What Is It With Republicans And Religion.

[DEM FAN]

They Seem To Go To Extremes. Mel Gibson Has A Movie Coming Out.
etc etc. Do Repubs Think They Are God Or Something. :-(

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. nah...I just think they are terribly confused

or terribly mislead about who God is. Extremists of just about any bent cannot seem to focus on the big picture...they just take small snippits of what is there and run with it...

theProdigal

[pinkpops]

2. I think there are 2 stripes

The followers who hold fundamentalist beliefs
The leaders who take advantage of the followers gullibility

[salinen]

7. The fundies are afraid (redundant)

that their saint George may not be here much longer. Fundamentalism = psychosis = bad decisions. No surprises that a born again leader of the free world has brought us to the brink of annihilation.

[Bandit]

3. The bolder the lie the more people tend to believe it.

Most Republicans I have ever known are as far from being "Christian" as they are from being right.

[Another Bill C.]

4. They're the Pharisees of our time. n/t

n/t

[ComerPerro]

5. It comes from self importance

Why do you think fundamentalist Christianity is so popular?

You tell people that they have a special relationship with God, and therefore they are more important than most people.

Republicans really get off on feeling superior, if you haven't noticed.

Plus, they like to promote how moral they are. Sure, their religion, in a pure sense, is moral. But they water it down and bastardize it so much that it just ends up being disgusting.

"Everyone is immoral but me" becomes the mentality.

The President that you support lets his good friend commit fraud and make millions of dollars while ruining the lives of countless thousands around the nation, and somehow he is ok.

But suppose a same-sex couple that has been together for ten years wants the rights granted to a straight couple that has been together for five months. Forget it. Those people are sinners and are trying to corrupt our youth.

Republicans and conservatives find themselves locked in the constant struggle of trying to justify their hatred, self-rightousness, and greed. Nothing justifies that better than fundamentalist Christainity.

"I'm ok, you're not"

[lastknowngood]

6. They believe in absolute truth of their own making they fit

by and large into the definition of a cult. Everything has to be their way or doubt might destroy their entire culture.

[fromthegroundup]

8. Religion and the Right

I enjoyed Martin Scorcese's film, and more than likely will check out Mel Gibson's at some point in time. In the Last Temptation they paint Jesus as a seditionist. I mean, think about it. One man comes along and tries to rise the poor and destitute to stand up against the empire. The empire crumbles and nearly 2000 years later Christians and Jews rule the world. The GOP realizes the historical power of religion and its ability to rule over people, and have been using it a lot lately. Even though their actions are inconsistent with Christ's teachings, they succeed. Since Jesus is Bush's self-proclaimed favorite philospher, I just wish I could ask him WWJD?
(remember that million dollar catch phrase? commonly worn and rarely applied)

[Kitsune]

9. Religion is easy to co-opt.

And Republicans are masters of co-opting stuff. There's nothing like a widespread population of voters who will do what they're told because otherwise THEY'RE GOING TO HELL!!!! :evilgrin:

That's all there is to it, really, at least as far as I can see (especially taking into account the decidedly amoral antics of some of the most ardently OMFG UR GOIGN 2 HEL!11 right-wingers). It's a novel form of extralegal authority.

This is why I make a distinction between Faith and Religion.

[kayell]

10. I think that many conservatives are people who are afraid of

uncertainty. They can't cope with the million shades of gray (much LESS all the interesting colors) that liberals see when we consider any question. Conservatives only feel safe with black & white, yes or no questions. They like good, firm, unbending RULES so that they know where they are. They probably grew up in paternalistic families, where questioning the father was NOT allowed. God is just the ultimate rule giver of all time, with REALLY clear cut penalties for breaking the rules.

One of my coworkers and I have been discussing this in a completely different context recently. I've been working on a web page design and did 2 versions - one is symmetrically balanced, the other asymmetrical. I strongly prefer the asymmetrical, and so does this liberal coworker. Our 2 coworkers who are very conservative, church going folks, STRONGLY prefer the symmetrical version. To me it looks very stiff, and actually unbalanced by visual weight. Symmetrical design though, has very clear cut rules, there aren't many questions over whether something is symmetrical or not.

I think this is also why many conservatives are so willing to turn over all their decisions to some authority figure. Once they make the decision to believe that anything this one person says is true, then they can avoid the strain of thinking and deciding on a issue themselves. Thinking too deeply can lead to all kinds of cognitive dissonance, that must be avoided at all cost. I think this is why it is so hard to get through to hard core conservatives and fundies. They are that way because they have made a decision to live in a simple world. Asking them to look at the complexity of reality is precisely what they are trying to avoid all along.

[salinen]

11. You know you're a liberal

when you finally start laughing hysterically at a fundy.

[opihimoimoi]

12. Pubs and Christain fundies have a common denominator: both are

delusional, both accept emotion can override Sanity, Reason, and Logic. They both believe in things with little or no basis... allowing themselves a great risk for letdowns.

[Malva Zebrina]

13. Kerry was and is not my first choice, but I have to say

that he has NOT played the religion card ad nauseum. In fact, I have seen little from him re religion. Kucinich is my man,love that guy, and to tell the truth I have seen nothing from his either re religion. I have no idea what religion he subscribes to and that is good.

And that tells me that Kerry keeps his religion private, as it should be because religion should NOT be a part of a presidential campaign.

Thank goodness this year we have not yet have had to endure the evangelistic,born again, accept Jesus, into everything political bent-so far. I think this is one area where Dean made a mistake--going down to Georgia to attend church with Jimmy Carter, when it was not an invite but an obvious photo op and manipulation. Uh uh--should not have done that Dr. Dean, imo.

Neverthe less Dean is still a good man. I would be proud to shake his hand.

[VOX]

14. They prefer a simplistic view: good-evil; patriot-traitor; heaven-hell

with us-against us; God-Satan; saved-unsaved; etc.

The extreme polarities of their absolutist ideation give them a certain comfort. By eliminating the middle ground in their thinking, they can be "certain" of standing on the "right" and "good" side of every issue.

This is the desired net result of brainwashing, BTW -- the elimination of critical thought.

[PVnRT]

15. Because, despite all their bluster to the contrary

They want to control people. I have noticed that many of them are utterly convinced that they are right, and therefore all others must obey them or else.

It's insecurity, when all is said and done. They're really insecure in their beliefs, so they think they have to force everyone to believe as they do.

[peacetalksforall]

16. Morality Police USMP's. They fancy themselves

as the keeper of morality. Only they have morals. Democrats in particular are extremely immoral and must be attacked for their lack of morals.

[leftofthedial]

17. marriage of convenience

Reagan "coalition"

Repugs are amoral, evil shits and are NOT religious. They just pander rhetorically to the ignorant who ARE religious.

The fundies don't care about politics except as another way to kill all of us so they can claim their superstitions came true according to the cloud being's will.

It is a coalition between the evil and the mentally ill, but the two groups are distinct.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

18. Fundamentalist Christianity

is a Doomsday cult that rejects most of the teachings of Jesus. It is NOT true Christianity.

[ithacan]

19. the fundies control the GOP

it's as simple as that.

Every one of the GOP congressional leaders is a fundie.

Check it out: http://www.TheocracyWatch.org/

All the details, scary stuff.