Thursday, October 30, 2008

These are the issues?

Who would've guessed that religious groups would go around telling you what you should fret about when making your choices at the voting booth? This is unprecedented, people!
It helps you avoid choosing candidates who endorse policies that cannot be reconciled with moral norms that used to be held by all Christians.
Did white hoods, dog tags, and a spotless kitchen just flash into anyone's mind, or was that just me?
But some issues concern “non-negotiable”moral principles that do not admit of exception or compromise... No one endorsing the wrong side of these issues can be said to act in accord with the Christian faith.
Until, inevitably, the moral zeitgeist of our culture shifts beyond your reach, and you collectively try to change your position on certain parts of scripture to once again fit harmoniously with modern society through a nice, wholesome application of selective interpretation.
Intrinsically evil actions are those which fundamentally conflict with God’s law and can never be deliberately performed under any circumstances. It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions.
So what? You're frickin' Christian! Vote for the puppy rapist, and repent by mumbling sorrowfully to Jesus and giving yourself a few lashes. God's law means crap to most of you people unless it means that you get to tell other people how they should behave.
Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.
As is killing in self defense, the death penalty, and any form of military violence. Except, you know, the victims of that kind of homicide can feel pain, and leave families and friends behind. But...pro-life!!!
Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest,the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.
It is true that, from the perspective that abortion=murder, it doesn't make sense to make it permissible when the pregnancy is not arrived at through willingness or fault of the mother. But, yeah, when you damn nuance from the outset, that's to be expected.
Often disguised by the name “mercy killing,”euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.
OBJECTION! While I agree that no one has the "right" to take the life of any "innocent" "person", I do not agree that people have no right to take their own life. Seriously, what the f$#% are you going to do to stop them? It's their life, their body, and they can die if they want to, how they want to.
In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person.
So says someone with the privilege of having not known the suffering involved. Euthanasia not prompted by the explicit wishes of the recipient is wrong. Helping someone end their own waning life in order to avoid excessive methods of preservation, or just to avoid having to spend weeks, months, or years in agony is hardly "intrinsically evil", especially if you think that they are off to go dancing with the angels afterward.
Human embryos are human beings. It is grossly immoral to kill embryonic humans in order to use their bodies as medical consumables
Sing along with me. (Ahem...NSFW).
Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead.
Yes. Very recent advances, and it is still a most less efficient, much more costly method of going about the experimentation.
Every child has the right to be born of a father and a mother. Human cloning violates God’s design by trying to create a child with only a genetic father or only a genetic mother.
You're just making shit up now, aren't you?
True marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
You all knew it was coming. "No!!1 Not teh gayz!!!" makes it first appearance.
Legal recognition of any other union as “marriage” undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in an objectively immoral arrangement.
How does broadening the definition of marriage "undermine" marriage anymore than it already has been when you guys make it little more than an indefinite term sex contract? High divorce rates, prompted by the religious tendency to oblige people to get married before giving one another a "test drive" (wink wink), as well as the impracticality of marriage and tendency to cohabitate in lieu of it, has done far more to undermine marriage than allowing two non-straight people to marry ever could. As for "objectively immoral", I respond: "ha".
Our society will not escape unscathed if it undermines true marriages by pretending that homosexual unions are equivalent to what God designed.
You see, the problem with your thinking here is this: God has nothing to do with anything! "True marriages", legally, have nothing to do with your religious ceremonies or perspectives. They are secular contracts, legal unions, a bond between two people like those that have existed in societies far before your religion, and in countries before Abrahamic faiths ever haunted the dreams of small children and innocent young goats. As for "God's design", also irrelevant from the perspective of a society that doesn't/shouldn't give a damn about what you think God's design is.
Do not just vote based on your political party affiliation, your earlier voting habits, or your family’s voting tradition. Years ago, these may have been trustworthy ways to determine whom to vote for, but today they are often not reliable. You need to look at the stands each candidate takes. This means that you may end up casting votes for candidates from more than one party.
OMG! Nuance! Bipartisanship! Knock me over with a feather! (I guess it is kind of mitigated by the fact that they are bipartisan about issues, only when voting for the person that best meets their religious criteria. So...yeah...).
Do not vote for candidates who are righton lesser issues but who will vote wrongly on key moral issues. The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.
This would actually make sense if your "right to life" wasn't exclusive to citizens of the womb. I'm afraid that only established, conscious life is worth fretting over, and the best way to do that is by opposing war, having a fair justice system, a working health care and educational system, a good economy and financial security for the already alive. Preventing suffering and making life worth living should be a goal above and beyond making sure that we don't interfere with the birthing process and are forbidden from helping people die with dignity. It's the irony of your position: you adamantly protect "life" by insuring that our actually lives are worse.
Unfortunately, today many Christians have not educated their consciences adequately regarding key moral issues.
Well, that was my daily dosage of irony.
A properly informed conscience will never contradict Christian moral teaching.
Man, do I have some rape questions for you.
Some issues allow for a diversity of opinion, and Christians are permitted leeway in endorsing oropposing particular policies. This is the casewith the questions of when to go to war andwhen to apply the death penalty.
Mostly, because your God is a warmonger, and you are a religion that is disturbingly obsessed with inflicting punishment (ironic, given Jesus's focus on forgiveness). Which is, of course, the only reason why the discussion of war and the death penalty (despite being "murder") qualifies as a "negotiable" topic. Interpretation. In time, the above will also have to fall into this same morally ambiguous realm, unless you collectively wish to give up any illusions of credibility.

Sigh. Despite being dreadfully typical when it comes to these topics, at least the pamphlet doesn't outright tell how to vote. It just implies to not vote for those filthy abortion, gay-marriage supporters. Obviously, not standard of any political party I am aware of...

15 comments:

pboyfloyd said...

You need to say this to yourself in a hissy whisper and with a Mexican accent!

"They keel their cheeldern.

They keel their old people.

They let scienteests play weeth cheeldren goo.

Deed I mention that they keel their cheelren?

They love keeling so much, some times they keel themselves!

When they are not keeling cheeldren and old people or themselves AND letting scientists play with dead cheeldren goo, they want to go to gay weddings!

Yech!

When cho go to the polling station remember, cho are not a reel chreestian if you vote for the gay loveeng cheeldren keelers who let scientists play with dead cheeldren goo!

Remember!.. the goo.. the goo."

GearHedEd said...

LOL, Floyd!

I would've voted on the death thingy, but "Fermenting in the gut of your Dark Master" wasn't one of the choices...

And, re: an earlier post, I figure the reason Sarah Palin had to go to so many different colleges to get her BA in Journalism is probably because the profs kicked her out when they found out she was a fundie xian/ Republican. I mean, EVERYBODY knows journalism profs are some of the most hardcore liberals around.

I remember once a few years back I was getting my daily ration of Meat in the local McDonald's, when a Sedan deVille pulled in to the parking lot. The lady who climbed out came in and got in line behind me. As I looked out the window, I noticed several Republican and Pro-Life bumberstickers adorning the back of her car, and thought to myself, "Gee, I wonder how many inner-city crack babies she's offered to adopt?"

GearHedEd said...

I'm also starting a writ-in campaign to elect Jack Kevorkian President. Are ya with me?

Asylum Seeker said...

"When they are not keeling cheeldren and old people or themselves AND letting scientists play with dead cheeldren goo, they want to go to gay weddings!"

The accent does make it sound less moronic, funnily enough. Though, it's kind of strange how gay marriage sticks out like a sore thumb in regards to these five issues. Every other issue is about not killing off humans at the fringe of birth/death, and not messing around with fetuses, but the gay marriage thing...has nothing to do with life or death! It is not a moral issue!

"I would've voted on the death thingy, but "Fermenting in the gut of your Dark Master" wasn't one of the choices..."

Dammit! I knew I forgot one!

"Palin had to go to so many different colleges to get her BA in Journalism is probably because the profs kicked her out when they found out she was a fundie xian/ Republican."

It's possible. But, from what we've seen of her so far, I'd say incompetence is not only a simpler explanation, but one that actually is part of the "fundie xian" explanation.

"Gee, I wonder how many inner-city crack babies she's offered to adopt?"

I bet you were embarassed to find out that she had a kennel full of them in her backyard, which she regularly gave a bowlful of tablescraps, and a loving jab with her learning rod. She is doing her part to keep life sacred!

"I'm also starting a writ-in campaign to elect Jack Kevorkian President. Are ya with me?"

Not President. Vice President. And, on a related note, I think Cthulhu just found a running mate.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Yeah, the gay marriage thing does seem a little off from the rest until you remember the 11th commandment - "Thou Shall Not Mind Thine Own Business!"

The 12th: "Judge Not for WE Will Tell Thee how to Judge!"

The 13th: "Go Yea and Propagate, Adopt Yea Not, but Use Thee Artificial Insemination so that More of God's Embryos may be Frozen."

Or the 14th: "Protect thee the unborn but ignorith them after Term Lest Yea falleth under the Spell of Socialism.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Oh I forgot the 15th that covers euthanasia: "End Yea Not the Suffering of Those Whose Suffering I Ordainith"

One of the biggest thorns in the side of the anti-death with dignity people is the record of the Oregon law. Numbers have been consistent, abuse non-existent, and most don't even fill the prescriptions, because the option gives them comfort.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Cthulhu's VP? Considering his history of not playing well with others, that is going to be a hard job to fill - or keep filled - Cthulhu's stomach I mean...

Asylum Seeker said...

Funny thing, if you took Oregon's euthanasia laws and Massachusett's gay marriage laws, and plunked them in a few more states (the gay marriage front is looking promising...) we would have something resembling a civlized modern nation, similar to the secular European nations across the pond. Unfortunately, we dead set at being the leaders of the free world, while simultaneously emulating Saudi Arabia in terms of progressiveness. I cannot express my joy.

Asylum Seeker said...

If anybody could keep Cthulhu fed, it is Kevorkian. If worse comes to worse, he could easily "reform" the Senate a few dozen times to keep the President satiated...

Saint Brian the Godless said...

Good post!

Hey, I would have voted on your death thingy but you didn't have the choice "Shot to death at the age of ninety-seven by the jealous husband of an eighteen-year-old Victoria's Secret model" so I passed...

Asylum Seeker said...

Gah...another oversight. Stupid confounding Victoria's Secret models...

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

You also left out "Being caught in the maelstrom of an emerging cosmic bubble and becoming the new cosmological constant for that portion of the Multiverse". That's my best hope right there.

Asylum Seeker said...

"You also left out "Being caught in the maelstrom of an emerging cosmic bubble and becoming the new cosmological constant for that portion of the Multiverse"."

Now you're just being silly. That wouldn't count as dying...or would it? [dramatic background music]

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

That wouldn't count as dying...or would it?
---------
I suppose it would depend on how anthropomorphic the new verse was.

GearHedEd said...

Thanks for reminding me, Brian-I just got the latest Victoria's Secret catalogue in the mail a couple of days ago. And the pages weren't even stuck together yet!

Yummy!