Jonathan Falwell earned JD from William Howard Taft

Or is a Trojan zebra really a striped Trojan horse?

 

Heathen:
1 : an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible
2 : an uncivilized or irreligious person

Pagan:
1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)
2 : one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person

Gee, sounds like pagans have more fun!

 

Here's a silly idea for you: I will defend your right to say anything stupid you want to say. (Hate speech defended as free speech.)

Dr. Churchill said something stupid. Robertson and Falwell have a history of stupid speeches. They all have a right to speak - just as I have a right to call them stupid. Liberal or not?

 

AV8R,

I must have missed something. I didn't see you DEBATE anything; all I saw were statements of your own conclusions with neither factual citations nor logical reasoning.

How can you be finished when you never began?

I mean no offense, AV8R, but this forum is primarily populated by established scholars and those trying to learn something of the art of scholarship. (I include myself in the latter category.) Now one thing is essential to any scholar and that is the ability to examine and test his opinions and, if they are found wanting, to abandon them in favor of something closer to the truth. Don't you think you owe it to YOURSELF, if not to the rest of us, to demonstrate how and why you arrived at your conclusions?

If you are unwilling to do this, perhaps you should ask yourself exactly what your purpose is in posting here at all.

 

The classic definition of a liberal is one who believes in liberty for all. Therefore, if you believe that Dr. Churchill and Dr. Falwell (or, indeed, anyone else) have the perfect right to make stupid comments on 9/11 (or, indeed, anything else), then you are indeed most liberal. Peace!

 

I'll go with it. Sounds like a good definition to me.

 

Now, now...don't we feel all better now? Would you like a little cheese with your wine? You know, I have to admit, I find this to be quite intertaining! However, you got a little weak towards the end. I'm sure there's someone here who can do better.

 

This forum is primarily populated by liberal ideology. Any opposition to this ideology is quickly attacked as witnessed in this thread. I'm quite sure I'll continue to get attacked for this statement. I really enjoy reading about the different DL programs on this board....but I have NEVER, EVER seen a board with such rampant liberalism. Quite frankly, I'm disgusted by it.

 

That's the most sane thing anyone has said on this thread. Thank you Deb. And no, I don't think it's silly at all.

 

I find the liberal hypocrisy entertaining.

 

Thank you, Mr. speeelllinng police.

 

I'm less conservative than some, more conservative than most, a solid republican and I have never felt "attacked" on this board. Occasionally I have posted a flippant or half baked assertion and, because many of the regulars here are intellegent, free-thinking types, I have been called to support those assertions. When I could support them, I have. When I couldn't support them I fessed up to it, and I fessed up without lashing out at the people who honestly disagreed with me.

AV8R, you made an unsupported assertion and when you were called on it you dodged with a "too cool for the room" refusal to discuss the matter further. When you were called out for dodging you attacked the board for being liberal. The problem with this board isn't that it's liberal, the problem with this board is that you are refusing to participate thoughtfully.

What you have done on this thread is lame. I feel sorry for you.

 

I made a statement. I made my position very clear. I then could clearly see that the atmosphere is thick with liberalism here and that it didn't really matter what I said, no one was going to be truly "open" to another point of view. Therefore, I decided I would move on to something else. then...the attacks began.

I'm sorry that you believe that expressing an opinion about something is lame. Fortunately, I don't feel sorry for myself at all. I love God, love my family, and my country very much.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm the one who is being attacked here. And you think I'm lame?!? It's so ridiculous it's actually funny!

 

No you didn't. You attacked one poster with silly generalization. When confronted about it, you attacked the whole board. And now you act offended. Typical troll behavior. And it doesn't matter if you are right wing or not.

 

I think that the word 'heathen' is extremely perjorative and that the people who have employed the word generally treated meanings 1. and 2. as synonymous.

Interestingly, at the time of the voyages of discovery, Europe was largely unaware that other contemporary religions even existed, apart from the Jews (a special case because of their role in the bible) and 'the saracens' (the Muslims).

So when explorers encountered new (to Europeans) religions, they often didn't even try to distinguish between them and simply classified them all as 'heathen'. If a Portugese visited southern India, he saw statues of Shiva. If he visited Sri Lanka, he saw statues of the Buddha. But they were all just different varieties of 'heathen idols' to him and he didn't really care to know any more than that.

(I'll leave it to the rest of you to decide what level of civilization that represents.)

The history of European religious studies consists, in large part, of the growing interest in these traditions.

I think that 'pagan' is a very old word, dating back to late antiquity. It comes from the Latin 'paganus', which literally meant something like 'rural'. But even then it had the connotation of 'hick' or 'peasant'.

Constantine and his successors adopted Christianity as the Roman state religion in the early 4'th century. Most of the population remained non-Christian, however. But gradually more and more pressure was put on the great civic temples that were a fixture of every Roman city. By the end of the 4'th century they had generally been forced closed.

As the urban populations were gradually Christianized in the 5'th century, the non-Christians came to be focused more and more in two groups:

One was the urban teachers and intellectuals, ranging from highly sophisticated Neoplatonists to late-antique theurgists. (Actually, as we see with 5'th century philosophers like Proclus,the two overlapped.) That's why Justinian eventually forbid non-Christians from teaching in the early 6'th century and closed Plato's Academy in Athens, after an illustrious thousand year history.

(I'll speculate that the non-Christian teachers, driven underground and forced to adopt the elaborate precautions and grades of careful initiation more typical of the mysteries (teaching meant death if caught), became one of the sources of the occult tradition. It's significant that alchemy quickly surfaced in Alexandria after the 7'th century Muslim conquest.)

The other reservoir of non-Christian religion was the majority of the population who lived in rural areas. Some rural areas still had majorities following the old religions. Pressure was put on the owners of large estates to ensure that their serfs (by that time they were legally bound to the soil as the medieval world closed in) became Christian. But the process was slow.

And the urban Christians took to sarcastically dismissing the followers of the old ways as nothing more than rude hicks, or 'pagans'.

 

AV8R, my man, you are way off.

You weren't attacked, people disagreed with you. Then you attacked the board.

Oh wait, I see. When you post an opinion it's free speech. When others post opinions it's hate speech.

Sounds like the same old conservative double standard to me.

 

I re-read through this entire thread to see what I possibly could have said to offend the entire board. This is/was my statement:

"Because in Nosborne's mind (and in the minds of liberals in general) a conservative expressing his or her views on something is considered to be "hate speach." Now, when a liberal does the same it is considered "free speach." Same ol' liberal double-standard...nothing new here."

I still be this statement to be very much true and I make absolutely no apologies for it. If this offends all of you liberals, then so be it.

We can go on and on and on about this forever. Thankfully, unlike many of you, I have a real life. This is my last word on this subject. I have bigger fish to fry.

 

AV8R,

I gave my opinion and was properly challenged for it. Upon being challenged, I pointed to the specific instance of honest-to-God DANGEROUS hate speech upon which I based my opinion. Later, I wrote out in some careful detail the analysis that I believe supported my opinion based upon history and (I hope) logic.

From you I get,"It's just liberal bias". Am I to accept your view just because it IS your view? Nonsense. No one died and made you Pope.

You make no attempt to show that my history is inaccurate or my analysis flawed.

I therefore gather that thinking for oneself is "liberal bias" while repeating unexamined mantras is...what? Conservatiove bias? Divine truth? A lazy man's substitute for critical thinking? You don't even tell us that much.

 

Your statement was/is patently FALSE. You know NOTHING about Nosbourne, and yet you just assumed something about it just by dumping him with "liberals". BTW, you statement about "liberals in general" is also false by itself. Your logic is flawed, and your debating techniques ill-spirited. If it affends you or all you byciclists, so be it.
BTW, do you REALLY feel this was the only offensive statement by you? Really? Typical right-wing selective vision
(P. S. I am certainly NOT a "liberal". I am not even sure what you Americans mean by the word, and how come "liberals" can be "left-wing". In my country "left wing" is the Communist Party. Believe it or not, 15 years ago Communists were "right wing" and democratic reformists were "the left", so my terminology is completely confused )

Very mature...
But then, you are certainly free to go.

 

Umm... well... no, actually. You're still standing.

It's "whine," you moron. If you're going to use tired old right-wing come-backs, at least bother to use the spelling that actually makes it funny! It's: "Would you like a little cheese with that whine?"

(Sheesh!)

It's "entertaining," you mor... oh... for pity's sake... you know the rest. (again)

Why don't you try, smart guy? So far all you seem to be good at is lame, hackneyed, dismissive, critical-for-its-own-sake, shot-from-the-hip smart-mouthisms that lack any real content -- "unexamined mantras," as Nosborne correctly called them. As Nosborne also said, "I must have missed something. I didn't see you DEBATE anything; all I saw were statements of your own conclusions with neither factual citations nor logical reasoning." Why don't you actually engage me in a real debate so that anyone still not quite convinced can finally see with ineluctable clarity just how misguided, hateful and mean-spirited you really are... and, how lacking in an actual point, as well.

You wrote, "I still be[lieve] this statement to be very much true and I make absolutely no apologies for it. If this offends all of you liberals, then so be it."

That's not debate. That's pig-headedness. In my "whine," as you called it -- or at least tried to -- I itemized the ways in which you were just flat-out wrong in an unassailable manner. You didn't even read them, did you? You can't have read them. Even someone as bullheaded as you couldn't possibly have considered them and come back with, "I still believe this statement to be very much true and I make absolutely no apologies for it." And if you did read them and still take that position, then you're unreachable and, therefore, irrational.

You're kiddin', right? Have you ever actually read any of the political postings around here? DegreeInfo is populated (or, at least, almost is) by more conservatives per square foot than was the last Republican National Convention. Liberals are vastly outnumbered around here. In order for you to see it any other way, you must be ultra conservative. If so, then I can see, now, that from your perspective my earlier characterization of you as a fascist was actually something of a compliment, wasn't it.

Actually, that's not exactly true. That definition comes far closer to defining a libertarian, not a liberal. There's a (often huge) difference. Actually, what defines a liberal has almost nothing to do with "liberty," though that's certainly one of a liberal's values. But libertarians tend to make liberty the only value, and most liberals certainly don't agree with that.

The definitional adjective that liberals wear most proudly is "open-mindedness." That, by far, is the singlemost valued defining characteristic of a liberal. Of course we don't always achieve it, but that's just because we're human, like anyone else. The common dictionary definition(s) of a liberal is(are) precisely how liberals wish to be seen:

• Noun
  
  1. A person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties.
  
  
  Adjective
  
  1. Showing or characterized by broad-mindedness.
  
  2. Having political or social views favoring reform and progress.
  
  3. Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition.
  
  SOURCE: WordWeb Free Edition

AV8R, like most (or at least "many") conservative Republicans, uses the word "liberal" pejoratively... as if it were a bad word; something of which to be ashamed. He(they) should be so lucky as to be thought of as "broad-minded."

Hmm. AV8R... a near-mnemonic for "aviator," no? If so, AV8R, you don't happen to be a pilot for any airline on which I might ever fly, do you? I mean, I'm not sure my life insurance policy would pay once my carrier learned that I had willingly put my life into the hands of someone with your conspicuous lack of discernment.

(Man! They'll give a pilot's license to anyone, won't they?)

Some Republicans can be very huggable, can't they. Thank you, RobbCD, for your thoughtful assessment and commentary. Were that I had been so cool, calm and collected during mine. But I like a good catharsis, too.

Gosh, AV8R's an easy target, though, isn't he.

With only your oppenents actually making any points along the way.

Uh, huh. Unless it involves hanging-out with the likes of Falwell and/or Robertson and/or others of their ilk (and, therefore, your kind), I'm guessing it's a pretty lonely one. And, of course, you wouldn't want to miss General Hospital.

From your stubby, hateful little typing fingers straight to God's email inbox! Were that we could count on your failure to return.

You haven't even fried any of the little ones here, for godsake. How do you expect to prevail in an even bigger pond? Your kind of rhetoric would seen for what it truly is no matter where you took it.

Oh, I dunno... I actually think you're doin' just fine, there, Stanislav. Keep up the good work!