http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankPastore/2007/02/25/do_you_support_the_religi ous_left

How many of these position statements listed below representative of the religious Left that you agree with.

On Theology

1. God is morally neutral with regards to religion – it’s the act of faith, not the object of faith, that counts. There are no false religions – all religions have some truth. Jesus is not the “only way” to heaven. The Bible is neither inerrant nor infallible, it is filled with many errors and must be properly interpreted by experts.

2. Man is not depraved, there is no original sin; man is innately good, it is society that is evil. To improve the world, it is better to create good social institutions than to waste time trying to create good men.

3. God grades on a curve, there is no Hell. Everybody goes to heaven, eventually, if there is an afterlife.

4. Terms like “good” and “evil” are offensive, polarizing, and non-productive. They should never be used to describe in-dividuals, groups, societies, governments, nations, or religions.

5. Since objective truth is unknowable, public policy cannot be deduced from theology. Theology can only be formed inductively from policy preferences. (E.g., Homosexuality is no longer a sin in our faith community.)

On Abortion, Homosexuality and Global Warming

6. Episcopal churches who still believe homosexuality is a sin – and who therefore refuse to honor the ordination of ac-tive homosexuals (e.g., Gene Robinson) – should have their church property seized by the denomination.

7. All K-12 curricula should embrace the full spectrum of families, and no longer honor just the stereotypical “mother and father” family. Motherhood and fatherhood are equally expendable. The gender – and number – of parents is ir-relevant, as long as they are loving.

8. Some humans are more valuable than others. The killing of a fetus is moral because it prevents the mother from suf-fering an unwanted pregnancy. Similarly, the killing of a human embryo is moral if it can prevent the suffering of an-other human being by advancing medical breakthroughs. Both abortion and embryonic stem cell research are morally acceptable practices.

9. Man is responsible for all temperature fluctuations on the planet. Dissent is prohibited.

On Politics

10. God is morally neutral with regards to politics and economics – She’s neither a Democrat nor a Republican; She doesn’t prefer capitalism over socialism, communism, or Marxism; nor does She favor democracy over aristocracy, monarchy, or tyranny. We suspect She may prefer freedom to slavery, however.

11. All cultures are morally equal, except for Western culture which has been largely immoral. Allowing displays of American patriotism to occur in public is counterproductive to world peace. Multiculturalism good, American excep-tionalism bad.

12. The United Nations is morally superior to the Congress of the United States, just as the World Court is morally supe-rior to the Supreme Court of the United States.

13. National boundaries and rights of citizenship are exclusive and offensive to non-citizens, and therefore immoral.

14. The purpose of the state is not to restrain evil or to secure rights, but to redistribute wealth and to administrate social services. Ending poverty, not national security, is the primary job of the state. No single state or nation has the moral authority to act in a sovereign manner, only the collective deliberation and moral weight of the United Nations should be entrusted with martial and judicial authority.

On Economics

15. Budgets are moral documents, forcing us to prioritize our collective value system through legislative debate. In this debate, we must emphasize that Americans always spend too much on defense, and too little on domestic social pro-grams and foreign aid. Raising taxes on “the rich” to expand the welfare state is always our primary political end.

16. Marxism is morally superior to capitalism. Capitalism is evil. Socialism is but an incremental step along our path to-ward the moral high ground of communism. It is better to have no rich and no poor, than few rich and many poor. As the progressive tax rate reveals, it is morally acceptable to steal from the rich and to give to the poor. Tax rates on the rich can never be too high, and those on the poor can never be too low.

17. Poverty causes both crime and terrorism. End poverty, and end both crime and terrorism.

On War and Peace

18. All violence is immoral, even in self-defense. Jesus teaches us to love our neighbor as our self. As pacifists, we be-lieve this love of neighbor never requires a use of force on the neighbor’s behalf – there’s always an alternative to violence, since violence only begets more violence. Peace is a higher value than justice. Better to live as a slave in peace, than to live free in war.

19. The United States has never been involved in a just war. All wars are immoral. Christians ought not volunteer for military service. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and peacemakers are pacifists. Our only hope in dealing with those who seek to do us harm is to participate in multilateral negotiations with them at the U.N. A truly moral and enlight-ened people prefer the path of appeasement that leads to surrender than the immoral path of military confrontation that leads to victory.

Check DD's source for this information. That's all you need to know not to bother to respond to this.

Warner, you're response is a NONRESPONSE. Too Bad.

I'm thinking. That's a lot of stuff to think about. Do I agree with it all? No. Not by a long shot. I'm still trying to see if I even agree with the important-to-me stuff - but I am leaning towards a big fat no.

I don't really agree with any of the things on the list. I suspect most of us would disagree with many of these items if not most.

Should I dig up some pronouncement from the far right e.g advocating killing abortion doctors and ask if you righties agree with them? What's the point?

Andrew

DD, there's no reason to respond to a false premise. The author, a conservative, wrote HIS interpetation of what he thinks the religious left believes. As Andrew said, that's like me saying "Do you believe, as the Religious Right does, that all homosexuals should be shot on sight?"

Try coming up with something thought provoking that's not obviously based in bias and untruth. Then we can have a discussion.

I don't agree with any of these. Portions are ok, but the combination as a whole contains a lot of contradictory statements.

We would have to pick through these and talk about them. Frankly, that's a lot of threads and a lot of time.

For the majority of these statements, we've all got plenty on record. Some searching through the archives, reading and some thought would get you a long way toward understanding where many of us lie on these things.

11. "All cultures are morally equal, except for Western culture which has been largely immoral. Allowing displays of American patriotism to occur in public is counterproductive to world peace. Multiculturalism good, American excep-tionalism bad."

Respond to this one.

Sentence one: crap

Sentence two: crappity-crap

Sentence three: non sequitor - multiculturalism and Americanism are not polar opposites as this implies. One could even say that Americanism ("Give us your tired, your poor...") IS multiculturalism.

DD writes:
11. "All cultures are morally equal, except for Western culture which has been largely immoral. Allowing displays of American patriotism to occur in public is counterproductive to world peace. Multiculturalism good, American excep-tionalism bad."

Respond to this one.

My response: strongly disagree.

OK, now here's one for you:

"Homosexuals should be rounded up and shot along with doctors who perform abortions."

How about a response to that, DD? We'll be waiting for your response, perhaps for a very long time I fear.

Andrew

"Homosexuals should be rounded up and shot along with doctors who perform abortions."

Andrew that is not a belief of the Religious Right. It's a false premise.

It is a true premise the Religious Right believes homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder.

DD writes:
Andrew that is not a belief of the Religious Right. It's a false premise.

Good. You posted a bunch of false premises above, all of which I disagree with (even though I'm not part of the "religious left" if there is such a thing). So what's your point? Shall we keep exchanging false premises and then denying them? Kind of a dull idea for a thread, no offense.

Or should we say "No it's a real premise, it's real because I said so" to the other one's false premises? What's your idea of fun?

Andrew

Why are they false premises? You don't explain why.

Why is it a false premise that right-wingers want homosexuals and abortion doctors to be executed? You haven't explained why that one is false. Go ahead.

Andrew

Has Jerry Falwell or any religious right leader believe that? NO

What are the false premises of the Religious Left?

You tell us first which legitimate leaders of the Left in America espouse any of the positions you posted above. If you're going to invoke extreme leftists, then I'll have to include Michael Bray and James Charles Kopp as examples of extreme right-wingers who advocate or have actually killed abortion doctors.

Since Bray and Kopp advocate these positions, then I guess my premise that "right-wingers support killing abortion doctors" isn't false by DD logic, eh?

Andrew

Just what is the purpose of posting such dribble DD?

I would like to know.

Chris taylor, why is it dribble?

As someone who belongs to the Religious Left I assumed you would agree with most of the position statements.

Digitaldexter- Your assumptions have once again betrayed you.

It's probably easier for you to put me into some category. I'm for a moral center that is solutions based. Not the far left or far right dribble that gets us nowhere. Not some wishy washy middle ground but a place that is centered on where real solutions take hold.

If you want to call me the religious left that is your business. I've heard worse, but then again so did Jesus. I'm in good company.

This is why it's dribble DD!

Haven't you read what we all post here? I know I've been honest about things, and from what I can read here, Chris has too.

Half of the things are in contradiction with the other half. Nobody can believe all of these things, unless they are just nuts!

There are zero members of the religious left as written above. ZERO. And if I am wrong, there is one easy way to prove me wrong - NAME ONE PERSON. BY NAME.

See now what will happen is, it's written, everyone agrees it's absurd, but others will use it as a tool to label, inaccurately describe, infame and define and divide.

And THIS is what I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE in people that know it, but prey on those that are easilly fooled into beleiving it's true.

But I'm a big boy and I'm smarter than them. So I can take it. I just wish people could find a higher road. Not that I am on a super-high one. But it would be nice to have something to aspire to that was, you know, better than this tactic.

Whatever.

IMO, this religious "left" (if such a thing exists) is about as nutty as the religious right -- both letting a "supreme being" dictate a way of life.

Your belief in a "supreme being" should be between you and your God, period. If you want to group together with like-kinds, for example, at church, thats fine. But once you stick your nose in a public arena (like this forum and the creation of this thread), you're nutty to think a reasonable discussion can occur without providing compelling evidence a supreme being exists in the first place. (having faith doesn't count).

For the record, I am not a spiritual person, nor would I describe myself as "left-wing." I followed the link and looked at the entire editorial that Frank Pastore wrote wherein he included the points listed at the top of this thread. To put it simply, Pastore crafted this list so that each of the points would be so exaggerated to the point of self-contradiction. Its purpose is clearly not to serve a serious description of the beliefs of the "religious left" or as a catalyst for a detailed analysis. Instead, it is written to inflame people who consider themselves religious and left-leaning while giving a chuckle to those who don't consider themselves so.

Interestingly, when I looked at point #1 on Pastore's list, "all religions have some truth..," the person whose name first came to mind was Michael Savage! Savage once did a show where he said that he saw all of the major world religions as "spokes" in a "great wheel" of truth, and that people are best served by being loyal to the religious traditions in which they were raised.

I think that identifying and discussing different sociopolitical philosophies, what draws people to them, logical contradictions within these philosophies, and how the followers of these philosophies reconcile these contradictions would be a really interesting discussion. However, to have this type of discussion, the philosophies need to be presented in a way that that is more scholarly and respectful than what Pastore has done. If the discussion is respectful, people who self-identify with the philosophies being discussed will come out of the woodwork and explain why they believe as they do.

I'm confident that was not the point though. You hit that spot on.


Wish it was, because that discussion would be interesting and likely worthwhile.

DD, Rank Pasture is a wingnut and most churches know it. Please do not waste time trying to pick a theological argument. Respect the facts and move on.

A long time ago, on a political message board at the Rochester Institute of Technology, somebody started a discussion asking for definitions of "Conservative" and "Liberal," as the terms apply in a political context. As I recall, the discussion was respectful for the most part, but even trying to define these terms got to be pretty involved.

Alfredo...just starting a thread with the topic line "God" will have the same affect.

...err you mean effect?

Sorry, that one always gets me!

Or, maybe you have it right? Now I'm not so sure. Anyone care to chime in?

doh!!

I thought that affect denotes something imposed from the outside in. And effect was something that denotes influence from the inside out. Wait, that can't be right either. It has something to do with direction though. I think.

There. Figure that one out.

Glad to help!

Neither affectation effects me either way.

I appreciate how you all are not making a big deal out of my mistake. Or drawing any attention to it.

effect: noun

affect: verb

Chris: forgiven

LOL!

No worries Chris!

We will keep it low key --trust us.

Edselehr: Thanks, I'm sure your post will have an effect on my ability to properly affect others posts!

You guys are killin' me (with laughter, of course)!