BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)

Subject: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 04:36 PM

At last. (Incidentally I have never understood how Christians are able to make themselves believe that there is one immutable, unchanging, omnipotent God.)

Excerpts:

**After (General William) Boykin had led Americans in a battle against a Somalian warlord he announced: "I know my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his God was an idol." Now Boykin was going about evangelical revivals preaching that America was in a holy war as "a Christian nation" battling Satan and that America's Muslim adversaries will be defeated "only if we come against them in the name of Jesus." For such an hour, America surely needed a godly leader. So General Boykin explained how it was that the candidate who had lost the election in 2000 nonetheless wound up in the White House. President Bush, he said, "was not elected by a majority of the voters - he was appointed by God." Not surprising, instead of being reprimanded for evangelizing while in uniform, General Boykin is now the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. (Just as it isn't surprising that despite his public call for the assassination of a foreign head of state, Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing was one of the first groups to receive taxpayer funds from the President's Faith-Based Initiative for "relief work" on the Gulf Coast.)
    **But what is unique today is that the radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America's great political parties - the country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is - and they are driving American politics, using God as a a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on.
    **Alas, these "great moral issues" do not include building a moral economy. The Christian Right trumpets charity (as in Faith Based Initiatives) but is silent on social and economic justice. Inequality in America has reached scandalous proportions: a few weeks ago the government acknowledged that while incomes are growing smartly for the first time in years, the primary winners are the top earners - people who receive stocks, bonuses, and other income in addition to wages. The nearly 80 percent of Americans who rely mostly on hourly wages barely maintained their purchasing power. Even as Hurricane Katrina was hitting the Gulf Coast, giving us a stark reminder of how poverty can shove poor people into the abyss, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that last year one million people were added to 36 million already living in poverty. And since l999 the income of the poorest one fifth of Americans has dropped almost nine percent.
    **Let's take a brief detour to Ohio and I'll show you what I am talking about. In recent weeks a movement called the Ohio Restoration Project has been launched to identify and train thousands of "Patriot Pastors" to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement - the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus - casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between "the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell." The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won't teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class, or allow children to pray. He rails against the "secular jihadists" who have "hijacked" America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was "an avid evolutionist." He links abortion to children who murder their parents. He blasts the "pagan left" for trying to redefine marriage. He declares that "homosexual rights" will bring "a flood of demonic oppression." On his church website you read that "Reclaiming the teaching of our Christian heritage among America's youth is paramount to a sense of national destiny that God has invested into this nation."
    **One of the prominent allies of the Ohio Restoration Project is a popular televangelist in Columbus who heads a $40 million-a-year ministry that is accessible worldwide via 1,400 TV stations and cable affiliates. Although he describes himself as neither Republican nor Democrat but a "Christocrat" - a gladiator for God marching against "the very hordes of hell in our society" - he nonetheless has been spotted with so many Republican politicians in Washington and elsewhere that he has been publicly described as a"spiritual advisor" to the party. The journalist Marley Greiner has been following his ministry for the organization, FreePress. She writes that because he considers the separation of church and state to be "a lie perpetrated on Americans - especially believers in Jesus Christ" - he identifies himself as a "wall builder" and "wall buster." As a wall builder he will "restore Godly presence in government and culture; as a wall buster he will tear down the church-state wall." He sees the Christian church as a sleeping giant that has the ability and the anointing from God to transform America. The giant is stirring. At a rally in July he proclaimed to a packed house: "Let the Revolution begin!" And the congregation roared back: "Let the Revolution begin!"
    **To save the American Dream, "we desperately need to reaffirm the principle that it is possible to carry out an analysis of social life which rational human beings will recognize as being true, regardless of whether they happen to be women or men, whites or black, straights or gays, employers or employees, Jews or born-again Christians. The alternative is to stand by helplessly as special interest groups tear the United States apart in the name of their "separate realities' or to wait until one of them grows strong enough to force its irrational and subjective brand of reality on all the rest."

The Speech

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Peace
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:01 PM

When God enters through the front door of argument, reason leaves through the back.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:12 PM

Wow, Ebbie, thanks for the link!!

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:19 PM

Also thanks from me.

Two links "Ads by Goooooogle" below the reply box-
Is There A God? "Offering Six Straight Forward Reasons to Believe in God"
and
"Words of the Almighty God "Come and hear God's Voice. If you seek Christ, enter this gate."

Google (and perhaps Mudcat) on the side of theocracy?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:21 PM

It's a great address, isn't it! Wish Bill Moyers was 30 years younger than he is. He's been a hero of mine for a long time and I'd like him to live for a long, long time yet.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 06:36 PM

God is not, and never has been, the exclusive property of the Christian religion...nor of any other religion. Watch out for people who assume He/She is! Such people are exceedingly dangerous.

"One omnipotent God" does not necessarily mean one that meets the lunatic definitions concocted by various religious fanatics...who, truth be told, are merely making up a God in their own image...a God who is vicious, vengeful, judgemental, and insane.

Taosim proposes one Way, the Tao. It is not a Way that judges or punishes anyone...it just functions in a totally coherent manner throughout Creation. Buddhism proposes a way of being also, based on achieving balance between extremes. Vedanta (the religious tradition of India) proposes One Supreme Divine manifesting in the world of duality as many different aspects, each personified by various symbolic gods and goddesses. Christianity, when embraced by the sane, proposes a loving and forgiving God. So do other monotheistic faiths, when they are held by people who are reasonable and sane. The most reasonable people honor ALL faiths and are exclusively attached to none, in my opinion.

To condemn the very idea OF God because some people on this planet hold an insane notion about God is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

People who don't believe in any God at all, after all, are just as capable of committing great atrocities against humanity (for money or power) as people who happen to believe in an insane version of God.

Keep it in mind. The loonies are not all on one side of the fence.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:52 PM

The loonies want to tear down the fence to burn their alleged heretics.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 09:39 PM

Little Hawk, I would like your ruminations on the Old Testament God. What Moyers said in that speech does not exaggerate a thing.

As given in the OT, God is very much like Zeus and that crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Peace
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 09:42 PM

The OT God seems like a big guy named Vinnie who carries a metal friend with him--and likes to use it.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 10:19 PM

Actualy, non of this has anything to do with God...

Nuthin' but brass-nuckles politics and the Repubs have it down to a science...

Like, how erlse can one explain the fact that there are lots of olks in the South and Midwest who will vote for a party that is slowly bleeding them to death???

God ain't got nuthin' to with thisw...

Might of fact, I wish that God was this all powerfull fdeller that the Christain Right makes him outt o be 'cause if He were he'd *harvest* Bush and most of his buddies tomorrow....

Yeah, where's this "Rapture" when we need it the most????

Come get him, God... 1600 Pennsylvania Ave... Take him soon,,, Pleeeeeeze!!!

Can't find him? I 'll send a map...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Pogo
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:07 AM

I'm sure quite a few politicians believe in God but perhaps the question should be does God believe in politicians? ;)

beware those folks who commit atrocities in the name of anything. beware those people who turn their personal beliefs into an political agenda. They build themselves a golden calf.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:26 AM

Moyers' speech is powerful and persuasive and distills into good, straightforward exposition the most mightmarish aspects of the decline of reason in this nation over the last decade.

I strongly recommend reading the whole thing (link above).

" As I look back on the conflicts and clamor of our boisterous past, one lesson about democracy stands above all others: Bullies - political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies - cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own. This is never easy; these guys don't fight fair; "Robert's Rules of Order" is not one of their holy texts. But freedom on any front - and especially freedom of conscience - never comes to those who rock and wait, hoping someone else will do the heavy lifting. Christian realism requires us to see the world as it is, without illusions, and then take it on. Christian realism also requires love. But not a sentimental, dreamy love. Reinhold Niebuhr, who taught at Union Theological Seminary and wrestled constantly with applying Christian ethics to political life, put it this way: "When we talk about love we have to become mature or we will become sentimental. Basically love means...being responsible, responsibility to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of humankind."

    Christian realists aren't afraid to love. But just as the Irishman who came upon a brawl in the street and asked, "Is this a private fight or can anyone get in it?" we have to take that love where the action is. Or the world will remain a theatre of war between fundamentalists."

When dogma trumps free choice and individual responsibility, you get a collapsing nation; the USSR demonstrated this in large over fifty years.

The ONLY thing, aside from a wealth of natural resouece, which has given this country any claim to ascendancy among nations has been its assertion that individual freedoms are paramount. As long as we walk that talk, we can survive anything.

Bush's bully boys do not walk that walk, although they are too canny to dispense with the talk altogether.

That is the major crisis of our times, politically and socially.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 11:15 AM

I wonder if Moyers believes in Clapton?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 11:31 AM

John, I realize that your opinion of Bill Moyers does not match mine - to say it mildly- but what is your opinion of the speech itself? Do you agree with any part of it? Strongly disagree? Why?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 01:54 PM

Though I think Moyers has a chip on his shoulder that he wishes against hope that God would try to knock off -- the God he has long since left behind in a disappointed, angry huff -- I do think that the one truth he presents in the speech is that there are a significant number of those who would consider themselves part of the vague, unorganized "Christian right" who have terribly confused theology with patriotism, civil activism for sanctification, America for Israel.

But he overstates the "religious right's" influence by combining the "christian right's" intent with the government's exploitation of same. Their is little doubt that there are those in the government who empower themselves by exploiting the wishes of the religious right. There's a huge and meaningful gap between what the politicians promise and what they intend to, or even can, deliver.

And he overstates the "religious right's" infuence by careful inclusion of those who do not believe as he says (like me) in the numbers of the hoard, the seeds of paranoia about whom he is enriching and empowering himself. He is a demagogue and, as such, has a huge following of undiscerning (who are very quick to accept his definitions and characterizations of Christinanity without question) who relish his characterization of a Christianity that they would like nothing more than to hate. He feeds 'em the red meat of hatred that he knows they want (and will enrich and empower him). He then steps back and acts "above it all".

Moyers is a schnook.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:15 PM

John:

Demagoguery (as traditionally used) implies self-interest. Moyers isn't riding any particularpolitical wagon, he's simply arguing for making the political atmosphere a non-interference zone from religous interest, which by rights and tradition it should be. In fact he is using rhetoric -- NOT demagoguery -- to resist the uinfluence of political demagoguery.

I think far from being a shnook he is an intelligent and caring individual.

Now, I happen to think the same of you, so I urge you to revisit his exposition again and see if it looks any better the second time around.

Individual freedom is far more important than whether he has correctly assessed the interests of particular sub-groups.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: tarheel
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 03:11 PM

well...i'll tell you something EBBIE...if i had to choose from what i believe (my faith in God) and what BILL MOYERS preaches,i'll take my chances believing in GOD! since when did bill moyers become an authority on GOD? i've seen moyers on tv for years...and especially the pbs programs he produces and he is an ALL LIBERAL preacher of what he says and does and wants us all to consider him the finale word on anything...especially dealing with GOD!'sooo sad!

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 03:17 PM

Tarheel:

Like you, Moyers is a Christian who considers his faith as his own business. He doesn't argue as an expert on God, and I suspect he is FAR more interested in seeing that you (and everyone else) have the freedom to worship in your own way, unhampered by others' opinions, than he has any interest in interpreting God to man.


A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,G
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 03:25 PM

Bobert, I am not bleeding to death - my taxes are lower than they have been for years. Or, do you mean literally? I feel fine so would you please explain what you meant?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 03:35 PM

"he is an ALL LIBERAL preacher of what he says and does and wants us all to consider him the finale word on anything...especially dealing with GOD!'sooo sad!" tarheel

Tarheel, "LIBERAL" is not a swear word, no matter what you have been told in your church. Liberal, to me, means a spirit that is inclusive in wanting everyone to thrive- whether financially or in education or in health- , wants their country to be responsive to its citizens and respected in the world for reasons other than MIGHT. Perhaps even more important: a LIBERAL wants to be able to have SELF-RESPECT. And if we neglect the poor and the powerless we cannot respect ourselves.

I would go further, Tarheel, and say that if you so misunderstand what Bill Moyers said in that speech - and has said many other times- then in all likelihood you are one of the people he fears and despairs of.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: belter
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:41 PM

I agree with what Little Hawk said, "Christianity, when embraced by the sane, proposes a loving and forgiving God. So do other monotheistic faiths, when they are held by people who are reasonable and sane."
Reasonable and sane people are not the problem weather or not they believe in god. Unfortunatly, the idea of god becomes a powerful weapon in the hands of the unreasonable, and insane. A weapon that given the chance, they will use to minipulate, and control people, and empower themselves while reasonble and sane people stand by and watch it happen because they seam to be on god's side. After reading what I just wrote, I begin to think the problem is reasonble and sane people.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:50 PM

Ebbie - My opinion of the Old Testament God (with the exception of some of the inspired passages in Proverbs, Psalms, and a bit of Genesis) is basically this:

He is (at least as depicted in those pages) a vicous, dogmatic, paranoid, tyrranical, insecure, murderous, and totally insane supreme being made up by a primitive, violent tribal people who themselves, at their worst, embodied those very same characteristics, and therefore concocted a "god" in their own twisted image to prove how tremendously superior and special they were as compared to the various people whom they ruthlessly slaughtered in the process of stealing their land.

That good enough?

The Old Testament God has very, very little to do with the God that I believe in, who is the God of Love. Love does not judge, it does not condemn, it does not segregate or separate, it does not play favorites, it does not punish, it does not propose a "chosen people" or a "master race", and it does not justify mass murder in the name of some supposed grand ideal.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 06:08 PM

Thanks, LH. I expected no less from you.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 07:11 PM

nice Hallmark greeting card bullshit.

Loving does not turn off one's ability to judge. And judging others is a necessary part of life. I don't want a society free of judgement. Where did we EVER get the idea that that was utopia?

Love guides what one might do about the judgements one must make, but Love does, indeed, judge.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:18 PM

Perhaps you're not thinking of unconditional love, John. Beat your dog- he'll still love you tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,Guess Who?
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:26 PM

"Loving does not turn off one's ability to judge."

You misunderstand the use of the word in that context, John Hardly. When it is said that God does not judge, it simply means that God does not judge the intrinsic worth of human beings.

To judge their actions, however, is appropriate. To judge people's intrinsic worth is not. Their actions may be destructive. If so, then judge it so, and deal with it appropriately. But do not judge the intrinsic worth of a human soul, because you are not equipped to do that, nor is anyone equipped to do it.

We can certainly all judge actions, behaviours, and situations, and decide on appropriate responses. We cannot judge human souls themselves, nor do we have the right to condemn or damn them.

That is why Love does not cast judgment on a human soul. Love is entirely capable of casting judgement on a wrongful action by a human. Love is fully capable of enforcing law and disciplining lawbreakers. No problem. That is a responsibility of Love.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:00 PM

God has already chosen a master race anyway. Potters.

...and guitar players.







oh......and mandolin players.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,Banjo Bill
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:01 PM

No way! It's banjo players who rule.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:18 PM

"rule" is such an authoritarian word. Potters don't rule. We're just masterful. We merely hide our superiority under a cloud of bumbling ineptitude so that everyone won't envy us too much.


...oh, and Ebbie,

you don't know my dog!

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:33 PM

I must admit, John, that I haven't tried it. *G*

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:44 PM

Shouldn't that be "Masons rule?" **bg**

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 08:34 AM

I don't see anything of hatred or demagoguery in Bill Moyers. I see a man who is willing to call religeous zealots to account for their actions in the public realm. I think we need more people like that.

While I am not a Christian, I know many Christians and Jews that I admire (I confess that I do not know many Muslims, admirable or otherwise). However, anyone who actually reads the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam will find substantial portions of them to be vicious and intolerant in the extreme. To the best of my knowledge the leading figures in all three religions have never repudiated them, in whole or in part; at most they will claim to interpret portions of them in such a way that the vicious parts seem more benign (even Jesus, who preached love, explicitly refused to repudiate the Old Testament texts, but instead sought to "fullfill" them). Moreover, many of the adherents of all three religions have used, and continue to use, those same texts as their justification for murderous, hateful acts, and it is fair to say that a plain reading of the texts often seems to provide them with ample justification. As long as this continues to be the case, I will look warily on all three religions, and seek to limit their intrusion into the secular world I live in.

One of my favorite stories is the old one about the Emperor's new clothes. I think we need a few more people who are willing to point out the obvious fact that the Emperor (Pope, preacher, or what have you) is really naked.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:16 AM

A good speech.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:46 AM

Upon a quick re-read I realize that I had overlooked this:

"Moyers isn't riding any particular political wagon"

That is one of the things that bugs me the most about Moyers and those who love the guy...

.....he claims (and they believe in his) utter objectivity.

He is absolutely political and one would have to want to believe him to think otherwise.

His claim to objectivity is the height of his dishonesty and the depths of his demagoguery.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:53 AM

ABsolutely political? In what sense, John -- what political agenda is he espousing?


A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 10:37 AM

Amos,

Even in the asking of your question, you are transparently pointing out the odd phenomenon -- those on the left do not think they are political or ideological. Those on the left just think (as Moyers) that they are *right*, *correct*, *objective*.

To those on the left (like Moyers) only those on the right are even capable of being political or ideological.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 12:18 PM

Well, if the question is so transparent, I will ask it too: ABsolutely political? In what sense, John -- what political agenda is he espousing?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 12:34 PM

too many people of reason are willing to appease irrational people just because they are pious.

I love that sentence.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 12:46 PM

Seems to me that Moyers has two passions:

1. Getting Democrats into office.

Moyers is anti-war. Not anti-war like some mudcatters who, like me, begrudginly have to admit that, as a last resort of defense, find war a necessary evil. Moyers is anti-war. Period. Because of that, he finds more use in the election of Democrats.

Moyers is pro-social welfare programs. Moyers judges (hmmm.... he's "judgemental" *wink*) the value of a government by how many poor it can support. Therefore he finds the Democratic party a more useful tool toward that end.

That many here share Moyer's views does not make him "objective". It makes him in agreement with you.

2. Moyers is passionately anti-fundamental-Christianity. I do not mean that he is anti-fundamentalist-Christianity. He does not believe in the fundamentals of Christianity and expends much energy in trying to proselytize as many to his anti-fundamental point of view. Ironically, in this pursuit he trades on calling himself a Christian but he is Christian in two manners -- 1. in personal behavior (I assume) and 2. Like my Yamaha

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:09 PM

I do not at all see him as attacking the fundamentals of Christianity. He is quite clear in what he considers 'fundamentalists', namely those with a literal understanding of scriptures (be they Christian or Muslim scriptures). Those people I prefer calling 'literalists'.

Outside of the USA and perhaps even in the USA, a literal interpretation of the Bible only would be seen by very few as 'fundamental' to a Christian belief.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:19 PM

There are no traditional fundamentals of the faith, from a theological pov, that Moyers believes. He is, as you say, against "literalists" and "fundamenatlists", but he is also not a believer in the fundamentals of Christianity.

He beleives in many of the tenets of the faith -- do unto others, etc., but not for theological reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:24 PM

Yeah, I'm sure that he - and many others - benefits greatly in calling themselves Christian, when they are not. Kind of like 'deciding' to be gay- I'm sure that exposing oneself to ridicule, legal discrimination, violence and the negation of the American Dream makes homosexuality a good 'choice'.

We do know people who have made a career out of their christianity- we all respect people like Oral Roberts (certifiably insane, imo), Jerry Falwell (power-mad, bigotted, political flacky, imo), and Pat Robertson (disingenuous, dishonest, manipulative money grubber, imo), do we not? That's not even mentioning other stellar entities like Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye.

Has Bill Moyers done any of those things? Where does anyone come off doubting his commitment to his faith?

People like Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Hawkings, and many, many more, made reputations for themselves on the basis of intellectual brilliance. They spent their lives trying to teach people that belief in a religion is not needed, a relic from a simpler age.

If Bill Moyers wanted to - and if his personal beliefs permitted him to - he is fully capable of addressing people's needs on a secular basis. Instead, he approaches them from the viewpoint he himself holds and espouses.

He is so far from being a demogogue that I can only wonder if you are deliberately misstating what you know to be true.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:42 PM

How does calling himself a Christian expose him to ridicule? ...especially when he is one of the most vocal against the type of Christians that you listed.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:56 PM

1. Getting Democrats into office.

Moyers is anti-war. Not anti-war like some mudcatters who, like me, begrudginly have to admit that, as a last resort of defense, find war a necessary evil. Moyers is anti-war. Period. Because of that, he finds more use in the election of Democrats.


This seems to imply that the pursuit of war is a preference in non-Democrats.

War is not a necessary evil, it is simply an evil. I grant you readily that we have had times in our history when it really seemed no alternative was left. But I believe this was always attributable to entrenched self-interest and a failure in imagination.

Some people are more interested than others in avoiding the evil of violence and slaughter. No-one who knows the agony of war will seek another one.

I don't know if that makes them Republicans and Democrats or not, though.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 02:02 PM

"This seems to imply that the pursuit of war is a preference in non-Democrats."


No. It merely faces the reality that the Democratic Party has, since the Viet Nam conflict, been the home of the anti-war group.

Some may see how that makes the Republican party a better option for realists who understand that war may, in times of National defense, become necessary. You may think that never to be so. I bet you wouldn't be elected from either party.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 02:05 PM

Debates about who is and is not a "true" Christian are unlikely to be resolved in this forum; we have a better chance of reaching consensus on the old "what is folk?" topic.

As far as I can tell, when you have a very long collection of books (the Christian Bible, incorporating both Old and New Testaments, in various editions and translations), written by many different authors over a long period of time, incorporating many different writing styles (some of them very poetic/impressionistic), and acknowledged by most thinking people to be open to a great range of interpretations, you are unlikely to ever reach consensus on exactly what it means. And if we can't agree on what the Christian scriptures mean, we're not likely to agree on whose interpretation is most accurate, nor on whose behavior is most exemplary according to the book's teachings. People have been arguing about these topics, on the most basic level, for thousands of years, yet we are no closer to resolving the issue than we were when those debates started. The best we can hope for, probably, is to agree to stop killing each other over it.

If Moyers calls himself a Christian, I'll take him at his word. He certainly has as much right to his interpretation as anyone else I have heard, including those prominent individuals who have made quite a comfortable living off of their status as Christians.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 02:17 PM

Thus, the ultimate question:

What is Christian Folk?

...and if it is played in a forest where nobody can hear it, is it really Christian Folk?

Whistle Stop,

I don't disagree with your idea that what is Christian is nearly impossible to nail down. That's why I'm trying carefully to NOT say that Bill Moyers is not a Christian. He certainly is by SOME definition -- just not any traditional theological one.

And here's the ultimate irony: Moyers is just as vehemently trying to narrow the definition of Christianity with which he wants to associate himself. He is not neutral on that question EITHER. So, if it bugs you that I should try to define terms, it should equally bug you that he does as well.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 03:55 PM

"and if it is played in a forest where nobody can hear it, is it really Christian Folk?"

John, that reminds me of the book I'm reading. It's an account of growing up in a polygamous Mormon society, long after the official Mormon church forbade it.

Evidently some of the fundamentalist Mormon continue(d) practicing it on the basis of their belief that God not only sanctions it but requires it.

They have been pursued and harassed by both secular and religious factions ever since. At times the fundamentalists met in the forested mountains, about the only place they felt free to be themselves.

It's very interesting. Brings home the fact that our beliefs, being so different, so contradictory, can hardly be defended, even if we can define them.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 04:03 PM

The Vietname war, in your mind, was a necessary expedition in defense of our national interest, John??

I'd be interested to hear that view, if you actually hold it.

Never mind the current one.


A

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 05:44 PM

Amos, that was clearly not my point.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 05:54 PM

What we really DO need is more folksongs about hamsters. And William Shatner.

I guess I'll just have to write and record some.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 05:59 PM

yeah, amos the anus is still stuck in the 1960s smoking weed and protesting the Viet Nam war.

wake up Amos, your life has passed you by while you bang away at this silly forum everyday blabbering about what god is.

Meanwhile, you have grown so fat, you have to look in the mirror to see your schmuck.

Love

Martin Gibson
the real one who comes here now only occassionally and doesn't even care to log in any more because of the precense of some liberaly trained attack dildos and douche bags.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 06:09 PM

Someone above asked about the rapture. Bill Moyers has some interesting perpsective on exactly that right here.

" One-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup Poll is accurate, believes the Bible is literally true. This past November, several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in what is known as the "rapture index."

    These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans. Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre: Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "bibli-cal lands," legions of the Antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

    I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That is why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. That is why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations, where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." For them a war with Islam in the Middle East is something to be welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The rapture index - "the prophetic speedometer of end-time activity" - now stands at 153.

    So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? As Glenn Scherer reports in the online environmental journal Grist, millions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but hastened as a sign of the coming apocalypse..."

Double Yikes.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 06:37 PM

That's bad, TIA. Very bad. What is almost as bad is that over 35% of the American public is still willing to vote either Democratic or Republican at election! A little over 35%....

Incredible what people will put their faith in, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 06:38 PM

Here is the "demagogue" at work. The article itself is long- but it's meaty and rich. (Some people should be ashamed of themselves, imo.)

Democracy in the Balance

"The old story had a paradox at its core. In no small part because of Baptists like Thomas Helwys and other "freethinkers," the men who framed our Constitution believed in religious tolerance in a secular republic. The state was not to choose sides among competing claims of faith. So they embodied freedom of religion in the First Amendment. Another person's belief, said Thomas Jefferson, "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my bones." It was a noble sentiment often breached in practice. The Indians who lived here first had more than their pockets picked; the Africans brought here forcibly against their will had more than their bones broken. Even when most Americans claimed a Protestant heritage and practically everyone looked alike, we often failed the tolerance test; Catholics, Jews, and Mormons had to struggle to resist being absorbed without distinction into the giant mix-master of American assimilation.
   So our troubled past with tolerance requires us to ask how, in this new era when we are looking even less and less alike, are we to avoid the intolerance, the chauvinism, the fanaticism, the bitter fruits that mark the long history of world religions when they jostle each other in busy, crowded streets?"
    "In our time alone the litany is horrendous. I keep a file marked "Holy War." It bulges with stories of Shias and Sunnis in fratricidal conflict. Of teenage girls in Algeria shot in the face for not wearing a veil. Of professors whose throats are cut for teaching male and female students in the same classroom. Of the fanatical Jewish doctor with a machine gun mowing down 30 praying Muslims in a mosque. Of Muslim suicide bombers bent on the obliteration of Jews. Of the young Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and then announced to the world that "Everything I did, I did for the glory of God." Of Hindus and Muslims slaughtering each other in India, of Christians and Muslims perpetuating gruesome vengeance on each another in Nigeria.
    "Meanwhile, groups calling themselves the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Patriot League arm themselves, and Christians intoxicated with the delusional doctrine of two 19th-century preachers not only await the rapture but believe they have an obligation to get involved politically to hasten the divine scenario for the Apocalypse that will bring an end to the world. Sadly, Christians, too, can invoke God for the purpose of waging religious war. "Onward Christian Soldiers" is back in vogue and the 2lst century version of the Crusades has taken on aspects of the righteous ferocity that marked its predecessors. "To be furious in religion," said the Quaker William Penn, "is to be furiously irreligious."
    "THIS IS A TIME of testing - for people of faith and for people who believe in democracy. How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against the contagion of a triumphalist theology in the service of an imperial state? At stake is America's role in the world. At stake is the very character of the American Experiment - whether "we, the people" is the political incarnation of a spiritual truth - one nation, indivisible - or a stupendous fraud."
    "There are two Americas today. You could see this division in a little-noticed action this spring in the House of Representatives. Republicans in the House approved new tax credits for the children of families earning as much as $309,000 a year - families that already enjoy significant benefits from earlier tax cuts - while doing next to nothing for those at the low end of the income scale. This, said The Washington Post in an editorial called "Leave No Rich Child Behind," is "bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed but they're not."
   Nothing seems to embarrass the political class in Washington today. Not the fact that more children are growing up in poverty in America than in any other industrial nation; not the fact that millions of workers are actually making less money today in real dollars than they did 20 years ago; not the fact that working people are putting in longer and longer hours just to stay in place; not the fact that while we have the most advanced medical care in the world, nearly 44 million Americans - eight out of 10 of them in working families - are uninsured and cannot get the basic care they need."
    "THAT'S THE SHAME of politics today. The consequences: "When powerful interests shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get what they want. But it is ordinary citizens and firms that pay the price, and most of them never see it coming," according to Time magazine. Time concludes that America now has "government for the few at the expense of the many."
    That's why so many people are turned off by politics. It's why we can't put things right. And it's wrong. (emphasis original) Hear the great Justice Learned Hand on this: "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: 'Thou shalt not ration justice.'" He got it right: The rich have the right to buy more homes than anyone else. They have the right to buy more cars, more clothes, or more vacations than anyone else. But they don't have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else."
    "And, yes, they are proud of what they have done to our economy and our society. If instead of producing a news magazine I was writing for Saturday Night Live, I couldn't have made up the things that this crew in Washington have been saying. The president's chief economic adviser says shipping technical and professional jobs overseas is good for the economy. The president's Council of Economic Advisers reports that hamburger chefs in fast food restaurants can be considered manufacturing workers. The president's labor secretary says it doesn't matter if job growth has stalled because "the stock market is the ultimate arbiter." And the president's Federal Reserve chair says that the tax cuts may force cutbacks in Social Security - but hey, we should make the tax cuts permanent anyway.
    You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 10:48 AM

"I don't see anything of hatred or demagoguery in Bill Moyers."

I wanted to respond to this before, but I wanted to look into it further -- ask around a bit among those I know -- run an informal poll.

A demagogue is an unprincipled public speaker who will twist truth to gain advantage. Moyers has (as I understand it) a post-graduate degree in some form of religious studies. If not a degree then, like me, he at least has some hours of post graduate studies in religion.

But when he can rile the troops -- give you all some red meat to feed the already growing fear you have of Christians to enforce your wish that the Christian conservative should be disenfranchised, he paints a picture of fundamental(ist) Christians in a manner that, with his education, he should know is inaccurate, misleading.

I was raised in a church that taught a rapture and an end of times with Jesus returning. I have had pastors from the leading evangelical seminaries in the country (Dallas, Trinity, etc). I can assure you that I was never taught that there was anything that we, as believers, would, could, or should do that could bring on or hasten the return of Jesus.

Yet there's Moyers, talking about these fundamentalists with which he's familiar. And though he should know better (I'm sure he does), he carefully characterizes these Christians as typical, in order to scare you, and inflame you against Christianity, and make Christians seem even more kooky (if that's possible) as a raging cult out to hasten armegedon.

I have know fundamentalists and evangelicals all my life -- read their books, their periodicals, listened to their sermons, met them in their fellowships, been related to them. I've yet to meet one that thinks that anything we could, would, or should do would hasten the end of times. I've met MANY who think we are at the end of times, but I've never met one who thinks that we could bring them to any different conclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 12:44 PM

Nor have I, John. The fundamentalists I have known watch for signs of the 'end times' but I don't know any who call for actions to bring it on.

However, I don't think that is what Moyers is claiming. In the paragraph below, my understanding of what he is saying may be more clearly shown by inserting what I bolded:

"Meanwhile, groups calling themselves the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Patriot League arm themselves, and Christians (who are intoxicated with the delusional doctrine of two 19th-century preachers not only await the rapture but believe they have an obligation to get involved politically to hasten the divine scenario for the Apocalypse that will bring an end to the world."

But that really does not address your charge against what and who Bill Moyers is. Your disdain and even outright hostility of the man goes much deeper, imo. That's what I object to. That is the opinion that I feel you have not justified.

Were you to say that you don't like his hair or his glasses or his voice I could put it down to the kind of irrational thing we all find ourselves doing at times. But you are vilifying someone's faith and demonizing his goals and methods and trying actively to get others to share your view. At the very least it is not a Christian thing to do, right?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 01:01 PM

Ebbie, if that's not what Moyers is trying to claim, then why did he bring up a splinter, cult group as representative of fundamental Christianity?

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 02:48 PM

Amos said, "The ONLY thing, aside from a wealth of natural resouece, which has given this country any claim to ascendancy among nations has been its assertion that individual freedoms are paramount. As long as we walk that talk, we can survive anything."

My question is this:

What happens to individual freedoms when the wealth of natural resources is exhausted?

I think that is what is happening now. Could it be that Bush truly believes that he is trying to provide for his people?

Seems to me that the quest for world domination is driven by personal greed but that in order for it to have any real power, it must be sanctioned by a nation hungry for the natural resources of other nations. In this case, personal freedom becomes secondary.

Until U.S. consumption decreases, those who are elected will continue to plunder for the sake of their own.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 04:04 PM

John, this "spinter, cult group," as you call them are fundamentalists. But not all fundamentalists belong to this group. The problem is that this "splinter cult group" is now in the position of making foreign policy.

That goes a long way toward explaining the reasons for our less than peace promoting behavior in the Middle East.

Once again, you seem to be taking "some" for "all." We've been over this ground before.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 04:41 PM

Let me revise what I just posted above. Strictly speaking the Millennialists—those who are actively trying to accelerate the coming of the "Rapture"—are not, technically speaking, fundamentalists. What defines a fundamentalist is the taking of what is in the Bible as the literal truth—as history, not as metaphor or allegory, as most of the world's religions regard their mythology.

[Note:    When I say "mythology," I don't mean "false." What is meant by "mythology" is "a story which is not literally, factually true, but contains a truth which is difficult to express in other ways." In short, parables on a somewhat grander scale. As you know, Jesus used parables a lot as a teaching technique. There was no real "good Samaritan" or "prodigal son," these were "for example, suppose there was a. . . ." stories that Jesus told to put his points across graphically.]   

Millennialists, rather than eschewing interpretation of the Bible as true fundamentalism demands, picked and chose the isolated verses that they wanted, and constructed their own mythology. That, whether they like it or not, is interpreting the Bible to make it fit what they want it to fit. They are not true fundamentalist Christians, no matter what they try to claim.

The spectacular success of the Left Behind series of books (fiction—fantasy) gives a pretty good, not to mention scary, idea of how many Americans believe this stuff.

And many of these folks are now running the government.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 04:47 PM

Somehow I'm not surprised that you chimed in, Don. Your firm grasp of fundamentalism should put all discussion and disagreement to rest. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 05:04 PM

Sorry, Don, that was snide.   If I'm not in the mood to hear about the ignorant fundamentalists that you know, I don't have to log on, now do I? :^)

If you will notice, you inferred (from Moyer's piece, above) exactly what I am saying one will probably infer...

...that the "Christian Identity Movement" and the "Christian Patriot League" are typical of fundamentalists who "seek power" in a political sense.

But if you will notice, Moyers has cleverly (demogogically) inserted them as a non-sequitor into his piece. OF COURSE he WANTS you to infer -- as you have -- that those are typical Christian groups. Then he goes forward and describes the danger that "they" have put America in.

And you have done exactly that...

"The problem is that this "splinter cult group" is now in the position of making foreign policy."

He said no such thing. He cleverly implied it (presumably so that he can always back out and claim "I never said that").

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 06:21 PM

Damn it, John! Once again you didn't read what I wrote above. Or if you did read it, you didn't understand--or want to understand--what I wrote. And you're doing the same thing with what Moyers says.

I'm not talking about "the ignorant fundamentalists" I know. You're putting your own spin on what I've been saying all along.

Come on, you're a bright guy! You can do better than this!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 06:39 PM

John, the words "paranoid" and "delusional" come to mind.
You're seein' things that just ain't there.

You need help, man, and I mean that in a kindly way.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 07:04 PM

Why, if not to characterize the "Christian Right" as believing as those of the "Christian Identity Movement" and the "Christian Patriot League" (and thereby to make the face of the "Christian Right" as more scary, more wacko) did Moyers include the description of them in his essay?

Why, when even Ebbie (who agrees with Moyers), agreed with my point that it is exceedingly rare to find an evangelical or a fundamentalist who believes as the small group that Moyers picked out as his example of the "Christian Right", did he choose THAT group as exemplary?   Why does one come away from that essay assuming that those two groups are large and powerful?

And why, if he didn't intend to make them exemplary, did you take them as such?

Do you really think that one would read Moyer's essay and not come away with the notion that his two examples were common examples of fundamentalist Christianity and that they were also empowered? Obviously you did: "The problem is that this "splinter cult group" is now in the position of making foreign policy."


I'm more than willing to admit that we are talking past each other. I'm just not sure that I am soley at fault here.

And I don't think it is I who exhibits the paranoia. I'm not the one seeing some great religious bogeyman (as Moyers has built it up) trying to bring on Armegedon. I'm the one saying that Moyers is the incendiary. And he is.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Grab
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 07:42 PM

For sure he writes great speeches. "Demagogue" is harsh, because it implies he's out for profit. But "motivator" would be well on the mark. I guess he's difficult to argue against because he *does* use well-reasoned arguments based on historical precedent, and his arguments *do* attempt to show multiple sides to the problem, even if he comes down on one side in particular.

Yes, I can see why John disagrees, and it's the same reason any European (living in a continent in which fundamentalist religious doesn't have any significant stronghold) would disagree if they read it as a description of *all* religion.

The problem is that the current US President is a fundamentalist Christian. As a man of conscience (I assume), he would clearly feel that he *must* use his position to impose a belief system on the nation that he considers is the only true system. But these beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity are incompatible with the governmental obligation to treat all citizens equally, regardless of race, sex or religion.

Anyone think of a recent example of modern America? The British Empire in the mid-late 1800 comes more and more to my mind. A great nation, producing vast wealth and ingenuity - but underpinned by crushing poverty amongst the working classes. And the whole system ruled by patriarchal factory-owners who financed the local churches and hence could influence what sermons their workers heard. Fortunately the British Empire crashed and burned. Not only did the countries of the Empire take their freedom, but America took all Britain's inventions and knowledge and ran with it to produce the next great superpower.

So what next? My prediction is that in about 50 years, it'll be over. By then, Americans will finally have got over the God thing and the ultra-capitalism thing in the same way that Europe did, and America will finally get some kind of social democracy in place which ensures the poor *can* get food, healthcar and education without the assistance of charities. The oil will be running low, so conspicuous energy consumption may have dropped off. And "developing nations" will have taken America's knowledge-based industries and beaten them to death. My money's on India - but my money's also on America not wising up for another generation or more.

Shit, I've just realised I'm writing polemics too - just not as good as Bill Moyes. Ho hum. ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 07:46 PM

Never mind. I am wrong and you are right. It is I who was reading into the essay. Moyers does not, in that essay, ever try to make the case that the two small groups cited are exemplary of any kind of Christianity.

I still don't care for Moyers or his tactics, but in this case I am dead wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 08:41 PM

You're also misguided, John, in seeing Moyers as "The Enemy".

Ya want to do some good, take on the fanatics, irrational wackoes and fundie charlatans who are giving "Christianity" a bad name.

As a Methodist minister of my acquaintance once said: "Jesus came to take away your sins- not your brain".

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 04:09 PM

First off, Bill Moyers is an ordained Baptist Minister, courtesy of the fine folks at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth. And for those who steadfastly claim he has no political agenda, may I remind you that he was Lyndon B. Johnson's Press Secretary, and of of the Architects of "The Great Society"--as well as one of the Kennedy whiz-kids.

He is wholesome, straightforward, and honest, and has a reputation as one of the greatest broadcast journalists of his generation--the heir to Edward R. Murrow--and he has brought the wisdom of the greatest minds of our times to television--at least if you believe his clippings---

Now I am not a conservative--but I don't like Bill Moyer, and I never have. Not because he is a Baptist Minister, Not because I necessarily disagree with his politics, Not because he was part of the administration that bought their social agenda with the Vietnam War(which we can talk about another time), but because I think he is a gladhander and an apple polisher of the worst sort.

He is exactly like the folks that he criticizes, meaning that he knows what his "flock" want to hear, and he tells it to them--just like they want to hear it—even if it requires bending the truth a little bit--

He's the master of Sunday Dinner Philosophy--his "deeply probing" broadcast and written works, on Joseph Campbell and such, are calculated to ask the questions about life that we like to raise after the chicken is done, and before the pie comes out--and like every shrewd minister, he knows better than to raise certain questions with the folks whose offering allow him to continue his good work—

His object is simple—to keep people interested enough to buy the books, watch the programs , and pledge to the PBS stations--

Subject: RE: BS: 911 & The Sport of God (Moyers speech)
From: John Hardly
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 07:52 PM

Eloquently said, M.Ted.