I’ve trash talked with Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost online in the past. It was disgraceful and sorry stuff, and I’ve apologized.
Trash talk proves nothing.
It polarizes, it divides, it alienates and blurs truth. Issues get buried or cast aside, problems are not communally acknowledged and solved. Verbal mud slinging is about one upmanship and power, and all I proved was how low I can go and what a bully I can be.
This weekend a group of bloggers in the US held a blog swarm against theocracy. It was far more successful than organizers imagined, they haven’t been able to get all the posts up yet.
These were bloggers ranging widely in age, economic status, religious or none religious beliefs, education: a blog swarm made up of people for whatever reasons wanted to speak up.
Some may well hate anything Christian, many were Christian.
Some may hate Republicans, some were Republicans.
That participants have concerns is a reality, that some may not have the language to address their concerns, hurts or beliefs to others satisfaction is also a reality, and in degrees that can be addressed and respected.
Joe Carter of The Evangelical Outpost and The Family Research Council took this swarm in a way that appears personal. (he was mentioned in a post or two)
Joe wants and needs it known he is not a theocrat, and while knowingly working with or around dominionists he needs us to know he is not a dominionist.
He wants to be taken seriously.
Verbally attacking and attempting to harm anyone he doesn’t agree with or isn’t up to speed to his emotional, intellectual, political and spiritual satisfaction is serious.
Trash talk piles up.
So much for what Jesus tells His followers about how to speak to and treat others.
I’m cherry-picking his statements, all I can do is encourage you to read for yourself.
- ignorant drivel
- futile attempt to address this misconception
- the radical fringe of the secular left
- theophobes
- embrace an infantile brand of libertarian socialism
- they hate–and hate is not too strong a word–people who refuse to keep their religious beliefs in the closet
- they’ve never bothered to actually read the Constitution
-contemptible level of cluelessness
-to align with the agenda of the secular left
-a bizarre anti-intellectual niche for themselves.
-it is impossible to take these people seriously
-crack-pot conspiracy theories
-are they really that stupid or is the hyperventilating hyperbole just for effect
-even retarded circus bears have more sense
-a prime example of the type of tin-foil hat wearing paranoia
-we should feel free to call a moron a moron
There are a couple of hundred posts in this blogswarm and many are well worth reading. Some to start with to celebrate diversity and genuine concerns below.
The Quaker Agitator
Frederick Clarkson
Ed Brayton
Mainstream Baptist
Runesmith’s Canadian Content
The Rational Christian
Austin Athiest
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Please add diversity-celebrating banality to Joe’s list of trash talk. Let me explain. I just came back from California. First time there, ever. What struck me aside from the awe-inspiring beauty of the place was the diversity of terrain, plant life, and animal life. It also struck me how insufferable and pedantic and condescending the celebrate diversity crowd is. As humans our senses are assaulted by diversity every day. Some diversity is beautiful, some is ugly. As a human being who hasn’t as yet assumed room temperature, diversity is one of the most common facts of my life (common to all, I would say). “Celebrating” it is something I do every day when I look outside my window. Yet I am lectured by you people to celebrate it as if it’s some kind of new and profound thought. Yes, diversity is beautiful. But you people have turned it into the most banal slogan imaginable.
Unfortunately, the banality of a slogan masks the horrors of multi-culturalism. Check out what’s happening in England regarding the teaching of the holocaust.
jd:
Who is/are ‘you people’?
What does ‘a human being who has not yet reached room temperature mean?’
Why do you want diversity-celebrating banality added to what Joe said?
I take it you find multi-culturalism a horror, you’ve lost me with a few of your expressions.
All I can say is, wow. To think, I used to be one who would say similar things. Well, I guess all good things come in time, and all people may or may not revise their ideologies at a moment’s notice. But for the sake of love, I hope we all revise our arrogance towards each other. There’s absolutely no place in this world for such cruel rhetoric which is only designed to spin the public opinion away from one’s own shortcomings towards something else.
Yeah wow.
Gives one sober pause, doesn’t it?
Joe seriously derailed, he has done himself harm.
Many of the posts in the swarm are reality based, if opinion posts annoyed him all he had to do was take a few minutes and do some reading. He’s popped off before, this post sank to a level of meanness I never thought or believed he’d go to.
“You people” refers to those who celebrate diversity, as opposed to us common folk, who don’t, and who, therefore, hate diversity.
If you have assumed room temperature you are dead.
My point was that if you’re alive and kicking, diversity assaults your senses every waking moment. I was overwhelmed by the diversity of the California coastline. I am offended by those who tell me I ought to celebrate something so all-encompassing that it’s almost beyond words.
I asked you to add “diversity-celebrating banality” to your list because it’s trash talk–at least according to your list.
I smell political correctness here. You accuse Joe of associating with “dominionists” (are they the moral equivalent of Christianists?). You associate yourself with a blogswarm which rails against the strawman of theocracy–theocracy being the bogeyman of all the politically correct. I would add that many of the posters at that blogswarm hate Christianity and everything it stands for.
Perhaps I’m wrong in assuming you are one of the PC crowd. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but certain phrases send red flags: “reality-based” is one. Tom Reindl’s post is full of them.
You introduced your original post by saying you’ve talked trash with Joe. OK. So I agree. It’s not a good thing. You do it and you feel like a butthead afterwards. Unfortunately for your friends at the blogswarm, Joe’s descriptions are probably quite accurate. At least he didn’t call them a viper’s brood.
I just perused your website ever so slightly, including your blogroll. Silly me for thinking you might be politically correct.
Thanks for clarifying jd.
I’m sure you would agree with Lenin (1905):
“Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority…Either you are sincere, in which case you must stand for the complete separation of Church and State and of School and Church, for religion to be declared wholly and absolutely a private affair…Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.
”
Those who are blithely scared of a theocracy rising in the United States are likely a bunch of scared crypto-Communists who fear losing your dream of a Soviet-style atheistic state in America. Shouldn’t I be wishing you a Happy May Day, considering it’s coming up, considering you likely are a Communist.
JD,
when you say “Tom Reindl’s post is full of them”, are you saying my comment is full of political correctness? If you are, I can assure you, there is nothing “political” about kindness and compassion, which seem to be rather lacking in the publicized comments of a very many so called “Christians”. “they hate–and hate is not too strong a word–people who refuse to keep their religious beliefs in the closet”
Who are you kidding, JD? Do you agree with that statement? It’s like the pot calling the kettle black. “Christians” hate, even to the point of desiring “hell” for those who don’t agree with their one brand in thirty-three thousand sects of Christianity. God only knows which one is right, but I get the feeling you think yours is the only one.
I’ll say it plainly; any sect that preaches condemnation and non-unity is not “the one true sect”. Any preacher who incites HIS followers to disdain any group of people based on behavior is just plain wrong. After all, hidden in the deepest recesses of my mind and yours lie things neither one of us want other people to know. And we want that so we can continue standing on the mountaintop pointing our devilish horned finger at everyone else.
What, I wonder, would Christians say in their own defense if even just for a day, every thought and deed they had ever experienced was exposed for the world to see? How high above homosexuals and muslims would you stand then, when the ugliness of your own heart was exposed for the world to see? How high above political correct people would you be? How much would you just want to hide, or would you rather that people began preaching outloud about how you are the one who is wrong and full of things that anger God? How would you prefer it? Would you like everyone else to say that what has been exposed in you assaults their senses every waking moment, how what is inside of you cannot be considered normal?
Just how different are you from those who consider themselves to be “diverse”?