Pilgrims is the name commonly applied to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. Their leadership came from a religious congregation who had fled a volatile political environment in the East Midlands of England for the relative calm of Holland in the Netherlands. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America…Their story has become a central theme in United States cultural identity. [wiki]
This country was born because people desired the freedom to worship their God in their own way. To me, that is so American.
To have the freedom to be yourself, to be entitled to respect, to experience tolerance instead of persecution…these are the central themes with which I define my American identity.
What else is American? E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. One cultural identity, comprised of hundreds of influences, origins and traditions. If you take a step back and ponder it, America seems like a miraculous idea; you start to respect the safeguards put in place to protect people. One of the most significant? The separation between church and state. This is where things get complicated, but that’s not a bad thing. Everyone is complicated, why should we expect our nations not to be? Yes, there are religious words on money and everyone knows that there is a Judeo-Christian foundation to a lot of what is considered American…but there is also respect for other ideas. Or at least, there should be. At the very least, there should be the freedom for others to worship their God, in their own way, no matter what you or I think about it. There should be mutual respect. There should be.
A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.
Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the chamber’s podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting ”this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.
Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told an AP reporter, ”we are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away. [NYT]
No, you are Christians and fools. Way to make Team Jesus look awful, as you misrepresent everything that the man stood for and preached.
For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be ”seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.” [NYT]
Yes, because the prayer he offered was SO offensive to actual Christians, agnostics or those who have been touched by a noodly appendage:
Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: ”We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
As the Senate prepared for another day of debate over the Iraq war, Zed closed with, ”Peace, peace, peace be unto all.” [NYT]
Let me tell you something about what that Uncle said– it was far kinder and more welcoming than a lot of what I heard in Catholic school, especially if the Pope was involved. For shame. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of his spiritual offering was its emphasis on peace?
Zed, who was born in India, was invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Speaking in the chamber shortly after the prayer, Reid defended the choice and linked it to the war debate.
”If people have any misunderstanding about Indians and Hindus,” Reid said, ”all they have to do is think of Gandhi,” a man ”who gave his life for peace.”
”I think it speaks well of our country that someone representing the faith of about a billion people comes here and can speak in communication with our heavenly Father regarding peace,” said Reid, a Mormon and sharp critic of President Bush’s Iraq policies. [NYT]
As several of you pointed out via email, news tab and flaming arrow, THIS is the money quote:
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the protest ”shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it’s clear they mean only their religion.” [NYT]
What these Jesus-freaks are forgetting is that Christ was a man of peace. He didn’t surround himself with the pious and faux-righteous; he called those people out, as he deliberately and controversially chose to befriend the lowest of the low, tax collectors, prostitutes and the like. Was there ever a better example of tolerance in the Christian faith?
As I bitterly read the articles about this troubling, hurtful incident, I am reminded of those who persecuted Jesus, for what they perceived as his “blasphemy”. Two thousand years later, some of his so-called followers have become so drunk off of hate and fundamentalism, they cannot see straight, they cannot grasp that if this were two millenia ago, Jesus would be the man in the orange robe and they, they would be the hypocrites who attacked him and then cheered at his suffering.
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I didn’t have time to read all the entries, so forgive me if someone has said this previously.
All religions have people who start to believe religious text or doctrine that inevitably kills the spirit of the religion. Frankly there is no limit to the stupidity practiced by any of the world’s major religions however there also is no limit on the kindness shown to fellow human beings in the spirit of these religions as well. Keep that in mind.
In terms of the incident, historically, prayers and affirmations have been read at Congress for a long time. It’s good that many religions can fulfill that role. Perhaps for those who do not favor religions, a moment of silence can symbolize this.
And, please do not make personal attacks against the people here at Sepia Munity. Restraint yourself to debating the facts or the issues of the incident and remember when you resort to name-calling or cheap rhetorical tricks, you reveal the weakness of your points and argument.
One of the quotes by Zippy Zed: Slowly we are becoming mainstream. Yoga is very popular already, and through yoga in America, Hinduism is becoming more known…
Cue Gurinder Chadha’s next movie: Bend it like Bikram about one obese Indian uncle’s quest for the perfect downward facing dog, inspired by Hemalayaa. He is constantly thwarted in his ambitions by a wife who makes the perfect chapatis drenched in ghee, a friend who just wants to drink Johnny Walker and play bridge, and a son who wishes his dad wouldn’t embarrass him so by trying to be “cool” and “with it”, wearing jeans so small that it looks like he was poured into them. The movie closes with the uncle experiencing perfect success with the pose for a full 20 seconds, the blood rushing to his head, and the resulting hallucinations producing visions of his abiding motivating force so intense, he believes they are real.
I don’t know if someone’s already raised this, but if the constitution calls for separation of church and state, what’s a priest (of whatever religion) doing in the Senate, of all places, offering prayers? 🙂
I don’t know what the fuss is about three people shouting from the Gallery. Indian readers can remember that when Graham Staines who was ministering to lepers was burnt alive in his car with this 7&4 years old sons, the Hindu fundamentalist prime Minister Vajpayee called for a ‘debate on conversions’ as if freedom to choose one’s religion involved burning kids and their fathers.
Three people shouting in a gallery pales in comparison to the persecution suffered by christians in India.
http://www.compassdirect.org/content/index.php?id=25&choixlang=en&quelprix=&session=&PHPSESSID=7afb3077ca2d3af53e9484e61ae4c82e&&critere=india&rowcur=25&rowcur=0
If debates on conversions involves burnings as suggested by the ex-prime minister of India, I have a few suggestions for the Krishna-Freaks in the U.S. Of course,this is just an illustration to make my point.
That compassdirect stuff is nasty–don’t know what to say other than–shouldn’t be done–and–not the way my (Hindu) people should be acting–and,I think, not the way most are acting most of the time–makes me sad to see this…I feel a bit sick….
Rob,I apologize for pointing that out to you…I was shocked at the title of this post which seemed so hateful it took my breath away.It really seemed to trivialise the hate suffered by Christians today of being burnt alive,beaten,murdered in the priest’s home country.
dubliner, are you saying this behavior was acceptable because it was more civilized than the barbaric behavior of these Hindu fanatics in India? Or are you suggesting that this behavior was caused by these horrible incidents in India?
This is so bad–www.compassdirect.org–like the way Sikhs were treated here after 9-11, but going on every day, it seems–I’ve never seen this, but have only spent time with relatives in Delhi and thereabouts…. Can I do anything to help
Religious intolerance is as old as religion itself. The faithful will always be looking for an “Other” or “Unclean” or “Abomination” to condemn and persecute, to emphasize the “purity” of the “True Believers”.
Such as, for instance, in The Salem Witch Trials…
Rahul:dubliner, are you saying this behavior was acceptable because it was more civilized than the barbaric behavior of these Hindu fanatics in India? Or are you suggesting that this behavior was caused by these horrible incidents in India?
The point I was making was some (not all)Indian Christians in India are facing a real threat to their lives and often beaten up without any justice from the administration.What I was trying to point out was the hypocricy of the Zed guy coming from India to preach to the Americans about tolerance when Hindus in America are not losing their lives and property because of their faith.While it is true some Sikhs were attacked after 9/11 being mistaken for terrorists,but that was because of Xenophobia. In India, it was Indians being killed/attacked by other Indians because of their faith and not xenophobia.
Ok.
The title of the post also seems to indicate that while (frequent) violence against christians because of their faith in Zed’s home country was not a big deal, American Christians are not allowed to use the principles of ‘free speech’ to express their views.You have to note that these guys were not advocating violence or threatening Zed. Not that I condone what these 3 guys did,they would have been better of expressing their views to God through prayer if they felt that what had occured was wrong.
So dubliner, what is your point? You have a problem that the priest is from India?? So are you ok if a Hindu priest who is an American citizen talks about peace and tolerance. So because there is religious violence in India, American Hindus should not complain about this kind of behaviour directed towards them ?
This is making world news this morning–Al Jazeera, the Guardian, etc. — and in a way, the disgusting event at least awakens people, including many Indians, who think that Christian western societies have transcended religious bigotry. Those who grew up in the west regularly subjected to the taunts, insults, marginalization and occasional physical violence (the dotbusters, for example, and many temple desecrations) know otherwise, of course.
wait, so because he’s brown and has the temerity to put kumkum and vibuth on his forehead, he’s automatically a recently arrived emigre from India? I believe he was sponsored by Reid, because he’s from freakin’ NEVADA! Play into the nativist meme all you want Dubliner, by insinuating that Zed could go back to ‘his country’ and oppress the hapless Christians over there by muttering totally innocuous prayers, but the fact remains that he’s a resident of NV and that is most definitely an American state.
not bordering on AP, UP or TN, if you get my drift.
and dubliner, where’s your sympathy for tribal groups, dalits (who get booted medium-style, no matter what religion to which they convert en masse) and baby girls in India? Surely they have a greater documented history of oppression and abuse at the hands of others than the episodes involving Christians and Christian missionaries–incidents which, if you examine, happened mostly in rural areas where a number of other terrible things go on all the time?
If Hindu missionaries suddenly started sprouting up in the Appalachians, and every other impoverished community in America, and suddenly started building Temples and ‘seeding’ Hindu texts in every forested nook and cranny, there would most definitely be an uninformed, xenophobic, and possibly violent backlash against them. It’s what poor, desperate people do when they are confronted with an idea, or organization, that seems to threaten the status quo.
Oh, wait! I thought Christians WANTED religion in government and public spaces.
Oh, wait! I thought Christians passionately EMPHASIZED that other religions wouldn’t find it offensive for people of all beliefs to see one particular religion publicly displayed at any given time.
Silly me. All this time, they meant only the CHRISTIAN religion and CHRISTIAN beliefs.
Thanks, tolerant Christians!
“What I was trying to point out was the hypocricy of the Zed guy coming from India to preach to the Americans about tolerance when Hindus in America are not losing their lives and property because of their faith.”
dubliner, hindus, buddhists and tribals in the northeast of india have also been victims of bodily (and mental) violence for refusing to give up their faith despite christian pressure, threats and violence in that region. christianity, despite its great efforts and martyr act over the years, hasn’t got the sole rights to cry persecution and being the victim. does that make zed less hypocritical? and someone saying conversions should be discussed – especially the manner in which they are promoted, because they are a source of great social tension in india, does not equate to condoning the barbaric act of burning someone in a car. the former is an example of the free speech you say the protestors were indulging in, whereas the latter is violence.
and how do you know that no Hindu in America has ever lost their life or property because of their faith?
I sent this to Operation Save America, to their e-mail address soliciting help from people who want to take action on the streets.
To: streets@operationsaveamerica.org Subject: I’d like to help Dear Operation Save America,
I’d like to help our beloved United States of America recover from the tremendous injury it has sustained due to the actions of extremists who don’t understand what has made this country great.
Specifically, I am referring to the actions of your organization and all other poisons like it.
“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” ~Luke 6:37~
I’d like to save America too, but I think you all are going about it the wrong way. Have you read your religious text? I have, and I have learned a great deal from it. Please let me know how I can be of help – it sounds like you could use it.
P.S. You are forgiven for your organization’s irreverent actions in the Senate today.
”where’s your sympathy for tribal groups, dalits (who get booted medium-style, no matter what religion to which they convert en masse) and baby girls in India? Surely they have a greater documented history of oppression and abuse at the hands of others than the episodes involving Christians and Christian missionaries–incidents which, if you examine, happened mostly in rural areas where a number of other terrible things go on all the time”…Sorry If I am not able to take this claim seriously…While Indian Christian missionaries are the very people who have devoted their entire lives to tribals giving them education,health care, upper caste hindus because of fears that the dalits/tribals were not going to be their slaves anymore are attacking them because they are teaching the dalits and tribals to stand up for themselves.The BJp/Sena’s main problem is that these tribals are actually demanding fair wages,treatment instead of being enslaved due to their caste status.This change is dynamics is sending Sena types suddenly to take an interest in dalits for ‘ghar vaapasi’ etc. I am also a bit amused at the intolerance of the writer who calls them ‘christian fools’…Tolerance is a two way street.If you have a right to call them ‘Christian fools’, they have a right to call you ‘pagans’. Another hypocricy I note on this blog is that when American foriegn policy is concerned, America is a christian nation interfering in Muslim/Hindu lands…but when it comes to ‘prayer’,importance of all faiths,gay marriage, America miraculously turns into a secular nation…of course America is a secular capitalistic nation with a free market of Ideas.Well, Im off for a while! Tschuss everyone!
Freedom of religion, the Puritans’ heroic transatlantic crossing and landing at Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving and all that is indeed a vital American myth, and like all myths it contains a certain amount of fact and a certain amount of moonshine. The Puritans wanted the Church of England to conform entirely to their view of what the Protestant Reformation should be. Once they won the English Civil War twenty years after the 1620 hegira to New England and were in control of things back home they managed to force that issue till England got sick of them and invited both the king and episcopalianism back. The Puritans didn’t have that reaction to contend with in the Massachusetts Bay colony and they ran their own show for the better part of a century, where they were free not only to practise their preferred form of Anglicanism (for that is how they thought of it) but brutally to persecute whose views were other than their own. It would not have been fun to be a Quaker in Puritan New England.
But the myth took root, as witness President Reagan’s entirely ahistoric reading of John Winthrop’s famous “City on a Hill� sermon. But when the Reverend Mr Winthrop told the Puritan colonists that they were a City on a Hill he wasn’t telling them that their accomplishment of religious freedom made them the cynosure of the world; he was telling them that they were under the scrutiny of the world and that they must behave themselves so as not to bring the Puritan mandate into disrepute. One wonders just how the congregation in the pews at President Reagan’s funeral at the Episcopal cathedral in Washington DC can have heard the City on a Hill sermon otherwise when Madam Justice Sandra Day O’Connor read from the actual text rather than from President Reagan’s gloss on it.
Actually, the evangelical Protestant yahoos in the Senate gallery were in an ancient American tradition in their intolerance of a Hindu priest reading the opening prayers. One is somewhat tempted to wonder if their outrage (and outrageous behaviour), though, was precisely occasioned by the fact that the priest was a Hindu: do they get quite that exercised when the cleric reading such prayers is Jewish or Unitarian but fair-skinned and blue-eyed? Obviously not. Would they have been less outraged if he had been a Malankara or Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Christian priest of Indian provenance?
“Every day in class we are forced to say that the US is “under God”. On all US currency notes the phrase “In God we trust” is written”
I don’t know if anyone else has pointed out that “one nation under God” was added to the secular Pledge during Eisenhower’s administration. Prior to about 1950, this phrase was not in the pledge of allegiance. Probably had something to do with emphasizing America as the antithesis of communist, atheist Russia.
this argument is neither here nor there, because as far as we know, it was not zed himself who has shown intolerance against christians (either here or in india) so how can there be hypocrisy on his part? to attribute the actions of other hindus in india to him is to attribute the actions of those three fanatics (and others committing actual crimes) to all christians in america, something which i am sure you will not concede. and as some pointed out, he wasn’t ‘coming from’ india to preach about tolerance – from what has been written, it seems that he has been well-settled in the states and was using a prayer that was relevant to the political milieu in this country, and not anywhere else.
Freedom of religion, the Puritans’ heroic transatlantic crossing and landing at Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving and all that is indeed a vital American myth, and like all myths it contains a certain amount of fact and a certain amount of moonshine. The Puritans wanted the Church of England to conform entirely to their view of what the Protestant Reformation should be. Once they won the English Civil War twenty years after the 1620 hegira to New England and were in control of things back home they managed to force that issue till England got sick of them and invited both the king and episcopalianism back. The Puritans didn’t have that reaction to contend with in the Massachusetts Bay colony and they ran their own show for the better part of a century, where they were free not only to practise their preferred form of Anglicanism (for that is how they thought of it) but brutally to persecute whose views were other than their own. It would not have been fun to be a Quaker in Puritan New England.
But the myth took root, as witness President Reagan’s entirely ahistoric reading of John Winthrop’s famous “City on a Hill” sermon. But when the Reverend Mr Winthrop told the Puritan colonists that they were a City on a Hill he wasn’t telling them that their accomplishment of religious freedom for themselves made them the cynosure of the world; he was telling them that they were under the scrutiny of the world and that they must behave themselves so as not to bring the Puritan mandate into disrepute. One wonders just how the congregation in the pews at President Reagan’s funeral at the Episcopal cathedral in Washington DC can have heard the City on a Hill sermon otherwise when Madam Justice Sandra Day O’Connor read from the actual text rather than from President Reagan’s gloss on it.
Actually, the evangelical Protestant yahoos in the Senate gallery were in an ancient American tradition in their intolerance of a Hindu priest reading the opening prayers. One is somewhat tempted to wonder if their outrage (and outrageous behaviour), though, was precisely occasioned by the fact that the priest was a Hindu: do they get quite that exercised when the cleric reading such prayers is Jewish or Unitarian but fair-skinned and blue-eyed? Obviously not. Would they have been less outraged if he had been a Malankara or Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Christian priest of Indian provenance?
Dear Anna, while I am glad that you blogged this, your view of the first “Americans” seems a bit romanticized and out of touch with history. The Puritans may have left to practice their faith in freedom in the new world, but they left England because their faith was so fanatical that it allowed no space for the moderate versions already in place. Remember Cromwell? Remember the restoration that not only brought monarchy back but also music, drama, poetry that had been suppressed for the duration of the Roundheads reign? And the Puritans were definitely not tolerant of any other’s faith once they did arrive in America. The three “patriots and Christians” are unfortunately the true heirs of those firsts “Americans” – and not all liberal sugarcoating of history shall change that. In sorrow….
As an Indian-American liberal evangelical Christian (yes, all five), I’d like to say that this whole situation outrages me. I echo Anna’s sentiments but would like to add that the ignorant fundamentalism and weak-minded, intellectually insolvent, and markedly un-Christian Christianity that we see in public Christianity (i.e. in the Senate) is not all there is to evangelical Christianity.
There is often a temptation when old white men do something or say something stupid about Jesus to start crying foul of “evangelical Christian yahoos” and “stupid evangelicals” and such. I believe that this is more fundamentally an issue of yahoos as opposed to evangelical Christians. The term “evangelical” describes nothing about the Christian except that he/she believes in sharing his/her faith that Jesus gives water and sight and life to those in need. I just want to remind everyone here that your qualm here is not with evangelical Christianity; it is with assholes.
I worry that this discussion is going to turn into bashing the notion of evangelism or claims to absolute truth (maybe it already has; I took a break from reading the comments around/after #50), but I just wanted to preempt that by emphasizing again: We all dislike jerks, especially ones who are jerks about God, who can kind of be a touchy subject sometimes. But making claims to absolute truth is not antithetical to tolerance; see the excerpt from a Washington Post article a couple of years ago that I have pasted at the end of this post.
Anyway, I once again don’t think this is a matter of these people being Christians or anything qualitative about Christianity, evangelism, or evangelical Christianity; this is a matter of these people being stupid.
(from the Washington Post, 4/6/04, by EJ Dionne)
But the Jesuit theologian David Hollenbach puts an interesting twist on that adaptation. Religious liberty, he argues, must be rooted not merely in “tolerance” but in what he calls “intellectual solidarity.”
Tolerance, he notes, is “a strategy of noninterference with the beliefs and lifestyles of those who are different or ‘other.’ ” That is the classic Enlightenment view. Intellectual solidarity demands more, he says. It “entails engagement with the other . . . in the hope that understanding might replace incomprehension and that perhaps even agreement could result.”
Those who subscribe to various faiths — and to none — agree to put their own understanding of things at risk, “to listen as well as to speak, to learn from what they hear, and, if necessary, to change as a result of what they have learned.”
Those who believe they possess truth should not fear entering what Hollenbach calls “a community of freedom.” Doing so is not a sign of intellectual fuzziness or a lack of faith. On the contrary, it means embracing the very “strictness of thought” that Wieseltier rightly demands of believers. It is only in dialogue with others that our faith is tested, our ideas made explicit, our errors corrected.
Conflating religion and nation. Blech.
Deifying nation in sanctimonious terms like the “American way” and “un-American”. Double blech. Not only is it doubly troubling, it raises both practical and philosophical questions about the wisdom of attaching ethical principles to nationalism. We can all imagine instances of ethical justifications for abhorrent or benevolent gov’t policies but weaving ethics into national identity so intricately as to establish a way of life that is unique to a nation is specious to say the least.
Put another way, the rabble-rousers were un-Christian and/or un-American if you ignore Christian and/or American history and your inspiration for Christian/American values is only sourced from a common narrative or mythology for both identities. When a person does good, are they really acting upon uniquely Christian or American values or are they just doing good? Similarly, when a person acts abhorrently- why is it suddenly un-Christian or un-American rather than inhumane? By the way, I haven’t come to any conclusions about the questions I raise or points I make; I’m still working this all out.
dubliner, you mean because zed was actively encouraging or participating in the violence in India, as a universally acknowledged Hindu head? Sort of like how the Pope takes every opportunity to condemn the behavior of the church during the Holocaust, or the genocide in Rwanda, when he talks about the oppression of Catholics? What? Lowblow, you say?
Your argument is not only specious, it also shows the extreme christian flavored lens through which you view any sort of oppression. I also find it scary that you express the thought that this kind of intimidation is acceptable, because hey, they are not being killed or their property is not being grabbed from them.
Have you also considered that it is possible to be outraged at the intolerance demonstrated by these protesters, without condoning the behavior in India. In fact, many commenters, including me, have expressed the same even on this thread.
Did you actually read the post where A N N A expresses her deep sorrow that a religion she practices is displaying these kinds of sentiments in a western country with supposedly enlightened values? Or were your eyes and brain already too clouded by your pious outrage?
You guys really need to get it together, and become more consistent in your complaints. I am sure it takes up a lot of time and energy to read through each post, and figure out exactly why you should be offended by it. Here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you all go away for a couple of days, talk amongst yourself, and come up with a list of bigotries A N N A displays? The list can be converted into a set of tags (akin to the Religion, Identity, Humor etc.) so that no time is wasted in parsing the exact biases of the relevant post. By that time, I’m sure she would also have put up a few more posts to feed your outrage.
There is one catch though (isn’t there always, just like in those religious parables?), the list has to be consistent. Let me break it down for you: 1. A N N A cannot simultaneously be queen of Christians, and intolerant towards Christians. You will need to pick one. 2. The blogger cannot be an elitist American who condemns everything in India, and simultaneously also be a hypocritical America hater. We are at war. Pick a side.
Anyways, happy trails and I am sure SM looks forward to your constructive feedback!
NvM, any opinions on my movie #254? How will it play in Europe? And do you have any suggestions for a role for Kiera Knightley? (maybe Hemalayaa?)
Reena in #224 wrote: “In the US, only trailer park trash actually take the “Bible” seriously. For example, the “born-again” imbeciles in Ohio who gave Bush the last election.”
Um, no…..scary as it is….there are many, many folks that consider themselves, quite proudly, christian fundamentalists. They are from every imaginable walk of life….and lots of them are quite wealthy. This is what scares we “non-christian” americans so much….. This movement seized the white house 7 years ago…..with the clear intention of undoing the progress of the last 40 years and setting america back in time morally and religiously. The conservative movement in america…which used to be the domain of the elderly and ignorant, is now the political home of our college students….the ones we’ve counted on in previous years to be annoyed with the system and protest of fairness and equality now lap up GOP dogma from FOX news and simply vote for whomever daddy voted for…. This is all eclipsed by the fact that americans are classically very lackluster voters….we just do not seem to care about our own say in our own country…and that is a VERY dangerous place for the most powerful world power to be in.
i haven’t read through all the comments, but what’s happened to the key componenent of our Constitution, separation of Churc and State???
To #278: “When a person does good, are they really acting upon uniquely Christian or American values or are they just doing good? Similarly, when a person acts abhorrently- why is it suddenly un-Christian or un-American rather than inhumane?”
I think the “goal” of the American Christian Fundamentalist movement is to make humane / inhumane and American / un-american one and the same……Much like out mommy country, we seek to “make the world america” by redefining everything in our terms via the media and other outlets…. We’ve been doing this sort of thing to ourselves for decades…just look at radio…lots of terrible music, but everyone buys it, as it is all they ever hear and they are constantly told how great it is…..
Dollars over truth….the american way! lol
Please read through the comments, this issue was discussed earlier. Sorry about littering the earlier comments with my ramblings 🙁
Rahul, I likes. Very Red Snapper-esque.
I got sick to the stomach after reading 1 page of these comments…
Damn that Red Snapper! Now not only am I derivative, I’m also imitative.
Every religion I’ve been exposed to does this.
And in India you will find alot of, “that behaviour is not Indian”, or “you act like an Indian girl” (meant as a compliment to a woman of any nationality who acts demure or whatever). Or, “you must’ve been an Indian in your last life”, another statement meant as a compliment for the same above any nationality person who acts in a way that particular statement maker deemed “good behavior” , etc.
“That’s not the Indian way”, etc. There are so many examples.
I apologize. I am a Christian (Not an american) and i apologize.
No excuse period.
Lawd – how did I misst this discussion!
I’m also a Christian and I have to confess that this is shameful behaviour on the part of these people in the gallery – there is nothing else that can be said!
the harsh thing, is that (i bet) most of america would agree with the protestors…
guys I know this sounds too conspiracy theoreric, but hear me out. How many letters in the word Rahul? and how many in the word Sepia? I’d offer more evidence but I trust it won’t be necessary: Rahul is the SM blog become sentient. We all thought it would be Skynet, but turned out to be a southasian blog.
Son, go forth to the brownz and spread my Word.
“Please read through the comments, this issue was discussed earlier. Sorry about littering the earlier comments with my ramblings ” sorry. my bad. but somethings you can’t really say too often. Just takes up too much thread space.
http://www.00100.dk/otoons/lectures/osho_mp3_lectures.htm Imagine how outraged these guys would have been if superperv Rajneesh came back from the dead and delivered the “fuck” lecture.
Don’t forget, the Portugese and British didn’t exactly enter India peacefully. What goes around comes around.
The fact that a Hindu guy can do this in the US Senate of all places shows that Christianity is dead in America. Which is actually a good thing. The historical trend has been that as living standards increased in the West, the percentage of actively practicing Christians declined. For example, compare Western Europe to Poland. Ironically, Christianity is experiencing its highest growth rate in the developing world, which is a bothersome trend. It’ll just create new class divisions, etc. Not to mention a whole new generation of simplistic minded fools. On the other hand, fundamentalist Hinduism doesn’t help either. You need something logical to keep both forces in check, which would be a secular educational system.
Puliogre in da USA said:
While I think there would be a large faction that would indeed agree with the protest, I think the majority of Americans would condemn it.
I worry about the way in which this situation will look to the international community. Let’s face it, the U.S. is one of the most unpopular nations in the world in the world’s eyes, and bigotry like this by three buffoons is going to do a lot of pr damage in my opinon.
good point by lynn. i’m also glad to see he didn’t argue that such morning prayers violate the establishment clause,
I think they do and should be ruled unconstitutional. Not that its ever going to happen but I can certainly dream about it.
I think morning prayers, god on currency, the pledge of allegence are all clearly unconstitutional. but, then again, so is the suspension of habeus corpus. but, that doesnt stop anything…
so is the suspension of habeus corpus
What are you a terrorist lover? Or worse, a Muslim? As Manju would say, we need to keep the habeus corpus suspended for terrorists untill they allow Jews in Mecca.