George Whitefield Trivia

[David Mauldin]

          It seems our country has an very early history of invading other countries in order to "Spread Freedom and Democracy" On September 18th 1775 a group of  Minutemen Volunteers headed off towards Canada in an attempt to storm the city of Quebec. "...The men scheduled to leave Newburyport Massachusetts stopped at the First Presbyterian Church, they formed two lines and presented their guns. The preacher, after walking through the lines to the rolling of drums, quoted scripture. The men were moved. After the service some of the officers convinced the sexton to open the tomb of George Whitefield...which lay within the church. His body had decomposed in the 5 years since his death but his clothes were still intact. The inspired zealots cut pieces of his collar and wristbands which they used as relics to ensure their success..." The men marched off into the main wilderness where they found disease, starvation and  death. The few that made it to Quebec were soon captured and imprisoned.

    The tragedy of this mission would have fit nicely in Voltaire's book "Candide!"   

                                                                    A People's History of the American revolution by Ray Raphael

[Mark C.]

Hi David!

  I know that you will be unable to respond immediately, due to your present status on the BB, but I would like to say something re. your post.

  You seem to have a great deal of anger and resentment against any kind of conservative viewpoint (be that politics or religion).

 Recently you have expressed strong disagreement against an artist who is open about his faith and now this rather strange story about worshippers of George Whitfield. 

  This last story attempts to make some kind of association (indirectly) with Bush's faith and the war in Iraq.  It's a huge stretch to try this, but I'm not writing to argue your feelings on the war, rather to appeal to you to consider that your visceral hatred of orthodox Christian faith might be rooted in some damage you received while in the Assembly.

  In other words, you are reacting emotionally, vs. in a rational manner, because of your great hatred of the twisted Assembly version of what you were told was authentic bible based teaching and practice.

  Not every "conservative" believer in the Bible supports "conservative" political actions.  These Christians have not necessarily formed any opinions on the Iraq war, support "Christian" artists, or otherwise fall in line with some kind of right wing view of Manifest Destiny.

   I'm just writing to suggest that you might ask yourself why you get so upset and feel like you have to try and provoke such a big argument.  I know that you totally reject any kind of thinking that reminds you of your Assembly past, but it is possible to separate the Assembly from a true bible based faith in Christ---- the two, though they often use the same words, are not the same at all.

   God hates and rejects the false brand of Christian expression found in the Assembly worse than you do, and he would very much like you to know the truth about what he is really like.  Your intense rejection of anything that even sounds like the false gospel you heard is preventing your healing that will come from allowing the true gospel to find a place in your heart.

  If anger, hate, and resentment is controlling your life you will have to admit that there is something wrong.  We all get this way from time to time, but it is not healthy for this to be in charge of one's soul.  If it's leading you to get drunk and post (I'm not sure if you were joking or not about that), and express rage at your former principal on this BB there is something defintely wrong.   

  Please use your time away from the BB to reflect on what I've said above and to consider if you are not like Saul of Tarsus where he heard Jesus say to him, "Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?!"     It could be that your emotional dedication to resist "conservative" Christianity is making you deaf to hearing the true Jesus.

                                                      God Bless,  Mark C.

                                               

[Oscar]

Mark,

You said:

If anger, hate, and resentment is controlling your life you will have to admit that there is something wrong.  We all get this way from time to time, but it is not healthy for this to be in charge of one's soul.  If it's leading you to get drunk and post (I'm not sure if you were joking or not about that), and express rage at your former principal on this BB there is something defintely wrong.   

What you describe as "visceral hatred" towards anything associated with the word "conservative" is very discerning.  When we say "visceral" we mean something like "arising from powerful feelings".  To people on the Left "conservative" is associated with evil. The Left, even the "Christian" Left, eschews traditional religious beliefs.  Most Leftists are atheists or agnostics, with a sprinkling of occultists and various New Age ideas, along with "liberal" Christianity, (which btw denies just about everything Chrisitans have believed for 2000 years).

The important thing to understand is that for these folks, politics is their religion!    

Think about it.  We hear of massacres and pogroms back in the middle ages by "Christians" in Europe.  Passionate, irrational hatred of Jews who were seen as "Christ Killers" and black magicians who drank the blood of "Christian" children.  These beliefs, of course, had little to do with reality.  They were based on a distorted view of reality inflamed by religious passions.

The modern Left is no different.  Just look at the record of these folks when they get into power.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Castro, on and on.  A commitment to a false, atheistic ideology driven by passions usually associated with religion.  European and American Leftists have had their views softened by close association with Christianity.  But the passions are the same.

I did not get a chance to read the post that got Dave banned.  Brian says he was using foul language.  Psychologists tell us that foul language is a way of expressing powerful emotions.  Same old same old.  The religious pronouncements of the Left about justice, equaltiy, tolerance, compassion are seen as expressions of objective truth, and the religious passions are inflamed by the hatred of those seen as enemies of the good.

Sad.   

Blessings,

Thomas Maddux

[brian]

What you describe as "visceral hatred" towards anything associated with the word "conservative" is very discerning.  When we say "visceral" we mean something like "arising from powerful feelings".  To people on the Left "conservative" is associated with evil.

actually, in my experience, the more religious someone is the more likely they are to describe their opponents as 'evil'. it very rarely accomplishes anything useful.

The important thing to understand is that for these folks, politics is their religion!    

and for most conservatives, their religion dictates their politics, which i think is pretty scary. just because someone is against gay marriage doesn't mean they have the wisdom to maneuver the complexities of global politics.

They were based on a distorted view of reality inflamed by religious passions.

well we can all be glad that never happens anymore :O

The modern Left is no different.  Just look at the record of these folks when they get into power.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Castro, on and on.  A commitment to a false, atheistic ideology driven by passions usually associated with religion.  European and American Leftists have had their views softened by close association with Christianity.  But the passions are the same.

wow, for someone who is so against logical fallacies, you sure are committing a lot of them here. and aren't those leaders prime examples of the extreme right (ie not left)?

my political opinions can't be neatly wrapped up into one of two packages. given the dizzying array of political issues in this country hardly anyone is completely Left or Right. i think emotional attacks like this only serve to drive people into needlessly polarized positions.

and btw, david's offending post was not directed at you tom, nor was it in any way political or anti-religious. it was directed towards moonflower in response to her survey about his condition in response to his survey about the board's condition.

brian

[Elizabeth H]

great post, brian.

whenever ideology/religion/aunt lucy's original cornbread recipe is mixed with politics, bad things happen. it's happened so many times on all sides of the political spectrum (right/left/christian/atheist/socialist/capitalist) that it ought to made some kind of universal law of existence or something. 

i'll take my politics minus leaven of any persuasion, thanks.

E.

[Oscar]

Brian,

You said:

"and for most conservatives, their religion dictates their politics, which i think is pretty scary. just because someone is against gay marriage doesn't mean they have the wisdom to maneuver the complexities of global politics."

Actually all political discussions are religious discussions!  Politics is about laws.  Laws are about values.  What should and should not be allowed or forbidden.

Any moral value that rises above the personal level must come from religious/philosophical beliefs.  I illustrate:
Once I was sitting in the lunchroom at work listening to a bunch of atheist liberals rant and rave about George Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" and how he was violating "separation of Church and state".

I told them, "I agree with you! We need true separation of church and state in this country!  The first thing we need to do is to close down all the charity hospitals and throw all those poor people out in the street so they will die!  Then evolution can work."

As you can imagine, they all just looked at me dumbfounded.  So I continued: "If you atheists are right, everything that exists in this universe can be explained by hydrogen evolving according to the laws of physics.  There is no possible logical path from hydrogen to moral values. Any moral values beyond personal preference must come from religious beliefs.  So let's get rid of 'do unto others' and 'blessed are the merciful'...they are religious beliefs that have been codified into our laws."

As you can imagine, these folks didn't know quite what to do with that idea.  One feebly tried to justify charity hospitals on the grounds that, "we conduct medical research there."  My answer? "So, we are to use the poor as experimental animals?"

You see Brian, they were operating on values of mercy and compassion they learned from Christianity while complaining that Christianity was influencing our politics.   

An atheist cannot justify any moral values at all...they can only state personal preferences.

So, any law that codifes a moral value is at minimum informed by religion.  It is not possible NOT to mix politics and religion.

Thomas Maddux

[Oscar]

Brian,

You said:

wow, for someone who is so against logical fallacies, you sure are committing a lot of them here. and aren't those leaders prime examples of the extreme right (ie not left)?

Not at all.  The loose political terms of "right" and "left" arose during the French revolution.  They had to do with the seating patterns in the assembly during its early phase.

The folks that stood for traditional government, values, religion, and economics sat on the right.  The ones who were for trashing everything from the past and starting over sat on the left.  The Left won the power struggles and produced a bloodbath.  This has been a characteristic of Leftist governments ever since.

In modern terms the Right is associated with some form of traditional values and practices.  In many countries that means landed oligarchies, an oppressive institutional church, and the military.

What gets called the political right in our country is actually more in the tradition of Classical Liberalism.  They emphasize individual rights exercised in the context of traditional morality, recognize human imperfectability and limitation, political equality but not equality of outcomes, and free enterprise economics.

The Left, worldwide, stands for the centrality of the state over the individual, atheism over religion, centralized economies over free enterprise, and a utopian vision of the future.  Since there are no moral limits on state power, they kill those who oppose them.  Hence, the bloody record of Hitler, Mao, and friends.

You were looking out the window in History class Brian....admit it.   

Thomas Maddux

[outdeep]

great post, brian.

whenever ideology/religion/aunt lucy's original cornbread recipe is mixed with politics, bad things happen. it's happened so many times on all sides of the political spectrum (right/left/christian/atheist/socialist/capitalist) that it ought to made some kind of universal law of existence or something. 

i'll take my politics minus leaven of any persuasion, thanks.

E.

Though this is a popular stace today, it is way too simplistic. 

First, you are suggesting that all political decisions must be void of religious convictions, moral ideals, and any influence of family upbringing.  So what else is there?  Do only amoral, secular, robotrons have the right to make political decisions?

Second, religious motivation has brought great evils and failures - beheadings in Iraq, riots over cartoons, planes running into tall buildings, prohibition, forcing those who want to have sex without consequence to get illegal abortions etc.

On the other hand, it was religious motivation that fueled the anti-slavery movement as will as the civil rights movement. 

So, to think a political movement is good or bad simply because it has religious motivation is simply wrongheaded at best and disengenuous at worst. Often this type of thinking is double-speak means to allow only athiest/secularists to run the show as well as religionists as long as they keep quiet about what they believe.

Third, I can't speak for other religions but Christianity is not a segmented truth, it is a whole truth.  In the movie Chariots of Fire, when Eric Liddell's teammate went to bat for him, he argued that the very things that made Eric who he was and made him refuse to run on Sunday is also the very thing that made him fast.  To say that religious conviction must be kept behind church doors and certainly cannot be argued in policy is to make that politician half a person, a retriction that is not placed upon athiests or agnostics.


When does political policy cross over and become wrong and evil?  I really don't know the answer.  Over-zealous or mis-applied religion often plays a part.  Other beliefs do as well.  But politics would be better if we don't apply our beliefs?  How is it possible to do politics without believing anything?

Isn't the point of democracy to recognize that folks do have extreme beliefs (both religious and otherwise) but then keep things on an even keel?

[brian]

at last, a discussion whose pace i can keep up with!

often when someone begins mixing religion and politics they become preoccupied with some form of legislating morality. the point i was getting at is that i don't want my morality legislated by some politician who bends to the pressure of those who have a 'distorted view of reality inflamed by religious passions' - christian or atheist. government has to keep basic social order, obviously. but i would like those in power to be able to come up with meaningful and effective solutions for the complex social and economic problems our society faces. this is more important to me than what religion a leader professes, or whether he is republican or democrat. i was shocked at the way tom lumped the leftists together and framed the whole political situation in extreme, simplistic religious terms.

george bush prays and goes to church, but he is a short-sighted, self-interested snake who lost all credibility with the international community years ago. yet it has taken far too many americans all this time to see him for what he really is. i think that has a lot to do with the way religion plays a much stronger role in most american's politics and perceptions than it should. its horribly misguided to evauate someone for a position of power based on their religious professions. it enables people get into positions of power based on their ability to appear to be religious. instead we should judge, and judge harshly, based on more appropriate criteria, such as demonstrated competence. granted, that doesn't leave a voter many options.

and tom, my little jab about those extremist groups actually being right-winged was tounge-in-cheek. the basic point was that those groups share little resemblance to either of the major political parties we have in this country.

most of the problems a thriving society has to overcome are problems of cooperation - how to get all these people to agree to live in a way that will maximize happiness and freedom? it is in the best interests of everyone in the society to solve these cooperation problems, since we will all enjoy the result. this is how values and morals can have meaning outside of a religous context. they are solutions to these cooperation problems. maybe god wants us to solve some of our own problems, rather than blindly following whichever leader cries his name the loudest.

brian

[Oscar]

at last, a discussion whose pace i can keep up with!

often when someone begins mixing religion and politics they become preoccupied with some form of legislating morality. the point i was getting at is that i don't want my morality legislated by some politician who bends to the pressure of those who have a 'distorted view of reality inflamed by religious passions' - christian or atheist.

In this, you agree with most Christians.

government has to keep basic social order, obviously. but i would like those in power to be able to come up with meaningful and effective solutions for the complex social and economic problems our society faces. this is more important to me than what religion a leader professes, or whether he is republican or democrat. i was shocked at the way tom lumped the leftists together and framed the whole political situation in extreme, simplistic religious terms.

I did so because, at root, the issues are both simple, and religious.

george bush prays and goes to church, but he is a short-sighted, self-interested snake who lost all credibility with the international community years ago. yet it has taken far too many americans all this time to see him for what he really is. i think that has a lot to do with the way religion plays a much stronger role in most american's politics and perceptions than it should. its horribly misguided to evauate someone for a position of power based on their religious professions. it enables people get into positions of power based on their ability to appear to be religious. instead we should judge, and judge harshly, based on more appropriate criteria, such as demonstrated competence. granted, that doesn't leave a voter many options.

and tom, my little jab about those extremist groups actually being right-winged was tounge-in-cheek. the basic point was that those groups share little resemblance to either of the major political parties we have in this country.

most of the problems a thriving society has to overcome are problems of cooperation - how to get all these people to agree to live in a way that will maximize happiness and freedom? it is in the best interests of everyone in the society to solve these cooperation problems, since we will all enjoy the result. this is how values and morals can have meaning outside of a religous context. they are solutions to these cooperation problems. maybe god wants us to solve some of our own problems, rather than blindly following whichever leader cries his name the loudest.

Brian, you have now begun express your own religious opinions.  Why religious?  If the naturalists are correct, all that exists and all that happens can be explained by the evolution of hydrogen according to natural laws.  You say that societies should, "maximize happiness and freedom".  Really?

Did the hydrogen tell you that?  Actually, hydrogen is not personal and doesn't care about anything.  In such a universe, ought is meaningless.  There is only is.  Brian wants people to be happy.  Hitler wants to kill Jews.  There are no moral values to use to judge either view.  "I want" is the only reality, and politics is about getting what I want.

As soon as someone says this or that situation "ought" to prevail, they are acting as if objective moral values are real.  Since the universe cannot produce moral values, but only preferences, only a supernatural entity could.  Politics is about working together to cause what "ought" to be to become what "is".  Since "ought" can only be discovered by discerning the will of a supernatural entity, all political discussions are, at root, religious.

Sorry my firiend....but welcome to the real world.

Thomas Maddux