Man made rules in this regard fail to impress me

Their belief system is all they have. If they allow a question about one of its pillars, the whole sham will come tumbling down.

I have some people I deal with daily like that (social services for the elderly.) I don't mind listening to them and I don't try to change any minds. I just make it obvious that I'm not too interested when they get into their talks about whites vs. them, etc.

Belief = Faith

Each rejects doubt and in so doing embraces delusion.

They are one and the same.

The basis of reason is doubt.

Reason ceases to exist, in the absence of doubt.

Hence, Faith/Belief is without reason.

May reason rule.

delightful funny hardcore historical research best book ever explaining why we are the way we are.

'The Wordy Shipmates'

Puritans: a great political enterprise. Our philosophical, spiritual, moral ancestors. And do they have a lot to answer for.

Easy reading you will want to read out loud to friends and family.

People are prisoners of their era, 1540 to 1700 England was a cesspit of religious factionalism. Keep in mind that we hold up New England as our philosophical, spiritual and moral ancestors, I think that's really only true if you're from a Northern Tier state. The settlements from all the colonies tend to mirror their parents. We think of the New England colonies as the forebears because it's probably the least offensive.

And get it on audiobook. Sarah Vowell reading Sarah Vowell really can't be beat.

At least I’ll know what to expect in hell.



See the Kingsman church scene for additional thoughts.

please

about the evolving virus instructions - they cannot handle uncertainty or complexity. It's what they want in their religion, their politics, and their "science:" dictates, immutable and predictable. They can't handle change - such as demographic change.

And it's all fear-based.

They're hard-wired to deal only in absolutes. There's a whole psychological study that was done on in awhile back that was fascinating.

...

Pence, Pompeo, Bill Barr, and probably some Supreme Court justices are Dominionists. They want theocracy. Between the WEP and them they are a tremendous threat to our democracy.

A great history is the opening chapters of “The Family” by by Jeff Sharlet. The goal is an American theocracy on their terms. What Sharlet wrote in 2008 is even more true today.

Deranged fools. They'll be our ruin.

Bang on book...

Literally, scared the shit out of me when I read it.

scared the crap out of me.. the Family, more than anything, is the reason for trumpism.. it is trumpism.

of Focus on Your Own Goddamn Family fame, once say that democracy was an inferior form of government and that a monarchy of the "righteous" was far superior. A monarchy awaiting Jesus's return. That was in the late 90's. Yep, Handmaid's Tale the documentary.

To be honest, I cannot even begin to express how I truly feel about those people without being banned from DU for life.

It's pretty evident, by their words and deeds, that they don't know God.

What will they say/do when it is not their version of Christianity in charge?


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist= ;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

But the quietists are not in the saddle, and we have to deal with what has brought itself front and center.

And that is the deep-seated tendency described above. People able to say with feeling 'One man and God is a majority' are a civil problem, and in our country an apparently intractable one.


"Saints should be presumed guilty till judged innocent."

this:

During one of the greatest persecutions ever brought against the church, for more than 200 years under the successive rule of some of the most cruel, evil men ever to serve in ancient world government, the church never participated in an insurrection aimed at overthrowing the government or a rebellion aimed at fighting against it. It continued to pursue its mission and purpose, living righteously in the middle of a pagan culture. It was a position that caused people to take notice of them, putting them in a position to hear their testimony and come to redemption through the gospel of Christ. Instead of being wiped out by persecution, the church experienced revival, in terms of impact on the world, greater than any that has happened since. It succeeded in bringing about a change in the government, conquering by transformational and spiritual change, not by violence.

So put down your sword. You're not going to bring revival to the United States, or fulfill the purpose of the church to glorify God by overthrowing the government. It's not going to come about by making deals with a President who celebrates his immorality, uses it to enhance his personal fame and uses the benefit he gets from your support to do more of it. And no matter how you have personally evaluated the "worldview" of the other side, they're not stopping you from carrying out the mission and purpose of the church, which is glorifying God and testifying to his grace and truth through the redemptive message of the Gospel of Jesus.

Get away from the politics that makes you blame the other side, and stop using them as an excuse for why you're not doing what the scripture says you should be doing, and you might actually see a revival.

these two songs were written in the mid eighties concurrent with the Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye scandals.

The Beatles medley's had some lyrical overhauling by Frank which is quite amusing. Yes, humor does indeed belong in music.

He’s a role model of mine. I wish I had been alive when he was still holding concerts. A true genius.

my first show was october 16 1971 stony brook late show. just another band from l.a. is a very close version of that show and my first album. like gail says, once you're in, you're in for life. Material about frank was hard to find back then. you to scan rock mags on the drug store magazine rack. rank was real good at press releases and so the local paper had his releases published from time to time. friends, radio.

nice to meet you. there's so much info about him and related stuff and i learn things every exploration. like this site, which is astounding.


https://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/They%27re_Doing_the_Interview_of_the_Century,_Part_1

-jim

Even Barry Goldwater knew it when he said

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

Shadow Network: media, money, and the secret hub of the radical right, by Anne Nelson

First off, he said, “You were right,” and I said what do you mean? which opened the floodgates. I said, “Welcome to my world.”

I will have to read that book when he’s done, but a bunch of stuff that he’s read aloud so far has its basis in the research on Dominionism that I did in the first few years I was at DU (today, btw, is my 19th DU anniversary). The proofs of the “network” are still shocking, despite how much I have come to suspect over the years.

Cheers, Sir. May we meet in better days.

It’s a death cult. Most religions are.

Why would you expect anything else from its acolytes and victims?

It was the evangelical denominations in the colonial and post-Revolutionary times who greatly feared the establishment of official state religion(s) in America, based on the then-dominance of large mainstream Protestant denominations, particularly the Episcopalian power centers in New England.

Funny to think that we owe the guarantee of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to the very Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., who are now trying to establish their religion as having state-like authority to dictate to everyone regardless of their faith.

How the proud are humbled, especially those who would make a show of their religious superiority.

reflectively,
Bright

I suspect not establishing a state church was a mistake.

Exempting places like China, where attitudes towards the divine have long been fluid and transactional, and belief or disbelief was never much an issue, the most irreligious countries are those in Europe which had established churches. Over time the result has been a nominal allegiance, without much force, whether individual or civic. Religion became regarded as just one more aspect of state bureaucracy, and the general distaste for the latter eroded and engulfed the former. I have little doubt religion would have less political force here and now had the Founders established some variant of the Anglican denominations as the church of the United States.

...for immature anti-intellectual and anti-government "you're not the boss of me" libertarianism, it could have become the fault line it is today, two hundred years earlier. Would the Republic have survived, I wonder?

Interesting also to speculate on how an established state faith would have related to "the peculiar institution" and how that would have played out.

historically,
Bright

You very well may be right.

The groups you mention, Baptists and Congregationalists, had in common the congregational governance of their churches. There was no clerical connection between churches, each church called their own pastors and conducted their own business with all members participating.

What has changed, at least among the Baptists, is the influence of a futurist interpretation of Biblical Eschatology, or end-times views, known as Premillenial Dispensationalism. It attempts to use the Bible to try and apply modern events to a timeline that ushers in the "rapture" or literal resurrection of the church, the millenial reign of Christ, a literal "tribulation" and the return of Jesus. Dominionism is tied to it.

It's a gross misinterpretation of the Bible, requiring a way of looking at it that goes way outside the boundaries of its historical context. And it has an effect on the church's "worldview" with regard to its role in ushering in the second coming.

... to reassure them of their faith.

If the unvaccinated White Evangelical Protestant accepts this test of faith as more than good enough for a mindless virus then it's certainly good enough for the law.

Fuck ‘em.