Comments on: M-O-O-N. That spells moon. Laws, yes.

By: morfydd

morfydd — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:38:15 +0000

“Does the audience for this book realize it is just fantasy? Total fantasy? That worrying about secular, left-wing conspiracies to ban the Bible is like worrying that Kerry is really The Walkin Dude?” To be fair, I can’t read “The Handmaid’s Tale” with my feminist bias without shivering. Sure, it’s not likely to happen, but it probably over-sensitizes me to minor persecutions. (For “THT” above, insert “Fahrenheit 451”, “1984”, “Animal Farm”, or whatever political fantasy hits your ideological buttons.) It’s not a phenomenon peculiar to born-again Christians.

By: bellatrys

bellatrys — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 04:19:19 +0000

Wow, your new troll carolos really is ignorant, isn’t he? Unobservant and not letting it stop him, as he tells us who we are and how we are – NOT! I guess he missed all the mini flame-wars back around March which were largely settled in favor of religion, with occasional sporadic firefights in holdout enclaves, between progressive believers and progressive non-believers over assumptions re Christianity etc being inevitably linked with conservativism. As someone on dKos joked, “What, will I have to hand in my Bible to myself?” But the serious thing is, they either really think the Pledge of Allegiance is in the Bible, or the truth is not in them, and they don’t care. This is how the GOP spokeswoman defended it, in the NYT, when they finally admitted that it was their work – she said that the Bible-banning image was there because liberals want to take “under God” out of the pledge. If anyone wants to read the definitive Liberal Evangelical Smackdown of LaHaye and the tribulation literature genre so beloved of Dispensationalists, you need to check out Slacktivist’s long-running series on the series. (Warning, not drinks-safe.) We learn, among other things, why all the main characters are macho dudes with studly names and irresistable to women. (Ans: rampant Mary-Sue-itis.)

By: Kimmitt

Kimmitt — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:13:20 +0000

My in-laws gave me a Left Behind book as part of an ongoing attempt at conversion—a “scared straight” program, if you will. People believe it, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or painfully deluded.

By: luci phyrr

luci phyrr — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:28:34 +0000

what is it with this site, that large chunks of it tend to become invisible until I select them with the cursor OT, but I’ve had the same problem as Brett. Words disappear too, even when selected. And it only happens on CT. I know, I’m complainin’ about free pie, but thought it might be my a glitch on my side…

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:02:28 +0000

Bible’s not on the top 100 per ALA per Critical Mass

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 14:48:46 +0000

I’m a bit surprised that no one has yet asked whether we should apply the Volokh Principle to the more deranged propaganda circulating in the Islamic world. I think we should take it that people mean what they say unless there’s a pretty good reason to think otherwise, and that’s not present here. You might be interested to know that the ACLU supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act back in 1993, and I think can generally be counted on to oppose dimwitted assistant principals who confiscate Bibles and ban private prayer and such-like. Eric—I don’t really get it. The ban on gay marriage means that legally there will be no gay marriages, since marriage is a legal status. So a “ban” on Bibles would mean that legally there will be no Bibles, doesn’t it?

By: mona

mona — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:40:44 +0000

walt pohl – “Christians find it hard to stomach the idea that the ten commandments is unacceptable literature for public schools but any ethics book is okay” is an example of an exciting new trend: redefining Christianity as a subset of the Republican party Yeah, what’s even more interesting is that before that redefinition, there’s another level where “Christianity” is being redefined as exclusively American. So, right-wing American fundamentalist Christians seem to think they’re the only “true” Christians in the world.

By: Warbaby

Warbaby — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 06:10:20 +0000

So the Xtians are just kidding about biblical literalism, eh? That would explain away a lot of things… Sorry, but no. Having spent a lot of time among the extreme right doing field research, I have to tell you that most of the people who buy a copy of The Turner Diaries see it as an accurate description of current trends. So the short answer is yes, there are plenty of people who believe that “liberals will ban the Bible.” And they are the target audience, not the fuzzy-minded sorts who project their rationist pose onto the world around them—despite the evidence to the contrary.

By: Matt Austern

Matt Austern — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 05:52:54 +0000

Actually, you can’t teach the content of the ten commandments as ethics. The first three or four of them (the first three in the Catholic version, the first four in the Jewish and Protestant versions) are explicitly about what kind of religious observance you’re supposed to conduct. The remaining six or seven are mostly things that most people would agree are ethically good advice, but there’s room for reasonable disagreement about a few of them.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 04:24:41 +0000

Re: “Christians find it hard to stomach the idea that the ten commandments is unacceptable literature for public schools but any ethics book is ok.” If you are really going to have separation of church and state you can’t promote the ten commandments as the ten commandments, because it is a religious text. You can teach the content of the ten commandments as ethics, and I think almost all ethics/morals taught in public school are based on either the ten commandments or the teachings of christ. In my experience what conservative christians don’t want their children taught are specific ideas like: it’s OK to be gay, you should use birth control if you are going to have sex, other religious beliefs are valid, non-traditional families are valid, history depends on perspective of the speaker, etc… Ideas that are contrary to specific conservative christian religious belief. I think this is OK. There are things that I wouldn’t want taught to my daughter in school (religious dogma of any kind) and if it was too bad I would either fight to change the schools or send her somewhere that taught what I believed. But currently I agree with the values taught in our public school. They seem rooted in pretty basic christian ideas: tolerance, non-violence, compassion.

By: Dubious

Dubious — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 04:15:13 +0000

I wonder how many members of the NEA would be willing to switch one year of high school English for one year of Comparative Religion? The latter would surely be more useful in having an educated and tolerant citizenry than any year of my high school English experiences. For pure real world relevance of understanding other people (even if you disagree with them) you can’t beat the Bible, Koran, and Confucius, along with balance commentary.

By: jholbo

jholbo — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 03:44:53 +0000

Well I certainly don’t know what happened to the Walkin Dude in Dark Tower vol. 7.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 03:21:04 +0000

Re: “Christians find it hard to stomach the idea that the ten commandments is unacceptable literature for public schools but any ethics book is ok.” Unless I’m mistaken, which is entirely possible, the study of the ten commandments as an ethical system in public schools is, in fact, OK. What you can’t do is teach them as the only ethical system or the true ethical system, or put them (and only them) on the wall of the classroom. But I believe that if you want to do things like offer a comparative religion class which examines Christianity, or a course on the history of Christianity, that’s acceptable; what you’re not allowed to do is indoctrinate kids into Christianity. Here’s my source: http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/StudentsRights.cfm?ID=9069&c=162

By: digamma

digamma — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 03:14:05 +0000

I bet I’m the only person here lame enough to know what happens to the Walkin Dude in Dark Tower 7.

By: Blues man

Blues man — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 03:09:47 +0000

I think Eric has a valid point. It seems everyone is so polarized at this point in time that people can’t agree to disagree and respect that other humans have the right to believe differently. This is 2004. I thought that humans in “adanvced” societies would be more civil and less radical than what I read about at this point.