It’s getting kind of sad seeing how far John McCain is willing to go to pander to the religious right. In a recent interview on Belief.net he decided to make it clear that he is prejudiced towards candidates who share his brand of popular delusion while at the same time demonstrating his ignorance of history:
“I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who has a grounding in my faith,” the GOP presidential hopeful told the Web site in an interview published Saturday.
McCain also said he agreed with a recent poll that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. “I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation,” he said.
He’s either pandering or he’s an amazingly dumb shit to make statements like that. Either way it brought out condemnation from some Muslim and Jewish groups (the article doesn’t mention us atheists, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s pissed about this) and prompted McCain on Sunday night to try and back his ass up with some damage control:
“What I do mean to say is the United States of America was founded on the values of Judeo-Christian values, which were translated by our founding fathers which is basically the rights of human dignity and human rights,” he said.
“I believe that anyone can be president of the United States of any faith,” McCain said, saying he was angry his remarks were misinterpreted but “there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Sure you do, John, you just wouldn’t vote for them because their delusion is different from yours. And I don’t think your remarks were misinterpreted. In fact I fail to see how they could be, they seem to be pretty straightforward in their sublime ignorance.
“Former maverick John McCain’s statements were repugnant,” the group’s executive director, Ira N. Forman, said in a statement. “It’s been sad watching him transform from political maverick to religious right mouthpiece.”
Forman added, “Someone running for president ought to understand the Constitution a little better. Nowhere does it say the United States is a ‘Christian’ nation. How can we trust someone to uphold the Constitution who doesn’t even know what is in it?”
I don’t know if McCain’s comments were repugnant, but they were certainly ignorant and I can’t argue with the rest of what Mr. Forman says above. If he doesn’t even know what’s in the Constitution and what isn’t then how the hell does he expect us to think he can uphold it?
Via ***Dave.
And yet, in the same post I said I would not response to you, I said I would be more then glad to anyone who dialogged with me in the same tone in which we had been discussing the other issue.
So, you point out 4 scriptures, yet if you have studied the Bible so much, how do you contextualize all of the scriptures pertaining to loving your neighbor as yourself, walking the extra mile when asked, being no greater friend then laying down your life, the good Samaritan. You take 4 scriptures out of context and throw the rest away, because it justifies your obvious disdain for any other point of view then your own. You will say something to blow off that love stuff(of course) because it doesn’t fit your template.
Anyone who has read my post can clearly read I have no disdain just because I disagree with you or because you are atheist. And I did not compare you to Pol Pot ect. Because if you would calm down a little bit and read my post, you will find that I also said many “religious” people have done the same.
Again, you are so full of angst, you don’t even read my post without reading them out of context.
I haven’t said repent or burn I have not persecuted you, yet you come so hard and mean. I don’t believe the excuse that it is because you have had to answer these topics so many times before, there is way too much anger in you for it to be that. You are just a very unhappy person (which you will deny) and it shows through your disdain and malicious writing. Pity.
Please feel free to come to my blog and bug me anytime you want…I will discuss issues till the cows come home.
Anyways, I am hanging around waiting for the reply to my final draft on the heritage of America. Everyone, especially the moderator, was all into it until I brought the citations and references he wanted, but nary a word from any of you since. This whole topic was just a side thought while I waited.
Good luck to you all and Julian I really hope you find what you are looking for and if you have found it, I hope it gets you through man.
Hey, I can handle the tone Bubba, the conversations I was having were brunt and honest with some attitude back and forth…but come on…talk about narcissistic rage…Julian came out of the gate foaming so self righteous and condescending of how stupid fundies are and how we are a bunch of morons, yet blaming me of the exact thing he was doing and accusing me of wanting to reinstate the Spanish Inquisitions (what a drama queen).And no one can say I have spoke that way and be intellectually honest about it.
The fact you defend his immature tones and bouts of rage is a real eye opener about your culture…no wonder Libs can get by calling Bush Hitler and publicly wish Cheney dies from his heart problems and call our soldiers Nazis and nobody bat an eye…you actually feel a sense of justice about it and that makes you feel it is ok. Yet if there might even be a hint, that maybe a Conservative says something that is not PC, then there are demands for apologies and people to step down and talk about how intolerant and hateful Conservatives are. Talk about two-faced.
So tone is not a problem and how convenient for you to use the flimsy excuse you are tired of hearing it all…your just tired of people trying to have intellectually stimulating conversations because its easier to just throw names and accusations and feed off each others rhetoric.
Dont make assumptions about me fundie. If Jesus taught intolerance and hatred it does not mean the hippies stuff wasnt there. The man was obviously a raving nutcase (like his followers past and present). It’s to be expected that he and his followers like you are capable of holding contradictory beliefs.
Besides all the touchie-feelie stuff only applied to the Jews and those that would follow him. He hated gentiles and threatened to torture un-believers for all eternity. I guess thats why you christians had no problem torturing “heretics” in the name of loving them.
Fundie, contrary to what your kind believe, one may disagree with you and not be “full of angst”. For a fundie “reading out of context” means “not believing all the bullshit in the holy babble” or “not agreeing with said fundie”.
You don’t persecute me only because you cannot. History has shown us what happens when people like you have their restraints removed (or when they think their restraints are removed).
Not kissing your ass =/= being hard and mean. It’s a common fundie persecution complex.
As for you “not believing”, obviously you don’t. You morons are incapable of believing anything outside of your narrow blinkered world-view. Like I said, typical True Believer™
And arrogant are you to tell me I’m unhappy and angry? You dont even know me. Typical True Believer™. Pity.
I already found what I’m looking for. I hope you find some brains someday. Not very likely, but then it has happened. Doubt it will happen to you though. My condolences.
Again, youre a typical True Believer™. Nothing you say hasn’t been said here by at least ten other people (at a very conservative minimum). Everything from your attitute, your excuses, your fundie persecution complex and your nastiness and hatred that is barely concealed behind a thin veneer of “christian love” is an old, oft repeated story.
In short you’re boring. Come up with something new (not that you can).
Nice rant. Seen it all before though. Although it does highlight how right I was.
But calling your conversation “intellectually stimulating”; that was a real laugh. Go on say more funny stuff like that and you’ll be less boring.
Oh and learn the difference between “your” and “you’re”.
Johnny-come-lately, whatever.
Elwed- I know it’s my fault for everything. You’re not the first to say that. So what else is new?
Mann, du hast die Amiumgangssprache intus! Kompliment!
Speaking of which- Johnny: how about responding to my last post?
Answer my statements and I’ll answer yours.
After whining repeatedly about the tone of the conversation, Johnny says…
Apparently we differ as to what’s “intellectually stimulating”, Johnny. You drop in with your “Hitler was an atheist” crap (not true) and make assumptions about how much bible reading we’ve done, and then start whining about the tone of the responses you get, you differentiate yourself not at all from the crop of fundies who are always dropping by here to drop their garbage and leave.
And we don’t need an excuse, convenient or otherwise, to decline to answer your talking-points for the umpteenth time. We have varying degrees of patience with that nonsense and that’s fine.
Sometimes it seems like you guys are following a script:
Script: Fundie visits an atheist blog
It was you who didn’t answer Julian’s points until goaded into it by others, because you didn’t like Julian’s tone. It was you who made assumptions and tried to psychoanalize a complete stranger on the basis of a few paragraphs. So apparently the tone of the discussion is a problem, for you at least. You poor, persecuted, tolerant, open-minded intellectual.
You read the bible and got one thing out of it, and that’s fine. But if somebody else got something different out of it, you assume they didn’t read the bible as well as you did, or didn’t absorb the full historical and cultural context of it all, or whatever. Because obviously any really intelligent, open-minded person would come to the same conclusion you did, right? You have no business making assumptions like that and you come off as a condescending ass when you do. You don’t know what another person has been through in life, what their experiences are. Then when you’re called on being a condescending ass, you bluster about how “brunt” you are.
If you wanted to wind up being told to go screw yourself, you’re on the right track.
Zilch, haste jemals Authentisch von Badesalz gehört? Die Wegbeschreibung ist auch nicht übel, selbst die Amis kriegen das mit.
I tried using an online translator and got something about authentic bath-salts. The Super Karate Monkey Death Car strikes again.
Julian, not quite. It’s a sketch titled Authentisch (authentic) by a comedy duo named Badesalz (bath salts). Since the punchline isn’t in English, so you probably don’t want to dig up the mp3.
Great, “more jokes like why is Canada Canada?”
Nein, die kenn’ ich nicht. Habe einen Ausschnitt gefunden; die klingen ziemlich hesslich. Get it?
Zilch:
Nein, was bedeutet es? Dank.
LH, it’s a really cute pun. There’s hässlich, meaning ugly. The duo is from the state of Hessen (Hesse). Get it now?
??? “Why is she [ugly/Hasslich]? Because she is [Hessian/Hasslich]”
??? is that it
There is a village called Ugly in the UK, so they proudly have the Ugly Women’s institute. There is also a Nasty.
Elwed- Lob von dir is music in my ear.
LH- Ugly and Nasty, eh? In Waldviertel there are two adjacent villages named Mold and Grub, which always cracks me up. That reminds me of Hobbes in The Leviathan:
hehe sorry…
Mold is also a major town in North Wales.
I FUCKING HATE JOHN MCCAIN AND I HOPE OBAMA WINS…MY FAMILY IS RACIST OF OBAMA AND I HATE THEM!!!
Look, some 12 year old has gotten onto Daddy’s computer.
I hear you, MSA, but you gots to calm down a little and take time to think. Racism is the cultural mother’s milk on which so many of us were raised, and it can be both overt and covert, conscious and unconscious.
McCain has a long, honorable history of serving our country. But as the years went by, he seems to have gotten… tired. And personally he never was any prize, it’s true. Now he’s propped up by a coterie of lobbyists and religious nuts and I’m not sure there’s that much of him left behind the smile. It’s kind of sad, and I sure don’t want to see him be president.
Turn off the all-caps key, and take a deep breath.