General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Rude Pundit - Imagine a Slightly Different Announcement from Ted Cruz
Imagine an American Muslim man stands in front of an audience of 10,000 Muslims at a college in Virginia to announce that he's running for president. Imagine that audience applauds and cheers for much of what he says.
Imagine that Muslim presidential candidate starts his announcement with "I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Muslim university in the world." And then he continues by telling his family story as a tale of devotion to Islam, saying of his parents, "Imagine a young married couple, living together in the 1970s, neither one of them has a personal relationship with Allah." Imagine that he goes on to describe his parents' separation and his father's journey: " W)hen he was in Houston, a friend, a colleague from the oil and gas business invited him to a Qu'ran study, invited him to a mosque on Clay Road, and there my father gave his life to Allah, blessed be his name." Imagine that the candidate concludes his parents' story with "There are people who wonder if faith is real. I can tell you, in my family theres not a second of doubt, because were it not for the transformative love of Allah, I would not have been saved and I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the household."
Imagine if that Muslim man proclaims that all of our rights come from Allah. Imagine that he promises "a president who says We will stand up and defeat radical Christian terrorism." Imagine him declaring that "America has enjoyed Allah's blessing" and "Allahs blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe Allah isnt done with America yet" and ending with "Allah be praised." Imagine those thousands and thousands of gathered Muslims yelling their appreciation of the candidate.
That candidate would be laughed out of the election. That candidate wouldn't stand a flea fart's chance in a hurricane. We would be talking about whether he's a threat to the American way of life and whether he would impose Shariah law. But not Ted Cruz. We have to pretend to take him seriously because he's a Christian and just told the world that this is a Christian nation. We have to waste time and energy mocking this idiot, this future loser who sounds like a fifth-grade schoolmarm chiding her students for writing their cursive improperly.
But if you are a Christian devotee of Ted Cruz's and you read this, feeling even the slightest bit uncomfortable at the notion of the fantasy Muslim candidate, well, now you know how the rest of us feel about your man.
(Actually, you're probably thinking that we already have an evil Muslim president, so who cares about you.)
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2015/03/imagine-slightly-different-announcement.html
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)corkhead
(6,119 posts)That's all I needed to hear
world wide wally
(21,758 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)their children and yet Cruz's dad is allowed to tell his son that he is God's chosen?
leftieNanner
(15,187 posts)into the place of honor in that white horse End Times Prophesy thing?
olddots
(10,237 posts)I think its the Rude Pundit .
we seem to be devolving at the speed of dumbth .
rurallib
(62,471 posts)in someone else's moccasins.
the candidates of god scare me to the root.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)always lead straight to disaster. "Nothing is so terrible as ignorance in action." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)LittleGirl
(8,292 posts)The Rude Pundit hits it out of the park for me.
Because even though I have seen and heard the Far Right Christians prayers, the thought makes me shudder. Those people are in a cult just like the Christians (soldiers). They scare me and they should scare you too.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)I copied and am posting on my Facebook.
vlyons
(10,252 posts)barf barf barf and ewwwww. Some of the most ignorant, intolerant, judgemental, self-righteous A-holes in the world. Their brand of religion is a CULT. There I said it.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)!
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)N-G-O!
barbtries
(28,816 posts)pays attention to shit so i don't have to. what a treasure.
niyad
(113,701 posts)Cha
(297,888 posts)can't imagine that Christ would condone the lying sociopath/AKA/tedster cruz.
"Ted Cruzs Biggest Liability Is Probably His Constant Lying"
snip//
"..If Cruz is different, however, its because of how boldly he claims things that arent even remotely true."
babylonsistah http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026403954#top
".. His blatant acts of malfeasance including lying with no remorse, reciting childrens poetry, and shutting down government as part of a plan to get his way are not only petty, but precarious and selfish, albeit inventive."
freshwest http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1107&pid=2473
mahalo meeg
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)He is Christian. Period. Being a bad person doesn't make him not a Christian. If you're going to define him as "Christian", than the Pope is "Christian", because I don't think Jesus would have approved of his hypocrisy, homophobia, etc. And if the Pope isn't Christian by your standard, then I think it's a pretty baseless standard.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman
The No True Scotsman fallacy can also run the other way when it comes to extremism. Extremists will make a religious statement and when someone points out that there are many believers who don't believe the extremist's viewpoint, the moderates are deemed to be not true believers (ie: Christians who support gay marriage are not "real Christians" or Muslims who support women's rights are not "real Muslims" . Modern pagans do it all the time, perhaps even more than other religions, due to the fact that there is no agreed-on orthodoxy for the whole group, with some well-established practices in one setting being considered unpalatable in others. Silver Ravenwolf, one of the best selling "leaders" of neopagans, has done this with multiple ancient, well-established practices.
It's a tricky business, as being a member of a religious group, to the minds of those involved, encompasses adhering to a certain standard of behavior. For example, charity can certainly be called an essentially Christian ethic, considering the emphasis that Jesus placed on it. The man himself would most definitely disavow the greedy and "What's mine is mine" mindset of many right-wingers who call themselves Christians. However, strictly speaking, a Christian is defined as "one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ"; there's no rule saying they have to do it right./div]
Cha
(297,888 posts)F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)calimary
(81,557 posts)(Actually, you're probably thinking that we already have an evil Muslim president, so who cares about you.)"
All I can say is - "What YOU said, Your Rudeness."
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Christians, and this goes vastly more for the fundamentalists, is that they don't really get that they are invariably part of a minority, and that the vast majority simply don't see as they do. Sometimes the differences are quite small, say as between two different mainstream Protestant sects, but sometimes they're vast.
And I as sincerely believe my own strange beliefs as they do theirs. The difference between us is that I don't find it at all important to convince anyone else to believe as I do, or that something terrible will happen to them in this or the after life if they don't believe as I do.
Plus, and far more to the point, I am completely bothered by any religion that even remotely suggests a person shouldn't think independently, shouldn't seek out knowledge, explore, figure out lots of things on their own. Too many religions say: Trust us. We know what's best. Just do what we say and don't ever, ever, think for yourself.