For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.This really has to stop. Supporters of both of the major parties in the United States are demonizing one another. The irony of this can probably only be seen clearly by people who have lived elsewhere. In any European country, our Republicans and Democrats would be two highly similar parties in the vicinity of the center right and would make common cause to keep extremists on both sides out of power.
As a result of each depicting the other as stupid or as in cahoots with Lucifer, we have a polarization when in fact most Americans agree about far more than they disagree about. This is not to say that the difference do not matter, just that there is an irony about how difficult it has become to see how much we agree on (at least in theory), about other things that matter too. And when we demonizing half the country, simply because they disagree with "us", we stop standing for liberty and justice for all.
This can only end badly. If Obama is elected and people who think they believe what the Bible says are persuaded that he is the antichrist, then there will be a growth in militia groups and presumably assassination attempts.
Those committed to Biblical values like justice and American values like liberty and justice for all need to speak out against the current mutual demonization that is likely to lead to far worse things than either an Obama or a McCain presidency.
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10 comments:
Well said! I'm posting a link over at my place.
but all politicians are demons. i thought i'd made that pretty clear during this whole election cycle.
oh sure, you're number 1.... but some of us still think our own thoughts!
;-P
Amen!!
The GOP has been co-opted by that element though. Carter was to be the Right's evangelical poster-boy. That did not work out. They waited a long time for Bush. That did not work out. So now they are on a mission to clarify themselves not by conservative politics, but by dogmatic fundamentalist religion perpetrated by the Christian Coalition, Family research Council and others. True conservatism lies with the libertarians who have all been abandoning the GOP for quite some time since Bush popped on the scene.
The libertarians actually prove your point - they moderate very closely with liberal democrats on more issues than one would think. They provide a great balance to liberal policy and as a result, they need to get stronger and the GOP can fade into the fundamentalist religious political sect they have sadly become.
I remember when you first posted on this awhile ago, and I was thinking what a silly waste of time it was to write on such a silly notion. Then I watched the DNC with my uber-republican father-in-law who informed me Obama reminded him of the anti-Christ.
And, I most certainly pulled your blog argument out of my memory and used it. :) So, thanks for the work you do.
I think the problem here is that there are (many?) people who can not think in any other terms than the religious. To them there is no politics, only spiritual warfare.
Over at Parchment & Pen is a post chronicling attempts to save a clinically depressed sister from suicide. It is incredibly moving. Of course, it was only a matter of time before comments started appearing suggesting demonic possession.
Arguments from secular or even civic perspectives will fall on deaf ears. Perhaps throwing up scripture at them, as you have done, will have an effect but I don't count on that either among those still convinced that Obama is secretly a Muslim.
Um, I think your moral equivalency is false.
Republicans have initiated a massive smear campaign against Obama on all levels, suggesting he is a muslim, an anti-christ, "pallin' around with terrorists," a marxist and so on. They are airing ads quoting his former pastor. ELECTED GOP officials and McCain campaign operatives have repeatedly said in PUBLIC that liberals hate America or are anti-American or are not "real" Americans, not-so-thinly veiled racist code talk. The unofficial smears passed along in emails are blatantly racist and bigoted.
And the Democrats have done what? Said that Bush messed up the country and McCain is more of the same? Bloggers making fun of videotape of Palin's blessing from the pastor who believes in witches? Ain't the same, nowhere close.
C'mon James, you are better than such lazy Jim Wallisish tripe.
pf
Thanks for wordplay.
My play: starting with O'Bama comes O'Hama (hama - hippo in kanji - sound association with hypocrite), O'Bomber (rhymes with great Haavaard snob alumni Una-Bomber - the Kacynski), Obummer, OXAMA (X for capital in Gk, by taking side bars off 'B'; sounds similar to O'SAMA - same Muslim family tradition). Anything else I can come up with phonetic play in addition to Been Rotten?
He may well be the angel Satan needs to bring into power to play with economy (like all the modern evils, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Ill-sung the North Korean god, Ho Chi Min, and Ayatolla, who came to the power riding on the economy and emotion of people's life). Satan has this EVIL TRIO - greed, speculation, manipulation - like the wine of his enticement. This great economy theory is what I learned from the current roller coast economy and the election games the politicians playing with such sleek tongue and gesture of arm-raising-up high (yes, raising right arm up high in such arrogance with his eyes like the Devil's to make me shudder but send people into thrill). If people welcome OXAMA, O'McCain should thank God for sparing him from worrying about saving the country going down with In Mammon We Kowtow and Unbelieving Sate of Union when the congress is encamped on the opposite side.
With EDUCATION from John Dewey and ETHICS from Darwin, Freud, Bertrand Russell now firmly in Satan's control in his long range plan, ECONOMY is now one more thing the DEVIL wants to take into his grip, using the evil trio.
We are in this world but not of this world. This statement from the very lips of Yeshua (aka Jesus), I have never really understood its real meaning deep down to my bones until this time (at age 67 since I started to read the Bible 50 years ago). In that case, as long as we participate in our worldly political life, we should vote for the less evil.
The worst evil is the sheer disregard to life. Those for such procedure as pushing a baby back to mother’s womb and crushing the head and tearing limbs apart and converting into tissue to assuage what little conscience they have and pulling this tissue lumps out to discard (=so called partial birth abortion) is on the side evil, practicing a cruel infanticide worse than child sacrifice to Molech in O.T. times. Such disregards life in one's heart, he/she cannot be a Christian. If called a Christian, it would be a worse hypocrite than the Pharisees Jesus denounced. Gazillion Christians now belong to this category, including this very O'Hama (lawyer, legislator, senator, proud former community organizer, Ph.D. at least not Th.D., thank God, and not the least, the founder of ACORN movement, political pressure group tactic, not unlike Mafia, the very beginning of the cursed sub-prime mortgage scheme, which was swallowed up eagerly by money-hungry lenders as a god-send magic.) Would he have enough courage to place his hand on the Bible to swear in when God swears to cut down those hypocrites? I wonder.
Any political slogan is just a manifestation of either this basic stand on one’s evilness and goodness.
No, for us, shameful as well as shameless as we are, how we can ask God blessings, when He has blessed with His Son already? We can only beg 'May God have mercy on us and on this country'. Simply we deserve so much more than 9/11 and Katrina and 1930's depression. I had for the first time in my life a fasting whole day (from meal to meal about 36 hours) on Halloween day. It's not like a facade Muslims do (fasting for a whole month of Ramadan - just skip a meal during day time along with not putting water into mouth. Not even swallowing saliva?). I ask God for His forgiveness, mercy and wisdom.
Love you all, on the eve of the election day.
P.S. I can't stop telling how I love English for alliteration, rhyming, ACRONYMS.
I hope bbill's post is some sort of satire, 'cause if not, he needs some sort of psychiatric care.
If in fact he is a true conservative, it illustrates my last point. Conservatives inherently turn the election into a fight between good and evil and therefore logically demonize people who vote the other way. It is the definition of anti-American and has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. One would think the Bible is 66 books talking about the horror of abortion. Oh wait, it is not even mentioned, even in passing.
Frankly, that so many Christians are so mindless and hateful -- and so prone to falling to demagoguery -- is the main reason that I no longer believe in Christianity. If it were true, wouldn't people who allegedly talk to God actually become more like Jesus instead of his enemies?
pf
John Dean says it eloquently:
"During the 2008 presidential campaign, Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidates, have shown themselves to be unapologetic and archetypical authoritarian conservatives. Indeed, their campaign has warmed the hearts of fellow authoritarians, who applaud them for their negativity, nastiness, and dishonest ploys and only criticize them for not offering more of the same.
The McCain/Palin campaign has assumed a typical authoritarian posture: The candidates provide no true, specific proposals to address America's needs. Rather, they simply ask voters to "trust us" and suggest that their opponents - Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden - are not "real Americans" like McCain, Palin, and the voters they are seeking to court. Accordingly, McCain and Plain have called Obama "a socialist," "a redistributionist," "a Marxist," and "a communist" - without a shred of evidence to support their name-calling, for these terms are pejorative, rather than in any manner descriptive. This is the way authoritarian leaders operate.
In my book Conservatives Without Conscience, I set forth the traits of authoritarian leaders and followers, which have been distilled from a half-century of empirical research, during which thousands of people have voluntarily been interviewed by social scientists. The touch points in these somewhat-overlapping lists of character traits provide a clear picture of the characters of both John McCain and Sarah Palin.
McCain, especially, fits perfectly as an authoritarian leader. Such leaders possess most, if not all, of these traits:
dominating
opposes equality
desirous of personal power
amoral
intimidating and bullying
faintly hedonistic
vengeful
pitiless
exploitive
manipulative
dishonest
cheats to win
highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)
mean-spirited
militant
nationalistic
tells others what they want to hear
takes advantage of "suckers"
specializes in creating false images to sell self
may or may not be religious
usually politically and economically conservative/Republican"
Read the whole thing: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/31-5
pf
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