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In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set.
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Reproductive Health Matters
More of Feministe On
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I tried to click on the link but this huge hand came down through my ceiling and blocked me from moving my mouse onto the link! There was also a very loud choir singing from somewhere.
Bizarre.
Now you’ve done it! You’ve ruined my reputation with my mother!
Dammit! I liked my religion.
Man, if they did tell my mom, she’d have a coronary. It would almost be funny to watch.
Funny site. Thanks for the link.
I still think the ads are weird.
But the t-shirts… Oh, my dog, the t-shirts are absolutely priceless:
“Why Pray for Forgiveness When You Can Just Do It Right the First Time?”
Love it!
Finally, a way to win converts without actually trying to convince them of anything. Thanks for posting this!
Yeah, this is hilarious… wickedly smug, too! As a Christian man who presumably can’t think for himself, I’m now quaking in my boots that you’ve tricked me out of my salvation…. to the snickers of the entire room of superior brainpower. At least you know you’re better… that’s the point, I guess. As well as get the “gullible Christians” to sit down and shut up.
Rob, why do you troll feministe?
A troll? No, no… this site is the nasty car wreck that I want to look away from, but can’t…. after all, I’m just a weak-willed Christian. Apparently, your definition of troll means “anyone who doesn’t toe the company line”. Do you, Ryan, just nod approvingly at every post here? Is that the new definition of “discernment”, too?
Yeah, that comment demonstrates trollish irrelevant-argument-provocation pretty well.
Why do you do it?
refer to previous post… and read sloooooower…
Rob: Well, not flailing wildly about like Howard Hughes avoiding microbes at a joke post would be a start. People who hold in their imaginary soul the imaginary love of an imaginary Savior towards an imaginary eternal afterlife shouldn’t be this insecure, according to my calculations.
“You’re going to Hell in a handbasket! You forced me to lose the only thing I found sacred in my life and mocked while you put the proverbial boot to my throat! Have you no shame? Why do you hate me so????”
THAT’S flailing wildly with insecurity. See the difference?
No, not really.
So Rob, this is fun for you?
i dunno… i guess i… i just thought… er, i,… sorry…
I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. I enjoy being told I’m stupid for my beliefs and shouted down by randoms. It…. emboldens me somehow. Probably in much the same way as the dismissiveness of your posts emboldens you… probably helps soothe past wrongs against you or some such…
This is a martyr. You are some douche on a site that doesn’t want you, although I may be presumptuous in divining the will of the Site-Spirit. No, fuck that, I know what it wants.
I’m not feelin’ your “inclusiveness”. Where’s the “diversity”?
Really, why do you do this? I sincerely want to know.
rob. you’re going to have a heart attack unless you de-stress. really.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty’s way is plain;
Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain,
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ okays the bill,
Steal the farmers’ savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Saviour’s bums must eat,
Burn the peasants’ cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah’s holy name, wreak ruin right and left.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets’ noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant’s tools;
History will say of you: “That pack of Goddamn fools”
- J. D. Kendricks
uh, oh, the “get outta here, Christian” poem! That’s my cue… and there’s my ride…
No, that’s not a “get outta here, Christian” poem. The poem appears to be directed at those Christians who blindly follow whatever their religious leaders say, and blindly accept their interpretations of Christianity, instead of questioning and growing in their own faith. As a Christian, I’m not in the least offended by either the website posted nor the poem Chris posted. Yeah, the website is smug, but it’s also funny as hell. The poem is designed to make people think, instead of behaving like sheep.
Careful with the sheep comments, rl/R. You might piss off the wrong people, and get a dozen extra hits and some drool on your website.
The poem would be offensive were it not so stupid. Those evil Christians! And all the evil that has been done in Christ’s name! Never mind that oponents of Christianity — for example, Mao, Stalin, and Hitler — are responsible for the worst genocides of the 20th Century.
With regard to the comment that the poem is supposed to make us “think,” what, in particular, is it supposed to make us think? What the poem actually says is that Christians are a bunch of rapists and murders, and what distinguishes them as a group is how they commit atrocities. As such, what the poem makes me think is that its author very much hates Christianity. I suppose one could be charitable and say that it makes the banal point that not all Christians always act as Christ would have them act. Gee, how insightful. I never thought of that.
Those who say Christians are “sheep” tend to believe in caricatures of Christians. In fact, Christianity calls on its followers to think for themselves. Certainly the great Christian thinkers — St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc. — are renowned for doing so. But this is true even at the level of popular piety. In this regard, I’m reminded of the lyrics from the Bob Dylan song “Are You Ready (To Meet Jesus)?” on the album “Saved”:
Do you have some unfinished business
Is there something holding you back?
Are you thinking for yourself
Or are you following the pack?
You’re on thin ground calling Hitler an opponent of religion. He lived and died a communicant of the Catholic Church.
There was also, as I recall, some unpleasantness in Central Europe in the decades preceeding 1648, the participants on both sides of which professed to be Christian of the “correct” sort.
Ahem.
Of course, whatever Prescott Bush did (and, while way too many Americans were sympathetic to the Nazis, there were also some who were simply willing to profit any way they could, which is pretty bad but different in my view), he’s two generations removed from the current POTUS. Further, in between the two was a guy whose policies and presidency I didn’t like, but who did risk his life to defend our country in the Pacific. If I’m going to take shots at W, it won’t be that his grandaddy was a Nazi-sympathizer. Besides, who needs that when his own record is so damning? (From Reason: the five-budget rise in discretionary spending for W is about 35% — dwarfing the profligate Johnson’s 25%, Reagan’s 11%, and negative growth under both Clinton and Nixon — the man is determined to neither curtail spending nor raise revenue, but simply to borrow until he is out of office and leave the American people holding the bill, like an obnoxious rich kid running out on a bar tab).
Thomas writes: “You’re on thin ground calling Hitler an opponent of religion. He lived and died a communicant of the Catholic Church.”
I am not on “thin ground” at all. Nazism was ideologically opposed to Christianity and attacked the Catholic Church (for example a large percentage of the Catholic clergy in Poland were killed at Auschwitz). Hitler did not die a “communicant” of the Catholic Church. It’s not clear if you understand this, but “communicant” means someone who takes communion. With certain exceptions (one being that they are conscious of grave sin), Catholics are to take communion at least weekly. Hitler, although never excommuncated from the Catholic Church, was not a practicing Catholic, much less a “communicant.”
Thomas also writes: “There was also, as I recall, some unpleasantness in Central Europe in the decades preceeding 1648, the participants on both sides of which professed to be Christian of the “correct” sort.” Yes, there were the religious wars, but so what? War is hardly unique to Christians. Name me a religion, or a country, or an ideology whose members have not engaged in war.
Regardless of whether or not Hitler was a “communicant” at the beginning and the end , he used Christianity as a tool to convince the masses that he was in the right. He was not opposed to Chritianity. He embraced it as a propaganda tool.
Incidentally, it’s not a poem.
It’s the lyrics to a satirical song written nearly a century ago by a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, in respnse to a nascent fundamentalist Christian movement that held that union organizing and industrial democracy were sinful, and that the proper Christian approach to an unpleasant or dangerous job was to put up with it until you died.
This movement promulgated the idea that imperial wars of conquest – the Spanish American War being the most recent example at the time – were rationalized away by such so-called followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth as being conducted as “God’s will.”
It’s just a good thing people like that no longer exist in the public sphere! Whew!
“It’s the lyrics to a satirical song written nearly a century ago by a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, in respnse to a nascent fundamentalist Christian movement that held that union organizing and industrial democracy were sinful, and that the proper Christian approach to an unpleasant or dangerous job was to put up with it until you died.”
This only confirms that the lyrics attack a strawman. There was never significant Christian opposition to unionizing. The Catholic Church endorsed unions in the 19th Century. Before World War One all the countries of Europe had Christian worker parties. In the U.S. it is well known that Catholics played a dominant role in the union movement.
Catholics, yes. No contest there. Read what I wrote again. Tell me where it mentions Catholics.
In fact, tell me how I could possibly have MEANT “Catholic” where I said “fundamentalist Christians.”
There was never significant Christian opposition to unionizing.
Yeah, I’m sure you have a better grasp of who their opponents were than they did, given that you didn’t recognize a relatively prominent protest song of the times.
Randomliberal/robert,
Before you get your clock cleaned by irate Christians, you might want to amend your 5.07 comment above to: while Hitler was privately opposed to Christianity, he embraced it publically as a propaganda tool.
This is still painting with a pretty broad brush, but nearer the historical truth.
I’d say that executing thousands of priests is a little more than “private” opposition.
Dan, Hitler killed Poles because they were Slavs, their Catholicism notwithstanding. Uniate Ukranians, same thing. I’m no anti-Catholic — my wife is Catholic. I haven’t trotted out any of that “Pius XII was a Nazi” stuff because it’s speculative and often far-fetched. But calling Hitler an opponent of religion when a priest marched at the Nuremburg rally (he’s been falsely identified as the Papal Nuncio — I understand that it was not the Nuncio and I’m not trotting out that canard) is very, very thin.
Chris, you are right, the union movement always has had an element in its leadership that was elitist (studied Marx at a university but never stepped foot in a factory) and hostile to Christianity. The “rank and file” (with whom the leadership is purportedly concerned) has always been overwhelmingly Christian and the vast majority would be disgusted with the song you quoted. It is the elitism and anti-Christian rhetoric of the left that has resulted in the phenomen of Reagan Democrats, among other failures (we haven’t heard much from the “Industrial Workers of the World” recently, have we?).
Yes, it’s true that Hitler killed Poles because they were Slavs but he also targeted the clergy in particular. Read “Mein Kampf.” It’s full of venom directed at, yes, Jews but in nearly equal measure the Catholic Church (to be honest, I’ve only read part of Mein Kampf — it’s virtually unreadable). Nazism was ideologically opposed to Christianity. It’s a bastardization of Nietchze’s “will to power” concept, which was part of an ideology that was decidedly, and expressly, anti-Christain. More importantly, Christianity was, in turn, ideologically opposed to Nazism. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the Church, often virtually alone, stood in opposition to, and was under constant attack from, the twin secular ideologies of communism and fascism that were then developing. Given this historical context it is out and out dishonest for detractors of Christianity to claim that Hitler’s movement is appropriately grouped with Christianity. Yes, Hitler purported to support some bizarre form of Christianity in which Jesus was not Jewish (he had to make some accomodation with Christianity given that Germany was mostly Christain country), but that only goes to show how he did not spring from the pre-existing genuine forms of Christianity that existed in Germany.
To Dan at 5.53 pm.
You wrote:”[Hitler] did not spring from the pre-existing genuine forms of Christianity that existed in Germany.”
On the contrary, I think you’ll find the Christianity of German Lutheran Protestants was not ideologically inconsistent with some of the Nazi goals.
The Holocaust statistics indicate the foremost racial target of the Nazis. It is extremely unwise to argue that “the clergy” were equal first victims.
On the contrary, I think you’ll find the Christianity of German Lutheran Protestants was not ideologically inconsistent with some of the Nazi goals.
Hmm, tell that to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
To Dan at 6.32.
I cannot believe you would leave your comment above as if it were some sort of valid objection to my comment.
I would expect you to accept the following characterization of his legacy?
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few church leaders who stood in courageous opposition to the Fuehrer and his policies.”
And if only there had been many, many more of him, Dan.
wow re: trolling. absolutely remarkable.
we haven’t heard much from the “Industrial Workers of the World” recently, have we?
Heh. No, Palmer pretty much put the kibosh on them
I admit I posted the wobbly song to get a rise out of you. But I don’t see what’s so controversial about admitting that Christianity is a very diverse phenomenon. Yes, there were Dorothy Days and Peter Maurins and Aamon Hennacys and William Jennings Bryans fighting for workers’ rights. But there were plenty of fundies and baptists and such who opposed union organizing as “communist” – which admittedly much of it was, but they made it sound so dirty.
Aren’t you guys always pressuring us presumed atheists not to paint with too broad a brush?
The song referred to a particular kind of Christian hypocrisy. To read into it a blanket anti-Christian sentiment, when there were prominent clergypeople working with the IWW, is, I think, being unfair.
And yeah, again, I pretty much assured you’d take that position by introducing it the way I did. So: my bad. But it’s a great song, taught to me by one of the priests that taught me history.
Oh, and:
leadership that was elitist (studied Marx at a university but never stepped foot in a factory) and hostile to Christianity.
take a moment and do some reading on the IWW. You’ll find it illuminating. very, VERY few university-educated elitists in it. (They were all in the SWP.)
Is it just me or does every argument about religion end up as a debate of Hitler’s philosophy? Personally, I don’t like using crazy people’s philosophy on either side of a discussion — it’s just too unreliable.
Anyway, thanks for starting off the discussion with a mention of my site!
Dan, have you ever seen a swastika with the letters “D-C”? German Christians, an organization of German Protestants who adopted Luther’s antisemitism but departed significantly from the Augustinian doctrine of human worthlessness. They formed the Reich Protestant Church in the early Thirties, and supported Hitler.
Now, one could make an awfully good case that Lutheran theology was irreconsilable with Naziism, but one cannot say that the majority of German Protestants rejected the Nazis. Nor can one say that about German Catholics.
Dan, you started by pointing out that Christianity is not to blame for the worst mass-killings the world has known. You pointed to Stalin and Mao as actively hostile to religion (any religion) — and I was with you there. Religious ideologies have no monopoly on bloodshed as against other ideologies. Adding Hitler weakened your point — he was willing to accomodate and use religion as long as it didn’t get in his way. It’s almost as if you wanted to overreach and put the “big three” twentieth century totalitarian monsters in the “anti-Christian camp” to paint a picture of Christianity as our savior from tyranny. But, while calling Christainity the principle cause of slaughter is inaccurate, so is an attempt to call Christianity a historical bulwark between humanity and inhumanity. In fact, Christians have been on both sides of history since Constantine.
Second that, Thomas.
And let us not overlook “Gott Mit Uns” (God With Us) on the German army belt buckles in both world wars.
I’m surprised anybody was actually offended by that relatively harmless parody Oo
Here is this quote from one of Hitler’s speeches:
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Replace the word “Jews” with terrorists and it might sound like GWB
Shelby, in 1922 HItler was a street punk trying to gain some influence in a splinter party. Think that he might have been willing to lie just an eensy bit to get the support of the Christians running the party?
Pardon me, I was off by a year. In 1922, he had taken charge of the splinter party, and would be lying to keep the support of the party’s financiers, rather than convincing them to give him power.
Being chairman of the German Worker’s Party was a bit more than street punk. This was a year before leading 2000 brown shirts in attempting the failed revolution that landed him in jail. But his rehetoric (lies about his own Christianity or not) worked pretty well, didn’t it! He was able to use their historical hatred of the Jews to his own ends. “The Jews killed Jesus and eat Christian babies.” That’s all they needed to hear. Today it’s simiilar “Muslims hate Christians” and everybody starts waving the flag.
*Channelling Andrea Harris* Wow, you people really need to get a life! */Channelling Andrea Harris.*
Sorry, I’m bitter. :P
Anyway, for what started out as trolling, this is actually one of the more interesting debates I’ve read in a while, even if it Godwined a long time back.
That is not an illogical thing to say, but I think it is an inaccurate assumption to carry through to the end. I cannot speak for Dan, but many Christians feel that their religion is constantly painted as filled with “dumb rednecks”, “murderous “Crusading” butchers”, and other such ill will. It is a charge oft-repeated by so many self-important students and atheist chic types that the logical Christians are often very touchy about such things and eager to leap to smack down such goons. Anti-Christianity propaganda begets pro-Christianity propaganda. The latter statement is not entirely accurate though, because every one of Christianity’s ills is taken under a microscope by the former type, so the latter is devoid of mentioning said ills because the former already covered them all. :P
Again, not speaking for Dan here, just offering what I hope is helpful contextualization.
If it helps, I’ve always seen it as the atheist chic types see Christianity as the “popular norm of the masses” and thus must be opposed with “the TRUTH” whereas the Christians see it kinda the opposite and feel they must defend their religion et al.
Er, sorry, forgot to format the third paragraph.
Anyway, for what started out as “trolling”…
Quotes for facetiousness.
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