Bush's budget is anti-Christian

[realFedUp]

Someone well versed in Jesus's teachings should
write an essay about why what Bush is doing is
so anti-Christian...

The budget cuts are on the backs of women, children
and the poor. The Social Security program is a Godly
program now, a social contract between generations to
support those who are widowed, disabled, retired...
to live more humane lives.

[atreides1]

1. Pardon Me

But what you are saying is the old Christianity, the new Right Wing
Christianity says that if you are poor, then you are being punished
by God, for some transgression.

Didn't you get the memo from Reverend Falwell?

[chicagojoe]

3. "If you're rich you deserve it, and if you're poor you deserve it".

[realFedUp]

4. I guess that's why we have the need for titles:Progressive Christians and

Repressive Christians. Pre-BC (Bush Coup) and Post-BC

[liberal N proud]

2. It is not very compassionate either

[realFedUp]

5. I think the only compassion has been towards corporations..n/t

[liberal N proud]

6. And this budget doesn't change that

[Az]

7. The problem

Here is why so many Christians are turned away from Dems and the left even though our agenda seems to be the same.

Yes a Christian should be compassionate and giving. But there is no need for a government to enable them to perform their acts of charity. The problem with using the government to perform acts of charity is that it has to go through the filter of the government. This means they cannot exclude those they deem undeserving. They cannot evangelize while they perform their charity. To their eyes the government is very restrictive of their good works.

The thing is that the religious right has given up on the social contract. The society no longer fits their desires so they see no reason to support the structures of the government. Thus their goal is to dismantle any resistance to their vision of how society should be.

[realFedUp]

10. I think our leaders saying that this budget is anti-Christian

is worth the discussion of what our real
moral values are.

[Az]

11. Er... our leader?

I sure hope you don't mean the Chimperor.

As to discussing values. I am always up for that. Don't need Incurious George's horrendous notion of a budget to get me started on a topic of that nature.

[realFedUp]

16. no, our progressive leaders.

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. You are very mistaken.

Christ told us that when we give alms, we must not let our left hand see what our right hand is doing. The less of "self" that is involved in giving alms, the more meritorious it is God's eyes. The Pharisees who patted themselves on the back for paying tithes of all they had - in Christ's own words - already had their reward. Who are you to stipulate on what they should spend the alms you deign to give them on. It was great to read that some actor, when giving money to a homeless man, told him to make sure he spent it on something irresponsible!

Both Old and New Testaments make it very clear that those who are poor in this world's goods are the ones who are rich in faith, the most endemically spiritual; the rich, on the other hand, are those who risk perdition, because of their inability to place the service of God and their fellows, before the service of Mammon.

For such reasons as these, now that taxes don't simply go to despotic rulers to spend on frivolous personal indulgences (well, normally, anyway...), income tax is one of the greatest of all modern day benefits open to Christians. It is a communal pooling to provide infrastructure, material (all kinds of amenities and facilities for everyone's use), and social (in most modern societies, health care and social security - not insecurity), which would otherwise remain unaffordable, even to the rich. But then the rich don't mind pooling some of their money for road building and maintenance, do they? They don't even mind us paying for it... How about that!

Such personal merits as ensue from our acts of charity are pretty notional, since what we have is only lent to us, and when we give to the poor we are only returning to them what rightly belongs to them. Many saints and popes have reiterated this. Why? Because God made the good things of this world for all his children, not just the most worldly, the most materialistic, the most pushy.

"Where your treasure is, there your heart is". When you set foot in a trailer park or any ghetto of poverty and deprivation, where people are continually engaged in "life or death" struggles, the most basic struggles for survival, you are likely to be treading on holy ground. The holiest ground our Pharisee neocons are ever likely to set foot in, anyway. Angels walk there, angels in human form, looked down on as trailer trash - just like the Holy Family was, no doubt.

[Az]

14. You are mistaken

In assuming that these are my views. I am expressing what I believe to be the means that the religious right has been alienated by government. I believe they have been duped. I believe that they and their beliefs have been hijacked by those willing to play them for patsies.

I agree fully that our government represents the best way for We The People to pool our efforts to make this a better world for all. The right would dupe us and try to convince us that such a pooling of our efforts is inefficient and wasteful. Meanwhile MallWart benefits from its tremendous buying power and is able to leverage its dominance to lower its costs. Why should We The People not be able to apply such economics of scale to our advantage?

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. I'm very sorry

for misunderstanding you, Az.

[realFedUp]

8. Wayne Madsen's article on rightwing Christian groups

good one.


http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. There is such an

embarrassment of riches, it would be easier to watch out (on autodrive) for the occurrence of a pro-Christian policy that Bush *has* introduced. A challenge, fated to fail, of course, but the task of pointing out the anti-Christian basis of all his policies, elucidating them with scriptural texts, while, simple, would be so exhausting as to seem never-ending. Far easier for everyone to think of the reverse of each one, and simply match it against natural justice.

[Extend a Hand]

12. essays on anti-Christian religion of the "religious right"

I think the following essays by Katherine Yurica are right on the mark.

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm
http://www.yuricareport.com/Art%20Essays/The%20New%20Messiahs%20Excerpts.htm

[realFedUp]

17. Welcome to DU sad_one

hope this site makes you happier :-)

What do you know about Katherine Yurica
other than her schooling? Is she a good
speaker about rightwing Christian groups?

[Extend a Hand]

18. Thank you for the welcome

I have never heard her speak, I ran across a link to her website on http://www.smirkingchimp.com. I was impressed with her essays and meticulous research.

the "About us" link on here web site has some info
and I think she said in one of her essays that she was raised as a Pentecostal(sp?). But I will have to go back and check-- when I found her site, I spent several hours reading.

Out on the web she seems to be decried as "rabidly anti-bush" or praised as "the leading scholar on the Dominionist movement"

about me:
I am sad because I am afraid that it might be too late for any political action to be effective...rational discourse does not seem possible with those on the far right. They do not seem to be interested in compromise on any issue. And they seem to think that cheating, lying, and slander are perfectly acceptable if it furthers their cause. I can't decide if the religious fundamentalists are being used by an evil power hungry neo-con cabal or vice-versa-- either way it doesn't bode well for the country.

At least we can still get "real news" and find like-minded people on the internet-- I was beginning to think that I was the only one that was *really* worried. Thanks again for the welcome.

[realFedUp]

19. Rt. Rev. Bishop Griswald addresses budgets

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x9518