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FuzzySkinner posted:It's some bizarre mind set done by the Evangelical movement Yes, you're absolutely right. There are plenty of places in the world where owning a Bible can get you arrested or killed. America is not one of those places. I guess the difference is some people think a "yet" needs to be tacked onto that statement. I just liked following up "you have to be prepared to die," which some missionaries actually are, with "we had to be prepared to lose a TV show."
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Jun 29, 2014 05:23
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm not a biblical scholar, but I don't think there's any indication that Jesus ever wanted those swords to actually be used. I think one of the Apostles cuts a guard's ear with one, and Jesus shouts at him to knock it off.
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Jun 29, 2014 05:29
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skaboomizzy posted:I think one of the Apostles cuts a guard's ear with one, and Jesus shouts at him to knock it off. Jesus gets pretty pissed at the apostle and then heals the dude's ear.
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Jun 29, 2014 05:35
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One thing I hate about the whole Benham brothers thing is that people on their side tout their near-Fred Phelpsian hatred as just something Christians believe and do.
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Jun 29, 2014 06:20
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Dr Christmas posted:One thing I hate about the whole Benham brothers thing is that people on their side tout their near-Fred Phelpsian hatred as just something Christians believe and do. None of those people ever disagreed with Phelps, they just thought he was lacking in tact.
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Jun 29, 2014 06:21
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Dr Christmas posted:One thing I hate about the whole Benham brothers thing is that people on their side tout their near-Fred Phelpsian hatred as just something Christians believe and do. It would be really great if all these Christian Warriors got together and started a TV network (or even a YouTube channel) where the Benham Brothers and others like them could spread their message to the world. What do you mean, "that costs money"? Those brave brothers are willing to DIE for their message, and they won't even front the cost for them to to buy shitbox houses and fix them up while filming it all for YouTube?
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Jun 29, 2014 06:26
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Leofish posted:Yes, you're absolutely right. There are plenty of places in the world where owning a Bible can get you arrested or killed. America is not one of those places. I was in Columbus, Ohio once and out of boredom turned on "American Family Radio" which was airing some stupid morning show. This was during the whole "Duck Dynasty" fall out, and I was rather amazed at how these people handled this. "I want everyone here to pray for Phil Robertson and his family as they are UNDER ATTACK by the SECULAR LEFT for standing up for traditional marriage, and JESUS" I kept thinking how selfish it was that these people chose to focus thoughts and energy on praying for someone who was in good health, was fairly well off financially and was clearly surrounded by friends/family. I kept imagining all the people who are dealing with cancer, or have a family/friend dealing with cancer. I kept thinking about people having to worry about putting food on the table every day, and living day to day on a small paycheck. I kept thinking about a million other more important problems that people would actually need to be prayed over. Yet this is what the evangelical movement deemed as an urgent matter. These people are frauds. They have as more in common with the book of Ayn Rand, as they do with Christ's teachings.
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Jun 29, 2014 06:59
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Speaking of Ayn Rand, I was in a bookstore earlier and saw Ayn Rand books in the "required reading for schools" section. That's kinda sad.
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Jun 29, 2014 07:21
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Kenzie posted:Speaking of Ayn Rand, I was in a bookstore earlier and saw Ayn Rand books in the "required reading for schools" section. That's kinda sad. Maybe, if it's being made required reading by a Randian blowhard. lovely novels like Twilight are required reading in literary analysis courses all over.
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Jun 29, 2014 07:33
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Is there still that big Ayn Rand essay scholarship they do? I could see teachers in a school pushing that book to some classes on the basis of, "Hey, you do a good enough essay on it, you can win money for college!"
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Jun 29, 2014 13:03
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JediTalentAgent posted:Is there still that big Ayn Rand essay scholarship they do? I could see teachers in a school pushing that book to some classes on the basis of, "Hey, you do a good enough essay on it, you can win money for college!" This might surprise you in the era of the Tea Party, but it looks like it offers considerably more scholarship money than when I was fishing for college money.
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Jun 29, 2014 14:14
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JediTalentAgent posted:Is there still that big Ayn Rand essay scholarship they do? I could see teachers in a school pushing that book to some classes on the basis of, "Hey, you do a good enough essay on it, you can win money for college!" I have a friend who did that before graduating from high school in '09, and she wrote on the architecture present in Fountainhead. Needless to say, it was not at all what the scholarship writers were looking for 
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Jun 29, 2014 15:44
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Star Man posted:Maybe, if it's being made required reading by a Randian blowhard. lovely novels like Twilight are required reading in literary analysis courses all over. I was gonna say, if done in the proper non-biased way it could work in the "know thine enemy" sense. Though that also hinges on what grade is being required to read it, as Rand will fit quite neatly into the average early teen's (ie. pre-gently caress YOU DAD) worldview.
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Jun 29, 2014 16:53
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Star Man posted:Maybe, if it's being made required reading by a Randian blowhard. lovely novels like Twilight are required reading in literary analysis courses all over. I have yet to see a colleague assign Twilight, but popular novels often make their way onto reading lists because of familiarity and because analyzing them can be easier for a new student than doing so with a dense work from the "canon." As for Rand, in spite of or because of her odious ethics, her books are have had a significant influence on our culture, and there's nothing wrong with examining that as long as it is done rationally with context.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:13
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PeterWeller posted:I have yet to see a colleague assign Twilight, but popular novels often make their way onto reading lists because of familiarity and because analyzing them can be easier for a new student than doing so with a dense work from the "canon." The other issue is that a lot of classics are either downright painful to read, beyond the comprehension of a 12 year old, or just flat out bad. I remember doing things in school like spending six weeks reading and analyzing Johnny Tremain or Great Expectations, both of which were stories that every single student positively loathed. It didn't exactly instill a love of books in the student body. Ender's Game, conversely, was a story that everybody thought was pretty neat. The week we spent covering Poe was also adored by the students, but forcing them to go over stuff that students absolutely hate "because it's good for them" does the opposite of helping. Whether we like it or not Randian thought is influential. I think it's probably a good thing that it's being read so that people can take a look at it and what it actually means for themselves rather than the feel good, "I just want everybody to be free" bullshit version that gets pushed by the right. Rand's arguments are fundamentally flawed and, all told, she was a selfish, horrible person that became influential through charisma, manipulation, and stubbornness rather than by any actual merit.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:38
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amishbuttermaster posted:So this psycho has to comb the Bible for three years to find a theological justification for taking human lives. Funny that he leaves out the Gospels entirely in his list of sources but I guess Jesus telling people to turn the other cheek is just too pesky a detail to want to think about. --Something I have actually heard a wingnut argue
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Jun 29, 2014 21:42
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The Rokstar posted:No you see, back in that time if someone hit you in the face and you turned your other cheek to them, it was a show of defiance and you were taking an aggressive posture (as in, "yeah, go ahead, hit me again"). Thus Jesus was totally okay with you fighting people. Just going off of Wikipedia but there might be some merit to that argument: quote:The scholar Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, interprets the passage as ways to subvert the power structures of the time. He says that at the time of Jesus, striking someone deemed to be of a lower class with the back of the hand was used to assert authority and dominance. If the persecuted person "turned the other cheek," the discipliner was faced with a dilemma. The left hand was used for unclean purposes, so a back-hand strike on the opposite cheek would not be performed. An alternative would be a slap with the open hand as a challenge or to punch the person, but this was seen as a statement of equality. Thus, by turning the other cheek the persecuted was demanding equality.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:46
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There's a hell of a lot more to that passage that makes it clear that the point isn't to totally own some dude by making him punch you.quote:"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:17
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The eye of the needle was actually a gate that merchants had to pass through and it was sort of difficult to get your camel through there so gagrjaghjshjagdsjhs I'm choking on my own brain.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:20
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PeterWeller posted:As for Rand, in spite of or because of her odious ethics, her books are have had a significant influence on our culture ToxicSlurpee posted:Whether we like it or not Randian thought is influential. How influential is she really? Paul Ryan, the Koch Bros. maybe, some start-up people? And how "Randian" are those "Randians", because it probably didn't take Atlas Shrugged to convince any of those people that welfare makes people lazy.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:58
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Time to read Zinn posted:How influential is she really? Paul Ryan, the Koch Bros. maybe, some start-up people? And how "Randian" are those "Randians", because it probably didn't take Atlas Shrugged to convince any of those people that welfare makes people lazy. Paul Ryan and the Koch's alone have more influence the large portions of the country, they shouldn't be used as examples.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The other issue is that a lot of classics are either downright painful to read, beyond the comprehension of a 12 year old, or just flat out bad. I remember doing things in school like spending six weeks reading and analyzing Johnny Tremain or Great Expectations, both of which were stories that every single student positively loathed. It didn't exactly instill a love of books in the student body. Ender's Game, conversely, was a story that everybody thought was pretty neat. The week we spent covering Poe was also adored by the students, but forcing them to go over stuff that students absolutely hate "because it's good for them" does the opposite of helping. Yeah, I look back at some of the stuff I had to read in middle and high school and I am surprised my love of English literature survived and actually grew into a passion and career. Most all of it was significant for some reason or another, but too much of it was stuff no teenager would ever give a poo poo about written in archaic vernaculars, making the reading difficult. The curriculum seem designed to make literature a chore. Time to read Zinn posted:How influential is she really? Paul Ryan, the Koch Bros. maybe, some start-up people? And how "Randian" are those "Randians", because it probably didn't take Atlas Shrugged to convince any of those people that welfare makes people lazy. Many conservative pols and economists have cited her as an influence. Some were even disciples. Her influence doesn't come from getting people to believe poors are lazy. It comes from providing an ethical cloak for naked greed.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:38
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PeterWeller posted:Yeah, I look back at some of the stuff I had to read in middle and high school and I am surprised my love of English literature survived and actually grew into a passion and career. I want to believe you really are Peter Weller. Not just any Peter Weller, but Peter Weller from Naked Lunch, enjoying a career in the literary field.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:45
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Time to read Zinn posted:How influential is she really? Paul Ryan, the Koch Bros. maybe, some start-up people? And how "Randian" are those "Randians", because it probably didn't take Atlas Shrugged to convince any of those people that welfare makes people lazy.  gently caress, and that's just what's findable, I assume there's a hell of a lot more to that web that's been buried through various means of subterfuge. You have to be trolling, but if you actually didn't know, welcome to "Money in Politics: you can probably trace it back to the Koch brothers". If this is depressing to learn/think about, feel free to drinkchat in the new D&D general chat thread. 
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Jun 29, 2014 23:46
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Time to read Zinn posted:How influential is she really?  That's Alan Greenspan in the middle.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:56
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fade5 posted:Are you trolling or something? Paul Ryan was the goddamn Vice Presidential candidate for Romney and the Republicans in 2012 (which means he was two steps away from leading the goddamn country), and even after losing he still has far more pull than he should as a budget But that's a dumbly narrow definition of influential, although under it I'd have counted Rand if I'd known about I don't know anything about her personal life so I assumed she was like a 50's Stefan Molyneux or something. But now I know.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:09
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The thing with Rand is that there are two kinds of fans. The first are the diehards, the ideologues, the followers. They think that everything Rand said is true and buy into the cultish aspects of 'Objectivism'. They're the Koch brothers, the Paul Ryans, the Alan Greenspans. They are pretty powerful. The other group of fans are the ones that once read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and misunderstood it. While they're basically "how to be a sociopath" manuals, they take it to be some milquetoast, watered down Randriod bullshit. They think that the glorious job creators are worthy of worship, that charity is overrated, and that government can't do anything right, because Ayn Rand showed this by writing a completely unrealistic story that they somehow thought resembled reality. Many times they want to combine their insane Ayn Rand love with Christianity and buy into Prosperity Gospel stuff. They're hard to distinguish from the standard Republican, except that they say that Ayn Rand is life-affirming. They think John Galt and Howard Roark are heroes not because they're insane selfish sociopaths, but because they "followed their dreams" and "didn't let others keep them down!" or whatever other bullshit they think happened in those books. The true believers are dangerous, but the ordinary fans are pretty bad too, because they buy into incredible bullshit and have an immense entitlement complex, usually. And let's not forget that Ayn Rand's legacy includes a famous scholarship essay competition that thousands of students have entered. The mainstream philosophical community, thankfully, hates her guts, but I would gather that more American college students have read Rand than John Stuart Mill. Ghost of Reagan Past fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 00:20
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Time to read Zinn posted:I didn't think that counted for much because 2 rich people, even 2 very politically involved rich people, and a failed vice president being the most recognizable fans (to my knowledge) didn't sound that influential, I guess because I only thought of influence as being the size of a following. It wasn't an ignorance of how much money the Koch Bros. spend. A lot of laymen are fans of Randian philosophy without even realizing it. The Republican party's attitudes toward policy are currently extremely Randian and I've heard people that don't even know who Ayn Rand was spouting off arguments based on her philosophy. A lot of the Republican think tanks ultimately trace back to a few Randians but the influence is hidden in many ways. A lot of the time nobody is really coming out and saying "I believe this because Ayn Rand" but instead finding some other way to convince people to believe it. Completely deregulating the market and destroying all social/welfare programs is ultimately what Ayn Rand advocated. She also indicated that the wealthy business owners were the best people ever and could do whatever they wanted. That sounds great if you're a wealthy business owner, the only snag is that you have to convince everybody else that they too will benefit from raw social darwinism. Or, alternately, convince people that if they let you do whatever you want you'll track down the demographic they don't like and repeatedly hammer them in the dicks.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:20
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:The thing with Rand is that there are two kinds of fans. The first are the diehards, the ideologues, the followers. They think that everything Rand said is true and buy into the cultish aspects of 'Objectivism'. They're the Koch brothers, the Paul Ryans, the Alan Greenspans. They are pretty powerful. The other group of fans are the ones that once read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and misunderstood it. While they're basically "how to be a sociopath" manuals, they take it to be some milquetoast, watered down Randriod bullshit. They think that the glorious job creators are worthy of worship, that charity is overrated, and that government can't do anything right, because Ayn Rand showed this by writing a completely unrealistic story that they somehow thought resembled reality. Many times they want to combine their insane Ayn Rand love with Christianity and buy into Prosperity Gospel stuff. They're hard to distinguish from the standard Republican, except that they say that Ayn Rand is life-affirming. They think John Galt and Howard Roark are heroes not because they're insane selfish sociopaths, but because they "followed their dreams" and "didn't let others keep them down!" or whatever other bullshit they think happened in those books. Funny then, that Paul Ryan basically disowned her after it was publicized (gasp) that he was a big fan of hers.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:58
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He wasn't. He just had to do a little tap dance when it was pointed out that his professed Randian influence ran counter to the tenets of his professed Catholic faith.
PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 01:09
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Alan Greenspan was Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987-2006 and was very, very close to Ayn Rand.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:17
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beatlegs posted:Funny then, that Paul Ryan basically disowned her after it was publicized (gasp) that he was a big fan of hers. Sorry, I know a number of these kinds of Randians and it pisses me the gently caress off.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:32
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Why on earth did anyone think Greenspan was smart? Pretty much everything he ever did or said was wrong.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:36
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joeburz posted:Why on earth did anyone think Greenspan was smart? Pretty much everything he ever did or said was wrong. Because the 90s were  economically by sheer luck on his part. After the dotcom and telco crashes of the early 2000's he became increasingly marginalized outside of his job as Fed Chief (which gave him a lot of power and made him required listening). The 2008 Great Recession put the final nail in his credibility (at least, for non-randians).
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Jun 30, 2014 03:42
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Greenspan said a lot of things that would-be oligarchs want to hear, and was therefore brilliant.
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Jun 30, 2014 04:14
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At one point he said 'hey maybe this dot com thing is overhyped' and the markets freaked out so he took it back. 'This is John Galt speaking...'
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Jun 30, 2014 05:11
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Pope Guilty posted:Greenspan said a lot of things that would-be oligarchs want to hear, and was therefore brilliant. Would-be oligarchs are exactly the type drawn to Randian nonsense. It's masturbatory great man fantasy with a veneer of philosophy. De jure birthright is out, and individual liberty is in, and Rand conveniently uses the latter to support de facto birthright. That her books are nearly unreadable giant messes helps hide just how jealous, selfish and outright ridiculous her reasoning is. Objectivism is in many ways indistinguishable from LaVeyan Satanism. It's the same philosophy of self indulgence, except focused on industry and smoking and exploitation instead of pentagrams and black robes and sex.
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Jun 30, 2014 06:41
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Well, at least Greenspan admitted that tax cuts don't pay for themselves and that he was wrong about deregulation, so he's not as bad as some of the morons that he still hangs out with.
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Jun 30, 2014 09:16
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PeterWeller posted:Would-be oligarchs are exactly the type drawn to Randian nonsense. It's masturbatory great man fantasy with a veneer of philosophy. De jure birthright is out, and individual liberty is in, and Rand conveniently uses the latter to support de facto birthright. That her books are nearly unreadable giant messes helps hide just how jealous, selfish and outright ridiculous her reasoning is. I don't remember who said it, but I once heard a quote about how LaVeyan Satanism is just objectivism with funny costumes. It's pretty true.
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Jun 30, 2014 09:35
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:I don't remember who said it, but I once heard a quote about how LaVeyan Satanism is just objectivism with funny costumes. It's pretty true. I thought it was LaVey
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Jun 30, 2014 09:43
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