lol. Just lol.

Quote:Original post by ordered_disorder
Dude, I get your point about people talking a lot of fluff, hyprocrisy, and spouting moral indignation, often at things that effect them, but then ignoring all the stuff that hurts other people because of their arrogant, pompous attitude of only caring about themselves, and people just talking, but never doing anything, but, action results from intention, and maybe it's now a surprise to you, because your so saturated and calloused to world, but intention doesn't come out thin air. People need to talk and think about the world, they need to experience it, and open ended discussion and viewpoints is a good fucking thing.

You're right. The above, however, is not "open-ended discussion and viewpoints." It's condemnation of a viewpoint they consider foreign and hostile. The war talk for instance.

I knew of a "Christian" couple in Nigeria who named their child "God's End-time Battle Axe." I shit you not. I knew a dude who had a "ministry" called Glory Dimensions Power Ministries, and he was in the business of casting out demons. I knew people who routinely used militarist rhetoric in their faith-based conversations and messages. It's shocking to you because it's unfamiliar, but the truth is this: these people represent an infinitesimal portion of the populace. Most people do not want to go to war with others because they disagree about how society should be structured. We have a term for people that do: militant extremist.

Militant extremists come from every faith and background. And in most cases, they are empty self-serving nitwits who engage in all this rhetoric as a means of making themselves feel that they are pursuing the righteous path while the rest of us are sinners and deviants. Le yawn. Le roll-over-and-go-back-to-sleep.

Quote:Maybe it will finally push people to do something. It sure took a long time for a Rosa Parks to emerge, and I am sure it wasn't the first time she was asked to sit in the back of the bus. Your nihilistic and callous attitude hurts more then it helps, and it obfuscates your message of people walking the walk.

Your bullshit analogy hurts way more. The difference between Rosa Parks and the alarmist circle jerk that was being setup here was that Rosa was made to sit at the back of the bus. There was a physical, real, tangible impact on her life every day. Her rights, her person, her dignity were being affected explicitly and palpably. What, pray tell, have the Jesus Campers done to you, besides offend your sensibilities?

Revolution and uprising do not spring from impassioned yet disconnected intellectual rumination of the nature of the problem. At least, not in any sustainable variety. Change springs from and is empowered by experience. When you've been forcibly brainwashed with end-times go-to-war-for-Jesus crap, or when a bunch of neo-Nazarites have run you down with those little sticks the kids were holding, then come and initiate action. Until then, you're just a poser.

Worse, you're no different than the PTC or Hillary Clinton (in the perspective of a ton of "gamers") or Jack Thompson or all the other people overreacting to media that has no impact on them and is not designed for them because of a hypothetical and implausible intellectual reasoning conclusion. Like I said, all it takes is a little radical element and, next thing, y'all will be calling for the banning of Jesus Camps.

Quote:Especially with that flying spaghetti damn "Liberal" comment. Liberals may not act as much as conservatives, but you know why that is Oluseyi? That's because they fucking think about things...

Oh, please. "Liberal," "conservative," they're both arbitrary, bullshit and false labels. I was using the term in a more fundamental sense, one that is completely unfamiliar to you because your processing of the political and social spectrum has been so filtered by the fraudulent binary oppositions popularized in American media. Liberalism is an ideology based on the notion of freedoms rather than restrictions, yet those who claim to be "liberal" in America often express horror at others employing that liberty in ways they deem reprehensible - like indoctrinating their own children with their own beliefs, something everybody around the world does.

If you want a debate, bring a real debate. And bring your brain to the debate. Think critically about what your position is, what your "opponent's" position is, and what your reaction/opposition to his position is. Don't bring none of that weak stuff, and don't come trying to harp on me because you don't like me or don't like the way I responded. Separate personality from principle. Focus on the facts.

Quote:Original post by LessBread
I went to a "Jesus Camp" when I was 12 and it wasn't anything like that camp. Lots praying and singing about Jesus, lots of alter calls and all that, but none of the war talk. I think the war talk is what has people alarmed, not the religious talk.

Hmm...

Quote:Original post by Alpha Nox
In the christian view of Jesus he's so good that you don't do what he commands you, he'll send ya to Hell and punish you. o.O

Thank god, i'm not as good as that.

Quote:Original post by SticksandStones

Quote:Original post by fadilthrejk
And telling the kids to "raise up" as "righteous judgers".

I missed that last part -- doesn't that go apart one of the main parts of Christianity? "Do no judge others" or something?

I'm sorry, LessBread, you were saying something about the religious aspect not alarming people?

My father made the observation once that there's a fairly rabid, negative reaction to Christianity among those who consider themselves either intellectuals or liberals, yet it is often girded by a pathetically uninformed opinion of what Christianity is, which is embarassing considering how easy it is to get your hands on a Bible.

I am amused that you actually went to a Jesus Camp at 12. I have a nephew who's 14 now, and he went to a Jesus Camp (not like the one in the video) last summer, too. When I was 12, there was no way in hell you were getting me to leave my house for any period during the summer to go to a camp of any sort. Then again, I was in boarding house during the semester...

Quote:Original post by LessBread
I sure hope you didn't mistake the comments of Alpha Nox, fadilthrejk and SticksandStones as alarm.

Religious alarm is rarely phrased in "alarming" language, because of the perception of bias/intolerance. Doesn't make it any less truly alarmist when people start making lateral leaps to comment on something they know next to nothing about, simply as a means to further tar the original subject.

I'm just saying. It looks like a spade to me, so I called it one.

Quote:For me, Jesus camp was a chance to spend two weeks in the mountains at a lake, swimming, canoeing and the like. I would rather have gone to a more secular camp, or at least one that wasn't as overtly religious (and Protestant which made me, the Catholic boy something of the odd man out), but it was that or not going at all. The group photo at the end of the session was taken by Ansel Adams. I didn't really know it at the time, but that was really cool.

That is really cool. It also buttresses the larger point: Jesus Camps, fundamentally, are nothing to freak out over. It is merely this one militant extremist Jesus Camp that is being hyped in a documentary. Unfortunate for those kids, and my personal opinion is that they have lives of hatred and dissatisfaction ahead of them, which is tragic. Oh, well. I think I'll go play with my Christian nephews and nieces, just back from [non-militant extremist] Jesus Camp, now.

I was never alarmed, just sad and dismayed that they're being indoctrinated into a lifestyle that seems to guarantee bigotry and intolerance.