“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”
Yes it's redundant to mention that he's a Republican; a raging mob which for the last few decades has been the party of and a party to promoting such shameless indecencies. Of course some biblical scholars tell us that the story of Abraham and Isaac was a priestly way of moving away from a prior and very ancient practice of sacrificial infanticide, but indeed, the first born male lamb in the flock of a
Hebrew shepherd was to be sacrificed and the first born son was at one, very pre-Christian time, dedicated to service in the Temple.Of course there hasn't been a Temple since the 9th of Av in the year 70 CE, and Christians really don't hold with more than 9 or 10 of the 613 commandments and none of the Rabbinical laws, but that doesn't stop the kind of shoot-from-the-hip theology prevalent in these days of the senescence of American Christianity. Christians might suggest anything in truth, but if they're suggesting any such thing, it's a suggestion with no roots in the teachings of Jesus.
One might be tempted to ask Bob why, according to antique Jewish law largely set aside by Jesus and his followers, Christians who don't force their first born to become priests aren't subject to the same punishment, but his answer isn't very likely to enlighten us.
Surely anyone who still believes in a God with some tenuous attachment to decency if not actual justice will have trouble with the bloody Saturnine entity who condemns a child to a lifetime of pain and deformity because of something his mother did. But not Bob Marshall.
Some will have difficulty reconciling the position that it's indecent to mention that someone may be mentally retarded unless the mention is made by some pasquillant Republican creep like Limbaugh; but not Bob Marshall and probably not a large number of morally retarded, power hungry and profoundly ignorant Republican Theocrats who haven't bothered to consider that the enormously vast majority of children with deformities and defects and abnormalities are not born to mothers who aborted their first pregnancies.
Down Syndrome for one, seems more likely to affect children of older mothers. Conjoined twins, anencephalic babies, Spina Bifida, heart defects -- can anyone show any statistical correlation with sin? Of course not and anyone promising that virtuous people are less likely to give birth to lives affected by diseases and afflictions and deficiencies is likely to be a liar and an idiot, willing to use other people's tragedies to gain political power -- like Bob Marshall.
I await Sarah Palin's response to what could, amongst people who can actually reason consistently, be taken as an accusation of having had an abortion. I'm sure she'll choose to ignore it however, for fear of damaging the fabric of the alternate universe in which the ultra-right lives: where right and wrong, left and right, up and down are nebulous and interchangeable concepts and useful only to defame the enemies of these Insaneocrats and to yoke Jesus to their bandwagon like an ox.
So Sarah Palin had an abortion then. Hypocrite.
ReplyDelete[/snark]
No - of course not. You see these moral precepts only apply to people outside the party.
ReplyDeleteDidn't you go to Sunday School?
Especially annoying is that the Bible itself offers no small amount of admonishment to the contrary of such notions: whatever one thinks of the concepts that underwrite Job, that book has it in for the idea that your earthly comforts or trials have anything to do with moral status: Job is said to be "an upright and a perfect man," yet he suffers greatly. His friends and wife are repeatedly rebuked for suggesting that his suffering must have come over him because he has done evil in the world. In fact, the book goes out of its way to dismiss any such notion as utterly childish. Often, the people who go around using the Good Book as a weapon don't seem to have given it more than the briefest look-see.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides, what about the cruelty inherent in labeling a child with special needs a "punishment"? If we ask the parents of such children how they feel, I don't think that's the answer we would get -- the kids may be more difficult to raise, but their parents love them no less and would be crushed to be told that they are being "punished" for some alleged iniquity.
ReplyDeleteOlder women (25+) have no business reproducing, you all should know this by now. So, abortion or not, babies with Down syndrome are God's way of punishing the feminazis who think they can have everything: school, career and family, and thus wait to have children till their old age. If that's not a clear message from God, then I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteMore seriously (as if we weren't serious enough), you use the term "morally retarded," Captain, and I commend you for that.
Emotional, and by extension moral, retardation is indeed a seriously underappreciated problem -- probably the most pressing and dangerous mental health (but not only) problem affecting our society.
Unfortunately, in the world that values greed and selfish ambition above all, moral retardation, characterized by lack of empathy and sympathy for fellow human (and other) beings, is the norm rather than an aberration.
Ignorance, stupidity and cupidity is the trinity in question here.
ReplyDeleteNothing they're going to say will make any kind of sense and any theology they pretend to is no more informed than that of any Papuan jungle tribe who kills pigs to placate Refafu and stays up nights in fear of witches.
When I speak of the senescence of American religion, I'm not trying to be cute, it's really devolved into something quite pagan and primitive and devoid of any regard for the dignity of mankind or the love of justice or compassion as well as devoid of any knowledge of its own sources.
And there's always a politician to turn it to his advantage.
What Christians condescendingly call the Old Testament does not talk of abortion, although I believe that the Egyptians may have had some such process and so it wasn't unknown -- and yet it is never identified as "murder" or an offense to God.
In fact the word we usually translate as "soul" is Nephesh which means breath as in the breath of life, and no one who does not breathe is considered to be alive or in possession of a "soul" as was with the red clay humunculus YHWH made. It became the red man Adam only after its lungs were filled and when Adam died, his breath stopped and so much for his Nephesh.
It's consistent in identifying breath with what we translate as spirit or soul: it's the Ruach (breath) of God that moves upon the waters, it's the Nephesh that God breathes into the clay nostrils of Adam and Jesus never mentions abortion even once nor do we ever hear of him speaking of the "gay agenda" much less "conservative values."
Job is in fact nearly the only book that interests me as thought inspiring, although I've come to think that its origins are quite a bit older and that it fits better into the pantheistic religion of Babylon where some gods really don't like us very much and some do, but anything like divine justice is capricious at best and non-existent at worst. In the Hebrew contest, God either seems about as concerned with individuals as I am with ants or has some multiple personality derangement. He may command us to act justly, but nothing commands him, as he is wont to remind us and Job.
Job -- 'the persecuted' in Hebrew -- seems to say that God persecutes people without consideration for their "rights" or their previous actions and therefore one can't assume that the persecuted necessarily "deserve" it in any way. Likewise we can presume that the Bob Marshalls and the Pat Robertsons are no more than pagan prophets feeding like worms on the putrid ignorance of the American public.
But that's just my opinion.
Minor correction: he's from Virginia, not Delaware.
ReplyDelete"Unfortunately, in the world that values greed and selfish ambition above all, moral retardation, characterized by lack of empathy and sympathy for fellow human (and other) beings, is the norm rather than an aberration."
ReplyDeleteAnd forgive me for saying it, the religion that was, I think, supposed to uphold the dignity of the individual, no matter how downtrodden, has done more to squelch it than it has done to improve life. By inventing heaven, they justify the inhumanity they practice in the real world.
They've made secular humanism the Devil and freedom of thought the root of all evil. Democracy, no matter how much they deny it, is anathema and the Churches of Europe did more to oppose its emergence than any other power.
Jesus, in my opinion, did preach respect, compassion and love regardless of the sins of others. Most of what we hear on Sunday and from the likes of Bob Marshall is the precise opposite and he has far less to do with Jesus than does this atheist.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
But I don't think so.
The church has used the "moral failing" argument for centuries. This is a common superstition in many religions, not just Christianity. Whatever ails you, it's obviously punishment for something you did wrong. Women are punished with menstruation and child bearing because of Eve and that whole apple thing. That's why it's called "The Curse."
ReplyDeleteThis is a knuckle-draggers view of religion but not at all uncommon. You'd think we'd have reached enlightenment by now but perhaps the idea that so many of us are outraged is proof that progress is being made.
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11 – KJV)
ReplyDeleteTranslation: “$hit happens.”
Awww, look whose backing away from his statement.
ReplyDeleteAlready.
Not really, he says he never said that and then reiterates the same principle with different details.
ReplyDeleteFunny to hear people say he doesn't represent Republicans, but if not, why the hell do they keep electing more and more of these vermin?
And of course when he said it, plenty of others heartily agreed.
I am gobsmacked - do these people EVER think for one minute before they open their mouths?
ReplyDeleteImagine young people with disabilities hearing that they are a "punishment" to their mothers.
Way to go Bob...
One would be hard-pressed these days to find an American "Christian" church that actually follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Most are only institutions whose only goal is to control the masses by fear and intimidation. I'd dearly love to be a fly on the wall on the day JC returns and tries to join one of their congregations. I doubt he'd get past the front door.
ReplyDeleteAs for retardation and birth defects, science has proved bad nutrition, environmental factors, and/or the mother's age are responsible for such things, not previous "transgressions" by the the mother. And parents of Downs Syndrome children *do* consider them a blessing, not a curse or punishment. Hw UN-Christian to claim otherwise!
I see this as the beginning of a massive class action lawsuit: Trig Palin sues his mother!
ReplyDeleteTrig needs to hire Edwards...
You can really feel the love whenever a GOP evangelical holds forth.
ReplyDeleteAmen Brother Marshall.
I'd dearly love to be a fly on the wall on the day JC returns and tries to join one of their congregations. I doubt he'd get past the front door.
ReplyDeleteA commie like JC? Not a chance. Not only he won't get past the door, he'll be institutionalized (diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia -- you know, all that nonsensical blathering about peace on Earth, universal love, compassion, turning the other cheek, giving away his possessions and urging others to do the same -- clearly the guy is a danger to himself and others.)
One would be hard-pressed these days to find an American "Christian" church that actually follows the teachings of Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me sad. It's not true, not even close to true. But I understand that it feels true, and it sounds true. And that is very very tragic.
I live in Tennessee, in the buckle of the Bible belt, but I know of many churches that live the teachings of Jesus Christ. It's very sad that the media does not pay attention to people like Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, or Welton Gaddy. Sadly, the face of American Christianity is charlatans like Pat Robertson and Rick Warren. So I understand why ImaDell has that opinion, but trust me when I say it's wrong.
One would be hard-pressed these days to find an American "Christian" church that actually follows the teachings of Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me sad. It's not true, not even close to true.
Two years ago, my older sister's youngest killed herself. She was my niece, and I was close to her.
My sister and her husband are non-believers.
Her older daughter, however, belongs to a Christian congregation in central Mass. [I don't remember what the denomination is]. Anyway, we were all in shock for days, and my sister's older daughter asked the minister of her church to come and visit us. He did. Twice. And he was very comforting. He chatted with us and talked about so many different things, but what stayed with me was that not once during his two visits to us did he mention the word "god."
I'm not sure if he knew that my sister and her husband and I were non-believers or not. But I know that he was a comfort to my sister and her husband, and they decided to have a memorial service at the church where he is pastor. It was a beautiful serivce and it helped my sisster through this incomprehensible tragedy.
So there are Christian churches out there that care about people, whether they are believers or not, and those are true Christian congregations, IMHO.
I will never forget Pastor Gray and his comforting humanity during this awful time in our lives.
"and those are true Christian congregations, IMHO."
ReplyDeleteAnd of course similar people can be found amongst Secular Humanists, Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists. At least they are as likely to be people who are compassionate toward large segments of humanity as any variety of Christianity.
Most religions however have thrived on singling themselves out so as to reserve that brotherly feeling for members only and justifying horrors committed against "heathens." The same applies to Nationalism and Patriotism. History shows all these perfumed things to be dangerous feelings.
But my mail point is that the only difference between a True Christian and a True non-Christian has more to do with mythology than with any difference in human values. Samaritans are Jews of a sort, you know.
Apropos, from Jim Wallis:
ReplyDeleteThe Great Recession is not just an economic crisis, it is the result of a loss of values, a moral crisis. And to say that it is a moral crisis is also to say that it is a spiritual crisis. At the center of most religions is the question of who and what we worship? Where is our deepest allegiance?
So the Great Recession bears some "religious" reflection, as the market has gradually become all pervasive--a replacement for religion and even for God. It is the Market now that now seems to have all the godlike qualities--all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, even eternal--unable to be resisted or even questioned. Performing necessary roles and providing important goods and services are not the same things as commanding ultimate allegiance. Idolatry means that something has taken the place of God. The market can be good thing and even necessary; but it now commands too much, claims ultimate significance, controls too much space in our lives, and has gone far beyond its proper limits.
Idolatry comes in a lot of different forms. Today, it is much more subtle than bowing down to a golden calf. It often takes the form of choosing the wrong priorities, trusting in the wrong things, and putting our confidence where it does not belong.
Continue.