Politics Unfiltered

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(05-13-2016 01:09 AM)Romulus9 Wrote:  If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died on the cross for your sins and rose again three days later, and have given your life to Him and are ready to spend eternity in Heaven with Him.......... why in the world would you bother even calling yourself a Christian?

P.S. -- When it comes to the sea, I believe Moses parted one... and I also believe Jesus walked on one... and that Peter did too, until he took his eyes off of the Lord. Literal event, bigger meaning. Just wanted to throw that in.

I believe there is some kind of spirituality to the world that connects all humanity - and probably connects everything. For me, the Christian teachings (forgiveness, humility, generosity ect.) are as close to describing the best parts of that spiritual connection as anything I've found. Your flowchart is actually kind of a good way of thinking about it in that Christianity kind of lays out a moral roadmap without actually being the ultimate perfect answer to all my questions about that spirituality and the unknown.

It's an incredibly complicated topic for me, like for most people, because even though I don't buy into the entire religion, I do get something extremely positive from the teachings of Christ that is more spiritual than a simple morality lesson. It would be nice to believe that I was going to live forever in heaven if I just accepted Christ and acted a certain way, but even without that benefit I still get a lot out of the religion. I wish I had a better way of describing it, but I don't.

It makes sense to me that someone who believed that Moses parted the Red Sea would have an Israeli flag so prominently displayed. I spent more than a fair amount of time debating America's role in Israel and the conflict in general with Warlord. If I'd known he believed that Moses parted the Red Sea I would have realized that no amount of logic could ever move us closer to a common understanding on the subject because once somebody makes that leap of faith, the last 1300 years of history (or any other potential argument) would be insufficient to change any minds.

Religion has a way of making issues all or nothing, which is a terrible starting place if some kind of compromise is an end goal and it's one of the reasons why religion and politics are such a horrible and dangerous mix. And throughout history up to today, religion has been used as a means of amassing political power because it works.

I sincerely hate Ted Cruz because I don't believe there is one chance in a trillion that he believes Moses parted the Red Sea, but he does understand the political power he can wield if he can convince enough people that he does.

I thought the photo of Cruz as Adam the mime was funny, especially in light of the conversation about charisma and politics, but I'm also sure that in retrospect I was rubbing it in after he lost and that was unnecessarily provocative given how much Warlord was invested in his candidacy.

Mostly, I was flip about people who take the bible literally and I am sincerely sorry to anyone I offended. My condemnation of the "freaky bible beaters" comes from a deep frustration with the religious element in American politics in general, but particularly in the republican primaries where so many good candidates are given the choice to either pander to the religious right or lose.