Comments on: A Change Is Gonna Come

By: Red and Black

Red and Black — Sun, 21 May 2006 16:44:35 +0000

Robbie at #189:

The resistance to the Fascists in Spain was not largely Leninist-Marxist, at least at the grassroots level. It was a coalition of anarchists (the CNT), socialists (the UGT), and decentralist nationalists. As the civil progressed, however, business owners in the non-fascist-controlled areas threw their lot in with Stalin’s agents, and managed to roll back much of the Social Revolution.

A good intro to the time period is Antony Beevor’s book The Spanish Civil War.

By: revere

revere — Sun, 21 May 2006 12:56:20 +0000

The above (comment 210) is meant to be a trackback. It is a long disagreement with Christy’s post. The title links to it. I’m glad she opened this topic, however. It needs discussion.

By: Effect Measure

Effect Measure — Sun, 21 May 2006 12:49:03 +0000

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: the

Firedog Lake is one of the better blogs in the left blogosphere and this weekend there was a long post by Christy Hardin Smith on the “religious left.” One of the great things about lefty blogging is it doesn’t all march to the same drummer.

By: newtonusr

newtonusr — Sun, 21 May 2006 08:26:52 +0000

Brava!

By: mui

mui — Sun, 21 May 2006 07:01:26 +0000

Correctoin: Joe said one can’t be moral *without* religion.

By: mui

mui — Sun, 21 May 2006 06:58:03 +0000

And thank you, sincerely, Christy for opening this debate, because we all need to put two cents in for what its worth. We can smell this coming on the political horizon.

By: mui

mui — Sun, 21 May 2006 06:55:42 +0000

And last rant, I promise. Joseph Lieberman has betrayed his background on this issue as well. He wins the defamation prize by saying one can’t be moral with religion– or something like that. Well Joe, most people have a sense of ethics, public, private, professional or otherwise. As far as I am concerned, a politician cannot get off scott-free wearing religion as a badge, but have no sense of ethics or morality whatsoever.

By: mui

mui — Sun, 21 May 2006 06:44:22 +0000

LJ/Aquaria. I think I am with you, even if I arrive at it differently. To me it is such a private matter what I believe whether I’m agnostic, atheist or extremely religious, that I bristle at faith-based appeals. I know other people in CT do as well. In fact, it’s a general rule not to discuss details except under certain conditions among the like-minded. Somehow I got into this conversation with someone when talking of Falwell types recently and she pointed out the local sentiment before I did. It seems like people like Ann Coulter take advantage of our reticence to talk of religion or spirituality to try and neuter us politically and invite people to make stereotypes and assumptions.
In visiting a part of the country where people openly ask others about religious affiliations, the little hairs sometimes stood on the back of my neck, at this and other related stuff. First off, IMHO many in the New England do not want to even say the names of the divine out loud or assume they know the will of the divine. It may not be considered blasphemous today, but it certainly gives one a little bit of the superstitious willies when it’s pasted across a billboard.
Sometimes I can hardly even laugh at this aspect of ChimpCo, because it nauseates me. And yet, these fundies think they are the cornerstones of religion when they can’t even understand the various sensitivities and sensibilities of other denominations, much less other spirituality, philosophies or religions.
I have no sympathy for those who feel “persecuted” because they want to talk J*su at the printer or coffee maker and noone else does. First off, people like that have a hard time even understanding that some people don’t read the King James Bible. Ugh don’t get me started. The lack of sensitivity is sometimes appalling.
Religion does not make for a civil society. Secularity does. Noone can convince me with any little anecdote that it is otherwise. It would take a dissertation or two or three or four before I might concede some points.

By: Betty Cracker

Betty Cracker — Sun, 21 May 2006 05:19:12 +0000

Believe me, LJ/Aquaria, as a fellow atheist, and one who lives in a part of the country where “which church do you attend?” is considered a perfectly acceptable way to begin a conversation with a total stranger, I feel your pain.

You are right — we are maginalized and patronized by people who should know better. Sometimes it’s almost worse when it’s done unconsciously. At least we know where we stand with the Tim LeHaye crowd.

But there are Christians (and people of other religions, of course) who respect our beliefs and support our issues. And we will get exactly nowhere politically without them.

I believe the separation of church and state should be absolute, but I’m fuzzier on the appropriateness of faith-based appeals to people’s conscience to drive political change. Given the very real role religion has played in social justice movements, its power as an agent for good is as undeniable as its power to do evil.

Bottom line for me is, it’s okay as long as all people of good will are welcome in the movement. I can’t deny that the proximity of religion to politics will always give me the willies, even when it’s the good guys. But for reasons I will apparently never fathom, religion is at the core of the identity of most of our fellow inhabitants of this planet. The trick is to harness that force in the service of good rather than evil.

By: LJ/Aquaria

LJ/Aquaria — Sun, 21 May 2006 04:10:59 +0000

Late to this one, but you know what?

I really get a bug up my you know what when religious people complain about the way non-believers treat them, like having people with different views blasting you about anything is unusual.

I don’t think people of faith have even a glimmer of what it’s like to deal with 1/100000000000 the kind of ugliness that non-religious people get, day in and day out, in this country, especially from the so-called religious, even the “nice” ones. The religious foist their views and their disdain on us in so many ways, and more often than not without even realizing that they do it.

I’ve had “nice” religious people say when I said I was an atheist that I couldn’t really believe what I believed, and not raise their voice or be nasty about it. They were merely dismissive of my beliefs, like I don’t even know my own mind. How patronizing is that?

Have they ever lost jobs over their beliefs, and known that it was futile to seek reparation for it, because, well, I’m an atheist, so I’m automatically a liar in a court of law, and that so-called religious person who puts his hand on his precious Bible to tell the truth then blatantly lies that he fired me because I wasn’t doing my job right is automatically the honest one a jury will believe?

Do you think I could get elected to public office, as an avowed atheist?

Think any “nice” religious people would ever vote for me, no matter how wonderful a platform I had, how much in line it would be with their beliefs, how diligently I would serve them?

Think again.

Or how about this little gem, right here from the comments:

What everybody misses in the whole debate is the two great commandments: Love God with all your heart, and, love your neighbor as yourself. If we all followed this simple ideology, the world would be a great place to live.

Everybody? All? We’re not part of the debate, I take it, since an exhortation was there to love a deity that non-believers do not even believe in? How about taking out that loving God part and leaving only the love your neighbor as yourself bit? That would have included non-believers in the debate, rather than dismissing them out of hand, or, worse, implying that the world would be better off without people who couldn’t love God.

This is what I mean about the incredibly insidious ways that religious people treat non-believers like they don’t matter, like they don’t even deserve to be here, without realizing it.

You reap what you sow, believers. If you want respect from non-believers, you have to earn it. Believers certainly have much further to go than non-believers in proving they do deserve it. You’ve insulted, repressed, tortured and even killed a whole hell of a lot more of us than we have you, for a lot longer.