The Evangelical Christian Rant.

Ok. Legion600's post the other night highlighted what I really hate about most evangelical Christians. His post is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/legion600/138310.html

Basically, upon reading the book "How the Irish Saved Civilization" they were to discuss it. Someone mentions the fact that Christianity was the motivating factor or catalyst (the monasteries) and one of the girls in the group says that they weren't Christians, they were Catholics.

That's right, for all of you Catholics who think you believe in Christ, according an awful lot of evangelicals, you don't.

And yes, I realize this stupid shit has been going around since the Mother-loving Reformation, and it was just as stupid then as it is now. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

In every dictionary I've ever seen, the definition of Christian is someone who believes in the divinity of Christ, his existence and his teachings. Ok, unless I am SADLY mistaken, the Catholic faith kind of centers on this whole Christ-thing, yes?

And lets face it, most evangelical Christian groups don't even believe that EACH OTHER are truly Christian. I'm serious. Ask a Baptist about a Nazarene. Or a Lutheran about a Mormon. Ok, maybe Mormon's a bad example, but you get the drift.

An awful lot of people didn't think JFK could be elected President because he was Catholic. In some areas of the country, John Kerry's Catholicism counted against him as well.

And the thing that really grates my cheese about these people is the EGO involved in announcing that you have the ONE TRUE WAY. Apparently their Bibles are missing the humility part. Not to mention the fundamental insecurity of HAVING to convince other people that your way is the right way. Really, the way these folks are so rabid about converting others, you'd think their belief was really based on how many people they can convince they're right. And every person they can't convince eats just a little bit more of their soul.

Yum.




Edited to fix the spelling of the world "Civilization" because I should really quit posting at one in the morning when my contacts have turned into potato chips.

Public Schools are not socialist.

I was going to wait to post this one until I could find the specific quote I was thinking of, but I'm having trouble tracking it down. However, just Google the words "Republican public schools socialist" and I think that'll give you all the citations you need. But here's a few to tide you over:

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0696a.asp

http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly11.htm

The catalyst for this rant was a quote I saw from some wingnut Republi-tard Senator or Representative who said that public schools were socialist.

This gave me pause, since I am a HISTORY MAJOR.

See, public schools or rather the idea for them, aren't socialist or even from the New Deal. Its Puritan. Public education was very important to early Protestants, particularly the strain of Protestant that colonized these shores. See, one reason for the Reformation is that (among many others) certain folks didn't believe that the word of God should be diluted or come from anyone else. They believed you should read the Word of God (Bible for you heathens out there) and interpret it yourself, thereby establishing a personal relationship with and understanding of God. So, reading very important for you to be able to go to Heaven.

That is one of the big hard-ons early Protestants had for the Catholic Church: That the Pope, Cardinals, etc... all the way down to priests were the vehicles of the word of God, therefore were diluting it or changing it to suit their purposes.

(No, I will NOT be discussing the myriad of translations through scads of languages and how that changed stuff. Nor will I explore the fact that the Hebrew tradition was oral until fairly late in the game. NOR will we EVEN entertain debate on the King James version of the Bible. All of this goes without saying.)

So, public education is a Protestant ideal that you'd think the Republi-tards would be all gung ho about, right? I mean, it was a value of our founding fathers, not to mention the guys before them who actually colonized the place.

Not so, say I. Like I said, just Google it. I understand, yes, there are problems with the current system. However, much of the problem lies with parents who don't care and kids who have no motivation to learn. As well as with underpaid teachers, underfunded schools and the mainstreaming of the developmentally disabled and behaviorally dysfuntional. Yes, I'm going out on my politically incorrect little limb and state that when a teacher has a class of thirty students, and one of them is a major behavioral problem that the problem child gets the majority of the teacher's attention leaving the other 29 who may well be willing and able to learn, unsupervised and cut adrift.

And really, the alternatives are much scarier. Can you say an even smaller literacy rate? I fear for the day education becomes elective. Well, it already is to a point. As my friend Robbie says, "You can lead a Whore to culture, but you can't make her think." (Its funnier if you say it out loud, think horticulture... ah nevermind.) I mean, we can shove education at them, but we can't make them learn. What really needs to be done is to quit demonizing intellectualism, to make it cool to be smart. With the Chimp in office, I'm not holding my breath.

So really, if W were such a good Protestant, he'd be falling all over himself to make sure education was adequately funded. And if any of you try to point at the No Child Left Behind Act, with its mandates and none of the money it promised, I will give you a purple nurple.


In summary, the next time some Repbuli-tard corners you about how Public education is socialist, hit them in the head with an American history text. A big one.




I'm seriously considering a guerilla campaign of sending books on American History with certain passages highlighted to government officials. Like the parts on public education, prohibition, the Vietnam war...