Pointing out a glaring and largely unnoticed double standard. "If Christians Were Treated Like Muslims," by Gary Bauer in Human Events, December 28:
[...] If Muslims were treated like Christians in America, Muslims would have to tolerate the defamation of their holiest images in our national museums, acts which would be called "artwork" -- and, if particularly provocative, even given taxpayer-funded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. They would also have to accept Korans being burned and thrown into toilets, which instead of inciting worldwide outrage and retribution would provoke a collective shrug of the shoulders.If Muslims were treated like Christians, Muslims would be mocked by late night TV talk show hosts and lampooned in crude cartoon parodies. If Christians were treated like Muslims, conspicuous Christianity would be celebrated by our elites as a sign of our diversity and open-mindedness, not disparaged as an embarrassment, a nuisance and a breach of the law.
If Christianity were treated like Islam, our students would be taught a white-washed version of Christian history, with the troubling bits miscast or omitted from textbooks and lesson plans.
If Christianity were treated like Islam, if an evangelical Christian committed an evil act in the name of his faith, he would be portrayed in the media as a deviation from, not a personification of, the Gospel message. Meanwhile, our political and media elites would hasten to assure the public that evangelical Christianity is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of evangelical Christians do not support terrorism.
If Christianity were treated like Islam in America, our president, a professed Christian, would proudly attend Christian-themed dinners and events while skipping Ramadan dinners, not vice versa. And Muslim politicians would go out of their way to assure people that their faith would not affect their policy-making.
If Christianity were treated like Islam, Christmas and Easter would be publicly celebrated for what they are -- the signature events of Christianity, marking the birth and the death and Resurrection of Christ -- not stripped of all their theological meaning and transformed into secular holidays devoted to crass consumerism.
If Christians were treated like Muslims, NASA would be tasked with reaching out to Christians and recognizing their faith's profound achievements and contributions to science, math and engineering, instead of being told to make Muslims feel good about their rather meager scientific accomplishments.
If Christians were treated like Muslims, the Catholic Church's stances on sex, contraception and human life would be revered as welcome departures from our over-sexed, self-obsessed culture, not condemned as a cause of disease and death in the less-developed world. And if Muslims were treated like Christians, the application of Sharia law around the world would be met not with stony silence but with the outrage it deserves.
If Christians were treated like Muslims in America, amusement parks would celebrate "Christian Family Day," (Six Flags recently celebrated "Muslim Family Day"), and Christians would be asked to embrace, not set aside, their religious convictions at the door when they entered the public square. Meanwhile, Muslim imams, not Christian pastors, would fear hate crimes lawsuits for preaching orthodox views of sexuality and sin.
The notion that American Muslims face discrimination, even to the point of violence, is often posited by America's elites. But that idea evaporates under scrutiny. Remarkably few hate crimes are reported against Muslims (fewer than one-eighth those against Jews). What's more, Muslim immigration to America has risen sharply since September 11, 2001, and Muslims thrive, economically and educationally, once they arrive.
In fact, it is Christians, not Muslims, who increasingly encounter cultural elites who are hostile to their beliefs and values....
Very sad but true commentary. We must continue to call it out when we see it and question their motives.
What's more, Muslim immigration to America has risen sharply since September 11, 2001...
And so have Muslim crimes against Americans. A strong, confident country would have put a stop to Muslim immigration on Sep 12, 2001.
The article was about Islam, but it really shouldn't have been. This started years ago with affirmative action, where people became convinced that the way to eliminate prejudice was with more of it. We allowed a Miss Black America beauty contest to be created, yet we shook with horror when someone suggested that we should also have a Miss White America contest. Today, the only people who have no chance of suing an employer for bias are white men. We should have squelched this long ago.
What's interesting is to read the comments to the article.
It is clear that people are starting to understand the real Islam over the whitewashed, PC version.
The notion that American Muslims face discrimination, even to the point of violence, is often posited by America's elites. But that idea evaporates under scrutiny.
People are indeed becoming wiser...wiser than the politicians they elect and wiser the political pundits who blab on TV...
One of Islams worst enemies would be eductation....it is why they control their schools and their children with such feverent discipline and curriculum...Muslim Children will hear only what they are allowed to hear...
"education"...esb..
I've always believed that an open, information society will be the downfall of Islam. It's only thrived for so long because it was able to suppress certain elements through deception, violence, and intimidation.
But now, with the internet, information about real Islam is available to anyone with the desire to learn. Muhammadans can no longer hide the abhorrent behaviors of their "perfect" man, nor can they whitewash Islamic history.
One of my favorite articles on this is here:
http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Wood/islam_beheaded.htm
Enjoy!
you write:
..."But now, with the internet, information about real Islam is available to anyone with the desire to learn. Muhammadans can no longer hide the abhorrent behaviors of their "perfect" man, nor can they whitewash Islamic history"
not to take the wind out of your sails, but, please open this thread and...realise that as incredible as it is...we may be facing a new reality....
please somebody tell me i am wrong and WHY it cannot happen.
What's more, Muslim immigration to America has risen sharply since September 11, 2001...
Same in Britain.
The Muslim population has grown from 1.65 million to 2.87 million since 2001, say researchers. What does this mean for liberal Britain?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100069830/the-muslim-population-has-grown-from-1-65-million-to-2-87-million-since-2001-say-researchers-what-does-this-mean-for-liberal-britain/
Hmmm, and the corollary:
If Muslims were Treated Like Jews:
they would be delegitimised with impunity, attacked with impunity, demonised, silenced, ridiculed, boycotted, seek pointless conciliation with their enemies, sent scurrying from one country to another in the attempt to escape religious attacks by immigrants, far leftists and the right wing nutters.
They would be characterised as Christ-killers, greedy, thieving, murdering sneaks who seek to dominate the world. They would be shown as setting cats, squirrels, snakes and pigs on poor unsuspecting "refugees".
When attacked, they would be portrayed as bloodsucking attackers. Their very symbol would be torn down and raged at, their history distorted, denied and ultimately replaced with another people wearing their history, for the one thing about their history would be that they who owned it would not be entitiled to it, but it must be shucked off onto usurping religious enemies who too it to squeeze them out of their own country and their own heritage.
Yes.
Bauer here comes across to me as more pining for a Medieval society in which Christianity was privileged, than shocked at the inroads made in our society recently by political Islam.
This is a good illustration of the first reason why, when creeping Sharia is midwifed in our society by leftists and "jewicidal" Jews, so many conservative Christians sit on the sidelines, or join the collaborators. Many conservative Christians intellectuals reject the protection of religious freedom, and secretly yearn to impose their own views using the police power of the State. Thus they look upon Rauf, Dearborn, and the Muslim Brotherhoods fronts more in envy than in horror.
The second reason is the "turn the other cheek" principle.
DJM wrote: "an open, information society will be the downfall of Islam . . . information about real Islam is available to anyone with the desire to learn"
Books have been available in the library for a long time. Spencer certainly played a major role in informing the general public of the dangers of Islam, but most people use the Internet solely as a way to return to high school, i.e. Facebook.
For every person learning of the dangers of Islam via the Internet, there are a few Muslims becoming radicalized via the same route. And let's not forget that liberals have access to the Internet, yet choose to practice affirmative action for a specific religious group.
Nice.
The well argued points presented in this article will still not stop Muslims in America from whining about "Islamophobia." Seems part of being a Muslim is being a constant whiner. So sick of this religion.
Do I blame these Muslim fanatics and Islam completely - no! It's the treacherous Western Left (esp. Socialist & the Green parties) leaders who have pushed for dominant Islamic migration into the West until it's beyond repair now, that is to fundamentally be blamed - in order to secure votes and dominant power for them. Because, the Left who will keep on sacrificing more and more on individuals' personal liberty as based on free will (as long as it's not real criminally injurious to others) , as taught in Christianity, for the sake of a unified powerful 'political community' are willing to sacrifice on similar Islamic ideological evil hatred on such individual liberty! Thus, the Left and Muslim fanatics share the same common goal - to abolish both individual freedom and individual justice; just to gain dominant political power, like the Nazis (I suspect that's why Hitler loves Islam!) The Western Left are basically selling out the West/Judeo-Christian civilization to the most evil enemies, for the sake of their Godless greed and deceit - let us never to forget Hitler and the Nazis were also Socialists i.e Lefties (which the Left would like us to forget!)!
Japan attacked us, we dropped 2 A-Bombs, and they never bothered us again. They even gave us a PS3
At 9/11, We should have contacted the country and asked for help, said if they didt help find those involved, we would bomb their country. We didn't. We were wusses. And no we are forever paying the price.
I am absolutely disgusted, that we had to take out "God" from the pledge of allegiance, but we have to constantly bend over for fear we offend some Muslim? Are you kidding me?
Here's a story Spencer won't be repeating, from Voice of America.
From the VoA article: "At least 27 wives of Israeli rabbis have signed a letter urging Jewish women to avoid dating Arab men, after dozens of rabbis signed a religious ruling that forbids renting homes to non-Jews."
Note that the rabbis signed a letter forbidding renting to "non-Jews." If it was restricting Muslims because of fear of suicide bombings, I could understand it. But restricting renting to Jews sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Rabbis-Wives-Warn-Against-Dating-Non-Jews-112599164.html
Now, dear, all you have to do is start your own blog and come up with the equivalent amount of terrorism, discriminating measures, killings, lawful absurdities/monstruosities performed by the Jews as can be found here for islamists !
Don't forget to post the link here and I'm sure you'll have a lot of followers... People are always interested in learning new stuff.
P.S. Only facts are allowed, no desinformation and lies. Thanks.
Hey mugwump, here's a story YOU won't be repeating, from Al-Jazeera!
At - http://europenews.dk/en: In - http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear\
"Moderate" Qaradawi Defends Hitler and Nuclear Terror
IPT News
November 9, 2010
....According to excerpts of a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera in January 2009, Qaradawi called on Muslims to put Jews in "their place" as Hitler had done, in revenge for Israeli military operations in Gaza several weeks earlier. "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption," he said. "The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers." At a January 2009 "Gaza Victory Rally" in Doha, Qatar, Qaradawi prayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. "The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah."......
First of all, Bauer's piece was brilliant. Thanks, Robert, for posting it.
Re Saucymugwump: Given how Islam encourages ferocious patriarchy, domestic violence, and (indirectly) honor-killing, you can hardly blame rabbis for giving women the sensible advice not to marry Muslims. Given the strong impetus of Christians (like me) to raise their children as Christians, there's good reason for rabbis (who are RELIGIOUS leaders) to urge their flocks not to marry outside the faith. It must inevitably lead to intra-family conflict--with one parent or the other feeling religiously alienated from his/her child. As for renting houses... if they SPECIFICALLY said not to rent to Muslims, the rabbis would probably have caught MORE fire for singling them out. So they made a more generic statement, and caught heat anyway. Israel is fighting for its life against genocidal religious and racial fanatics who want to drive its inhabitants into the sea. I cut Israelis a lot of slack. So should you.
DJM wrote: "an open, information society will be the downfall of Islam . . . information about real Islam is available to anyone with the desire to learn"
Books have been available in the library for a long time. Spencer certainly played a major role in informing the general public of the dangers of Islam, but most people use the Internet solely as a way to return to high school, i.e. Facebook.
For every person learning of the dangers of Islam via the Internet, there are a few Muslims becoming radicalized via the same route. And let's not forget that liberals have access to the Internet, yet choose to practice affirmative action for a specific religious group.
There is no doubt that a huge amount of Muslims are becoming radicalized through the Internet. The Internet has had a major impact on bringing together like minded people from around the world who otherwise would not have connected. The benefit for the counter-jihad movement is that the Internet is the main source of information since most MSM do not report on the kinds of articles you find linked to at Jihadwatch. Jihadis always get their marching orders from their local mosques where as the counter-jihad movement does not have a similar vehicle and is dependent on the Internet.
Lets get rid of the hypocrisy and laugh the Muslims and Leftists into SUBMISSION. Public ridicule through art (cartoons, movies, paintings, etc) will make "their" heads explode.
Just released. An Animated Short Feature Film “A Not So Grimm Fairy Tale” ………… Political Satire without the restraint of correctness. Synopsis: The people of “Hairmerica” were mislead into believing a totalitarian political machine. They awaken and take back their nation from the grip of Sorge Goros and Nancy Poles-i-don’t-see with the assistance of Ms. Bearah Sailin and her grizzly bear clan.
http://www.marcrubin.com/hairmerica.ivnu
Re the rabbis in Israel who were warning Jewish women not to marry Arabs - which basically means that they were telling them not to marry Muslims, since the number of *Christian* Arabs is quite small - it should be remembered that there have been some very nasty cases of 'marriage jihad' in Israel, in which Arab Muslim men exploited the fact that many Jews and Arabs do in fact look alike, in order to *pretend* to be nice Jewish boys looking for a wife...and then once the girl's married to him, SURPRISE, she discovers that Yoseph is in fact Yusuf or Moshe is Musa and...he's already got two wives and six kids and she's his Jewish 'possession of the right hand', locked in a hut in an Arab Muslim village, incommunicado, and being beaten and ordered around by his two Muslim wives who are just *delighted* to have a Jewish girl at their mercy to be humiliated.
Even when the man doesn't use false pretences, once she's married to her Arab Muslim the naive Jewish girl (who perhaps thought that Love Conquers All, and that she was making a separate peace, Romeo and Juliet style) generally discovers, like so many, many other infidel women, Jewish or otherwise have discovered before her (see, most famously, the personal testimony of Betty Mahmoody in 'Not Without My Daughter', and Phyllis Chesler in 'My Afghan Captivity', or British woman Miriam Ali, in 'Without Mercy'), that her Arab/ Muslim Prince Charming with the melting brown eyes has suddenly morphed into an ugly, sadistic, raping, wife-beating, over-controlling toad.
Those rabbis were doing in Israel, for Jewish women, exactly what Patrick and Rosemary Sookhdeo have been doing for Christians in the West and beyond the west, when they (the Sookhdeos) are warning Christian churches to make their young female congregants aware that Muslim men are deliberately targeting Christian girls for 'marriage-and-conversion', or at least, 'marriage-and-breeding-Muslim-kids'. The Catholics in Italy and the Orthodox in Russia have started to seriously warn their women against marrying Muslims. Rosemary Sookhdeo discusses the 'marriage jihad' targeting Western non-Muslim women (especially Christians) in her book 'Stepping Into the Shadows: Why Western Women Convert to Islam', which contains many cautionary tales drawn from her own experience (as wife to an Anglican priest in inner-city parishes of Britain) of counselling and trying to help women who had been thus ensnared.
Hindu and Sikh girls are targeted by marriage jihad both in India and also in the West, even in Britain; the families do their level best to dissuade and prevent their daughters from ever marrying Muslims, and for good reason.
There is a book by an American woman calling herself 'Cassandra', who was lured into marriage by a charming and plausible Arab Muslim, but managed to escape, and subsequently found out just how many other women had fallen into the same trap. She writes about her and their experience in two books "Escape! from an Arab Marriage" and "33 Secrets Arab Men Never Tell American Women".
I think she'd be in perfect agreement with the good rabbis in Israel; her advice to Israeli Jewish women would be exactly the same as her advice to American Christian and secular women..that is, if an Arab Muslim man is wooing and flattering you and asking you to marry him - DON'T.
(Actually, strikes me that her books should perhaps be re-named 'Escape! from a Muslim Marriage' and '33 Secrets Muslim Men Never Tell Infidel Women'...and translated into Hebrew, and Russian, and all the continental European languages; and every Infidel mother can make sure they are lying around the house for her daughters to read).
Correction.
I observe it was not the rabbis but their *wives* who were warning Jewish girls against marrying Arab (which for all intents and purposes means, Arab *Muslim*) men.
Hmmm. Maybe those wives have the same kind of pastoral experience behind them - counselling desperate and bitterly disillusioned Jewish girls who had been entrapped by Muslim seducers - as Rosemary Sookhdeo has in England.
i am writing with an amazed smile on my face...
reading your posts, dumbles is really like reaching the motherload of information...
i tip my hat off to you.
Bottom line, saucymugwump, is this: The worst of the Jewish world is no threat to the civilized world at large but yet even middling rot from the Muslim world is a dagger pointed at the heart of Western liberty. Many errors lurk out there and one of the worst (and stupidest) is moral equivalency thinking. Wise up.
DJM, thanks for the link to that excellent article.
David Wood is outstanding. He and some associates are preparing to sue the city of Dearborn for the behavior of its police force in denying some Christians their basic rights when they attended an Arab festival in Dearborn. (Dearborn has some sharia tendencies that came into effect at the festival). Considering what the police did, and all the video evidence David Wood and his associates have, and the law firm that's backing him, I wouldn't be surprised if Wood wins against Dearborn. He should win. The mayor of Dearborn needs to admit the mistakes he made and stop digging himself deeper.
saucymugwump,
I love your name, though I disagree with much that you've been saying.
dumbledoresarmy,
Have you read C.S.Lewis' fiction -- the science fiction trilogy, and the religious fiction, like The Great Divorce, or The Pilgrim's Regress? No doubt you've read the children's fiction: Narnia.
My real question: how do the Harry Potter books stack up against Lewis' fiction? I haven't read any of the Harry Potter stuff, not beyond a chapter in some airport once. But it's not in the same league as Lewis, right? Not nearly as good as Lewis, or is it?
Dear Covadonga,
You said,
How do you know what many conservative Christians "secretly" want to do? Are you a mind reader?
When you say "many" conservative Christian intellectuals reject the protection of religious freedom, how many is "many"? What's your evidence?
I believe you are unknowingly and innocently retailing an old canard.
A vanishingly small number of Christians of any kind wish to use the police power of the State to impose their Christian views or anything else, except in the very limited ways permitted by the Constitution. Mind you, I am not a conservative Christian. But I know that most conservative Christians are as serious about protecting freedom as anyone else. And no wonder: the central figure of the New Testament gives no support whatsoever for using the police power of the state to impose Christian views, and said and did much that led toward the First Amendment's religious freedom protections, though it took humanity a hell of a long time to create those protections. But then it shouldn't be a surprise that it took a long time, since state neutrality toward religious belief hardly existed anywhere in the world's history before.
While JC said to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's, Muhammad became Caesar, became the ruler of a state, a theocratic state of course. The difference should be quite clear to anyone who will simply look.
I'm reposting DJM's link, since its relevant to this thread and it's a great article:
Islam Beheaded: The Information Superhighway and the Death of Mohammedanism
i couldn't agree more with this article. why is it that christians are the only ones who have to be tolerant of other faiths? the muslims claim they want tolerence, where was theirs in the middle east with christians celebrating christmas? they were too busy killing them! it's time we forget about political correctness, and start calling a spade a spade.
One question - why aren't we doing it?
Traeh
re. C S Lewis - I've read pretty much everything. The Narnia books. The sci-fi/ fantasy trilogy. The Screwtape Letters. The Abolition of Man. The Discarded Image. God in the Dock (an essay collection). The Great Divorce. Till We Have Faces.
Of the Narnia books, I think "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is my personal favourite.
I enjoy Lewis and Tolkien both.
Rowling is *different*, not necessarily inferior. The first few books in the series are clearly written with a younger audience in mind, than the later books. She's lighter in tone than either Lewis or Tolkien; she has a lot of fun with basic puns and word-play, and uses comedy, farce, caricature and exaggeration more than Lewis or Tolkien ever do (One of the biggest jokes is the fact that there are winged boars at the gate of Hogwarts. It's like a huge signal to any overly earnest readers obsessing about 'the Occult': look, people, flying pigs!) She's not as overtly Christian as Lewis and not as obsessive about detail as Tolkien.
But the entire series can be approached as a sort of extended riff on two Biblical texts: "where your treasure is/ there will your heart be also" and "the last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death". If you do sit down to read the books, bear that in mind.
Her books, for me at least, stand the basic acid test of 1. rereading (that is, once read, they do not get set aside and forgotten, but can be taken up and re-read with enjoyment) and 2. reading aloud (we read the whole series aloud, in our house, a year or so ago; a chapter or so a night every night after dinner).
I do think that, like Lewis and Tolkien, she is more of a 'medieval' than a Modern writer, in terms of the way she tells stories. If like me you have read Spenser's 'Faerie Queene', then when you visit 'the Department of Mysteries' in "The Order of the Phoenix" you will recognise that you are visiting a place that is like the allegorical houses and castles of Spenser's poem - encountering the door to the room of Love, and visiting the rooms of Death, Thought, and Time. Again, in the second book, there is a scene in which a Phoenix goes up against a basilisk - resurrection/ invincible life/ self-giving love challenging the death serpent: it's the sort of episode that you'd get in a medieval romance. There are other things, but I won't take this offtopic any further by giving details.
And Rowling does achieve moments of what Tolkien called 'eucatastrophe' - the sudden 'turn', the moment of grace, when *things come right* beyond all rational hope or expectation.
Read the books during this Christmas/ New Year season, as refreshing holiday entertainment, and see what you find.
Don't kid yourself people. As a Jew growing up in a Majority catholic province I endured many taunts and beatings by the so called Christian majority. It was the Liberal Left who finally woke up and put an end to that train of thought. Any religion that gets a strangle hold on the political system will use it to push their way of life. It takes liberal free thinkers to point out the bulshit of all religions and the harm they are capable of. Thankfully in this country thee are enough free thinkers to keep the Falwells and their ilk at bay. If you read the writings of Ben Franklin and Payne and those responsible for the American way, they were not religionists, they were their day equivalents of Atheists who saw the harm religious fervency can cause.
dumbledoresarmy,
Thank you for that discussion of Rowling.
I've read all the Lewis you mentioned, except the Discarded Image. Also have read The Four Loves and Surprised by Joy. God in the Dock I haven't read, though I expect I've elsewhere read some of the essays anthologized in it.
Of the Narnia books, Dawn Treader is perhaps my favorite also, though I also favor The Silver Chair. I especially love the last parts of Dawn Treader, the sea of lilies or whatever it was, the change of the water from salty to sweet, the light, and Reepicheep's fearless will to death and rebirth taking him right into God's immensity at the end.
You mentioned allegory. Somewhere Lewis says that George MacDonald is better than anyone at "hovering between the mythopoeic and the allegorical." But I think Lewis is much better at that than MacDonald. The amazing thing about Lewis' fiction is the way the images in a story, while having their own inherent story power, or mythopoeic power, yet have the most striking allegorical resonances. It's not the kind of crude allegory that works like a mechanical code, of course. Instead it's that there are two or more levels mysteriously resonating and interpenetrating each other in various ways. The images in a Lewis story often function not only on the obvious level of the surface narrative, but simultaneously as a brilliant way of thinking in images about human problems. In Lewis' novel fragment, The Dark Tower, the main character was apparently an allegory for the male tendency to reduce women to sex objects, and masturbation. Lewis was reading what he had written of the book to the Inklings, I believe it was, and one of them seems to have seen right through the allegory, which apparently embarrassed Lewis, so that he never completed the novel. Unfortunate, because it's an astounding story, as far as it goes -- one of Lewis' best. It involved battles between good and evil forces, and one wanted to see how Lewis would heal the tendency to objectify women. Oh well, enough off-topic. Your comment about allegory in Rowling got me started. I haven't read Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' I suppose I'll be taking a look at one of the Potter books...
Traeh
There are two great moments in the Harry Potter movies where the film-makers - purely by instinct, I think - have picked up on, and run with, powerful images inherent in the text.
The first is in the first film, 'Philosopher's Stone': the chess game.
Ron, Harry and Hermione have to play their way across a chessboard. Ron directs the game - 'I'll be a Knight!'. Hermione is assigned the part of a Castle; Harry, the part of a Bishop (interesting choice).
Here's the sequence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRCgQ3yQuIg
And allow yourself to realize that what is happening here are that these three children are representing three archetypes: Ron Weasley can be seen, in this scene, as ' Rome', all we mean by Rome at its best, the political or warrior principle; Hermione is Athens, the pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, the life of the intellect; and Harry is...Jerusalem. The spine-tingling coincidence, that the actor who plays Harry in the films *is* Jewish (Daniel Radcliffe's mother is Jewish) just adds an extra layer of resonance. And in this scene, he's wearing a bright red jumper: the colour of charity, of Love.
(The analogy I've just suggested, holds all the way from that scene, on through Harry's confrontation with Voldemort's possessed slave and with Voldemort himself, the finding of the Stone, and the fleeing of Voldemort's temporarily defeated and frustrated shadow).
The second great moment is in the third film, 'Prisoner of Azkaban'. It's a marvellous realization of an episode in the book when Hagrid introduces the class to a Hippogriff, and Harry - having made friends with the Hippogriff - is taken for a ride. The Hippogriff is a marvellous allegorical figure, combining the body of a Horse (earthly desire) with the head and wings of an eagle (spiritual aspiration and insight). One must be courteous to a Hippogriff, or it will kill you; Hagrid (who is one of the most convincing representations of Holy Charity that I have seen in literature anywhere) has tamed and commands it - it comes to his call. Get the film out and just watch that scene. It lifts the entire film; and the music John Williams composed for it is lovely. It's a perfect representation of what the Eastern Orthodox Christian mystics call "the flight of desire". (Lovely discourse on that in D B Hart's "The Beauty of the Infinite" - get the book and look at Part II, section I, subsection 3: i - 'desire's flight').
Dear Traeh,
You ask:
"How do you know what many conservative Christians "secretly" want to do? Are you a mind reader?
"When you say "many" conservative Christian intellectuals reject the protection of religious freedom, how many is "many"? What's your evidence?"
Exhibit A is the passage from Gary Bauer that Robert quoted above. Read it again and count how many times Bauer complains, not of special treatment being extended to Muslims, but of the same special treatment not (or no longer) being extendeed to Christians.
On the issues of enforcing prayer in the public classroom, blocking science from being printed in childrens' textbooks, contraception, and first-trimester abortion, Christian intellectuals are not secretive about the views that they wish to impose on others in society, based on no evidence outside of their own doctrines.
You state:
"While JC said to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's, Muhammad became Caesar, became the ruler of a state, a theocratic state of course. The difference should be quite clear to anyone who will simply look."
We are in agreement that Muslim doctrine is objectively much inferior to Christian in any numbers of ways. That superiority of Christianity did not suffice to save the lives of the pagans and Jews lynched by Christian mobs throughout much of the Church's history, nor of the Cathars killed in the Albigensian Crusade, nor of any number of conversos wrongfully accused by the Spanish Inquisition, nor of any number of Catholics and Protestants murdered by the rival faction in the Wars of Religion.
(Some believe that all wealth rightfully belongs to the whole community. They go on to insist that we give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and that every dollar bill, because it is printed with a picture of Washington, should be sent to Washington. And that every dollar I earned honestly, that I hold onto, is thus a stigma of "greed" to be held against me.
Suffice it to say that I do not count myself among their number.
So Christ in fact did a great deal of mischief in enunciating the statement of his you quoted approvingly above. And his followers' adherence to it has continued to bedevil modern man's understanding of individual rights and valid economics. By "followers" here, I am including even the Communists who hold to the tradition of anti-materialism and anti-wealth Christian teachings while denying the existence of God and other Christian doctrines.)
Progressive elites vehemently protect and favor Muslim supremacy because they themselves are supremacist. Just as an alcoholic would tend to excuse and be lenient with a drunken driver, so progressive elites tend to excuse and be lenient with Muslim demands for privilege. Christianity teaches equal dignity and that the hand cannot say to the foot, "I don't need you" and that the "greatest" Christians are the ones who support, indeed serve, others (not just themselves). Yes, the world loves its own.
Dear Covadonga,
Oh dear. I wasn't expecting a quality response. You are not going to let me have my way easily. Ok, I'll take your points one by one.
I read Bauer as doing a couple of things in the passage in question. He's complaining about the double standard, complaining, as you or I would, about Islamic sharia creep. Second, I imagine he also wants Christianity to have more influence in the public square, but not remotely in the sense of a theocracy with monopoly power over the state or centralized control of the media. Nor does he desire police power to impose Christian faith on people. I see no indication that Bauer seeks to go outside the Constitution in achieving his goals. I see no indication that he is against the First Amendment. At most, his complaint against the current situation would probably be that some seek to use the non-establishment part of the First Amendment to curtail the free exercise part of the First Amendment. If so, Bauer's is a legitimate position that is not in any way, shape, or form akin to a theocratic one. But some non-religious people, out of a kind of bias and contempt, turn anything, so long as it has even the slightest remotest resemblance to a call for theocracy, into a Christian coup in the making. It just ain't so. The vast majority of conservative Christians, I'm convinced, are quite strong partisans for limited government and a broad array of freedoms.
You misunderstand what is going on with state schools and state text books. One need not be a Christian at all to consider state schools an imposition of state-sanctioned values -- whether those values include prayer or reject prayer. Anyone who claims to care about freedom, as I know you do, should be aware that the state schools ("public" schools) have their curricula determined often by majority political control vested in school boards, which are organs of the State. Censorship is an inherent part of state schooling, insofar as there is no difference between selection of materials and censorship of other materials. If Bauer wants prayer in state schools, he is wrong, but no more wrong than those who oppose prayer in state schools, because either way state schools inevitably impose a system of beliefs, however hodgepodge, bureacratic, and disorganized that system might be. School board majorities, whether religious or not, have no business controlling schooling's content, except where there is a compelling state justification, which is to say, only in very exceptional cases. Stephen Arons, a professor of Constitutional law at the University of Amherst, is a liberal thinker who makes arguments like the above, for example in his book Compelling Belief. Arons argues for a separation of school and state, as to content, and suggests that state funds could subsidize parents' choice of a school. This doesn't mean parents could send their children to absolutely any school, no matter what it taught. But Arons says only where the state can give a compelling justification for curtailing choice should it curtail choice. There may be a very few exceptions, but freedom of formation of belief should be the rule. Arons names racial discrimination and racist teachings as a compelling justification for excluding a school from the pool of possible schools for state subsidized family choice. But Arons says both religious and non-religious schools, whether Christian, or Buddhist, or atheist, or whatever, should be part of the pool from which a family could choose. So Bauer is no more wrong or inclined to use of police power on this issue than are all the non-religious people who support majoritarian political control of school content via school boards or other elected officials.
Hurray!
There are nasty mobs in every society, especially the further back you go in time. How do you know that Christian societies were not better in that respect, on average, than other societies emerging from the archaic world? If state neutrality toward religion and unreligion is implicit in the New Testament and the actions and words attributed to JC, then all that mob activity of Christians has to be blamed on the fact that they were emerging from a primitive background, and could not understand or implement the essence of the New Testament in social life. Further, we are talking of Christians today, now that state neutrality toward belief has been achieved throughout the Christian world. I understand your concern that believers will impose their beliefs without regard for reason and freedom. But I disagree with you if you think the central figure portrayed in the New Testament is supportive of theocracy. On the contrary, I think JC's actions and words lead toward freedom, both political and religious. It is not JC's fault that it took so long for people to understand and institutionalize freedom.
Christians killing other Christians. And why? Was it something in JC's message? I don't think so. It was the historical background that JC's message had to work with. A background in which freedom was not yet understood. You also overlook how innovative the Cathar Christian knights were, with regard to capitalism and finance. Why doesn't Christianity get your credit for that?
Again, can you blame the Spanish Inquisition on Christianity? I'd say you can blame it on Christians who don't pay attention to Christianity. You can blame it on historical conditions hundreds of years ago.
Were these theocratic wars unique to Christianity? No. What is unique to Christianity is that the end of theocracy has been achieved in the Western, Christian world. You may say that was not due to Christianity, it was the Enlightenment. But why did the Enlightenment arise only in the Judeo-Christian universe? Why did Christian theology immediately incorporate a Greek philosophical element (the Logos, Word, or Reason) at its core? Why did the mighty intellect of Aquinas, whatever its flaws, feel obligated to digest the whole of Aristotle? In part because the core Christian message is about love, truth, and freedom, and positively against theocracy.
The same with slavery. It existed everywhere throughout history, including among Christians. Yet it was Christians alone, acting from Christian convictions, who started the first major, successful movements to abolish slavery. I'm sure you know of Wilberforce.
To my knowledge, conservative Christians are pretty pro-capitalist and free market. But it sounds here like you are blaming liberation theology on JC's statement. Liberation theology is a leftist movement. We were talking about your accusations of theocratic ambition for police state power among conservative Christians. Still, I'll answer you. JC rejects theocracy -- and this may have its seed in Judaism, insofar as Judaism distinguished between the priestly line and the kingly line, and for other reasons. State socialism -- tyranny -- was not JC's message. Consider. He claimed to be Jehovah or Yaweh -- the I Am -- on earth. He said "My kingdom is not of this world." The story claims that the devil offered him all the kingdoms of the earth, and that he wasn't interested. His action and teaching was love. Love can only call to freedom and responsibility, because love comes from the innermost core of an individual. Unlike fasting on Ramadan, or prostrating five times a day, love cannot be forced from without. JC's action and teaching was to convey to humanity the true form of the divine I Am, the divine individual within each of us, which is love, freedom, responsibility, the kingdom within. I think that this example and teaching, demonstrated, it is claimed, in the death and resurrection (laying down his life for love) is the main core of what most conservative Christians, and other Christians, find in the story of JC.
You can't blame JC for what communists did! Anyone who twists the compassionate message of JC, JC gets the blame from you? Come on. How would you like it if people did that to you? So I can blame you for people who twist what you say and who claim you called for mass murder? People can turn anything to mischief if they please. It's not JC's fault if they ignore most of what he said and fasten on one statement in utter isolation from the rest, and then add murder and who knows what else to the brew.
dumbledoresarmy,
I recall you mentioning those correspondences in another comment somewhere. Hermione as Athens, Ron as Rome, Harry as Jerusalem. The threefold West. I recall that you posted that video clip in the other comment also, and I had a look. A neat scene. I will be watching the Philosophers Stone soon, I expect, with your comment in mind.
But I suspect you are able to appreciate the Potter movies more than I can, because you've read the Potter books.
I might not like the Narnia movies, except that I've read the books, which to me are infinitely better than the movies made of them.
Too much seems lost in the translation to popular film. The third film installment of Narnia just came out here in the U.S.: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Is it out in Australia? (I gather that's where you are.) I've seen part of it. I suppose I should see the whole, to give it a chance. But I found the ending pretty unsatisfactory, by comparison with the book. In the last phases of the book, sailing into the dawning Beauty seemed to take a long time, and go through many phases, like slowly entering into a beatific vision. In the movie, by contrast, it happens rather quickly, and what Reepicheep enters at the very end did not seem to me like a divine world or a beatific vision. Ah well.
I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
dumbledoresarmy, here's an addendum to my comment immediately above,
I've looked at the video clip again, and I do see remarkable correspondences, though I wonder if I'm just making them up, more or less. Hermione is a Greek name, and she implies in the clip that what she has is cleverness and books. Okay, Athens. She is the castle, which I suppose could be a metaphor for wisdom, ivory tower wisdom, perhaps platonic idealism. Ron, as knight, directs the battle or chess match, and sacrifices himself so Harry can go on. Apparently Edward Gibbon thought that Rome sacrificed herself for Christianity, or at any rate fell in part by adopting and serving Christianity and what Gibbons took to be Christianity's decadence or weakness, by comparison with the manly virtues of Rome. As Harry (Jerusalem) goes on, Ron has fallen, like Rome. Before Harry continues though, he tells Hermione to look after Ron/Rome. When the Western Roman Empire fell, the eastern part of the empire, mainly Greek, looked after and sought to preserve what was left of Roman power. As to Harry/Jerusalem being the bishop, I suppose one could quote Exodus 19:6: "You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
Interesting to get your reading of that scene.
I should stress that I don't think the film-makers in any way knew that it could mean what you and I see in it - I think their response to the scene was pretty much instinctive.
And I suspect that Rowling didn't *consciously* set out to write it so as to read that way; I think she's a poet, she's had some level of Christian instruction, she's studied medieval lit at some stage I think, and she's just soaked up the essentials of this extraordinary civilisation we belong to; she knows without knowing that she knows.
My own guess is that her subconscious, saturated with certain kinds of literature and images, gave her these three main characters, and she just 'knew' that they had to be like this; it 'felt right'; and then episodes like this followed naturally.
I gather genius works that way sometimes...
If Mohammed had never been born? Can you imagine a world with no suicide bombers?
http://stopgovernment.ning.com/video/what-would-muhammad-do