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Florida Family Council-Only Christianity Could Create or Save America
By: Hrafnkell HaraldssonAug. 28th, 2012more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council says only Christianity could have produced the American experience and only Christianity can save it.
Yet we keep getting told that we should stop attacking Republicans for their…um…intellectual deficiencies, but look, they shouldn’t get a get out of jail free card to say any crazy thing they want and still get treated with respect. It’s bad enough that with few exceptions the mainstream media refuses to even mention the absolutely insane things they say.
No, UN armored personnel carriers are not going to be rolling down the streets of Lubbock, Texas if Obama wins, whatever County Judge Tom Head might claim. And no, Obama is not going to take white folks’ guns away and give them to black folks. I mean, you can’t say this stuff with impunity. There are consequences.
The consequences include us being able to talk about how completely insane the Republican Party has become. I’d say it’s almost as though they’ve kicked out all the sane Republicans and launched open enrollment of people who belong in mental institutions, but that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party’s chairman, was right to question Head’s “mental competency to hold elected office.” There should be a whole lot more such questioning going on and the American people should place a firm moratorium on crazy talk on Election Day 2012.
The Tea Party proved two things to me: racism is a much bigger problem in this country than I had realized; and that it was no fluke the Nazi Party crowned whack-jobs as the new intellectuals. People with actual working brains were not welcome in the Third Reich, and that should be a lesson to Americans. If you can do your sums, the Republican Party does not want you. And it certainly doesn’t want you to vote.
They’re all gathering for the Republican National Convention in Tampa to get behind a candidate none of them really like and who shakes an Etch A Sketch before every public appearance to determine what he’s going to say.
And they want us to vote for him. Not because they think he’s a stand-up guy but because they hate Obama so much. Hate him with a purple passion. He’s black, he’s middle class, he’s a Christian moderate – everything a fundamentalist Republican hates.
Stemberger whined about “virtuous conservatives” being called hate mongers when they hate on folks. Look, we’re not going to call what’s going on the Summer of Love Part Deux, Jack. It ain’t gonna happen. If you’re going to hate, we’re going to call you on it.
If you don’t want to be called a hate monger, stop mongering hate. Seems very simple from where I’m standing. We tried explaining this to whiners like Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins and I’m perfectly willing to explain it to you: No free passes.
Here’s Stemberger’s insane rant, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Our culture is in a free fall. Things that were unthinkable just a generation ago are not only thinkable they’re being promoted as virtuous and if you don’t buy into it they act as if you’re a hate monger or something. its unbelievable. Our country needs God. Our country needs us. There is no other religion on the face of the earth that could have produced the American experience other than Christianity. That’s not my opinion. That’s actually a fact.
How about consent of the governed, this notion that we vote? Do you think that’s going to come from Islam? What about the concept of inalienable rights from god. Buddhism doesn’t even have a god; it’s a nontheistic religion. What about all men created equal. From Hinduism? Where there’s a caste system? No, these ideas come distinctly from the old and new testament. What about the separation of powers. What’s the assumption there? That man is basically good and is going to evolve and become better and better? No, the old Testament says what, the heart of man is desperately wicked and yea who can know it? That understanding of power and separation power and protection power from being too strong comes from the Old Testament. Ladies and gentleman, no religion on earth could have created the American experience except for Christianity and no religion can save it except for Christians.
WRONG! Thanks for playing, Mr. Stemberger, but you lose. You do not get to simply make up your own facts to suit your hate mongering platform:
By all the gods, you want us to talk you seriously?
As a member of a non-Christian religion under attack by bigots like you, I’m just going to come out and say it: you’re a hatemonger. And you’re crazy. You’re also likely intellectually deficient but I’ll withhold judgement till I see your tests. I’d hate to attack the congenitally stupid.
The United States of America, it’s Declaration of Independence and it’s Constitution, are unthinkable without the European Enlightenment which pushed back the darkness of Church-spawned superstition. Your God is in neither document, nor is your Bible nor your Savior. Nor are your Ten Commandments.
The idea that only Christians can save a country founded as the first modern liberal democracy, based on principles of tolerance and diversity and pluralism, is one of the most absurd notions ever uttered. In point of fact, your religion, Mr. Stemberger, is incompatible with the basic precepts of the modern liberal democracy. Your religion cannot save America; it can only destroy it.
America does not need your God. America certainly doesn’t need your type of Christian, if that’s what you want to call yourself. America does need a sane and moderate Christianity, and it needs all those minority religions just as much as it needs people with no religion at all. It needs all of us because America is founded upon the idea of the many, on ideals not of exclusion but of inclusion. You remember that national motto your type hates so much: E Pluribus Unum (“Out of many, one”)?
That idea comes from a Pagan thinker so it’s no surprise you hate it so much. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived five centuries before Jesus, said (10th fragment), “The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.”
The “One” he speaks of is the creative force, but not your Christian God. A Pagan philosopher’s words embody the ideals of the Founding Fathers, not your Bible. This Pagan’s words were suggested by the committee appointed on July 4, 1776 – by Congress – to design “a seal for the United States of America.”
Heraclitus’ words were adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782, not the words of Jeremiah or some other Biblical figure.
And you can save us how? You’re not even on the same page as the rest of us. You’re so far out in right field you may not even be on the same planet, let alone the same country. You need to get with the fact that our nation’s founders were inspired by Pagan Greece and Rome, not Israel. You need to just deal with it and quit inventing “facts” to the contrary simply because reality is not congenial to your agenda.
Run along now. And try to behave. We’ll be watching you.
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SinghX
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 7:55 am
You know who else is “down there” giving speeches and interviews? I could not believe my ears when I heard a reporter from POTUS on XM talking to her…
Victoria Jackson!
I think she and this cretin Spermberger could “”hook up while prancing around the Teabagger Convention and make some beautiful babies!
(ewwwww…)
Thanks for looking into the vids at Right Wing Watch as the baggers are being somehow “over-looked” by the media…I wonder why? It’s part of the GOP base, isn’t it.
And, please, give us the “red meat” on David Barton’s rant on the 7th Amendment banning abortion…
fedded-up
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 8:17 am
One the best takedowns I’ve seen in many a long day. I also lost part of my breakfast because I was laughing so hard. THANK YOU!!
D. W. Skinner
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 8:25 am
The only Good republican is an UNELECTED one!
Shiva (Moderator)
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Unfortunately this gentleman does not understand that creating a country does not require a religion. The Middle East had country’s long before Islam came around. The idea of god given rights is absolutely hilarious. Especially when you consider that many places in England, Germany in the Netherlands had these rights long before we did. These people can pander on a godgiven us a country all they want, but how will they respond to the fact that god gave us a country they used the nuclear weapons and deep fried 125,000 people in one second?
AFM
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 9:08 am
All they seem to be showing is how unchristain they really are. The hate for Obama is so strong. I wonder what god really would think of the republican party?
Reynardine
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 9:30 am
And it appears Chris Christie has just told the convention they should quit trying to cater to women.
Kathy
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Know what? I heard women saying things about Hillary when she was running for the dem nomination – things like, “who does she think she is?”
I see that women who live lives subservient to men are either jealous or condescending of women who think for themselves. I.e. the comment “who does she think she is.”
Oftentimes, women are their own worst enemies.
SinghX
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
…he’s always been and uppity bitc*.
Colleen
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 9:34 am
America was not founded on Christianity but on FREEDOM of religion. Read the Constitution please. I do not want a bunch of Bible thumping wackos telling me how to live my life.
A Walkaway
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 10:06 am
I would add this comment – that the “founding Fathers” had an example and framework for democracy closer to home than ancient Greece… the Great Peace of the Iroquois, for instance. My own tribe had a codified system of laws and representative and democratic government LONG before the white man ever came to this continent… and I’d add that a lot of the tribes were monotheistic (in essence). In fact, the dominionists would have LOVED it, because in many of our cultures, women often had not only their vote, but held that of their unborn children (however, they’d also hate it because the women also often held the vote of their husbands and all of their children).
Democracy isn’t just a pagan European invention… it’s been known for a long time in other areas (parallel cultural evolution? – good ideas tend to be thought up and take off). Stories I’ve heard suggest that we’ve followed patterns similar to that for thousands of years, and the evidence is strong that the concept was solidly in place when Columbus “discovered” these continents.
GarColga
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Absolutely right. When the founding fathers were pondering “the course of human events” they had been neighbors of the Iroquois for 150 years. Our system of government is suspiciously similar to that of the Iroquois Confederation, especially when you remember that it was only in the early 20th century that Senators were elected by popular vote.
Rob Harrison
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 10:59 am
This is Bartonism (intellectual onanism) plain and simple. I wonder is this fool knows that his source was debunked and cut off by it’s own Christian publishing house?
robyn ryan
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Actually, the Biblical crime of Onan was that he refused to get his dead brother’s wife preggers.
That said, Mr. Head has just claimed Christianity is solely responsible for slavery.
Couldn’t have done it without them!!
harris stein
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
The current excuse for the republican party aka “tea party” is nothing but the shock troops and the vanguard of a totalitarian mass movement, masquerading as a popular uprising. The leadership of the republican party does nothing to tamp down the lies, misinformation, and propaganda coming from people like John Stemberger. The reality, once you read between the lines is much more sinister and in fact heralds the coming of The Fourth Reich.
Hannah Arendt in her magnum opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism, shows how racism and socioeconomic classism gives rise to mass movements controlled through modern communications media by an oligarchy. She also shows how totalitarianism is a product of modern society and must use propaganda disseminated through mass media. The pretzel logic here is that the ultra wealthy, through the republican party, using racism and reverse classism, has literally brainwashed poor, working class rural and urban whites into voting against their interests time and time again. By using fear of gun control and the godless society the ultra wealthy and their minions in the republican party have created a prison of the mind among these poor whites herding them into a virtual camp. All that remains now is to enslave the remainder of the population.
SinghX
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
“…By using fear…the ultra wealthy and their minions in the republican party have created a prison of the mind among these poor whites herding them into a virtual camp. All that remains now is to enslave the remainder of the population….”
I think this is a good example of what is in store:
thinkprogress.org/climate...
Indeed, force and intimidation by the wealthy will become a way of life if the GOP wins this election.
Jim Faubel
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Only Christianity could have given us the Inquisition and “the burning times”.
Debra Vermaas
Aug. 28th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
I wish we could sick George Carlin on this guy!
Peter L
Aug. 29th, 2012 at 12:39 am
“Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven…” US Constitution. Notice the word Lord is capitalized. It is a name and a title of Jesus. I pray you come to know and trust Him the way our founders did.
UncaJoe
Aug. 29th, 2012 at 1:15 am
It seems there were a lot of capitalized words, could it be that capitalization of nouns was commonplace in 1787…
Shiva (Moderator)
Aug. 29th, 2012 at 6:01 am
You dont seem to know anything about the founders. Year of our lord also comes from England and was a common place method of stating the date. Like AD
The founders were very intolerant of religions. Indeed Methodists were not allowed in the convention except for 1 man. Catholics were not tolerated at all. There is much to read about the times. Think about it