Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable. – George Bernard Shaw
Some euphemisms are just so absurd it’s a wonder they aren’t the subject of constant public ridicule; one of these is “Department of Corrections”, a common American phrase meaning “Prison Department”. It also has a number of derivatives like “correctional institution” (prison) and “correctional officer” (jailer). But surely, no sane person believes that prisoners are being “corrected” or rehabilitated in any way; in fact, the evidence is the opposite, that locking criminals up for long periods of time merely makes them worse, and imprisoning those who break minor laws destroys their lives and/or turns them into career criminals. The reasons for this should be obvious; prisons are little more than schools for crime, where those who are not thoroughly violent when they get in are forced to become more violent to survive. Furthermore, excessive sentences remove prisoners from society for so long they forget how to behave among normal people and internalize the prison mode of behavior so that it’s difficult to “unlearn” when they get out, especially since criminal background checks, offender registries and other post-incarceration punishments often prevent former prisoners from ever returning to normal society. These measures create a permanent criminal underclass who can never make a good living or otherwise reintegrate, so their incentives to return to crime (or enter it for the first time if their initial incarceration was for a consensual “offense”) are very strong indeed. Women who cannot get “regular” jobs can always fall back on prostitution or marriage, but for male ex-convicts there aren’t many options for a worthwhile income other than drug dealing.
None of this makes any difference to lawheads, who defend their punitive mindset with tautologies, a priori statements and asinine slogans derived from TV cop show theme songs. They take sadistic pleasure in seeing others suffer even if that suffering undermines rehabilitation, endangers society at large and costs the state tremendous amounts of money. The prevalence of such warped mentalities in the United States can be demonstrated by the fact that we have only 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners and that since 1980 the incarceration rate has grown wildly out of proportion to the crime rate, largely thanks to mandatory sentencing laws, “three strikes” laws and the War on Drugs. Nor are these perverts satisfied with caging human beings; oh, no! They constantly agitate for longer sentences and harsher treatment of prisoners, both during their imprisonment and after their release. And when badge-licking sadism gets into bed with political correctness and neofeminist “social construction” mythology, the result is just plain revolting:
A group of prisoners has begun a letter-writing campaign to protest what they see as an unfair ban on pornography inside [Connecticut’s] correctional institutions. The Department of Correction announced in July that it would be banning all material that contains “pictorial depictions of sexual activity or nudity” from the prisons beginning next summer. The state says the ban is intended to improve the work environment for prison staffers, especially female staffers, who might be inadvertently exposed to pornography. “While it is not supposed to be displayed, it is still visible to staff, whether it be on the inside of a foot locker or underneath their bunks, so they are still exposed to it,” said Correction Department spokesman Brian Garnett. “And secondarily, is the fact that this is contrary to our rehabilitative efforts, particularly when it comes to sex offenders.”
OK, let’s see if we can follow the “logic” here; they’re applying “hostile work environment” rhetoric derived from “sexual harassment” law to prisons? The mind boggles; one would think any sane being with the most rudimentary knowledge of human sexual behavior would recognize that for a woman, the inside of a men’s prison would be practically the archetype of a “hostile work environment”. And if a woman is able to see under a male prisoner’s bunk or into his foot locker, porn is the least thing she has to worry about being “exposed” to. And how, pray tell, is access to material which the great majority of adult males view regularly somehow “contrary to rehabilitative efforts”? Looking at porn is one of the few normal male things prisoners can do, and contrary to anti-porn claims it seems to reduce the rate of sex offense rather than increasing it.
…Bill Dunlop, a law professor at Quinnipiac University, said there is a constitutional argument to be made. But, he said the courts have generally sided with prison officials, as long as they can prove the ban has a legitimate goal other than to simply suppress material that some people might find objectionable — such as maintaining safety in the prisons, or keeping the material out of the hands of sex offenders. “The courts don’t require the prison officials to look for other ways of achieving those goals without infringing on First Amendment rights, to the extent that they would for government outside the prison,” he said. “Based on the press release and the notice to the prisoners, it looks as though it’s in the general area of regulations that have been upheld in the past.” But the state’s total ban on sexually explicit material appears to go beyond bans that the Supreme Court has upheld in the past, he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut…is not representing any of the inmates and doesn’t advocate for pornography in prisons, but is concerned that the ban could be enforced in an arbitrary and overly broad manner. “Similar regulations have been used to censor an image of the Sistine Chapel, newspapers and magazines with lingerie ads and the novel Ulysses,” Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, said in a statement.
…The ban has the support of the union that represents prison guards. Lisamarie Fontano, president of Local 387 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, said she has been pushing for such a ban for several years, and has received complaints from female employees who have been sexually harassed by inmates using pornography. “It’s a betterment to all to have it gone,” she said. “Some inmates don’t want it, because their own sexual and mental issues were being forced onto them, even though it shouldn’t be there in the first place.” Prisoners also use pornography as currency in prison, trading the pictures for other things of value, she said…
Given that prison guard unions, like all public employee unions, wield power far out of proportion to their numbers (the California prison guards’ union is thought to be the most powerful union in the United States), I have no doubt that the ban will be supported by the courts. I don’t believe for one second that Fontano or any other female freaking prison guard is so lost in neofeminist La-la Land that she honestly believes that male sexual desire derives from looking at porn; she just wants to create her own sadistic mental porn by depriving male prisoners of one more simple human pleasure.
One Year Ago Today
“Yesterday” is a cynical rumination on what it will take to get the mainstream media to stop acting as prohibitionist propaganda organs, and to really get the cause of sex worker rights moving, using lessons learned from gay rights activism.
I always like that phrase “inadvertently exposed to pornography”. As if it were anthrax or something.
Not just in prison ..
We fought “porn bans” as a running battle in military base exchanges for decades.
An interesting article on that here … old but relevant.
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,167090,00.html
Some soldiers very honest about wanting to keep it around – and why. Other individuals, lawmakers – female soldiers claiming it increases sexual harassment.
I used to also sit on Family Advocacy Program reviews as a command representative whenever one of my guys had a domestic issue. You know – some of “domestic violence” is really a two-way street (though there is never an excuse for hitting a woman). However, not all domestic “abuse” in the military was violent per se. In any case – any presence of pornography found anywhere in the household – whether it was on a computer, or hidden in the attic was considered an automatic strike against the male Sailor or Marine involved. That’s because all those “Family Advocacy” programs are run by neo-feminist wannabees. As much as I’d protest them when they did it – these women pretty much assured me that I was just a “grunt” and I should trust them because they had PhD’s!
I disagree on the “never an excuse for hitting a woman” part. Self defense is certainly allowable in my mind.
Jeff had a physically violent girlfriend for a while, and I admired the way he dealt with her. When she attempted to claw, he grabbed her wrists and held her hands away from his face; if she tried to kick, he would take her down with a leg sweep and sit on her thighs. He never got angry; he would just sit there and ask “are you going to calm down now?” until she agreed, then let her up.
I’ve never had a woman come at me – but then again I’m 6’2″ and 215 pounds. A pissed off woman won’t fight fair – she’ll get you in your sleep. You will not win with a woman – she will beat you every time (if she wants to).
I always “walked away” from psychotic women – except for one, but the sex with her was WORTH IT. 😀
She knew EVERYTHING about men.
She eventually “dumped” me – and I’m damn glad of it – I knew she was bad news for me but I was addicted to her. Her boyfriends after me were also – we had a whole club of us that just marveled about that girl.
I’m 6’2″ and 200 lbs and I had a screeching harpy hit me over the back of the head with a bottle. I turned around and knocked her out. All over in under 2 seconds. Didn’t know it was a female until she was on the ground. Never felt sorry for her though. Or ‘guilty’ of any wrong doing.
Yeah, we in Hong Kong take the American style of incarceration too – we call ours Correctional Department (which sounds even more laughable than Department of Corrections).
Seriously and thankfully, Hong Kong doesn’t have many criminals/convicts, but those who gone through the system, come out as much more efficient criminals – which has to make anyone wonder what ‘correctional’ actually stands for.
as far as i’m concerned america’s sick sadistic puritanism is a natural consequence of embracing a couple of assumptions basic to christian ‘faith’:
1) human nature is inherently evil or ‘sinful’, and
2) ‘sinners’ are worthy of condemnation and eternal damnation.
virgin terry, “‘sinners’ are worthy of condemnation and eternal damnation” is not a Christian belief. The whole point of Christianity is that eternal damnation is avoidable.
Lisamarie Fontano will soon scratch her head like Stan Laurel saying “I wonder why more prisoners are being raped then ever before?”. Some people just don’t recognise reality until it hits them directly in the face and even then that’s debatable.
Fontano won’t care if more prisoners are raped; to freaks like her that’s part of the “punishment”. Besides, they’re only men, and neofeminists care more about women being “harassed” than men being raped. The only thing that might make people like her understand is if more female guards get literally attacked, and even that might not do it. 🙁
I expect both more male and female guards with the prisoners to be attacked and anally sodomized even though it pains me to say it. It pains me because it’s avoidable or at least can be greatly lessened. I read an article once stating that a higher percentage of female guards have sex with male prisoners than male guards have sex with female prisoners. Maybe Fontano wants the men to stop masturbating and have voluntary sex with her and her female guards for as disgusting as it sounds it may be very well true.
There was an article in Reason sometime in the last few months which said that according to some study (I don’t remember who conducted or published it), more prisoners are raped by guards than by other prisoners. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume that’s true.
Just because the Neofeminist (or Pseudofeminist, as I called them, long before I encountered Maggie’s writings) theory of rape as ‘a crime of Violence, not Sex’ is mostly bull, doesn’t mean that there’s no kernel of truth in it at all. Rape has often been employed as a form of torture, since it’s considered so humilating by so many cultures. It’s long been common with police and soldiers. (Other times, of course, rape is all about sex. The Neofeminist mistake is trying to squeeze all rape into just one little subcategory.)
This was in HuffPo today, as was this; note that in the second one nobody bothered to point out that they could save a lot more money by paroling 10% of the prisoners than they can by eliminating 10% of the meals.
Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to foul up the discussion here with my twisted Neofeminist ideals. 🙂
I was interrupted while I was writing, so I didn’t get the change to say everything I had intended. If I remember correctly, my original point was going to be something along the lines of ‘If more prisoners are being raped than ever before, it’s most likely the guards who are doing it, or encouraging it’. I’m not sure. I kind of got off on a tangent.
Anyway, it’s my belief that prisoners should get to have all the porno they want, along with cigarettes, beer, weed, and all sorts of other things the sadistic tyrants want to keep from them.
I’m soft on crime, and proud of it. 🙂
Any woman who can’t cope with exposure to pornography is too fragile and delicate to work in a men’s prison.
Agreed. I say, if a woman can do the work and wants to, she shouldn’t be disallowed. Maybe there are some exceptions, but I’m not thinking of any right now.
But if she can’t lift 50 Kg, she shouldn’t have a job which requires lifting 50 Kg (nor should a man who can’t lift 50 Kg). And if she (or he) can’t stand the site of blood, crime scene investigator is a job she (or he) should avoid.
And yes, Marla, you are right: any person, male, female, or hermaphrodite who can’t handle seeing a bit of porn now and then is unsuited to prison work.
Small typo: deriving should be depriving in the last sentence of today’s post.
Fixed. Thank you! 🙂
marla, the whole point of christianity is that it’s bullshit designed to make believers neurotically fearful, shameful, judgemental, bogoted, and intolerant. it doesn’t make avoiding eternal damnation possible because there is no such thing as eternal damnation except in the imagination of believers. but once one accepts the idea that a just god condemns people eternally for simply being human, it’s easy to accept the idea of punishing victimless ‘criminals’.
It’s really not Christianity. You could wipe out Christianity tomorrow and something would sprout up to take its place – like Global Warming Alarmism – or NeoFemiism … or Sarah Palin. No hit on Palin here – but many of her followers are very religious in their views of her (they’ll never criticize her, and will always rationalize anything she says or does regardless of evidence to the contrary) – so personalities, causes, along with “gods” can be the focus of this human “need” to attach to something bigger than ourselves.
We say here all the time that prostitution has been around since the beginning – it’s stupid to think anyone could ever get rid of it. Same goes for “religious attachment”. There’s something basic in the human being that requires it. This is not a less religious world than it was 500 years ago – it’s just the focus of religion has changed.
My sister-in-law is a professed atheist – but she is a religious zealot on neo-feminist matters. For her – Neo-Feminisim is as much a religion for her as my grandmother’s Methodist faith was. In fact – I would say my grandmother was more tolerant of opposing viewpoints.
If you want to fix the problem – invent a new religion that catches on and has, as its core belief – a dedication to tolerance, liberty, etc. That’s the only way to fix this.
Myself – I believe in a God. There is no other explanation for why I’m alive today with the life I’ve lived! LOL. I don’t know what “God” is … or if he even cares about us – but I believe something started this mess!
virgin terry, I’d like to see you quote the specific New Testament chapter(s) and verse(s) that encourage people to be “shameful, judgemental, bogoted, and intolerant”.
As for “neurotically fearful”, the only fear in Christianity, damnation, is alleviated by Christianity itself, through the promise of eternal life in Christ.
The problem is that too many Christians (and the ones who make the most noise) model themselves on an angry Zeus more than on the hippie-like Jesus who preached peace, love, and forgiveness.
Dear Sailor B, THANK YOU! 1 of the many wonderful traits you have is the 1 that gives credit where it’s due to ALL GROUPS. You’ve always given credit to the REAL Christians. Thank you! But, 1 thing…and you were probably expecting this from me…yes, Jesus preached all the things you’ve listed, but He also preached repentance and set up rules for how Christians are supposed to live, etc. I know I’ve had some real struggles with some of the rules (especially in the sexual area. Anyone could read my posts to see that easily), but I keep going and working on it all.
Dear Marla, wanted to type a short “THANK YOU” to you for standing up for the wonderful Jesus! I plan to defend Him on here as I have time (actually, I already have which was very needed, unfortunately). But, am thankful for my typing skills as I’ve used them many times to defend Him (and God and the Holy Spirit) online. Speaking of the New Testament, there’s very few people that Christians are ordered not to associate with. In the cases we are, I don’t think any of them are unreasonable. 1 of the groups is false preachers. I don’t think ANYONE could argue (even atheists) on the HELL these ###*** have caused many through time! Thanks again for taking the time to defend God.
Laura, you’re welcome.
California prisons still allow conjugal visits, don’t they?
That would be the next logical target, after banning porn in the prison system.
Dear gumdeo, many prisons in the US allow conjugal visits. However, they’re not automatically given. People have to meet requirements set up by that particular state where the prison is in order to do the visits. An exception to this are US federal prisons as they don’t allow ANY conjugal visits at this time. There are also women that are known as “prison groupies” who give the men in prison sex and friendship. I think highly of some of them as they’re helping the poor (money-wise poor) sexually frustrated men. YES! Some of them I don’t think much of as they’re into the whole thing for ghoulish reasons (like the women who pursue serial killers and stay in willful denial about them like thinking they’re innocent). There’s also women who provide friendship only. 1 of my dearest Internet friends does this with a man on death row. This wonderful woman has gotten so much ###*** from heartless, arrogant, vicious ###*** for doing this at all. ###*** THEM! The man she’s friends with acknowledges what he did, has remorse, etc. There’s also women who are just “pen pals” to the prisoners.
Laura, thank you for your informative response. I try to keep up with the situation in the United States, but being European this is sometimes difficult.
marla, the idea of sin itself, that as inherent sinners we’re bad, promotes all those things. it is the most diabolical idea ever invented. once one accepts the idea that humans are inherently bad, all sorts of crazy, malicious, sadistic, dogmatic ideas flow forth, including the idea that prostitution is immoral and must be banned and transgressors punished. it’s no coincidence that the ‘bible belt’ is notorious for draconian puritan laws and punishments. wherever dogmatic puritanical religion of any sort thrives (like in the muslim world, where under sharia law ‘adulterers’ may still be stoned to death), human freedom and dignity are crushed.
virgin terry, I challenged you to quote the specific New Testament chapter(s) and verse(s) that encourage people to be “shameful, judgemental, bogoted, and intolerant” and you didn’t. You are blaming Christianity for things that are not in the New Testament.
Christianity is explicitly AGAINST punishing prostitutes; the only statement on that subject in the New Testament is Jesus’ statement to the crowd who were about to stone a prostitute to death: “Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” There’s not even a statement that prostitution should be banned, which is why prostitution was legal throughout the Christian world until the second half of the 19th century, and today prostitution is legal in the vast majority of Christian countries.
Actions committed in the name of Christianity, are not necessarily Christian actions. If there’s not a New Testament verse that supports it, then it’s not a Christian action.
If you are going to reply to me, please click on the Reply button on THIS post, instead of starting a whole new thread for no reason.
Marla,
I agree with you that primitive christianity would be a much more amiable civic partner than the various brands that populate various polities in the West; unfortunately primitive christianity is not what we deal with in the real world. And while the justification for such doctrines may be thin on the New Testament ground there is no doubt that the majority of christian sects have adopted the kind of doctrinal outlook on man’s soul that virgin terry referenced.
The doctrine of Total Depravity is held by most mainstream christian sects to varying degrees. Also called Augustinianism, it held sway in the Catholic church until modified by Anselm and Aquinas and the later Thomists. The wikipedia article cited gives what these sects considered to be the scriptural basis for this doctrine.
Several examples follow:
John Calvin from “Institutes of Christian Religion:”
Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls “works of the flesh” (Gal 5:19). And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it–such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings–he accordingly calls “fruits of sin” (Gal 5:19-21), although they are also commonly called “sins” in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.
John Wesley from the “Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church:”
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.
From the Lutheran “Augsburg Confession:”
It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Rejected in this connection are the Pelagians and others who deny that original sin is sin, for they hold that natural man is made righteous by his own powers, thus disparaging the sufferings and merit of Christ
From the Anglican (and presumably Episcopalian) “Thirty-nine Articles:”
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, Φρονεμα σαρκος, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.
In fact, the only western christians who seem to have escaped this view of the depravity of man are the Catholics, post Aquinas, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Campbellite ministers and their theological descendants and the Mormons, although arguably Mormons could be included among the Campbellites in this doctrinal issue – asserting as they do that their religion is a product of a christian Restoration.
The take home point is this; you may be correct in asserting that they have no New Testament basis for their doctrine and I’m sure that they would disagree. But the fact is that a substantial portion of Protestant sects do subscribe to the doctrine of depravity. And it is their influence on the culture that virgin terry was referring to.
Sometimes it makes sense to attribute to a large group the characteristics of a much smaller group within it, particularly if that small group sets the direction of movement – countering the inertia and apathy of the larger movement. I think that militant Islam is an example of this effect. Barring an effective Enlightenment or Western movement within Islam, the Jihadis will dominate Islam.
But Primitive or Mere Christians don’t seem to be having that effect on mainstream christianity at least as gauged by the activities of christians in the political and legal realms. They may not be as organized as the Social Gospelers or the Social Purity movements, but when they are visible (eg., Moral Majority, Focus on the Family) they seem to be fomenting further legal strictures in accord with their doctrines – Drug War, anti-whore, anti-contraception, anti-pornography, etc., rather than trying to roll back the authoritarian state and letting people live the moral life as they see fit.
To the extent that they subscribe to the doctrine of innate depravity, they can’t leave people free. Such fallen creatures need the strictures prescribed to keep them from depravity. And this is illustrated by their political program.
In fact, the only western christians who seem to have escaped this view of the depravity of man…
I should note that while the sects mentioned after this phrase do not subscribe to the doctrine of Total Depravity, they do hold various lesser versions of it from the Catholic idea of damaged free will to the Mormon idea of opposing the “Natural Man” who is an enemy to god. So they still contribute to the cultural melange that virgin terry pointed out. They just are not as extreme an instance of it.
c andrew, Christianity is the faith laid out in the New Testament. Any action or doctrine promoted by people who call themselves Christians, but not supported by the New Testament, is not Christian. The idea of original sin does not even appear in the Bible. It’s a concept promoted by the Catholic Church and adopted by some Protestant sects, but it’s not Biblical. The majority of “Christian sects” aren’t even Christian. Jesus, Peter, and Paul all predicted that Christianity would soon be infiltrated by impostors, and they were right.
Christianity does hold that since the Fall of Adam, people are born separated from God and have an inevitable tendency to sin, and without adherence to God, do inevitably become corrupt. That’s not the same thing as *total* depravity, which implies no possibility of redemption. The only totally depraved being is Satan.
You link to the Wikipedia page for the Jefferson bible on the words “primitive Christianity”. The Jefferson bible isn’t Christian at all. It attempts to isolate Jesus’ moral teaching from any statement of his divinity and the Trinity. Portraying Jesus as a good guy who had some good ideas but isn’t the son of God is profoundly anti-Christian.
I wrote: The majority of “Christian sects” aren’t even Christian. Jesus, Peter, and Paul all predicted that Christianity would soon be infiltrated by impostors… I want to make it clear that I’m not implying that Catholics in general are impostors. I mean that an individual Catholic (or Protestant) may be an impostor, like Torquemada using Christianity as an excuse to torture and kill people.
Marla wrote:
You link to the Wikipedia page for the Jefferson bible on the words “primitive Christianity”. The Jefferson bible isn’t Christian at all. It attempts to isolate Jesus’ moral teaching from any statement of his divinity and the Trinity. Portraying Jesus as a good guy who had some good ideas but isn’t the son of God is profoundly anti-Christian.
Counterpoint:
Jefferson’s intentions behind altering the Bible were based on his belief that Christianity had strayed from the religion of Christ. As Jefferson stated in a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1810:
“But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves: that rational men, not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.”
Marla wrote:
Jesus, Peter, and Paul all predicted that Christianity would soon be infiltrated by impostors, and they were right.
I would think that you have more in common with Jefferson than you might know.
“The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers…Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity, I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the middle and modern ages.” (Thomas Jefferson, The writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 7, H.A. Washington, ed., pp210, 257).
In removing all of the “authoritative” passages regarding Jesus’ genealogy, his ties to the house of David, his fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecy, Jefferson was putting the Word to the ultimate test; “By their fruits, you shall know them.” If Jesus really is giving us the Word of God; if he is the Word of God, then why do we need all these extraneous assurances by third parties of his divinity or dubious fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy? Surely his Word should stand on its own?
Jesus’ word stands on its own only as the word of GOD. Jefferson dismissing Jesus as a mere “reformer” is not a Christian belief. The early prediction that Christianity would soon be infiltrated by impostors meant that Christianity’s message from Christ, the Son of God, would be distorted.
There’s no point continuing to argue this as you aren’t going to change my mind and I’m not going to change yours. It is up to each individual to understand God’s nature and will as best he can, and then face God’s judgment in the hopes that his understanding was correct.
Marla,
If I recall correctly, you made the argument that Mormons were not christians because they subscribed to doctrines not found in the New Testament. So I’m assuming that you also find Catholicism, Wesleyanism, Methodism, Calvinism (and its various Presbyterian offshoots), Lutheranism etal., to be non-christians as well?
I’m curious if there is any organized sect in “christianity” that you do acknowledge to be christian by your standards?
And when you write of the “Trinity” are you using the more or less standard Nicene version or do you have a different interpretation? And if you agree with the Nicene version, I’m curious about how you support it from the New Testament.
I once pointed out that you seemed to be indulging in “No True Scotsman” argumentation. You seem to be defining christian sects out of existence on the basis of your doctrinal disagreements with them.
This is nothing new. Almost every sect – with the possible exceptions of the Society of Friends and the Unitarians – have done this. Martin Luther opined that those who disagreed with him should be turned over to “Master Hans,” the German colloquialism for Hangman. The Catholics also take a similar exclusionary approach except they don’t deny their opponents’ christianity. They just call them heretics. And have killed them in those historical time periods that they held secular power. A power, by the way, which they have not renounced. Catholics consider the idea of religious tolerance to be “the new heresy.”
c andrew wrote: “If I recall correctly, you made the argument that Mormons were not christians because they subscribed to doctrines not found in the New Testament.” No, I said Mormonism is not real Christianity because it subscribes to doctrines that explicitly contradict the New Testament, such as the belief in multiple gods (the Bible states repeatedly in both the Old and the New Testaments that there is only one God.) I don’t hold that belief about any Christian sect that professes beliefs not found in the New Testament, but also not contradicting the New Testament. I’m aware of the beliefs of both the Catholic Church and Martin Luther regarding religious tolerance. Christ’s admonition to the apostles to preach the gospel in a town and then move on to the next town, IMO is a clear statement that those who refuse to convert should be left alone. I also don’t confuse the positions of a particular sect with the beliefs of any individual within that sect; there are plenty of people who disagree with specific tenets of the sect they otherwise generally profess.
I saw we call an end to this conversation. I’ve made my points and you’ve made yours, and further elaboration is going into a pointless level of detail for a blog that is not primarily about religion.
You’re not going to get the verses you asked for because they’re not there. As I stated earlier, there’s not very many that Christians are ordered to not associate with in the New Testament. Those we are told to stay away from it’s not unreasonable at all because these people are evil and destroy many lives (like the false preachers). As far as prostitution goes, Christians are ordered to NOT do it. BUT, they’re NOT ordered to order anyone else around in this regard. If you are a whore or not, that’s on YOUR head. You ALONE are accountable to God. We’re not part of anyone else’s judgment by God. I personally hate prostitution (and it’s not ONLY because I’m a Christian) and want no part of it, BUT I’m FOR decriminalization and have been for years. You can hate something and want no part of it but also want it decriminalized. I’ve listed before the reasons I’m against prostitution and am VERY THANKFUL that Doclove had the DECENCY and MANNERS to ASK me DIRECT why I’m against it instead of making ###*** ASS-umptions. There’s not many exceptions about telling people what they should do as far as Christianity goes. 1 of those is if you join a church. According to the New Testament, that places you under the church leadership. If you seek counseling from them, they’re going to tell you what you need to fix in your life. But, at the same time, you also voluntarily joined the church. I say if you don’t want any input on your life, then don’t join and don’t seek out any counseling from the staff of a church or even other Christians you meet. To the virgin terry: please note there are MANY Christians who don’t literally order people around and don’t want political power either. I’m 1 of them and Marla is 1 also. There’s more of us out there than you think. As far as the predominently Muslim countries go, many in those countries are working for reform (including men). You can find this information easily on the Internet. 1 recent example is that women in Saudi Arabia are going to be allowed to vote in the next few years. This is HUGE progress. The biggest problem in the predominently Muslim countries is the NON-separation of church and state. This is a very dangerous, evil thing. ANY religion and/or belief system if NOT separted from the government will lead to all kinds of evil. This has also been proven with atheism. Atheism was the official “religion” of the Communist run countries in the past and it lead to the same evils. It doesn’t matter if Christianity or Satanism is the state religion: it’ll ALL lead to the same evils. Thanks for listening.
Amen. 😉
But really: amen.
Amen, from me too.
marla, virtually nothing in the bible is true or should be taken seriously. old testament god condoned and ordered ‘his people’ to rape and commit genocide. he’s a capricious psychopath, vengeful and sadistic. it’s also completely patriarchal. have u ever noticed the ‘commandment’ about not coveting your neighbors stuff, including his wife (a mere possession grouped with other livestock ‘possessions’) says nothing about coveting another’s husband? it’s written by men to promote male supremacy. among other’s i’m sure, the notorious american atheist madalyn murray o’hair wrote a book on this topic, full of pertinent biblical quotes and critical analysis. as far as the bible’s concerned, wives are property, husbands are owners.
as for blessed ‘lord’ jesus, he’s quoted in the gospels as saying a couple of profoundly anti-erotic things. first he says looking with lust upon another’s wife (or maybe it was anyone besides his spouse) is the same as screwing her, essentially, when he equates it with ‘adultery’. then he goes on to say in one of his ‘beautiful’ speeches that men should ‘pluck’ their own eyes out rather look upon something that arouses ‘sinful’ desires. i know i’m taking liberty with paraphrasing here, but the essence of what i’m saying is true. i can provide particular verses in support of this later if u wish.
i think the apostle paul is considered by some scholars as the most important or influential christian ever (not counting jesus because he was a mythological jew) in terms of laying the foundation for the church(es) to come and the religious dogma they would preach. paul is famously quoted in the bible as saying the best way to live was celibate like himself, but if that was too difficult, ‘it is better to marry than it is to burn’, which of course implies that any sex outside of marriage is ‘mortal sin’ worthy of divine condemnation and eternal hellfire.
christianity is explicitly for condemning ALL to eternal damnation who don’t toe the line and believe in ‘lord’ jesus. that includes a good many prostitutes as well as others of all imaginable persuasions, depending on how it’s interpreted. what christians like yourself fail to properly perceive is that before u can be ‘saved’, u must be condemned. maybe it doesn’t bother u to worship a condemnatory god who only grudgingly grants u a reprieve from the hellfire u so richly deserve as a ‘sinner’. i guess it doesn’t bother u to worship a monster who demands that innocent blood be shed before ‘sin’ may be forgiven. however i find these things utterly abhorrent. any god who’s into punishing innocents, condemning human nature, and ordering or condoning bloodshed in his name is a monster. i’ll take ‘eternal damnation’ over worshipping a monster any day.
virgin terry, as for your claim that God is a “capricious psychopath, vengeful and sadistic”, God takes all lives. It is God’s will that all people must die. Whether he takes them through dying of old age or through, for instance, the Flood, one way or another, he takes them. That is his right, as the giver of life and the taker of life. Criticisms of God’s behavior miss the point good is God’s will and evil is the violation of God’s will, and therefore anything God chooses to do is good because he chooses to do it.
Yes, Christianity is patriarchal, which I don’t see as a bad thing. Women are in the greatest danger when responsible male authority breaks down completely, as in America’s fatherless matriarchal ghettos. As for a Biblical wife being her husband’s property, I can think of fates much worse than being a good man’s prized possession.
The Old Testament in some English translations states that a father may sell his daughter into slavery; this is a mistranslation because English does not have a translation for the Hebrew concept of a father arranging a marriage for his daughter as a means of paying off a debt to the groom or his family. Jewish law states that a wife so married is equal in stature with other wives and cannot be denied food, water, and “ointment”. Most Jewish scholars agree that ointment is a euphemism for sex. A woman of Biblical times who has an arranged marriage (as was the norm then) to a man who is then obligated to provide her with sustenance and sex, is in a pretty good position IMO. This is just one example of why I don’t dismiss anything patriarchal as automatically a violation of women’s rights. It was far harder for a woman in Biblical times to have no husband to possess her and to have to survive on her own in the harsh conditions of those times.
marla, sorry, i missed your last request about not starting a new thread. i’m a fairly inexperienced blogger and didn’t know i should click on a particular message to create or maintain a thread. now i do. thanks for pointing it out. and please don’t take the comment above this one as a personal attack. as some christians say, ‘hate the sin not the sinner’. i hate the awful influence and massive bloodshed that dogmatic religious faith brings to the world, but i don’t hate individual believers.
I have never understood the “reasoning” behind having women guards in male prisons. In the event of a prisoner uprising, they’d be in incredible danger. A lot of the kind of men who wind up in prison are not FOND of being ordered about by women…and when the prisoners rebel, guess who’s going to pay a very high price for her “equality?” If I had a sister, daughter, wife or GF that was talking about taking such employment, I’d bribe her, blackmail her, or do whatever I had to do to prevent it.
It’s not “reasoning” at all, it’s stupid, blind following of the Pied Piper of “equality” right off the wharves into the Weser. However, I strongly suspect from anecdotal evidence I’ve been given through several sources that very few female prison guards are interested in boyfriends, which could explain their desire to make men’s lives miserable.
One of my parents neighbors was a female prison guard. She was extremely butch (youngest of 8 children and the only girl), but also married. Both her and her husband are law enforcement; she is former military (I forget which branch) and apparently did similar work while in the military. But her family are all law enforcement on some level so this came naturally to her.
It’s a natural inclination, built deep into the human creature, to really enjoy all the vices. We love to sleep, eat, drink, and fuck, and we’re social creatures, so we’re naturally very curious as to what the other members of our tribes are eating and drinking and who they are fucking. It’s what builds a group. Look at our closest relatives, tribes of chimps and bonbonos. Porn is just a version of that.
Problem is, if you’re a leader, or industrialist, you don’t want your people spending their time and energy sleeping, drinking, eating, and fucking. You want them fighting for you, or showing up on time to work for you. It’s no accident the 19th century crusades against drinking and prostitution coincided with the industrial revolution. Big mills and factories are regimented. You can’t have people skiving off for a drink, nap, or fuck whenever they feel like it. You don’t want them spending their energy on that.
But the superstitious, and some feminists, hate the idea that humans are animals. They have the illusion that we are something beyond that. And by Gawd, they are going to force you to see that, like it or not.
I do what I can to resist them. I drink when I can, like good food, sleep as much as I can, and made a career out of fucking. I’m a “degenerate” animal, and make no apologies about it.
The real reason America has so many in prison is economic. It’s the logical extension of capitalism. It’s modern, legalized slavery. Many prisons, including “for profit” ones, run industries, often competing wit private industries, but with work forces that can’t quit, have no rights and make small wages. It’s the perfect capitalist solution. If the big time money lords had their way, it would be them, and the rest of us would all be prisoners.
Prisons for profit is an abomination; that should never have been allowed, and were I the dictatrix I would abolish them immediately and seize all of their assets. Totally agree about it being legalized slavery, but of a more disgusting type than historical slavery because they aren’t actually being employed to do productive labor; they’re just being warehoused, and the State pays their owners a subsidy per head.
I do want to point out that the drive to regiment people predates the industrial revolution, though; as Thaddeus Russell points out in his Renegade History of the U.S., a number of the Founding Fathers were already pretty irate about the lazy, chaotic work habits of Americans, and one of the chief complaints of the abolitionists was that slavery allowed the slaves to be lazy, inefficient and slothful. Industry just gave these “leaders” a mechanism to accomplish what they already wanted to do.
I also have to point out that there are always those in every society who want to dominate everyone else, and capitalism is merely a mechanism for that domination. The ancient oligarchs of Sparta, Rome and China and the modern oligarchs of the Soviet Union and China managed it just fine without capitalism. Evil people who want to control everyone else will find a way to do it. It isn’t the tools that are evil, it’s the people, and demonizing their tools (money, guns, drugs, religion or whatever) is tantamount to giving the evil humans who employ those tools for evil a free pass.
For those who want to join in the fight against private prisons, there’s at least 1 organization doing all they can about the problem. There’s also many petitions on this issue. If anyone wants these links I’d be glad to post them.
While yes, there’s always been complaining by those who want others to work for them as to the laziness, drunkenness, and shiftlessness of the working class, organized, well funded efforts to eliminate vice, like prohibition and eliminating red light districts really got going during the industrial revolution.
Before that, people worked to a different rhythm, that of the light and seasons, not the factory clock. Industrialists worked hard to break that habit. Look up the traditional of St. Monday for more on that.
Yes, Russell talks about that. The organized efforts to fight “vice” were funded by industries, but the driving force in both the UK and US was a coalition of degraded first-wave feminists and evangelical Christians, the exact same dynamic that’s behind “human trafficking” hysteria (degraded second-wave feminists + evangelical Christians funded by Big Money like that of Swanee Hunt).
The industrialists can never do it alone; it’s nearly always misguided fanatics doing the actual pushing, and Big Money just pays the bills of those they want to encourage.
It’s generally believed that the California Prison Guards Union is the biggest reason California was not able to legalize marijuana at the state level. Think about it: legal pot = fewer prisoners = fewer prison guards.
I’m usually in favor of doing things to create more jobs, particularly in a time of high unemployment. But throwing people in prison so the state can hire more people to guard them is where I draw the line. Surely there’s a bridge in California that needs fixing.
Guess what I just found in my e-mail?
But don’t you know – pornography is the theory, rape is the practice?
And objectifying women is harassment.
Prisons are hugely interesting places. Two books to recommend to those lucky enough to have had no actual contact with them:
http://tinyurl.com/The-Hot-House
http://tinyurl.com/Six-Against-The-Rock
‘…Bill Dunlop, a law professor at Quinnipiac University, said there is a constitutional argument to be made.’ – Fuck lawyers. (And double fuck the police). There is ALWAYS an argument to be made as far as they’re concerned, that’s what they live for.
Maybe they should just, like, you know, leave people the fuck alone when they’re not hurting anyone.
I know I’m asking the impossible here because their particular mental illness drives them to interfere in other peoples lives, but hope springs eternal.
Precisely, and well-said.
In the prison I was held in after my arrest, one ordinarily needed a pass to go from one’s housing unit to visitation. The unit I was in was an exception, since the door to the housing unit was next to the door of the visitation room. I was called to the guard desk for a visit and the guard started writing me a pass. I told her that she didn’t need to do that. I don’t recall the exact conversation but she took exception and I explained that I was just trying to be courteous. My last line was, “Courtesy is something people owe to one another.” Hers was, “You are not a people [sic], you are an inmate.”
BTW, she was a woman. And Black. The irony. Oh, the irony!
I can’t remember the exact phrasing or quote, but I have heard an authority figure talk about how being Blue overrides any other ethnic/racial/religious origin among the ranks and in the mentality of said authority figures. So, I’m not surprised at that irony at all.
Tracy and I are in agreement that the most important color in America today isn’t black, and it isn’t white. It’s green. Maybe I should add blue.
BTW, has anybody noticed that fewer cops are wearing blue these days? The “Boys in Blue” are more often wearing black.
I’ve noticed that as well, especially in NYC.