Focus on the Family

[rlrose328]

I, too, am concerned about his economics plan. But he is the lesser of the evils at this point.

Isn't voting for the lesser of two evils still voting for...evil? I mean, why can't we get the populist party and libertarian party popular again? While they don't have a snowballs chance in hell I do like the libertarian party and you might to.

Yes, you're right... but I plan to exercise my right to vote and I like Obama's stance on many of the issues, just not all.  

I will not stand another 4 years with a Republican in charge, much less one with Palin as his running mate. That woman is dangerous.

How is this different from the tone in Focus on the Family? They just came at it from a different angle.

In my mind, it is different because the items in the letter from Focus on the Family is filled with outlandish accusations based on nothing but conservative conjecture.  It is a fact that Palin is very charismatic and knows how to say the things that people want to hear, giving them the confidence to say and do things they normally wouldn't do, like thinly veiled violence displayed at her rallies.  

So I'll take a questionable economic plan at this point... at least that doesn't remove any of my civil rights.

Which civil right is in jeopardy?

She is against gay marriage and supports its ban at the federal and state level... though I'm a married heterosexual woman, this is a threat to MY civil rights as much as those of my homosexual fellow humans.  She would ban books that I have the right to read if I so choose... it's not her right as a government official to censor my reading material.

On top of all of that, she has been found guilty of having questionable ethics, a fact that the right conveniently forgets when pointing the finger at the other guy.

Again, plenty of fingerpointing has been going on the past month or so, on both sides.  But from what I've read, there are many more questionable "facts" from McCain and Palin than from Obama and Biden.

I'm an atheist American and while there is NO ONE who truly represents me in this campaign, Obama at least MENTIONED atheists in a few of his speeches.  I feel he is willing to TRY to represent me, while the right appears to believe my non-belief is not worthy of mention much less representation.

[Titan]

In my mind, it is different because the items in the letter from Focus on the Family is filled with outlandish accusations based on nothing but conservative conjecture. It is a fact that Palin is very charismatic and knows how to say the things that people want to hear, giving them the confidence to say and do things they normally wouldn't do, like thinly veiled violence displayed at her rallies.

On the same note, the Focus on the Family people actually site previous court cases and statements by the candidates that would make such issues come to the floor. Couldn't a conservative with opposite beliefs come to the opposite conclusion by holding the same stance concerning demagogues and precedent?

She is against gay marriage and supports its ban at the federal and state level... though I'm a married heterosexual woman, this is a threat to MY civil rights as much as those of my homosexual fellow humans. She would ban books that I have the right to read if I so choose... it's not her right as a government official to censor my reading material.

Which book has she tried to ban?

On top of all of that, she has been found guilty of having questionable ethics, a fact that the right conveniently forgets when pointing the finger at the other guy.

Yeah, I can't get over that aspect of her. Honestly, the manipulation she had in office kind of makes me dislike her as a candidate...and I was already not fond of McCain anyway.

Again, plenty of fingerpointing has been going on the past month or so, on both sides. But from what I've read, there are many more questionable "facts" from McCain and Palin than from Obama and Biden.

Snopes would be inclined to agree.

[jrosebud]

I suppose I don't appreciate people assuming that I'm ill-informed about an ideologies' central figure just because I don't view what he stood for as commendable. How exactly would you have arrived at the conclusion that I haven't read the gospels? For the record, I'm a former Catholic who has read the Bible and heard portions of the gospels every Sunday since I was born (up until close to my 20th birthday).

Since this is a doctrinal argument why don't we argue via the Bible and what it says about Jesus. Not God, but Jesus (trinitarian doctrine is to complex to explain in a single sitting). I don't believe what you said could be backed up (in it's isolated sense) through New Testament scripture.

I don't take kindly to Jesus's doublespeak about love. If love is patient, if love is kind, if love is all that and a bag of chips, then bible god has it not. An omnipotent, omniscient being does not create a being, give it rules that he knows it cannot/will not keep, and then engineer a situation where punishment *when the goal is not a change of behavior* is administered for an indecent period of time. If the Christian god is infinitely merciful, infinitely loving, then all of Jesus's pontificating about Hell is false witness against his father(/himself) because such a place wouldn't exist. You don't create evil and then shake your finger at your puppets for following the path you set. That's unkind.

Actually, another discussion on this forum is leaning in this direction. Do you mind if we open up a new thread on this topic specifically?

Let's not take the road that trinitarian doctrine is too complex for this discussion and that we need to absolve Jesus of his alternate personality's sins; Jesus allegedly offered himself as a blood sacrifice to appease the big guy, so he must have trusted Big God's judgement and been on the same page at least a little regarding The Plan.  And if Jesus agrees that the original of the other god-parts - the one who set life, the universe, and everything in motion - is all-mericiful and all-loving, as well as omnipotent and omniscient, then surely he could see that his hellfire policy was mean-spirited and inconsistent with with his new campaign of "all you need is love."

In all honesty, I'm not really up for a grand debate right now.  I've had this conversation countless times before, so this all seems like a rehashing of the same ideas, for which, quite frankly, I haven't the time to invest.  I hadn't noticed in your first post that you were a Christian (and therefore probably hoping for a debate), so I interjected a conversational *rarg,* a sigh of frustration and an attempt at humor in one of the only atheistic communities to which I have access.  If anyone else here would like take my part in this familiar dance, I'm off to the punch bowl.

[Titan]

Let's not take the road that trinitarian doctrine is too complex for this discussion and that we need to absolve Jesus of his alternate personality's sins; Jesus allegedly offered himself as a blood sacrifice to appease the big guy, so he must have trusted Big God's judgement and been on the same page at least a little regarding The Plan. And if Jesus agrees that the original of the other god-parts - the one who set life, the universe, and everything in motion - is all-mericiful and all-loving, as well as omnipotent and omniscient, then surely he could see that his hellfire policy was mean-spirited and inconsistent with with his new campaign of "all you need is love."

C.S. Lewis had a great quote on this subject, let me see if I can find it... The doctrine of the "Old Testament God" (in quotes merely because He is still the same, only working through a different context) can be said as such "To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labor to make us lovable."
- C.S. Lewis "The Problem of Pain"
Analogous question: If someone were to come up to a vegetarian and proclaim, in all seriousness, "Why, I too am a vegetarian! I mean, I'm not a vegetarian at breakfast, lunch or dinner. But for the vast majority of my day I too refrain from eating meat. May I join your group?" What would be the rational response by the vegetarian? Clearly the vegetarian wouldn't be inclined to disagree with the person's philosophy. A vegetarian isn't about the average, or the mode of behavior. It is about the nature of the conception of "vegetarian." So too is it with God. If God is indeed perfect then it holds that his nature must be repelled by certain attributes, namely, that which is not virtuous. However, because He loves us (in the Judeo-Christian conception) "he labors to make us lovable."

In all honesty, I'm not really up for a grand debate right now. I've had this conversation countless times before, so this all seems like a rehashing of the same ideas, for which, quite frankly, I haven't the time to invest. I hadn't noticed in your first post that you were a Christian (and therefore probably hoping for a debate), so I interjected a conversational *rarg,* a sigh of frustration and an attempt at humor in one of the only atheistic communities to which I have access. If anyone else here would like take my part in this familiar dance, I'm off to the punch bowl.

I appreciate your perspective nonetheless.