bringing up the tail end of social movements that accord human rights to gay citizens whose rights are being trampled on today.

You say, "It just happens that the church is visible and easily targeted."

Perhaps. But it also just happens that the church claims to speak in the name of God.

When anyone or any institution makes such a claim--and then contradicts what it professes by the behavior it demonstrates--why shouldn't the churches be criticized? For those of us who continue to believe, the way the churches have behaved at some moments over the course of history, and are behaving now towards gay persons, is scandalous.

The higher the claims made by a person or institution, the more susceptible to critique that person or institution has to be. And when the behavior of the person or institution blatantly undermines the claim (e.g., to speak in the name of a God who is Love), then the more warranted criticism is.

Correction: Inquistion = Inquisition

I bought this a while back to give to a friend of mine who, despite being a Yale-educated, gun-disliking atheist, is a neo-con:

http://liberalserving.typepad.com/liberalserving/2005/06/liberal_hunting.html

At the time, it seemed like a funny way to illustrate for him, "Hey, these are your people, like it or not. Liberals might not like conservatives, but at least they don't basically want to kill them."
When it's all said and done, that, to me, is one of the primary differences b/w liberals and conservatives. To put it simply: a lot of conservatives probably wouldn't mind killing liberals/anyone different than themselves. That's the conservative id - to eradicate anything different. And I should specify that I'm not equating liberals with various left-wing or socialist movements that have committed atrocities. Hugo Chavez or FARC or the Columbine killers are/were not liberals, no matter how loudly the right wing noise machine screams it. Liberals, to me, have a live-and-let-live ideology at their core. Not so, the conservatives, as this incident has so tragically pointed out.

"Many "issues" currently debated are manufactured by the Rwing for purposes of avoiding debate on real issues. That is why you are assuming "The "right" wins every time,..." They do not."

***They won on Iraq, on spying on American citizens, on torture, on tossing away habeus corpus and the Geneva convention. If that's losing, what do you call winning?

"So the American Flag is equivalent to the Nazi Flag? Hmmmmm, I guess that 'jujitsu logic' is still alive and well in moonbat land."

*** Who said they were equivalent? Don't put words in my mouth. If I thought they were equivalent, I would've said so. All I noted was that both flags have appeared on church alters. Your logic consists of calling names -- and I think you made a Freudian slip, frankly.

"Republicans for Obama, you ask, "Would gays still be hated with the same passion if fundamentalists did not have such a hold on our society?"

No."

*** You've got it exactly!

"Hmmmmmm. So those quick to jump to conclusions (including our own Max Brantley, who knows better than to indulge quick conclusions) were wrong to say the shooter was an evangelical Christian. It seems to be turning out that the shooter was a hater of evangelicals, not a hating evangelical. Just like some of the folks on this blog."

**** If he hated evangelicals, why didn't he shoot them? I'll tell you why. It's because evangelicals hate gays, chasv being a perfect example. He's not an evangelical, it turns out -- he only acted like one.

Republicans for Obama, you raise an interesting point.

Your last post is implicitly asking why the mainstream media were so slow to get the full picture of this particular hate crime. Initially, it was, indeed, reported that the shooter was angry at churches.

That is, the mainstream media reported that soundbite, without paying any attention at all to reports of those present at the shooting that the shooter had spouted hate rhetoric as he came into the church. Nor did the mainstream media report that, just last week, this church had put out a welcome sign for gays.

The first report I saw of that part of the story was in the gay blog world, on Pam's House Blend early today. Her angle was that the mainstream media had been remiss in focusing on the shooter's purported disaffection with churches, while ignoring the clear indicators of a hate crime in which homophobia played a key role.

Pam turned out to be right. This illustrates, to my way of thinking, the increasingly important role that bloggers will play in our society to report news stories that the mainstream media (in either its left or right incarnations) won't touch. That is, they will play this role unless the concerted attack on civil liberties under the current administration, with the support of many right-wing Christians, doesn't manage to suppress the free speech of bloggers altogether.

No! Granted! Guns don't kill people just the owners -- especially the christian do as I say or else.
Scary!

I posted on the earlier thread about this shooting, so I'll post it again here, where it also belongs.
____________________________

It must be terrifying and rage-provoking to watch your deepest-held values fall apart under the light of ever-increasing facts, progress and change.

When your deepest values are based on hate and fear in the name of God, you're called on to shun and even kill the "blasphemers." Mr. Adkisson in Tennessee was just doing God's work. It says so in the Bible.

This case is exactly like terrorist assaults on mosques of competing sects in the middle east.

It doesn't take much in the way of such terroristic assaults like the one at the progressive Unitarian Universalist Church in Tennessee to frighten the public. It hasn't taken but a few assaults and murders of abortion providers to render abortions difficult if not impossible to obtain, in many states, despite being legal.

And a relatively few murders of gays (though LOTS of assaults) to remind them not to push too hard for full American equality.

Lynchings of blacks, extermination of Jews, ALL these killings are religiously based.

Now we have a black man running for POTUS.

A seminarian stole the prayer Obama stuck into the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and published it

Here it is:

"Lord - Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

I pray Obama's prayer is answered.

He fully understands that his life is now at stake in an America where a minority of faith-based fascists is trying to take over.

Nominally Catholic Spain? Gay marriage is legal. Western Europe? Empty pews.

The world is passing them by, the religious fanatics. They know it. They're cornered and desperate to be taken seriously and obeyed. Convinced the voices in their heads and their holy books are righteous and the only truth, they will go down fighting (over the coming decades) and take as many "infidels" as they can down with them.

Right now 14-year-old Brandon McInerney is set to be tried in California as an adult for shooting a gay classmate, Larry King, point blank. Why? Because Larry King was gay, out, sometimes wore makeup to school, and had given Brandon a Valentine card. If convicted, McInerney can be sentenced to life in prison at 14.

Where did he ever learn to justify murdering an effiminate classmate?

Church.

No, Brandon was not an extremist. It's right there in the Bible. "Worthy unto death."

God plainly says to kill 'em. Just read the Torah, the Koran, the Hadith, the Bible.

And don't forget to tithe, to help spread your church's teachings.

Holyshit.....the guy was getting food stamps, did he think that was a repug program??!!!

BEAGLES
you are not reading the bible because what you wrote is lies... Jesus was confronted by many people who He said are going to perish. He said people who don't believe in him will die in their sins.
What do you do in your spare time. Go read the Old King James verison of the bible and learn the truth.

The 'right' wins all the time because they've appointed themselves judge/jury of all things moral/patriotic.<< Ms Z

Not so darlin. They win all the time because the Right has the microphone. Five mega corporations control EIGHTY FIVE (85) per cent of media in the U.S. That's why they "win all the time."
All the BIG FIVE mega corps are also into military contracting, big time. That's why we are a war-loving nation. Patriotism now equals militarism.

Zatharus thanks for pointing out Lush Gumball's double standard on his illegal drug addiction, good for the sole of strange cause it ain't going to his lead-lined head.

.

" Go read the Old King James verison of the bible and learn the truth. "

Attaboy, chasv, that's a tellin' 'em!

I read the Old King Cole version myself.

Great post, Norma.

You say, "They're cornered and desperate to be taken seriously and obeyed. Convinced the voices in their heads and their holy books are righteous and the only truth, they will go down fighting (over the coming decades) and take as many 'infidels' as they can down with them."

I think you're right. The more fascist groups are checked in their attempt to control by any means possible short of violence, the more likely they are to take the gloves off finally and resort to naked violence, when lies, manipulation, bullying, and other ways to try to force their will on society fails.

Can the churches be fascist? We have only to turn to Nazi Germany (and Austria, France, Poland of the Nazi period) for evidence that they can--and resoundingly so.

Holyshit.....the guy was getting food stamps, did he think that was a repug program??!!!

Posted by: jazzy

New slogan: The Liberals giveth and the Thugs taketh away. (then the Thugs shot the Liberals children)

Something else. Namely, the idea that crimes like this one are just "crazy" or "senseless." No, they're not. That's just lazy superficial thinking, often by overly groomed TV news readers. "Another senseless killing spree at a high school."

Crimes like this one ALWAYS make sense, once you understand the criminal's mind and intent.

The person may indeed by clinically "crazy" based on beliefs and motives. But that's not the same as senseless, or "crazy" as in "meaningless" or "unpredictable."

Hearing voices is one symptom of schizophrenia, for instance. But wait a minute. Religionists claim to hear voices, especially that of "God" or "the Lord", telling them what to do and what to force others to do. Uh, oh. Are religionists crazy?

Dr. Ralph Hoffman, professor of psychiatry at Yale, states, "Often one of the first signs of schizophrenia-occurring well before manifestations such as hearing voices-is social isolation."

Social isolation is almost always a factor in these types of crimes and criminal minds, like Ted Kaczysnki, the unabomber, or Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers who were socially bullied and isolated at their high school.

Can such crimes be predicted and stopped? Of course they can, and often are. But only if a friend or family member alerts law enforcement and medical authorities of the problem. With severe social isolation, there ARE no friends or family.

As repeatedly pointed out in this and other threads, nobody is born hating anybody. You've got to be taught. The source of such teachings is, universally and fundamentally, religion. When you cut to the chase and stop the spin, all of it -- racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, nationalism -- is religiously instilled from birth on.

Many people think to question it and are either expelled, shunned, killed, or leave on their own to find greener more populously diverse and rewarding pastures elsewhere.

It is not that religions haven't done good, even great, things in the world. But it is inescapable that religions are the source of human hate, fear and destruction more than any single entity throughout recorded history.

Nor is that paradoxical. Just read the "Holy Books". The book of Revelation in the Bible is one of the world's great tyrannical paranoid-schizophrenic rants.

"Social isolation" and "hearing voices" need not apply just to individuals. It may apply to groups as well. Particularly religious or pseudo-religious groups.

The current edition of Arkansas Times features a cover story on one of Little Rock's largest megachurches.

Like virtually every other religion, they are engaged in a "holy war" against outsiders threatening them -- namely the secular scientific fact-based world. They're anti-gay, anti-women (note how they limit women's roles in their church).

You're either with them, meaning you're a member and you support their ministry with tithes, or you're against them and must be legally punished or constricted (no same-sex unions or adoptions, no abortions, for instance).

Served up with smiles and donuts and playgrounds and numerous self-contained programs and services that "do good" while further indoctrinating the followers to go forth and punish those who're "outsiders" and threats.

They and all groups like them perceive themselves as "right" and everybody else as "wrong." Though constantly trying to victimize everybody ELSE in society with harsh sanctions, THEYclaim to be the victims. They're also tyrannical and fascist in terms of hierarchy and unquestioned authority.

So groups as well as individuals can socially isolate themselves and hear only their own internal voices.

Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Wichita (the notorious "God Hates Fags" church); Islamic megamosques slaughtering each other in the middle east; the Taliban and Al-Quaeda; America's megachurches; they're all the same.

It's just a matter of degree and what they can legally get by with.

Adkisson's shooting spree in Knoxville is absolutely religiously motivated. He hated his parents for forcing him to go to church, according to reports. He hated "liberals" and especially this particular church for its welcoming position on gays and lesbians, according to reports. Which is why the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.

Underneath that hate, once again, if you lift the rock and look, is religion.

Norma, I've always viewed religions--all religions around the world--as having both a salvific and demonic face.

The possibility to do demonic things is the flip side of the possibility to do tremendous good. Precisely because religions are capable of so much good, they're also capable of the worst kind of evil.

One of the biggest warning bells for me re: when a religious group is headed in the demonic direction is when it becomes absolutely certain that it and only it hears the divine voice, and closes itself to all other voices. A LOT of world religions have been headed down that path in recent decades, including Christianity, under the influence of the religious right in its various manifestations in different Christian countries.

The struggle to get out of that mode, which is all about control by a minority (men, in most cases, who are either heterosexual or capable of presenting themselves as straight), is going to be very, very hard, because the churches have been all too willing to ally themselves with fascist groups during the past several decades.

Best hope for the churches often seems to me to be that they die and then try to put themselves back together from the detritus left behind--including many of the human beings they have turned into detritus at this time in history. Any rebirth coming to the churches certainly won't come from their power centers and the straight (-acting) men who occupy those power centers.

I read the Nat King Cole version myself, keep it in the john.

What's really sad is the whole rightwing agenda, I mean the one formed by those at the top, is all about money. Everything is about money. strange and citizens council, and chasv thinks it's about getting rid of abortion, pushing God into every corner of the earth, punishing gays, getting rid of Mexicans and it's not.....it's a smoke screen....a well played sham.

Those fiery issues are bounced around to keep our wingnut friends scared and working 14-7 for the Lord and the Republican Party. They're a carrots on sticks. Notice the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress and had a enough on the Supreme Court to steal the 2000 election and yet no major bills were passed outlawing abortion or sticking it to gays or Mexicans or sinners of any kind? It's because it's all about MONEY.

Republicans and Arkansas Democrats go to work each day to feed the Military-Industrial-Wal-Mart-Exxon-Halliburton-Wall Street Complex. Everything they do is about big bidness. Now that we got all those Republicans on the Supreme Court, gays don't have to worry, abortionists don't have to worry, and Ford and GM and Wal-Mart.....none of the Military-Industrial-Wal-Mart-Exxon-Halliburton-Wall Street Complex have to worry because the Supremes are there to grease the path to a world where no law, no tax, no regulation, no pension fund, no nothing will ever stand in the way of profits for the big guys. That's what Republicanism is all about.....snot family values, snot aborted fetuses, snot about Jesus nor his Pa. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY

For those reasons our wingnut friends should feel like fools. You've been had my fine furry friends. You're used every election day and then ignored until the next. And you buy it hook line and sinker year after year after year. If only that Rapture would come!

Hey, look at me. I'm feeding the military-industrial-walmart-target-kroger-clinton library complex. Shovel, shovel, shovel. Yea, it's gettin real full. Do you feel that fascism just rollin along? It is such a pleasure to hear the consistent put down of anything military by you moonbats. Not to worry. When obama yo mama gets elected he will do in the military industrial complex and replace it with the 'what's happen now' conservation corps. Ah, 'we don't support the war but we support our troops'----not.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The Oracle has been delivered from Strangelove the Omniscient: "When obama yo mama gets elected he will do in the military industrial complex and replace it with the 'what's happen now' conservation corps."

We now know precisely what will happen when Obama is elected, because strangelove has revealed the future to us.

At least we can rest comfortably in knowing that Obama will be elected, as that is inherent in strangelove's oracle.

You forgot to mention the encounter groups that he will implement to replace basic training. I think that is the pinnacle of his progressive changes. Oracle warning, oracle warning.

Another interesting point is not one right winger on this blog denied hating liberals or denounced what happened.

Constant denial, and at best, silent approval. Very telling.

Eureka said: "Another interesting point is not one right winger on this blog denied hating liberals or denounced what happened."

Eat It, Eureka: Strangelove said above---

I know many Republicans, Christians and conservatives and I have yet to find one who condones this sort of hideous behavior.

strangelove: Not to put too fine a point on it, but ". . . have yet to find one who condones this sort of hideous behavior" is not exactly equivalent to ". . . denied hating liberals or denounced what happened."

I haven't found one either. Because I've been sitting in my house, not out looking.

Have you been out looking for ones who condone this sort of behavior, or have you just been sitting in your house waiting for them to find you?

What right-winger has come on this blog and denied hating liberals?

What right-winger has come on this blog and denounced what happened?

I haven't re-read the more than 85 posts on this thread to double check, but I don't remember one.

-----------------------------------

On another front: I read this in today's Peanuts cartoon in the newspaper. If I remember correctly, the character, "Spike," Snoopy's brother who lives out in the desert is speaking:

"When I look at a cactus shadow I can tell what time it is, what the temperature is, and what the weather will be tomorrow."

"When you don't know anything, you have to pretend to know everything."

Remind you of anyone who posts on this blog?

Look, it is obvious that you are implying that conservatives condone this behavior. That is pretty pathetic. There is no basis for this. You hatred of conservatives shows. There really is no point in pursing this further with someone as bigoted as you.

strange: Thanks for your impeccable logic: shift the premises.

What Eureka actually said: "not one right winger on this blog denied hating liberals"

Which is absolutely and technically true--at least to the best of my memory.

What strangelove concluded: "it is obvious that you are implying that conservatives condone this behavior."

How strangelove sought to escape from the discussion: "There really is no point in pursing this further with someone as bigoted as you."

Label your opponent a bigot and then portray yourself as too high-minded to discuss the original issue.

I've never seen you stick to one issue and defend it on this blog, strange. You ALWAYS shift the premises, throw in a red herring, set up a straw man, or simply resort to name-calling.

Discussing an issue with you is like trying to describe an amoeba!

Great post, Muddling.

"Precisely because religions are capable of so much good, they're also capable of the worst kind of evil."

I haven't used the word "evil" in, oh, decades. Or the word "sin." They're only relevant in a religious context and tell nothing other than the speaker's religious biases.

I go with fact-based reality. The shooter in the Knoxville church isn't "evil." He is a psychotic who murdered two people and assaulted a church who disagreed with his fundamentalist religious hatreds against his own Christian parents and (by reports) blacks, Jews, gays and anybody different from him.

Those are reported unvarnished facts. To call him "evil" is a religious opinion and judgment that informs nothing. (No, Muddling, I'm not saying you called him "evil.")

Here's the deal, in my experience. Things, and people, are either true or false or a mixture of the two. Either supported by facts or not, or an uncomfortable mixture of the two. ("Sure, dinosaurs existed, but the earth's only 6,000 years old and mankind co-existed with them and Noah put two of every kind on his ark and survived the Flood," according to the Creationist museum in Kentucky.)

That's flat-out nuts and contradicts facts. It's physically impossible to board two of every species on earth on a boat, much less feed and clean up after them. Yet followers are required to at least pretend to believe something is true when they know, factually, it cannot be.

That requirement underlies all the world's "great" religions. Which is why they're so opposed to factual research into their ancient origins and scientific inquiry into their histories, and by extension opposed to education and science and facts and questions in general.

The Noah myth is quite beautiful, with its origins in the historically ancient annual flooding of the Nile, with both its life-devastating and life-fertilizing death-and-renewal realities. But a man called Noah never existed, nor did his physically impossible boat containing pairs from all the species of the world.

Nor did Moses exist. Nor did the Jews wander 40 years in the desert. Nor did Jesus exist. On and on.

Yet the myths underlying these universal stores have ancient origins that predate even early Egyptian civilizations, and they're quite beautiful. They're also based on scientific (for the time) observations of the sun, moon, planets, earth, pole stars, constellations and even the galaxy.

Most succinctly, the origins of all religious myths are depicted in two films, "Zeitgeist: The Movie (Part One)" and "The Naked Truth" available at the following links (and previously posted on this site):

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8251447278663885234&q=The+Naked+Truth&total=1413&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Whether one cares to watch such explorations or not, here's what I'm stuck with, with religions.

Study psychology. (I'm speaking generally, Muddling, not to you individually.) Understand the difference between unconditional love and conditional love. One is real. The other, wholly false.

One kind of love is for All That Is. You love the daylight and the night. The storms, upheavals, earthquakes, natural disasters and the balmy seasons. You love that animals hunt and kill and devour each other for nourishment. You love whiskers on kittens and bright-colored mittens. You love all of creation in all its complexity and infinite manifestation.

The other kind of love is for "part" of All That Is. That part you deem "good" but not that part you deem "bad."

All of Creation is out there for observation, curiosity, study, love and admiration.

But now you place yourself in the role of "God" and choose which portions of creation to label good and evil. Or you let some man in a dress speak for god and tell you which parts of god's whole creation are "right" and which ones "wrong."

Which is why "islam" means "submission" and the Judeo-Christian "ethic" is also all about suffering and sacrifice and persecution and vengeance and war and ultimate redemption, resurrection, validation and triumph.

The lies that are religions form their foundations. These are not literal stories of historic human figures but ancient astronomical anthropomorphized allegories that speak to the truth of earth's (tiny) place in the known universe.

Religions offer not love but its converse: Conditional Love.

"We will love you IF . . . ," not "We will love you period."

Conditional love is about control and conditions, not love.

You see it in families who reject their children because they are gay, or marry blacks or Jews, or any of other hundreds of "conditions." That's not love. That's the threat of hate and rejection unless you can control your children.

The conditional love offered by religions is also about the psychotically arrogant egotistical rejection of portions of the presumably god-created All That Is. If "God" created it, who are you to reject and condemn it, rather than understand it?

From that follows the rejection of knowledge, education, facts and truths and the insistent ongoing attempts to control those.

Religions have been and are fundamentally mass-marketed lies forcibly inflicted on populations for power, control, mastery and money.

Now, there ARE ways to experience god (for lack of a better word) and the All That Is directly and constantly. Millions and billions have known how since humanity began and the methods have been written and taught.

But you won't find out how in church, because once you do, "churches" and their political parties can no longer make money off you. You no longer are "theirs."

You're fine and free.

There's even a starting point in the Bible, if you're inclined.

Though it's attributed to a non-historical mythical figure for whom no contemporary records exist of anything he ever did or said, the passage is still valid and true and unconditionally loving. Fully understood, you'll never hate or fear or love conditionally or be affected by those who do, again.

It's Matthew 6:6. (And I'm paraphrasing.)

"When you pray, pray not as the hypocrites do; loudly and in public. But go into your closet and shut the door behind you and pray to your father in heaven in private. He will reward you publicly. And when you pray, say, 'Our father which art in heaven . . . ."

The prayer in various translations is ancient beyond belief. But no less true, no less effective or beautiful a direct path to the human heart, wherein lies the divine.

Norma do you talk to yourself all the time? Girl if you do that means you need help.
I don't think you know what you just said.
Did it take a book for you to get a point(s) made?
Norma if it were not for the Holy Bible you and I and jake and dbi and elwood and and and and would be so ignorant we'd still be in the dark ages or something darker than those days.
I have to quote the bible and tell you that every house is built by some man but all things are made by God. Think about it. There would be nothing if it weren't for God. NO earth, not sun, no moon, no seas, not stars and no life. No life. YOU and I would not exist. So man without God is nothing but God without man is still God. You nor jake or dbi elwood and all the others who think they know something can't debate with God.
He said as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways.
No matter how smart some of you try to come across to be you have no where to go.

Norma if it were not for the Holy Bible you and I and jake and dbi and elwood and and and and would be so ignorant we'd still be in the dark ages or something darker than those days.

Oh oh....one of this things are not like the other things.......

"Not so darlin. They win all the time because the Right has the microphone..."--eLwood

As usual, you're correct, eLwood. But even if liberals owned those microphones, it's not in our general nature to think we're always correct...to think our way is the only way. One of the many reasons I believe right wingers have trouble evolving and so many patriarchal cults find such fertile ground within their ranks. If you already KNOW everything, you're usually a closed book. Conversely, the smartest people I know realize how little they actually know...they're hungry for more.

I hope you're enjoying yourself, skypilot, 'cause you're entertaining the hell out of me!

Zelda, it's a two-sided coin.

On the one side, I enjoy the intellectual stimulation involved in reading, analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, and concluding.

On the other side, I feel guilty: It's just not really fair or sporting to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

I'm a bit disappionted in strangelove, chasv, LARGEASS, and a few others.

When I went to bed last night after my interchange with strangelove over Eureka's statement, "Another interesting point is not one right winger on this blog denied hating liberals or denounced what happened," I thought maybe I'd wake up this morning to find that at least one of them had stepped up to the plate and denied hating liberals or denounced the shooting in Tennessee.

I guess it's true: He who expects nothing is not easily disappointed.

Oops: "disappointed"

Early hour. Message from brain to fingers delivered to wrong address.

Why should conservatives have to publicly denounce this act? Asking them to do so is pretty shitty in its implications.

Should gay men have to publicly denounce Jeffrey Dahmer's actions with the assumption being that until they do so, they're implying they approve of it?

Moxiemoron: I don't know. You could be right. I certainly don't have the answer. I guess we'll have to wait for Eureka to answer that, since he's the one who made the original post.

Maybe he was thinking that "silence lends consent."

Dante said there is a special place reserved in hell for those who do nothing in a time of moral crisis.

Comments denouncing the shooting were rampant on yesterday's blog, but not a single one of them was posted by one who has typically represented himself/herself as a conservative.

And while there were many comments about the apparent hate for liberals on the part of conservatives, not a single one of the conservatives stepped forward to deny hating liberals.

Eureka professed to finding that interesting.

I don't know that that constituted any obligation on the part of the conservatives. But I tend to agree with Eureka: I find it interesting.

There's a little story in the Book of Acts about the stoning of Stephen. A man named Saul did not take part in the actual stoning, but he stood by holding the coats of those who did.

So maybe one is not obligated to comment one way or the other. But in this case there was a shooter and some shootees. And I want the world to know that I'm on the side of the shootees!

When it came to Bush's "war on terrorism," he laid down the challenge to the nations of the world, "You're either for us or you're against us."

I guess, in view of the events in Tennessee, that the contributors to this blog just kinda wondered, when talking about the shooter: Are you for him or against him?

Read the thread and draw your own conclusion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, MoxieMoron, but didn't Jeffrey Dahmer consistently deny he was gay?

It seems to me that what became of Jeffrey Dahmer points to the ugly things hatred can do to the human psyche, including twisting it through self-denial and self-hatred.

The shooter in Knoxville seems to be an out and proud liberal hater and gay hater, not a twisted self-denying one.

You read that and thought I was trying to make a point about Jeffry Dahmer's sexuality?
I'll re-edit for you:

Why should conservatives have to publicly denounce this act? Asking them to do so is pretty shitty in its implications.

Should short, wannabe beatniks who write lame folk songs have to publicly denounce Charles Manson's actions with the assumption being that until they do so, they're implying they approve of it?

(If anyone has a problem with my characterization of Charles Manson, I'll be happy to attempt another edit)

Why? There's are as many different liberals as there are little liver pills.. Some hot, some cold, some tall, some dumb, some killers, some liberal haters too. etc., etc..
The mans done done it so what we gotta try to do is prevent something like this not to ever happen again. As a society not just as the christian community or churches but all of us.
dbi, old man, it was for anyone who don't get it the first time.. like a positive.
Now old max has come up with another subject that will get a lot of comments about that damn pill that kills babies in the womb. He is for ever causing trouble on the times web blog. Bring up things just to stir up someones anger.