Religious Freedom, Exceptis Excipiendis

Apropos of nothing, Sanders brought up an essay Vought had written as an alumnus of Wheaton College. The Christian school had fired a professor for a Facebook post in which she announced that she would wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslims for a season. In an article in response, Vought wrote out a basic Christian tenet: that people cannot know God except through Jesus. "Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology," he wrote. "They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his son, and they stand condemned."

Sanders repeatedly read this passage back to Vought during his confirmation hearing, at one point accusing him of perpetuating Islamophobia.

“In my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible. It is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world,” Sanders said. “This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms … we must not go backwards.”
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that even the Pope no longer believes that statement.

8 comments:

james said...

THE STATE is a jealous god.

ymarsakar said...

State religion is a petty good con if you can get it.

"Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology," he wrote. "They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his son, and they stand condemned."

Funny, that's not what Yeshua told me. So who has more authority, Yeshua or the religious humans that purport to speak for Yeshua?

Mind you, they do not claim to have SPOKEN To Yeshua or to claim that "these are the words of the Divine from my mouth". They claim their authority based on a book written by men.

What exactly makes your book any better than some other book? Islam also has a book...

See, that's the human nature and stupidity at work. They think God or the Divine, is some kind of materialistic IDOL. And we know what that means.

It makes just about as much sense as if I told Soros' lawyer and will executioner, "I have this note written by Soros, that all his stuff transfers to me on his death".

Executioner: And your proof that Soros wrote this or witnesses to the effect?

ME: The Proof is HERE in this BIBLE of Ymar. So it is written, that Soros' wealth, as agreed to by Soros and his estate, transfers to Ymar upon the death of Soros.

Executioner: ....... I am the representative of his estate and I have never seen you.

ME: Then you know nothing about Soros, as this Book testifies to the Truth of Soros.

Humans are basically clowns. Sometimes the yare terrifying and other times ridiculous.

Dad29 said...

The discussion should center on the question "How to Overcome Existential Cultural Differences in America."

While PJBuchanan may have been the most forceful and clear politician on the question above, it remains un-answered. There IS a significant difference between Muslim and Christian CULTS, thus between the CULTURES. Can they actually be reconciled? No. Well, then, can the US avoid kulturkampf as the Muslim-to-Christian numerator grows?

We'll see.

Grim said...

I think the resolution Bernie wants to advance is for the religious to temper their religions by adopting the secular culture when they encounter points of irrefutable difference. If that eventually leads us to be fully or almost-fully secular, well, how religious is Bernie? He's often said to be Jewish, but clearly not in any sort of Orthodox way.

So we harmonize the culture by abandoning the cults, I guess; at least any time they conflict, we abandon that part of the doctrine. And that approach at least does work for Muslims as well as Christians and Jews; I know several secular Muslims who fit in perfectly well because they jettison the parts of the faith that clash with the American culture. What remains to be seen is if orthodox Muslims can fit in as well as Orthodox Jews do.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I will grant that there is some argument about the way in which we might "know Jesus," and Vought may not have captured exactly what the New Testament intends when he makes his statement. Yet what he said is otherwise entirely standard Christianity. Even though many Christians would now waffle on the concept, it is not even particularly arguable, and those attempting to argue it rapidly fall into ridiculous statements.

The three main creeds capture the basics pretty well. If you find yourself outside those statements, it is likely wise to ask yourself how you came to be so much smarter than all those other Christians.

Ymar Sakar said...

You mistake state christianity for the religion of the ptophets, apostles, yhvh, and thrit angels.

This is often a presumption and assumption that is not argued.

You bring up the creeds. Instituted humans, not by yeshua peter or any othet authors in the bible, but by rank politics and mostly greek and roman at that.

It would be wise of you to question your axioms rather than assuming everyone in existence has to think under the same blinders. You can take those words as directly from the elohim, even yhvh.

Ymar Sakar said...

The British Monarchy is connected to America via institutions and traditions but that does not mean america is the same as the British Monarchy. In the same fashion christianity has bifurcated multiple times. It Is an unconscious assumption premise and a x i o m that individual s in the Bible practice the same religion in the West.

These axioms and premises are unquestioned. They take this argument as never exist ing because they have never thought about it.

If people knew that this could be question ed then they would address the counterargument.

These unConscious beliefs form the worldview of many conservatives. I often tell conservatives that they have just as many trigger points as they criticize leftists for.

They are just unaware because nobody is capable of barbequing theit sacred cows
The attacks of atheists and leftists are easy to defend and dismiss. This has made them lazy when it comes to questioning their beliefs. Lefyists habe same problem with economy. They cannot even understand there is a conservative economy that works.

Ymar Sakar said...

Scholars do talk about the schisms but they are a rather insular crowd. Heiser is a bit of an outlier.

The ramifications have not filtered down. For those that need wikipedia to do their homework, use primitive church, torah, greek orthodox, church of rome rcc, and protestant luther calvin beliefs about pope.

It is like american public education was completely useless here or something...