Ten Things You Should Know About John McCain
Here.
I'm not endorsing all this, just offering it for your consideration. Some of the items pretty clearly need lots of thought and some analysis. But some are clearly relevant, and new to me. I mean, look, I don't have a racist bone in my body, but I wasn't completely convinced about MLK day. At the time I wasn't sure what the criteria should be for instituting holidays, and I was pretty unhappy with the suggestion that only racists could oppose it, and so forth. Later I came to think the holiday was probably a good idea, though it's still clear that you don't have to be a racist to oppose it. Heck, I'm a fairly big MLK fan. (Though not too happy about the plagiarism.)
The stuff about Parsley is more interesting. Clearly if Obama is getting grief for what his ex-preacher said, then McCain has to get grief for this stuff, which seems much worse. Though it might be worth noting that I would actually agree with the claim that Islam is a "false religion." I'm fairly sure that all the religions I know of are false. So as an interesting side question, why exactly is it bad to say that Islam is a false religion? Is it only bad if you think that some other religion is true? Or am I just as bad as Parsley? I suspect I know the answer to this, but just throwing the question out there...
Here.
I'm not endorsing all this, just offering it for your consideration. Some of the items pretty clearly need lots of thought and some analysis. But some are clearly relevant, and new to me. I mean, look, I don't have a racist bone in my body, but I wasn't completely convinced about MLK day. At the time I wasn't sure what the criteria should be for instituting holidays, and I was pretty unhappy with the suggestion that only racists could oppose it, and so forth. Later I came to think the holiday was probably a good idea, though it's still clear that you don't have to be a racist to oppose it. Heck, I'm a fairly big MLK fan. (Though not too happy about the plagiarism.)
The stuff about Parsley is more interesting. Clearly if Obama is getting grief for what his ex-preacher said, then McCain has to get grief for this stuff, which seems much worse. Though it might be worth noting that I would actually agree with the claim that Islam is a "false religion." I'm fairly sure that all the religions I know of are false. So as an interesting side question, why exactly is it bad to say that Islam is a false religion? Is it only bad if you think that some other religion is true? Or am I just as bad as Parsley? I suspect I know the answer to this, but just throwing the question out there...
posted by Winston Smith at
11:39 AM
12 Comments:
With regards to the "false religion" comment, it should be much less controversial than it is. I mean, if you are an adherent of one religious faith*, haven't you made the judgment that all the other religions are in some way "false"? And if you're non-religious, you're basically saying that about all religious traditions. So the statement "_____ is a false religion" shouldn't be that inflammatory, since large swaths of the world's population agree with you.
But in our modern political context, you must loudly espouse your own faith while never mentioning the fact that this means you disagree with everyone else's. And since calling a religion "false" is in actual practice a huge insult, it certainly doesn't speak well for a McCain administration's ability to win hearts and minds.
*except Unitarian Universalism
WS asks:
"[W]hy exactly is it bad to say that Islam is a false religion?"
It depends in large part on who is doing the saying. If the Roman Catholic priest of a small parish, in a nation of little political, military, economic, or social import says this, it is not particularly bad, as few people will know or care. If the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church ... (aka, the Pope) says that Islam is a false religion, it is very bad, for the obvious reason.
Similarly, for the late Ayatollah Khomeini to call the United States "the great satan" was a matter of small import when he had little influence and few followers. When he became Supreme Leader of Iran, it mattered.
A rational person who wants to become the President of the world's only military superpower would distance himself from statements like "Islam is a false religion" because, should he take that office, these statements would hinder his ability to work out political solutions with Islamic nations.
As a religious studies student, I'd like to offer my well-researched and informed consideration of this issue:
I think it's a load of bullshit.
People in religious studies and politics, especially religious studies, get soooooo high and mighty, deriding those who say something foreign is "weird" as if there's absolutely zero way in hell anyone could be justified in thinking a cultural practice is weird (despite the fact that there are obviously features of OUR society that are verifiably weird...) and that any such thought is a sign of the undeveloped, naive, stupid little mind. Of course, I've often found it fun to, when someone scoffs at my observation that a religious practice is weird (or flat out stupid) ask them exactly what would qualify as being stupid to them.
They either have no response or mumble something incoherently skeptical, at which I then go "I see." and walk off.
In short: This whole "OMGZDONTINSULTRELIGIONZZ!!!1111" thing is a bunch of bullshit of the *Ralph Wiggum voice* "Everybody's a winner!" mentality.
As a religious studies student, I'd like to offer my well-researched and informed consideration of this issue:
I think it's a load of bullshit.
People in religious studies and politics, especially religious studies, get soooooo high and mighty, deriding those who say something foreign is "weird" as if there's absolutely zero way in hell anyone could be justified in thinking a cultural practice is weird (despite the fact that there are obviously features of OUR society that are verifiably weird...) and that any such thought is a sign of the undeveloped, naive, stupid little mind. Of course, I've often found it fun to, when someone scoffs at my observation that a religious practice is weird (or flat out stupid) ask them exactly what would qualify as being stupid to them.
They either have no response or mumble something incoherently skeptical, at which I then go "I see." and walk off.
In short: This whole "OMGZDONTINSULTRELIGIONZZ!!!1111" thing is a bunch of bullshit of the *Ralph Wiggum voice* "Everybody's a winner!" mentality.
Don't ask me why that posted twice. I have no idea.
Probably satan.
am I just as bad as Parsley?
Well, you don't think America's mission is to destroy any of the religions you think are false, so, no, sorry, you're not as bad as Parsley. And nowhere near as bad as pokeweed.
9. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley...
McCain apparently called Parsley a "spiritual guide." David Corn and Mother Jones are attempting a false equivalency here. McCain's attends a Baptist church in Phoenix. Jeremiah Wright is Obama's spiritual guide.
And Mystic, your comment was so probative, it needed to be posted twice. It speaks volumes. Especially since you're WS' new spiritual guide and all.
Lots of interesting stuff here, but just picking out one of my pet peeves (along with the use of the term 'pet peeve'):
Yeah, Mystic...we can't ever say anything bad about any other culture!!11!!1 What are you, some kind of ethnocentric Nazi?
And, as you say, all this even though we can easily list scads of shit about our own culture that's weird or crazy or wrong.
It's probably because RS has been cozy with anthropology...and, as we know, an anthropologist is someone who values every culture by his own...
Sounds as if Parsley is a Christian jihadi. Of course, we know that not all Christians seek holy war, no matter how much they may sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" or name their sports teams the Crusaders or the Fighting Irish.
I'm happy to criticize Parsley and his opposite numbers in Islam, as well. The Islamists are of course worse - a lot of them have acted violently, while Eric Rudolphs and Armies of God are more marginal and rare.
The Islamic street, as reported by American media, looks insane. Parts of our culture look insane, too, though differently.
The question is whether all (o.k., or most) of one culture or another is insane or evil or violent. Parsley has made his call, and John McCain has faced no call from the MSM to agree with it or distance himself from it.
I dunno, LL...
You wouldn't deny that, culturally speaking, we've got it a lot better than they do over there, would you?
No, of course I wouldn't deny that. Hence, "the Islamists are of course worse..." I did not mean this ironically.
I did have about three things to say and kind of munged them. For example, "though differently" was too weak, and the sentence about John McCain was tacked on without a clear transition.
Here's what I meant to say:
- Insanity is widespread.
- Islamist insanity is worse than Christianist.
- The frequency of Islamist insanity in Islamic societies is an open question.
- The frequency of Christianist insanity in America is significant but almost surely lower.
- Our knowledge of American insanity is much more detailed and has much more perspective than our knowledge of Islamic insanity.
- Even though less insane and much less violent than Islamists, Parsley (and Hagee) are pretty insane (and, BTW, more insane than Jeremiah Wright).
- There may very well be parallel cases of insane Islamists who are nonetheless not violent and only a danger to their own polities.
- Given the insanity of Parsley and his Christianist friends, an evenhanded MSM (as if!) would call McCain to account for his association with them and try to elicit denials until the cock crowed.
- But the MSM loves McCain, so it won't.
Did I say I only had three points?
Gotcha. I agree, FWIW.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home