Maybe tell these groomers that Zionism and White supremacy have broken every commandment except for commandment 1 (and one could argue the Trinity and atheism breaks that commandment depending on view of the debater).
I'll be the first to admit that there is a huge overlap between evangelicals (who pushed this initiative) and racist/fascist pieces of shit - but the ten commandments in and of themselves have no link to nazi-ism. :p
I generally consider the (non-theist) Commandments to generally be generally good rules to live by.
I have to say the non-theist rules because several of them are about God and religion.... Like, having no other gods before [him], not taking the Lord's name in vain, the whole idols thing....
If you take all that theist stuff out, you basically get: don't lie, steal, cheat, or kill, don't covet others stuff, and respect your mother and father.
Pretty decent rules overall. At the very least, a good starting point.
It's not just control over your actions at that point, it's control over thoughts, and you can't really police thoughts.
Plus there's intrusive thoughts that we can't really control. Things that just pop into our heads. Stuff we wouldn't actually ever do, but the thought occurs to you anyways.
At the height of my depression from burnout, my brain was concocting inventive ways to take myself out. These were undesirable and unwanted thoughts. It usually happened when I was driving around, looking for a tree large enough that if I hit it head on fast enough, I'd be certain to perish. I could not stop thinking these things.
I got help and I've been in a much better place since then. The ideations have stopped. I recognized something needed to change because I didn't want to think those things.
However, this is a pretty good example of the intrusive thoughts we cannot control that we probably shouldn't encourage. My environment caused me to get so stressed and burned out, which led to such a profound depression that I couldn't stop such things from going through my mind. We all have those intrusive thoughts and policing them is basically impossible. Having any rules to that effect is nonsense, in the same way that we don't have rules to stop people from being offended.
Utter nonsense.
This is why I assert that the commandments are a good starting point. Not the end goal. There's some good guidelines in there, but they're hardly the final ruleset that you should adhere to.
I was unaware the translation was this far off base. Can you give more about this? I love hearing about how bastardized the Bible has become from the ages of playing telephone.
This is like the rambling of street person after a week long math binge. Like, are these a bunch of idioms that just lose meaning in translation? And what's up with all the hate over yeast?
Because the original flavor is very clearly a list of rules made to enable theocratic control and create a religious apartheid.
I am pretty sure you are over-interpreting here. Theocratic control? Kinda, that's the whole point of all the "holy books" - I mean whaddya expect? But apartheid is separating people based on (perceived) ethnicity - and the ten commandments do not even attempt to separate people based on religion. They are presented as rules for everyone, no distinction made.
I can't believe that you managed to present such a stupid take, that I, a lifelong atheist who thinks all religion is stupid, has to defend the commandments... facepalm
Have you considered that maybe I know something you don’t?
Considered briefly, but as you decided not to share the alleged "apartheid" commandments, I dismissed that consideration as unlikely and yourself as a troll.
It's not like they're famously listed in one of the most read sections of the most published book of all time, lmao.
You can just say "I'm an intellectually lazy moron who started my nonsense with aggression and is now throwing a hissy fit because I can't Google the text of Exodus."
but the ten commandments in and of themselves have no link to nazi-ism
Yeah nahhh, like the Buddhist symbol was co-opted by the Germans, the commandments are used as a dog whistle by fascists now.
If it was about being Christian they would have used the Beatitudes (words of Christ) not the commandments. If it was about being chest thumping American they'd put the cononsitiution there, speration of church and state etc.
We know WHY they don't use the Beatitudes, because theae fuckers are as close to being Christian as Hitler was to being Buddhist.
Gandhi's famous quote summarizes whats so wrong with Christians doing stupid shit like pinning 10 Commandments to the wall, they have little resemblance to Christ
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ - Mohandas Gandhi
Words have meaning. And while it is absolutely and fundamentally wrong to impose religious bullshit on the education system (or anyone, really), no, you are moving the goal posts:
The ten commandments have nothing to do with Nazis. You arguing against evangelical fundamentalists doing whatever has nothing to do whatsoever with my previous comment,
You are trying to pretend there is no context involved. You are the one inventing a different scenario than what is pictured so you can feel better about whatever it is that's got you down.
Copy/Paste of an actual message I sent to my friend earlier today:
“You know if chemicals in rainwater were actually making frogs homosexual my family wouldn’t have such a problem every year with tadpoles in our swimming pool cover muck lol”
Because it's not in rainwater, it's in runoff from cities and dairy farms. The chemicals in question are basically synthetic estrogens and their metabolites and frogs are just more sensitive to those in the environment than mammals.
I'm not sure if what this person said is correct, but I can corroborate that there is some distant distant nugget of truth behind 'the guvments makin da frogs gay!!' that is actually an argument for better environmental protections
At the same time, Alex Jones has made a lot of women turn gay I'm sure and there's no one investigating that ...
Frogs and other amphibians are actually incredibly sensitive to all manner of chemicals. Heavy metals, trace pharmaceutical contamination in human wastewater... They basically breathe water through their very thin skin and have delicate tissues overall. They provide unique issues for conservationists because they are usually the first water related species to collapse.
Humans have a history of being able to tolerate years and years of direct contact with arsenic, lead and various toxins. Your basic oil paint set from before 1950's has a lifetimes worth of a modern person's regular exposure. Frogs are a poor indicator of how humans react to anything.
Plant based estrogens don't impact humans much. They do sheep... But only because they have four stomachs and can actually sort of process them. In humans they just slip through the system mostly untouched.
I'm fond of this one in particular because "They're putting chemicals in the water that turn the frogs gay!" is both one of the craziest sounding things Alex Jones has said, one that was literally memed on for years as THE example of how nuts he is and also one that's technically true.
So sensitive in fact that a really common type of pregnancy test basically involved exposing a particular type of frog to human female urine.
The frog being so sensitive to the presence of certain hormones would begin to ovulate if the urine sample was from a pregnant woman.
Really interesting but a bit of a shit lot in life for the frog!
To be fair that's an improvement over the previous test since you could reuse the frogs while you had to kill the rabbit. Even older ones involved peeing on grain. We've known that there was something different about the urine of women when they are pregnant for a shockingly long time, but couldn't explain exactly what in any real detail until fairly recently.
I didn't know about the grain or rabbit tests.
At least the rabbits got off the hook when the frogs presented themselves as a better option, I suppose.
*emoticon used because the joke is funny NOT because of the implications of what the joke meant. Results may vary restrictions apply call your lawyer before making bold statements have a nice day
Should I provide youtube videos of what LGBTQ+ says about children? Or will I risk getting my comment deleted and banned for using their own words to prove a point?
Is this where you link to a string of grainy deep fried anonymous Twitter/Reddit ForwardsFromGrandma posts about a D-List celebrity from the 1970s singing "I'm going to fuck the straight out of you" in a thrash metal music video?
No.. lmao wat. One was a group of men singing about grooming our children. The other is during a pride parade, where the group walking through I believe is a park is chanting about how they're coming for our children.
LGBT+ people are people. That means they run the full gamut that you see in people who aren't LGBT+. The difference is in sexuality and/or gender. Gay people like men, bi people like both, lesbians like women, trans people have a gender and biological sex that don't line up. Other than that, they value and dislike similar things to everyone else.
They feel similarly about children as anyone else. That's not to say that every one of them feels the exact same way about it, but that a similar portion of them are protective, nurturing, neutral, avoidant, or predatory towards children as is the general public.
They also use humour to ridicule the absurd, which would apply to the idea that LGBT+ people have a collective agenda when it comes to kids (or anything that isn't reducing dangers to and increasing acceptance of people who are like them or otherwise marginalized for their sexuality or gender, though even that doesn't apply universally).
You're getting a negative response to your comments because the conclusion you draw from them doesn't make logical sense. The most that they could show is that the group of individuals shown in the video has intents like that. My first guess, based on your description, is that they are trolling people who believe in the gay agenda. Second guess would be it's actually people who hate gays pretending to be them to say this and get more people to hate them. Third guess would be that some LGBT+ pedophiles were emboldened by their own mistaken ideas of what pride is and thought they could be open about something that should get some eyes on them.
I don't think it would be very advisable to troll people about something like coming after children, converting children, your children don't belong to you, etc... couple that with the school libraries having homosexual erotica literature for children, not even high school aged children, teachers in classrooms teaching kids things that have absolutely nothing to do with actual education, and weirdly enough, hiring drag queens into classrooms to.. educate them? Drag queens performing for children?
If this is supposed to be satire or trolling, this is provocation for literal violence. That's a very stupid move to play, imo.
I guess you would have been one of the folks confused by the Dead Kennedys back in the day, if you find satire so threatening that you're talking about violent retribution.
Hell yeah! If you aren't familiar with the some, they were trolling folks with "I Kill Children" to lampoon folks swept up in moral panics: it feels all to relevant today, given the moral panic around LGBTQ+ folks.
IMO you should post the videos. The context might make which case it is clearer, or at least rule out or confirm the "they are making fun of people who believe this" possibility.
The whole thing is just too absurd to do anything other than not take it seriously. Like I'm skeptical of pretty much everything you said there other than the drag queen part (though are schools hiring them or are some volunteering to do a reading thing for kids?).
Do you have any examples of that homosexual erotica in school libraries? That statement about teachers teaching kids things that have nothing to do with actual education is very broad and vague, but some examples would also be helpful, along with being more specific since that statement would include random trivia a teacher might mention for fun and parts of the curriculum that have debatable usefulness (like cursive writing), which I don't think you're talking about.
And drag queens are just men in dresses or other women's clothing. The purpose of their reading thing is for them to provide a good service for children to specifically show that they aren't evil delinquents who will predate children at any opportunity.
I wish it was that easy to protect children from predators, just picking some bad groups of others and putting a fence between them and our children. But just like a man wearing a dress or being interested in other males doesn't imply they will be interested in children, a man not wearing a dress or being interested in other males doesn't imply that they aren't interested in children.
The reality is that we need to pay attention and communicate with our kids, and most importantly educate them about sexual stuff so that they can know to tell us if something does happen to them. Don't you see that keeping them ignorant about all this stuff means that it leaves room for a groomer or molester to "educate" them? That treating homosexuality the same as actual sexual crimes when it's not a choice could mean some gay people will decide it's no big deal to predate children since they are already "doing evil" just by being gay?
That first one is trolling. And you might be right about it not being smart to goad on those who fear them as an existential threat, but sometimes people just get to the point where they don't care about the consequences and just want to give some of the negative feelings they've felt back to some of those who gave them to them.
For the second one, did you listen to the song after the "we're going to convert your kids" bit? Because they aren't talking about converting anyone gay but converting them to not be hateful about shit that isn't worth being hateful about.
On that note, I don't understand how any straight person can even believe that converting people gay is a thing. There's nothing anyone could say or do that would make men sexually interesting to me. There is no temptation I have to fight, even though I think it's ok to be gay and that it would double my pool of potential sexual partners.
For the third one, I do struggle with listening to choirs, but the parts that I did catch sounded more like "your children aren't your property whose thoughts and feelings you should control if they don't line up with yours" than a "those aren't your kids, they are ours". The "through you, not from you" bit did sound more religious (personally, I'd go for more of a "from you but once separated, they are separate"). But I only listened to half of it and was distracted by the comments for part of that so maybe someone else can comment more on that last one.
I hope you aren't banned for any of this conversation. For what it's worth, you do seem more genuine about this than most who come to places that are as hostile to your beliefs as this place is. And I don't think just censoring the other side does anything but polarize anyone's positions.
When I was in high school we had this whole chant about babies and trash compactors and other edgy shit we thought was the funniest thing. Crazily enough... none of us ever harmed a kid and if anyone would have actually put a baby in harms way where we could see we would have been traumatized.
Ease off the pearls there. A lot of Queer folks make fun of the rhetoric that Conservatives sling around about being bogeymen after kids , particularly during Pride. A rowdy bunch of party people probably high as kites being dumb and edgy isn't news in most places. Treating the matter as though every single one of us has to be paragons of proper behaviour without exception every moment isn't exactly a bar any group of people is going to meet. Moreover why should everyone have to be subject to group punishment for an individual's transgression? If a boss punished everyone at your workplace because one person came in late how would you react?
A lot of the sentiments inside the community are that it doesn't matter how often we treat everything seriously, speak eloquently or point to actual studies and literature about how we're just people who are underserved by beaurcratic structures, children are not harmed by association and we are not monsters... All it takes is a couple of people being silly once and suddenly every nasty bigoted fear is confirmed beyond shadow of a doubt... So why bother? It's an impossible standard.
You think that the statement "what LGBTQ+ says about x" is a comment that is possible to make sense?
"LGBTQ+" is not an organization. It's not a religion or a creed. It doesn't "say" anything - and, in fact, isn't even an "it" in the context you're using!
It's a term for a group of people that have nothing to do with each other, other than some shared traits. In your comment, replace "LGBTQ+" with another word for a group of unrelated humans. "Blondes," maybe, or "women," "men," "dark skinned folk," "humans," etc. You can't put something like "Americans" or "Christians" in that sentence, because those are too specific.
Can you see the problem now?
Is it fair to post a video of some random dude saying something stupid, and then say, "I have proof that men believe X"?
No, because "men" don't share a creed.
LGBTQ folk also don't share a creed. We're just people.
And I absolutely believe you'd hear some folks joking around about "coming for their children." A friend of mine jokes about the gay agenda all the time. Her gay agenda is "going to the grocery store to get milk." But someone could get a clip of her saying that she's got a gay agenda, easily.
And thing is, even if that video happened to be about some folks who weren't joking - it doesn't mean anything! Just because someone found some random assholes at pride doesn't mean that everyone who's LGBTQ+ has an agenda.
I'm probably wasting my time, I know, but I figured I'd put it out there just in case you are honestly misunderstanding the situation. Here's hoping.
To be clear, it is not a person claiming that this is the agenda. Rather it is members of the LGBTQ+ community, in their own words, making the statement. One video is a song by a group of gay men, the other is a chant by a group of men and women. Directly from their mouths, no way to take it out of context.
These were two videos shown in multiple Mosques around the SE Michigan region, this is how I learned about it.
And remember, it only takes one passing "gay agenda" joke to paint every noncis/nothet person on the planet as a p@do, but somebody CAN'T be a Nazi unless they handwrite mein kampf in triplicate with an addendum about how handsome Hitler is then get it notarized in Germany.
And I absolutely believe you’d hear some folks joking around about “coming for their children.”
I strongly suspect if he ever responded with a source it would involve a carefully trimmed clip from that SF gay men's chorus piece that caused a stir a while back, found a link for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArOQF4kadHA
An entire piece built around the lines "we'll convert your children" and "we're coming for your children" that's pretty prone to having unfortunate clips cut from it to scare right wingers.
“LGBTQ+” is not an organization. It’s not a religion or a creed. It doesn’t “say” anything - and, in fact, isn’t even an “it” in the context you’re using!
It’s a term for a group of people that have nothing to do with each other, other than some shared traits. In your comment, replace “LGBTQ+” with another word for a group of unrelated humans. “Blondes,” maybe, or “women,” “men,” “dark skinned folk,” “humans,” etc. You can’t put something like “Americans” or “Christians” in that sentence, because those are too specific.
Can you see the problem now?
Except in that case you can't exclude anyone from "the LGBTQ+ community" provided they are not straight or not cis. See people talking about Milo Yian-etc back in 2014-2020, or people's reaction to radqueer shit.
Other then LGBTQ+ not being a monolith? You can find any crazy opinion online. Difference is, one group is large enough to push to have the ten commandants hung in public school classrooms and the other is a fringe of a minority.
So? Not equivalent. There are deodorant ads also hung in the gyms of many schools. Do you feel threatened by the periodic table of elements or the multiplication table?
Pride flags are just to make lgbt kids feel welcome. If a cis student feels threaten by a pride flag, they have other issues.
I mean.. There's like seven of them and two designs are used by groups that are known to be used by bigots during marches to politically protest a number of LGBTQIA+ civil rights issues.
Yeah.. these aren't flags. Some random users designing chit on the internet. There isn't a cisgender flag. Why? Because the rest of the world doesn't care to represent their sexuality through colors, designs and decorations on a flag smh.
They are actually flags which have been flown at events. If you don't believe me look up images of "straight pride" you will find pics of people holding and draped in them. At Pride events however you generally don't see those but the straight ally flag which celebrates people outside the LGBTQIA+ but who show support because Pride is an LGBTQIA+ style independence day.
Generally speaking though because cisness is usually assumed until proven otherwise cis people don't generally see a need to run up a flag so it doesn't see as much use. Because allyship is more an invisible thing you will see the ally flag on buttons and things.
I'm assuming that you are actually asking this sincerely.
A pride flag is a symbol of acceptance. It's saying that it's okay to be gay. It's not saying you have to be gay, it's not saying you have to like that people are gay, just that it's okay to be gay.
The ten commandments are rules. It's not a message saying that it's okay to be Christian, it's saying that everyone must follow these rules.
The second one is authoritarian. It is restricting everybody, even those outside the group who created it. The first one is not authoritarian. Not giving orders to anybody, and not restricting people outside the group that created it.
A pride flag is a symbol of acceptance. It's saying that it's okay to be gay. It's not saying you have to be gay, it's not saying you have to like that people are gay, just that it's okay to be gay.
Well, in the same way you could say that the Ten Commandments are just a symbol of respect. You don't have to like them, you don't even have to follow them, but it would be nicer if you did.
The first one is not authoritarian. Not giving orders to anybody, and not restricting people outside the group that created it.
Try seeing what happens when someone dares to remove the flag, or even just says in its presence that they don't like gay people. I bet you the authoritarianism is going to show up real quick.
Your comparison is invalid because clearly, the rainbow flag does NOT mean "everybody is welcome". It means "everybody who agrees with us about who is welcome is welcome".
Why would you say that, because it was a leftie who came up with it?
"The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them."
This totally applies to the supposed "all are welcome" of LGBT, because clearly, people who don't agree with LGBT aren't welcome. In the same way, it also explains why many Christians are wary of LGBT people because they tend to be explicitly anti-Christian, and those churches who do admit them often end up being completely overtaken by LGBT worship.
My point being, any group claiming to be more tolerant than anyone else is ultimately lying. Tolerance is always a matter of likeness and cohesion. Those who don't fit the norms will always be excluded.
Again, I'm going to assume you're being serious here and respond as if it's a real conversation.
I appreciate that, and I will do my best to honor that.
You say that the ten commandments are a sign of respect. A respect for whom or what?
They're a sign of respect for and recognition of the essential humanity of others. No one likes to be lied to, stolen from, murdered, or envied. There is no exception made for rich and powerful people, nor for different races, creeds, or sexual orientations.
Yes, you can make the case that they also proscribe a requirement to believe in the Christian God, in which case I would say that's no different than arguing that the pride flag is not saying that you have to be gay.
So the pride flag is necessary because, historically and very recently, non-straight people have been oppressed. Oppressed so badly that many kill themselves because of how they're treated. It is a travesty that we treat other Americans this way just because they're different.
Christians do not suffer like that. It's literally impossible for Christians to suffer like that, as they make up the vast majority of the country. No one can possibly oppress a majority. Hurt their feelings, maybe, but not oppress.
I think if we are putting up religious tenets as a way of showing respect, we should put up the tenets of a religion that is actually oppressed in this country. One that is treated with hostility, and whose members are hated for no reason other than their beliefs. That would show them that we're an accepting country, who actually follow Jesus' values of loving our neighbors.
Christians do not suffer like that. It's literally impossible for Christians to suffer like that, as they make up the vast majority of the country. No one can possibly oppress a majority. Hurt their feelings, maybe, but not oppress.
Right. It’s not like the symbol of their religion isn’t literally a dead guy hanging on a cross. Totally a sign of how much they don’t suffer.
You’re acting as if Christians are somehow a completely homogenous group who all constantly agree on everything all the time. If anything, this shows how blatantly ignorant you are of the reality.
It’s not just that there are hundreds of different denominations whose only commonality is that they agree on who God is, but who constantly feud about various aspects and interpretations of their theology, but even within individual churches you’ll rarely find two individuals who are in complete agreement with each other about everything.
And it’s not as if Christians are somehow immune to addiction, self-harm, or even suicide. The smallest minority is the minority of one, and that’s in fact what the crucifix stands for, because Jesus went up alone against a mob full of murderous rage to defend the rights of the individual to be free from religious prosecution.
But I like your suggestion, so in the spirit of reconciliation, might I offer the following compromise: instead of the Ten Commandments, we use Jesus’s version found in Matthew 19:18:
You shall not murder
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not steal
You shall not bear false witness
Honor your father and your mother
You shall love your neighbor as yourself
There, no more reference to any God, creed, or mandatory holy days. Gay or straight, male or female, brown or white, Muslim or Buddhist, no one is excluded or unduly put upon. Except people whose religion tells them it’s good to kill or steal from other people I guess…
Those are worded in an inaccessable way. "You shall not...". How about "don't lie"? It's the same message without the clear religious overtones that are obviously steeped in the Christian translation from Latin and Greek.
I also disagree with #5. Not everyone's parents deserve honor. Some are horrible and we shouldn't make children feel bad for not loving shit parents.
But even if I agreed to the rest, it wouldn't work. Those things are the basis of social emotional learning. The GOP is explicitly legislating against teaching that.
Those are worded in an inaccessable way. "You shall not...". How about "don't lie"? It's the same message without the clear religious overtones that are obviously steeped in the Christian translation from Latin and Greek.
If that's the worst you have to say about them... sure, I'm not married to a specific translation.
I also disagree with #5. Not everyone's parents deserve honor. Some are horrible and we shouldn't make children feel bad for not loving shit parents.
Honoring them isn't the same as loving them, you know. And even if they're complete shitbags who don't deserve any respect at all, you can still honor them for having given you life by becoming a better person then them. But sure, we can strike that one if you can accept the rest.
But even if I agreed to the rest, it wouldn't work. Those things are the basis of social emotional learning. The GOP is explicitly legislating against teaching that.
Ah well, but of course you can't... because Republicans exist. But if rules like this are the basis of social emotional learning, and Republicans want to legislate putting them into the classroom, how exactly does that prove that they are against this sort of thing? Or are you arguing that these rules are getting in the way of such learning? If so, how?
Republicans want to legislate putting them into the classroom, how exactly does that prove that they are against this sort of thing?
Well that's a great question. Let's brainstorm.
Republicans have pushed against SEL, which is all about being empathetic and kind to your neighbors, and being aware of your own emotions and how to handle them. These are all things Jesus would love. These are things that the portions of the ten commandment I highlighted support.
At the same time, Republicans are pushing for the ten commandments to be included in the classroom.
These are both objectively fact, right? We can see this happening, there are news stories, there are people talking about it. So how would you explain this dissonance?
I'm always a little suspicious when people who don't even believe in Jesus try to tell me what he would have loved but let's have a look at why those evil, evil Republicans might have been on the fence about it, shall we?
A number of conservative publications and groups, including National Review and The Federalist, have criticized social-emotional learning as a "Trojan horse" used to bring in ideas such as critical race theory, sexual orientation and gender identity, and other left-wing politics to the classroom.
Ah well, that sounds pretty typical, doesn't it. And it's funny because SEL lists self-awareness and responsible decisionmaking among its primary goals, but somehow, the people who are pushing for it can't seem to
resist shoehorning their own ideology into it
resist blaming their critics for when they're found out
Not the best advertisement for SEL's effectiveness, don't you think?
Scary buzzwords, to be sure. The second two topics are about accepting people for who they are. The first is about recognizing that our current laws are unfair to some people.
These are not unreasonable things. But I will not be able to convince you of that. I imagine nothing would.
So regardless. If they wanted to teach ethics, they can do so by posting a short list of things everyone should do. They aren't doing that. They're pushing one religion's agenda, and we don't do that in America.
Okay, you admit then that the criticism is factual and SEL is in fact a vehicle for pushing left-wing politics into the classroom?
In that case, can you blame right-wing politicians for wanting to do the same? Because that's just the pot calling the kettle black. In other words, politics as usual.
No, I admit that people have unfounded concerns about SEL, and that I'm not going to be able to change the mind of someone so entrenched in fear of those topics. It also isn't relevant to the point.
And I can't tell if you're being snarky in that last comment, or if you're saying that it's clearly the GOP trying to push a religious agenda? I mean, you may think that's justified. But that is what they're doing?
No, I admit that people have unfounded concerns about SEL
That's not an admission, that's an accusation.
It also isn't relevant to the point.
It's very relevant because your failure to demonstrate even ONE of the proposed learning goals of SEL while still defending its implementation in public schools is evidence that you care more about the left-wing politics that are embedded in it than the package they're wrapped in.
And I can't tell if you're being snarky in that last comment, or if you're saying that it's clearly the GOP trying to push a religious agenda?
Of course they're pushing a religious agenda. But at least they're being honest about it. Meanwhile, you've already admitted that the Trojan horse theory is true and STILL act as if its somehow a great moral evil to condemn that.
I think you're not reading my words. SEL was an example, and clearly not a good one so I should not have brought it up. It's irrelevant to ten commandments in the classroom except as an example. So it's not relevant here. Happy to have a different thread about that later. But this thread is about ten commandments.
People should not be pushing a religious agenda. That's it. Full stop. If you can't agree on that, then we cannot find any place to agree.
No, it was a perfect example, because it showed very clearly that you don’t really care about principles or values, and it’s all about political power and influence for you.
You seem like you have a lot of hostility. To the point where you feel the need to attribute random bad things to someone you just met. Honestly, that's not healthy. You might want to speak to your pastor or trusted friend. Not being able to have a normal conversation is a symptom of very big underlying problems.
Okay, so now that you're out of arguments, you're trying to shame me for beating you in a debate that YOU decided to have. And you don't even seem to realize that by doing so, you're just providing more evidence that you have no principles whatsoever and it's all about power for you.
A rational person would just admit when they're beat instead of digging their own hole deeper. Your lack of self-awareness is truly astounding.
There's no winning and losing in discussion. It's not a contest. The point of sharing ideas is to learn and have better ideas.
But like I said, you and I differ at a fundamental level. I say no religion in the classroom, unless it's taught like a cultural class and includes many religions. You want religion in the classroom, but only if it's your religion. We will never see eye to eye.
And I'm not trying to shame you. I'm telling you you're being a dick for no reason, and that's a personal problem you should work on. I don't care if work on it or not, I don't know you. But I bet you're surrounded by people who would appreciate if you worked on yourself a bit.
But hey, don't take advice from a heathen. You might end up in hell and burn for all eternity.
Yet you are still attempting to wrestle victory out of this discussion by championing political aesthetics over moral principles. People like you shouldn’t even have the right to vote as far as I am concerned, because you’re just going to use it to vote for more “free” stuff that others have to pay for using their blood, sweat, and tears (and sometimes their literal lives). Absolutely despicable. You are literally the cancer that’s ruining democracy.
But hey, don't take advice from a heathen. You might end up in hell and burn for all eternity.
How is that different from putting pride flags in every classroom?
1- this is not happening
2- flags are abstract representations, text of religious laws are specific (specific to a religion, which is another level of difference)
3- no government is mandating ‘pride flags’
4- you already know all this, so the question is in bad faith
I've seen enough evidence to be convinced that it absolutely IS happening.
Yes, there is no government mandate to do that, but it is happening nevertheless. There are tons of videos on YouTube of teachers explaining why it's important to them. And while it's true that LGBT doesn't meet the definition of a traditional, organized religion, it does strike me as having quasi-religious character, as evidenced by the automatic assumption that anyone speaking out against it is acting in bad faith (i.e. committing blasphemy).
I think the word you’re looking for is culture. You know, the thing where people share ideas and traditions as a group.
And comparing symbols of individual acceptance that certain people are OK to exist with government mandated displays of religion mandated rules seems strange. Almost “both sides.” Almost bad faith.
Okay, culture works. But it nevertheless strikes me as odd that you keep using the word "bad faith", because it implies that there IS a component of faith involved which you are accusing me of being in violation of. Hence I am going to maintain my position that LGBT has at least a quasi-religious character.
Also, I can't help but notice that by saying "certain people are OK to exist", you are elevating their right to exist over that of everyone else, i.e. you are creating in- and outgroups, those whose rights are worth protecting and those whose aren't — something the Nazis knew a thing or two about.
Dude your mental gymnastics game is on point. You practicing for your fox news interview? Like you know words can have multiple definitions right? Bad faith has nothing to do with religion and you know that. Also to say that a historically persecuted group trying to be "ok to exist" somehow degrades others rights is complete bullshit. Explain how. You proposed the idea I want you to explain how someone's right to exist peacefully somehow takes away from someone else's right. I'll wait. 🙄
Alright, I looked up the definition and this is what I found:
Bad faith is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.
So in order for me to be guilty of this, I would have to pretend that I am in favor of LGBT while simultaneous arguing against it. If you can show me where I did that, I will accept the charge. But you can't, because I never did that. Ergo, you are simply misusing the word in order to convict me of some sort of wrongdoing. It is, in fact, you who is acting in bad faith here.
Paragraph 1: “bad faith” is arguing or acting in an intellectually dishonest way. Like if I were to say this paragraph was written in bad faith, I might accuse you of knowing the term has nothing to do with religion yet still trying to shoehorn it into this whole “religion of LGBT” thing you have going.
LGBT rights are human rights. If by "has a quasi-religious character" you mean that it is ideologically derived, then sure. Human rights are normative ideology. But to say that the idea of individual liberty and human rights are ideologically equivalent to watery tarts handing out swords, is to demonstrate an extremely profound ignorance of moral philosophy.
No. Human rights are human rights. They predate the LGBT movement by at least two decades. And while there's nothing in there that would deprive LGBT individuals from any essential liberties, I've noticed at least two items that many of them seem to take issue with:
Article 16.3: The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 20.2: No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
The impulse behind one act is inclusive, welcoming persecuted minorities. This is fundamentally egalitarian and strengthens society.
The other is intended as part of a drive for cultural hegemony where a specific ingroup is underlined as sovereign. A hierarchial society of a majority of innate winners and, importantly, subgoups of losers/outsiders (to be feared/hated) is the backbone of fascism.
Of course, a single piece of straw will not break society's back and manifest fascism on its own but pressure towards it is created by an aggregation of such straw.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing in the Ten Commandments that is inherently unegalitarian.
There is no commandment that says "thou shalt steal from minorities" or "thou shalt give preferred treatment to the rich and powerful". It does not create any in- or outgroups either — everyone is considered worthy of the same protection, and I don't think I need to explain how not stealing, not killing, not lying, and not being envious of others strengthens society.
It seems to me that you are projecting an awful lot onto this text that isn't actually there.
Okay, how about Jesus's rendition of the commandments as found in Matthew 19:18 (which basically drops the first three, and replaces the last two with "love your neighbor")?
The Bible and it's mostly commendable teachings are an uncritically examined votive for a cargo cult that is being weaponised against America's democracy. What the ten commandments are, or are not, is immaterial. The critical lesson is the hegemony of Christians over non-Christians and, most importantly, distilled to the naturalness/righteousness of hegemony/hierarchy.
It is a thin entering wedge that is intended to open up the possibility of inculcating children with divisive conceptions and undermining critical thinking.
Yes the ten commandments could be put up on the wall with egalitarian intentions but that is implicitly not the case with the MAGA movement.
And I'm pretty sure that the people pushing for that don't follow all ten. Like "thou shalt not covet". Have you seen American society? Damn thing is built on coveting.
Okay, how about a set of non-religious rules of ethics, or at least something all major religious groups can agree upon?
Don't steal, don't lie, don't murder/use violence, don't make any unwanted sexual advances, those seem general enough that everyone should be able to agree, no?
Oh in that case, why ever try to improve anything? History shows us some asshole is just gonna come along and mess it up anyways. Perhaps the founding fathers should have just paid their stupid tea tax and stayed subject to the British crown.
I don’t disagree with any particular point - Christo-fascism is on the rise and it’s terrifying - but specifically the nazis were very much anti-church and thus anti-ten commandments lol
No, no, he is right. Republican and Nazi are the same side of the coin.
To quote Hitler
"We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian."
Speech in Passau 27 October 1928
Not to weigh in on one side or the other but the Nazis claimed a lot of things.
That they were socialists, that Poland had attacked Germany...
I wouldn't rely on what they said.
Hitler also told a lot of people they were part of the movement. Then the Night of The Long Knives happened. He was meth addict willing to say whatever he needed to say.
The nazi party espoused its own distinct, schismatic form of Christianity as it repressed Catholics and Protestants across the country. I am NO defender of the church but to act like churches/institutions weren’t attacked during that era is revisionist history. They were absolutely repressed, if certainly nowhere near as severely as Judaism was (which “repressed” doesn’t even come close to covering).
So, they were attacking other religious sects and churches that were different than their specific version of Christianity?
That sounds like Christianity to me.
Just because it wasn't the form of Christianity we recognize today, doesn't mean it wasn't a valid religious movement. Sure, it specifically helped the Nazi party, but all the pieces of the puzzle to create their christo-fascist state were there for them to put together.
And they used Christianity to do it. Saying otherwise is being disingenuous and revisionist. They espoused Christianity. They espoused the teachings of Jesus. They claimed moral superiority just like every other religion does.
Sure, they used it to attack other religions to set theirs up as the state religion, but that doesn't make it less like Christianity. Just a form that doesn't exist today.
Repressing other religions is a cornerstone of most religions, including Christianity. To say otherwise is invoking apologetics.
Look we can be flippant about how evil organized religion is or we can discuss history. We can’t just vacillate between the two and expect a productive discussion. Major Christian institutions were attacked by the nazi party/hitler. This is historical fact. Whether or not they branded themselves as Christian or even were Christian doesn’t change that fact. They went after both Catholic and Protestant institutions across the country. Many clergy were arrested and/or killed. This is history, not another proxy battle for “church bad.”
I mean the nazi party had “socialist” in its name. Would it not be pretty reductionist of me to say “they were socialist”?
Give one good reason why the Nazis started with the Jews and not the millions of other groups that are much further separated from their idea of the Übermench.
I'll give you one. Because Nazis were Christians, and they hate the Jews for not accepting Jesus as their messiah.
I didn’t say nazis weren’t christians. I think this conversation simply isn’t lending itself to a nuanced discussion unfortunately, people are getting too incensed over it. Nazis are bad. Republicans are installing Christo-fascism and it’s a huge problem. All of these things I agree with. I am just talking about the relationship of the 3rd reich and christianity, which is not as simple as you want it to be. It’s a fascinating, if dark, subject. You’d do well to go read about it tbh. It taught me a lot about institutions can be wielded like cudgels even against their own interests.
I heard some PhD types who had written papers on Hitlers rise one time explain it that even though we can draw parallels to Hitler's rise. It in no way means we should expect another group like the Nazi's to rise to power. They were saying hindsight can say Hitler rose to power because X,Y and Z. But it in no way means that X,Y and Z are what create a Nazi power or means another one is going to show up. That it's wrong to take something like lists that detail the things that contribute to fascism and say its happening now so therefore the other party are the next Nazi power.
I think what the message was that X,Y and Z only shows what could have contributed to Nazi's seizing power but when used with foresight its not accurate.
He's not wrong, but he's not right either. Those lists are meant to be paired with deep analysis of the ideology and an academic understanding of the terms used. When used correctly they are absolutely useful for predicting oppressive authoritarian regimes. Can they predict the second coming of Nazis? No, because that was a unique moment in history.
Political scientists who write their papers and books on ideology have been sounding the alarm bells about conservative and fundamentalist Christianity since the 2000's. There's been papers about wealth ministry and the GOP since at least the 90's.
So yeah, the brief lists on the Internet are about as effective as a Hogwarts personality test, but that doesn't mean the watchers aren't screaming at you to pay attention.
See I don't really follow this stuff to hard. But that's what I found funny was what you said sort of. These guys were the guys who write papers and study the rise of fascists and especially a focus on the Nazi's and their opinion the were bringing up was that its not a predictive tool. Its something that is useful to look backwards and hypothesis what lead to a rise but it doesn't work looking forward as well and can often be used to be a pretty big political hammer regardless of accuracy and that we should be more careful with it.
That's what I was saying. I guarantee you they keep a list as a reference. But they aren't just xeroxing the list with checked boxes for their writing. Throwing the lists onto the Internet is the same thing as putting Fascist on a sign whenever the government installs a new traffic camera. That's what has them upset.
And if they're telling you there's nothing to worry about with the current conservative movement they're either bad at their job or part of the problem. Because every political science professor I know, even the conservative and libertarian ones, are telling anyone who will listen that we are dangerously close to voting ourselves out of a democracy.
Right, fascism molds itself to a particular condition and ground truth. There's actually a decent body of work which holds that it is a historical form of autocratic politics, and that searching for it in modernity is problematic because of how fungible the core ideology is. You can always stop fascism by stopping autocracy, regardless of whether you positively identify it as such, so all autocratic movements should be treated with the same level of urgency as Nazis. Easy peasy, okie dokie.
The biggest problem with this is that a lot of leftists like autocracy as well. And I am convinced that's where a lot of this rhetorical pearl clutching really comes from. A whole generation of left wing opposition is effectively null and void because it reduces to a very inconvenient "well our autocracy is different..."
Think of it more like the flu. If I caught the flu I might have a temperature, a sore throat, loss of appetite, and headaches. If you catch the flu you might get headaches, diarrhea, exhaustion, and a dry cough.
Fascism is built upon and characterised by the exploitation of the current fissures of a stressed society. It is unlikely to lead to gas chambers and Hugo Boss uniforms as they were part of the specific evolution of fascism in Germany after it was crippled by the loss of the first world war. Usually, there are all sorts of barriers to full blooded fascism that give it part of its local character too as it tries to morph into whatever conglomerate of memes that it can ride to power.
Right now in America the pressure for fascism is being built with the tacit support of a lot of evangelical christians. It is not the whole of the story. It is part of the conglomerate. So the pride flags come down and the ten commandments go up.
To understand nazis religion it is important to understand religion in germany.
Back in the day, and today is similar in former west Germany, Germany had a fairly even split between catholicism and protestantism.
So the nazi party taking a strong religious dogma either way would had been very harmful towards their objectives, as half the population could refuse to follow a catholic/protestant movement. That's why their leader and the party didn't really seemed to take a strong religious stance. But at the end they were linked to the conservative values that are associated with religion.
And his allies, Spain and Italy. Both formed fascist dictatorships very linked with the Catholic church, being their countries homogeneous in that aspect. In fact Spanish dictatorship is often refered as national-catholicism, and Mussolini had full support from the Vatican and the Pope.
At the end fascism, in whichever form and name it takes, tend to link with conservative values that are usually also linked with religion. The nazi party being just an exception due Germany particular religion situation.
I have an in-law that’s a teacher, and she says it’s fucking crazy how radicalized some kids are. Her coworkers have dealt with 11 year old boys straight up telling female teachers they don’t have to listen to them because they’re women.
They’re apparently always talking about shithead influencers like Andrew Tate too, and the ones that aren’t down the pipeline are definitely still heavily exposed to the ideas. Real disturbing shit.
I’m hoping that it’s just the gen z/alpha version of an edgy atheist phase that they outgrow. For what it’s worth she also says a lot of kids are way more chill about LGBT students, including being respectful of pronouns.
At least for atheism there's a non-edgy, civilized version. For whatever this is, I don't think you can make it more palatable without just throwing out the entire mindset
Really hard to take a niche religious belief seriously without a large dedicated community of fellow practitioners.
Like, if you're not regularly going to a church, there's no peer network or social reproduction. You might become "spiritual", but it's going to be some religion you invented in your own head that's divorced from any other formal setting. As likely as a non-athletic teenager suddenly becoming a baseball professional.
Organized religion is as much about the organization as the religion.
The way I see it, the left had a good go and had the right on the ropes and lost it in the last 15 - 20 years. Not 50.
I saw a systematic push to pretty much remove the left from the internet and weight the algorithms towards right wing issues while vilifying the left as pompous know it all's and out of touch with the regular man. Which is crazy because 15 years ago most people would have agreed with so many of the values that are vilified today.
Canadian sub reddits is a perfect example. One day accounts started showing up and laying into anyone looking to do discuss politics. And then hammered them over and over. Then a new sub showed up specifically for left leaning Canadians that drew the ones who didn't want confrontation towards. At the same time the moderation team started recruiting and low and behold were hammered with right wing applications until they have what is essentially moderators from the r/The_Donald. Now there's multiple Canadian sub reddits and almost all are heavy right leaning to the point you can't post even moderate stuff. It all has to be headlines like "Lookie what these brown fellas are doing now".
Crazy times. Even saw voices that were kind of cool become social pariahs as online users seemed to unanimously agree that "science guy 1" was faking it and pompous and "science guy 2" was also a giant piece of shit. We're not even leftists but were people who would convince people to think critically and question even your own views. Could not let those channels and people grow. We all had to read about their vocal fry every time they posted a video. Decimated engagement for every voice the left tended to enjoy and who acted as lightning rods for different ideas and values such as common sense and logic were knee capped by the denizens of these newly seized territories who all unanimously agreed that these people were annoying. And since we're social creatures, if you have 1000 voices saying someone is annoying and 10 say "what the fuck is going on in this comment section" we all tend to really focus on the annoying bits wondering about it ourselves until its just a truth. Meanwhile middle aged Comedian with views like "Students are shitting in litter boxes" and "Maybe wearing masks will kill you" were amplified.
Internet was a new frontier and seems like groups that had resources really seized on the opportunity to take back territory so they could relay a foundation that was pro their own cause. I think the left had a big part in helping without realizing it because they just didn't care to see what was happening. Like a death by 10 000 paper cuts.
30 years ago rightwing talk radio was in full swing, already influencing huge swaths of America with their formulated, repeated talking points (something "the left" or even the Democratic party still can't do), Rush Limbaugh had a TV show on one of the 4 major networks. For sure everything has picked up recently but they've been at this for decades, what we're seeing now is the result of all the groundwork they've laid.
It’s a long listen but worth checking out How Conservatism Won by Robert Evans. He lays out in a clear concise way “how a consortium of rich failsons got together to fund a network of right wing think tanks and shift American culture in a fun new direction. (note: it was not actually fun at all).” They’ve been very successful and those think tanks are now pipelines used to funnel ideological purists into powerful positions like our current Supreme Court.
I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.
Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here.
edit: tl;dr the shadowy cabals the rightwing says are behind everything is classic projection again, they're controlled by shadowy cabals of rich people
edit edit: it's worth remembering that one of the primary ghouls/traitors responsible for the attempted overthrow of our government on J6 was Roger Stone, the same traitorous ratfucker who began his career working for Nixon and has a fucking Nixon tattoo on his back. It's really impossible to overstate just how fuckin' bad these people are and they're winning.
Nah, some of have been calling out right wing propaganda and the impact it's having on the political scene for a while now. And it's not just teens. Right wing propaganda has infested the left as well, to the point where you still have people repeating confirmed propaganda from the 2016 election because they've internalized it and can't let it go.
It's not that the left has bad messaging or unpopular ideas, it's that there are a ton of cynics under the big tent. Cynics who actively poison outreach efforts because they are intellectually lazy, but love their own farts.
It's not that the left has bad messaging or unpopular ideas
Good ideas, but terrible messaging. For example, imagine you wanted to sell Appalachia on the idea that the coal market is in decline so we should look at expanding other market sectors in the region so the entire region doesn't increasingly resemble dead mine towns as time goes on. What's the single worst possible way you could try to express that idea to those people?
"I'm going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business" - Hillary Clinton, 2016.
As far as the US goes, Democrats are basically the best you get that has any chance of winning an election and she was their choice for 2016. I even held my nose and voted for her in the general (but not in the primary).
I won't argue that progressives and the like shouldn't be trying to either drag the party leftward or organize at a scale that they can actually win elections at some levels without needing the name Democrat behind them.
Her coworkers have dealt with 11 year old boys straight up telling female teachers they don’t have to listen to them because they’re women.
That's hardly new. Obnoxious pre-teens finding any excuse to rebel are just a hazard of middle school life.
Andrew Tate's brand of misogyny is the thing YouTube loves to promote in between Spider-Man Vaccinating Pregnant Elsa and Hysterical Child Unboxing videos. But if it wasn't him, it could just as easily be Blink-182 lyrics or kids immitating what they saw in a Caillou episode.
