Tell Focus on the Family what you think of them

[Hux]

i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar

I would suggest you wear a raincoat.

[ollie]

I'm skeptical though that those of us who are on the outside will be able to do much to change these larger organizations, or to find ways to reach those people who make these organizations up.

These organizations will change when they stop making money and centralizing power. Why else do they exist?

[ollie]

haha.. i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar somewhere, where we'd be forced to chat it all out face to face under the heavy influence of lotsa booze! i wonder if we'd survive.

Not me. I'd probably pass out in the middle of a SmoothShredder rant.

[SaggyBalls]

" who think the lot of us are going to burn in eternal hell for not accepting the word of their god."

you SHOULD really mean not accepting their word of god.

they believe there is only one. there can't be another god for us if they have the only one.

get this shit right. christ.

[Birdy]

i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar

I would suggest you wear a raincoat.

wow.

if so, i suggest you come in with full on gear, wading boots, oars, some mode of sending a SOS signal and a fish finder.

[d_rawk]

These organizations will change when they stop making money and centralizing power.

Yeah, you're right. As their ideas lose social currency, they'll be marginalized to the point of irrelevancy. It's just a hard wait.

[Birdy]

" who think the lot of us are going to burn in eternal hell for not accepting the word of their god."

you SHOULD really mean not accepting their word of god.

they believe there is only one. there can't be another god for us if they have the only one.

get this shit right. christ.

i'm not talking for them, i'm talking for me.

[bradm]

i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar

I would suggest you wear a raincoat.

wow.

if so' date=' i suggest you come in with full on gear, wading boots, oars, some mode of sending a SOS signal and a fish finder.[/quote']

I'm now imagining a socio-religious debate sketch, performed by, say, CODCO, with the participants being caricatures of full-on Newfoundlanders (complete with heavy accents and hugely exaggerated physical and vocal mannerisms).

Aloha,

Brad

[SmoothedShredder]

haha.. i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar somewhere' date=' where we'd be forced to chat it all out face to face under the heavy influence of lotsa booze! i wonder if we'd survive.[/quote']

Not me. I'd probably pass out in the middle of a SmoothShredder rant.

Awww, Ollies having a bad day! Lets hug it out dude!

And I can see Hux's Ironman streak is still intact... all is normal in Jamband world! Yay!

Bold move Birdy! Trying to humanize the internet! I don't think a thing like that has ever happened over the internet sucessfully to this point!

Oh sorry, what was this thread about? Probably some openminded tolerant view vs. some spiteful angry position no doubt! [color:purple]isn't that what politics is all about?!

Good to see d_rawks name around these forums again... he gives the NDP a good name!

[ollie]

Awww, Ollies having a bad day! Lets hug it out dude!

Did you miss the smiley, bitch?

(Don't miss the one in this post either!)

[timouse]

...1st annual Jambands.ca Politics Forum Drunken Messy Throwdown!

location: TBA - central between ottawa, chatham & toronto

dresscode: raingear as required

we need someone very big and patient to act as moderator...

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

The CTMFs should have workshops.

(I think that's actually called "being wrecked around a campfire at 4:30 in the morning.)

[Kanada Kev]

From Mr. Zappa:

Children are naive -- they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.

If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just keep your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

He's spot on, of course, except for the being hard on the kids. It ain't their fault if they're not allowed to disagree.

[Kanada Kev]

He's spot on, of course, except for the being hard on the kids. It ain't their fault if they're not allowed to disagree.

True ... it scares me how the "indoctrination" of children seems to be a very large focus for the extremists. Sad.

I can't remember if it was here where I saw this link, but if you want to see a fantastic interview with Zappa, you gotta check him out on Crossfire ca. 1986. Eerily creepy at how some of the lines he speaks hold true today (especially about the road that the US is going in becoming a theocracy):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HljzEXJvj8

Peace . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

[scottieking]

Has anyone here seen the Root of all Evil or Jesus Camp?

Both are supposed to be very revealing.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

KK - - I like throwing that Zappa interview on from time to time. It's eerily accurate.

SK, both those docs are excellent. And apparently the Jesus Camp in question had to shut down after the documentary came out, for all the bad press they got.

Pity they probably won't take anything away from that than that the devil's out to get them.

[Kanada Kev]

Has anyone here seen the Root of all Evil or Jesus Camp?

Both are supposed to be very revealing.

Root of all Evil was really good. It was the basis for a good "town hall" type of episode of the Avi Lewis show on CBC.

http://www.cbc.ca/bigpicture/evil.html

I haven't had a chance to see Jesus Camp yet. I find the indoctrination of kids into extreme religious sects to be very scary and sad. I will watch it when I get the chance though. Here's an article along the same lines as Jesus Camp:

shit ... i don't have it here. I'll forward it when I get home. All I know, is one of the 'hip' teachers was wearing a shirt with this on it:

Later . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

!! I'll have to show that one to our kids .

[d_rawk]

Has anyone here seen the Root of all Evil or Jesus Camp?

Dawkins, I am becoming increasingly convinced, is out of his depth on his recent endeavours. There is a peculiar stubborness happening here, and for a man otherwise as clever as he, it's a bit disapointing.

I rather like Marilynne Robinson's review of 'The God Delusion' (from which 'The Root of All Evil pulls). It's a hella long read, but she hits a few of the important points spot on.

The nineteenth-century abolitionist, feminist, essayist, and ordained minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson made the always timely point that, in comparing religions, great care must be taken to consider the best elements of one with the best of the other, and the worst with the worst, to avoid the usual practice of comparing, let us say, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the Golden Rule.

The same principle might be applied in the comparison of religion and science. To set the declared hopes of one against the real-world record of the other is clearly not useful, no matter which of them is flattered by the comparison.

What is religion? It is described by Dawkins as a virtually universal feature of human culture. But there is, commingled with it, indisputably and perhaps universally, doubt, hypocrisy, and charlatanism. Dawkins, for his part, considers religion wholly delusional, and he condemns the best of it for enabling all the worst of it.

Yet if religion is to be blamed for the fraud done in its name, then what of science? Is it to be blamed for the Piltdown hoax, for the long-credited deceptions having to do with cloning in South Korea? If by “science†is meant authentic science, then “religion†must mean authentic religion, granting the difficulties in arriving at these definitions.

...

Finally, there is the matter of atheism itself, Dawkins finds it incapable of belligerent intent — “why would anyone go to war for the sake of an absence of belief?†It is a peculiarity of our language that by war we generally mean a conflict between nations, or at least one in which both sides are armed. There has been persistent violence against religion — In the French Revolution, in the Spanish Civil War, in the Soviet Union, in China. In three of these instances the extirpation of religion was part of a program to reshape society by excluding certain forms of thought, by creating an absence of belief. Neither sanity nor happiness appears to have been served by these efforts. The kindest conclusion one can draw is that Dawkins has not acquainted himself with the history of modern authoritarianism.

This last point is even more salient than I think even Robinson allows. Dawkin's argument so often devolves into a crude calculus of total sum of boots to total sum of faces, but in so doing, he bewilderingly - perhaps willfully, but one hopes not - miscounts the boots and values some faces over others.

There has been a good discussion of The Root of All Evil going on over here. I've got a certain amount of respect for the man, and am dismayed to see him reducing himself to an evangelist for atheism rather than a dispassionate obvserver and commentator. Even more so because it would seem to me that he would prefer to continue to think himself the latter rather than the former.

I can't wait to see Jesus Camp, though. Seems pretty disturbing and I'm happy as a clam in shit (erm ... maybe I got that wrong ...) to know that the camp has closed its doors.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Dawkins, I am becoming increasingly convinced, is out of his depth on his recent endeavours. There is a peculiar stubborness happening here, and for a man otherwise as clever as he, it's a bit disapointing.

...

I've got a certain amount of respect for the man, and am dismayed to see him reducing himself to an evangelist for atheism rather than a dispassionate obvserver and commentator. Even more so because it would seem to me that he would prefer to continue to think himself the latter rather than the former.

Well put. I've been using him in my classes on persuasive/argumentative essays to show how the open-endedness of science (where argument belongs) can be compromised when people engage those who put their claims out as non-negotiables (persuasion). For Dawkins, his non-negotiable is the scientific method (fair enough?), but he betrays that at a variety of points when he comes out with his attacks on religion (failing, e.g., to acknowledge the variety of ways the term itself can be understood, and not being flexible himself in how he uses it - failing, in other words, to actually communicate with the people he confronts).

Messy!

[d_rawk]

I want to take one of your classes.

Hey, maybe the school would allow you to record and post your lectures. That'd be good times.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I still have to smile when one of my students complimented me by saying I was the "least boring" teacher she had.

[AdamH]

Well well well....look who's hiring!

Focus on the Family: Director of Content and Creative Services

http://www.charityvillage.com/applicant/jobs.asp?fn=view&g_varid=74888

Focus on the Family: Marketing Coordinator

http://www.charityvillage.com/applicant/jobs.asp?fn=view&g_varid=74889

[Kanada Kev]

I love how they leave this stipulation until the LAST bit of the app:

Must have a consistent witness for Jesus Christ, and maintain a courteous Christ-like attitude in dealing with people within and outside Focus on the Family by adhering to the ministry's standard moral conduct and Statement of FaithEducation:

Few of these organizations are "up front" with their angle when it comes to their literature, websites, etc. Always makes it seem that they are trying to "lure" readers/viewers in and subconsciously plug their agenda .... sneaky.