These are my opinions. Feel free to respond, knowing 1) this isn't the gospel truth, and 2) I do not intend to offend anyone personally. If you do not agree to these terms, then get out of this topic!
1) I think conservatism is inherently evil. I think it is evil wearing a shroud of goodness...perhaps the greatest evil of them all. I think it is conservatives that advance the destruction of the world in their attempts to 'save the world.' And, of course, I cannot prove this. It is something that has sat in the annals of my conscience for years.
2) Conservatism tends to expouse religion, but they are wrong 75% of the time. I have read chapter-verse quotes on signs to justify hatred of people, and when I go back to my own Bible, I find it has nothing to do with what they hate. I have read more conservative translations of the Bible and they are generally the loosest in their translations! More 'liberal' translations use their basis on the original Greek/Hebrew words. 'Conservative' translations tend to just use the traditional translation and just expound on it. For instance, in a copy of the NIV, the Sodom and Gomorrah passage states, 'Bring out your men so that we may have sex with them.' I couldn't be more angrier on that, especially since the word, 'sex,' isn't even used in the Hebrew text. I would have preferred the original translation, 'Bring out your men so that we may know them.' Why? This passage is quoted like 5 different times later in the Bible and they don't refer to it as meaning anything sexual. I think it is poor scholarship mounted with conservative bigotry.
3) Conservatism expound religion, while also expounding vicious free-market capitalism. Once again, the advancement of the destruction of the world (e.g., sinking the third-world into poverty and subservience to multinational corporations), while thinking they are doing good.
4) Conservatism forces their beliefs onto everyone else. Liberalism, while you may not like it, at least gives you the option to choose your fate. If it were up to extreme conservatives, there would be maybe 5 religions--all Calvinist Protestant sects. We wouldn't be allowed to do anything--liquor would probably be banned, all non-Christians would be either killed or wholly silenced, homosexuals would be killed, movies would be censored, free speech would be censored, schools would teach nothing but tripe interspersed with religion, science would die altogether as all things that contradict the Bible would be made devoid, pseudo-science would reign, media would be a Soviet-style propaganda arm, and we'd be forced to the whims of some theocratic despot. We'd have repeated many of the same mistakes that led to the Reformation. In liberalism, at least, you're fully allowed to do most of these things if you really want to as long as you don't hurt anyone.
5) It's just as hypocritical as any of their complaints against liberals--while complaining of 'liberal censorship,' they have plenty of their own censorship. Whatever happened to that post by Satan? It was definitely bordering on poor taste, but, in reading it, it has just as much a place on this forum as anything here. It never went out of hand, but because conservatives didn't like the scathing criticism of their ideology, it was closed. And yet, a generally baseless original post on hating liberalism was upheld. How interesting.
6) It's incredibly revisionist. Look at the 'Founding Fathers' tripe we hear. We always hear how the founding fathers intended America to be this Christian state, but it couldn't be more wrong! Most all of our founding fathers were agnostics or believers of what the 700 Club would call, 'New-Age religions.' Christianity went into a decline in the Americas first after the failure of Puritanism after the witch trials and almost completely after the collapse of the Anglicanism with the British defeat in the American revolution. Our founding fathers were heavily influenced by Enlightenment religions that came out of the French Revolution. By the time that Christianity became reborn in America, it was 1838 and they were all dead. When Jefferson wrote his treatise on the 'separation of church and state' in the First Amendment in 1801 (which is where that phrase came from), he meant exactly as it's currently interpreted. He'd be rolling in his grave over the current 'faith-based' plan that Bush has. Plus, need I remind you, the 'one nation under God' part of the Pledge of Allegiance wasn't originally in there. It was added by President Eisenhower in the mid-1950s.
7) Read that 'I'm a Bad American' post. Need I say more?
Well, overall, what I want out of this post is a real discussion--no calls for deletion. And no, I'm not some unmovable individual. I'm always more than happy to modify my beliefs...that's what a discussion is all about.
Take care all, and to the conservatives in this forum: don't take what I wrote personally. It's a post on an ideology, not the people in here. I would be genuinely interested in what you have to say on this post, as long as it's a fairly intelligent retort.
Melon
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?Confused by thoughts, we experience duality in life. Unencumbered by ideas, the enlightened see the one reality.? - Hui-neng (638-713)
1) I think conservatism is inherently evil. I think it is evil wearing a shroud of goodness...perhaps the greatest evil of them all. I think it is conservatives that advance the destruction of the world in their attempts to 'save the world.' And, of course, I cannot prove this. It is something that has sat in the annals of my conscience for years.
2) Conservatism tends to expouse religion, but they are wrong 75% of the time. I have read chapter-verse quotes on signs to justify hatred of people, and when I go back to my own Bible, I find it has nothing to do with what they hate. I have read more conservative translations of the Bible and they are generally the loosest in their translations! More 'liberal' translations use their basis on the original Greek/Hebrew words. 'Conservative' translations tend to just use the traditional translation and just expound on it. For instance, in a copy of the NIV, the Sodom and Gomorrah passage states, 'Bring out your men so that we may have sex with them.' I couldn't be more angrier on that, especially since the word, 'sex,' isn't even used in the Hebrew text. I would have preferred the original translation, 'Bring out your men so that we may know them.' Why? This passage is quoted like 5 different times later in the Bible and they don't refer to it as meaning anything sexual. I think it is poor scholarship mounted with conservative bigotry.
3) Conservatism expound religion, while also expounding vicious free-market capitalism. Once again, the advancement of the destruction of the world (e.g., sinking the third-world into poverty and subservience to multinational corporations), while thinking they are doing good.
4) Conservatism forces their beliefs onto everyone else. Liberalism, while you may not like it, at least gives you the option to choose your fate. If it were up to extreme conservatives, there would be maybe 5 religions--all Calvinist Protestant sects. We wouldn't be allowed to do anything--liquor would probably be banned, all non-Christians would be either killed or wholly silenced, homosexuals would be killed, movies would be censored, free speech would be censored, schools would teach nothing but tripe interspersed with religion, science would die altogether as all things that contradict the Bible would be made devoid, pseudo-science would reign, media would be a Soviet-style propaganda arm, and we'd be forced to the whims of some theocratic despot. We'd have repeated many of the same mistakes that led to the Reformation. In liberalism, at least, you're fully allowed to do most of these things if you really want to as long as you don't hurt anyone.
5) It's just as hypocritical as any of their complaints against liberals--while complaining of 'liberal censorship,' they have plenty of their own censorship. Whatever happened to that post by Satan? It was definitely bordering on poor taste, but, in reading it, it has just as much a place on this forum as anything here. It never went out of hand, but because conservatives didn't like the scathing criticism of their ideology, it was closed. And yet, a generally baseless original post on hating liberalism was upheld. How interesting.
6) It's incredibly revisionist. Look at the 'Founding Fathers' tripe we hear. We always hear how the founding fathers intended America to be this Christian state, but it couldn't be more wrong! Most all of our founding fathers were agnostics or believers of what the 700 Club would call, 'New-Age religions.' Christianity went into a decline in the Americas first after the failure of Puritanism after the witch trials and almost completely after the collapse of the Anglicanism with the British defeat in the American revolution. Our founding fathers were heavily influenced by Enlightenment religions that came out of the French Revolution. By the time that Christianity became reborn in America, it was 1838 and they were all dead. When Jefferson wrote his treatise on the 'separation of church and state' in the First Amendment in 1801 (which is where that phrase came from), he meant exactly as it's currently interpreted. He'd be rolling in his grave over the current 'faith-based' plan that Bush has. Plus, need I remind you, the 'one nation under God' part of the Pledge of Allegiance wasn't originally in there. It was added by President Eisenhower in the mid-1950s.
7) Read that 'I'm a Bad American' post. Need I say more?
Well, overall, what I want out of this post is a real discussion--no calls for deletion. And no, I'm not some unmovable individual. I'm always more than happy to modify my beliefs...that's what a discussion is all about.
Take care all, and to the conservatives in this forum: don't take what I wrote personally. It's a post on an ideology, not the people in here. I would be genuinely interested in what you have to say on this post, as long as it's a fairly intelligent retort.
Melon
------------------
?Confused by thoughts, we experience duality in life. Unencumbered by ideas, the enlightened see the one reality.? - Hui-neng (638-713)
