The Goat Pen

AlabamAlum wrote:Hedge,

I love religion. I've visited more "holy" places than most believers. I make it a point in my travels. While religion has been a vehicle for atrocities throughout our existence; I believe we humans would have found a reason to kill and imprison each other even without justification from our god(s).

I routinely visit churches and cathedrals on my travels. I love the architecture and the details. My favorite is the Alhambra. And one obviously has to credit "religion" with the construction of these structures. But, similar to what you said, I believe we humans would have found a reason to build these kind of structures even without religion...

At any rate, I've said it before, most of my fambly and friends are at least nominally religious and I generally don't have a big problem with it. But I don't have to tolerate some mealy mouth jackass like Prof spouting off about the "intolerance" of secular society for "the religious" when it's the religion that he professes that has been the most intolerant ins. titution ever devised, by far. I can understand why his ilk are pissed b/c their church has lost a massive amount of its power and authority, but I don't have to let their whining at the "injustices" and "intolerance" done these days to their bullshit religion by "secular" forces go without comment. The irony is, it's precisely folks like Prof that the church has continued to lose its power and influence. But he doesn't give a shit...

AA, see what I mean?

"hedge, you're just bitter because, your whole life, Christians have forced you to attend church, pay tithes, get baptized, swear allegiance to Jesus, and abstain from alcohol, dancing and porn. After the way Christianity has imposed its will on you, no wonder you're so pissed off."

My whole life? Not since I was 13. People like you turned me away from religion and you yourself continue to make me sure that it was a good decision. Congrats...

Take a deep breath, hedge. Close your eyes and go to your happy place. Let the hate go. It's not good for you.

"If you want to go back to the Middle Ages to cite barbaric behavior by Christians against non-Christians, I will probably agree with you."

You don't have to go back to the middle ages to cite barbaric behavior of christians against other christians. Protestantism wasn't very well received by the catholics, or maybe you missed that day in history class...

Professor Tiger wrote:I enjoy a good debate, but I'm not bitter and angry.

No, just stupid and dishonest...

Professor Tiger wrote:Take a deep breath, hedge. Close your eyes and go to your happy place. Let the hate go. It's not good for you.

Actually, my happy place is calling out dumbasses like you. And hatred is very good for me, esp. when the target is so deserving of it...

Good air in... bad air out... wax on... wax off...

I don't know how I ever got the idea that liberals tend to be intolerant of religion, especially Christianity.

Death to both of you morons.

AA is correct, Atheism (PolPot, Stalin, Hedge) and Catholicism(Louis XV, Spanish Inquisition, Prof) are very similar.

Don't foget Hitler.

He was a devout Catholic, I hear.

sardis wrote:AA is correct, Atheism (PolPot, Stalin, Hedge) and Catholicism(Louis XV, Spanish Inquisition, Prof) are very similar.

Now that you mention Louis XV, that reminds me of the French Revolution - another historical example where the liberal forces of tolerance, diversity, inclusion, pluralism, progressivism, and enlightenment, butchered tens of thousands of people who didn't buy into their little utopia.

I don't know that you can call Louis XV a liberal.

Professor Tiger wrote:
Now that you mention Louis XV, that reminds me of the French Revolution - another historical example where the liberal forces of tolerance, diversity, inclusion, pluralism, progressivism, and enlightenment, butchered tens of thousands of people who didn't buy into their little utopia.

Heh at little utopia. Without the French Revolution you likely would have been laid in the ground at age 40, having scratched out a peasants existence on some aristocrat's land. Maybe you got to tend to the Auburn polo ponies...

I like how Prof tries to justify the intolerance of his religion by trying to show examples of how "liberals" and atheists can be just as intolerant (although AA debunked most of his examples of liberal/academia intolerance). "See? They are just as bad as we are! But anyway, most of the examples of our worst intolerance were from a long time ago, so we can just overlook that now. And anyway, I don't blame all atheists for the actions of Hitler, so nobody should blame my religion for any of the bad shit people have done in its name." Wow, that's a rousing defense of your religion, Prof. Kudos to you...

How timely, Will does a great job slicing and dicing the newest religion....

Syracuse University alumni are new additions to the lengthening list of people who can stop contributing to their alma maters. The university has succumbed — after, one suspects, not much agonizing — to the temptation to indulge in progressive gestures. It will divest all fossil fuel stocks from its endowment. It thereby trumps Stanford, whose halfhearted exercise in right-mindedness has been to divest only coal stocks. Evidently carbon from coal is more morally disquieting than carbon from petroleum.

The effect of these decisions on the consumption of fossil fuels will be nil; the effect on the growth of institutions' endowments will be negative. The effect on alumni giving should be substantial because divesting institutions are proclaiming that the goal of expanding educational resources is less important than the striking of righteous poses — if there can be anything righteous about flamboyant futility.

The divestment movement is a manifestation of a larger phenomenon, academia's embrace of "sustainability," a development explored in "Sustainability: Higher Education's New Fundamentalism" from the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The word "fundamentalism" is appropriate, for five reasons:

Like many religions' premises, the sustainability movement's premises are more assumed than demonstrated. Second, weighing the costs of obedience to sustainability's commandments is considered unworthy. Third, the sustainability crusade supplies acolytes with a worldview that infuses their lives with purpose and meaning. Fourth, the sustainability movement uses apocalyptic rhetoric to express its eschatology. Fifth, the church of sustainability seeks converts, encourages conformity to orthodoxy and regards rival interpretations of reality as heretical impediments to salvation.

Some subscribers to the sustainability catechism are sincerely puzzled by the accusation that it is political correctness repackaged. They see it as indisputable because it is undisputed; it is obvious, elementary, even banal. Actually, however, the term "sustainable" postulates fragility and scarcity that entail government planners and rationers to fend off planetary calamity while administering equity. The unvarying progressive agenda is for government to supplant markets in allocating wealth and opportunity. "Sustainability" swaddles this agenda in "science," as progressives understand it — "settled" findings that would be grim if they did not mandate progressivism.

Orthodoxy was enshrined in the 2006 "American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment." Since then, the NAS study concludes, "the campus sustainability movement has gone from a minor thread of campus activism to becoming the master narrative of what 'liberal education' should seek to accomplish." Government subsidizes the orthodoxy: The Environmental Protection Agency alone has spent more than $333 million on sustainability fellowships and grants. Anti-capitalism is explicit: Markets "privilege" individuals over communities. Indoctrination is relentless: Cornell has 403 sustainability courses (e.g., "The Ethics of Eating"). Sustainability pledges are common. The University of Virginia's is: "I pledge to consider the social, economic, and environmental impacts of my habits and to explore ways to foster a sustainable environment during my time here at U-Va. and beyond."

"How timely, Will does a great job slicing and dicing the newest religion...."

Funny how he never slices and dices the oldest ones. Kinda like Prof...

Let's not forget the Irish Republican Army of a few decades ago terrorizing the streets of Belfast and London with the backing of the RCC. Thank God for the Orange Order in their defense of Protestantism.