Hmm. Methinks recently well meaning christians shall not save us.

See! There is such a thing as a good christian!

awesome

Listening to David Kuo was like listening to who I was at one time. Studying the message of Jesus of Nazareth without the filter of the authoritarian propagandists reveals a message that is simple yet profoundly difficult- the challenge of a lifetime:

Love God, Love yourself, Love your enemy,

Do this and the rest is commentary.

Where are those who take this message to heart? Likely branded as liberals and cowards by the authoritarian masses that seek to justify their greed and prejudices through fantastic Biblical contortions and distortions.

The mass of Christians are such embarrassments that I have long since abandoned any affiliation with the clan of greed, violence and hypocrisy.

I have rather become what Jefferson described; "I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other."

Ethical behavior is in no way exclusive to "religious" affiliation.

"welcome to the club. the meetings are tuesdays at my house"

LOLITO (laughing out loud in the office)

must remember to wait till i am home to watch these clips...

I knew Jesus was a crack whore!

That was a good interview. The Lord of the Rings metaphor was just silly though. "You know, power is kind of like this thing that is a symbol for power!"

"There are 5 million more people in America today...than there were in 2001, and yet the Whitehouse goes around touting how much its done on compassion."

1. Just wanted to throw that in there as Bush slowly takes away more and more of our liberties.

"5 million more poor people"

Omitted a keyword.

I like Kuo. If more Christians in politics were like him, it would be much easier to have actual reasonable debate about issues. I might not agree with him, but at least I can respect him. I actually thought the Lord of the Rings analogy was fine, or at least better than Santorum's Eye of Mordor comment.

I also like this Kuo character. He seems to be a genuine good guy. We need more of those.

I think the next time i go to the library I'll see if I can get his book.

I've watched Kuo a couple of times and his sincerity does impress me. He was on 'Washington Journal' the 24th, on C-SPAN.

I like Kuo, too but I don’t agree with his assessment that good people get into politics and the allure of power changes them. It changes Republicans. I know there are corrupt Democrats, too but the GOP is hands down, kicking the Dems ass 20 to 1 when it comes to filthy, greedy beasts in politics.

Everyone should realize that most of the liberal, social democrat and centrist politicians we enjoy seeing take it to the man are indeed Christians no different than Kuo.

Kuo sounds Korean, and I have had nothing but bad experiences with Korean Christians. They're some of the most fanatic and zealous Christians I've ever met. They would make the Templars blush if they combined their fervor with the North's militance.

Kuo sounds Korean, and I have had nothing but bad experiences with Korean Christians. They're some of the most fanatic and zealous Christians I've ever met. They would make the Templars blush if they combined their fervor with the North's militance.

Maybe its just me, but that seemed a little racist.

The way I see it, the North Korean ideology basically presents Kim Jong Il and his Father as gods.

As with most communist countries, the people are indoctrinated to believe that 'the party' and its leadership are the absolute authority on all matters.

There isn't much room for fanatical religious zealots in that sort of setting.

"Maybe its just me, but that seemed a little racist."

Welcome to the 1990's PC Craze, population you. There are differences between cultures, I value all people as equally worthless in spite of these differences. Care to join us in the 21st century?

And I don't believe I said North Korea was anything but an atheist state. HTH

Kuo has to be to most balanced Christian I've ever heard speak.

David Kuo had an agenda, it was to bring his religious dogma into body politic. I don’t believe his agenda was all about the “poor” I think it was about abortion, stem cells and returning to the moral America… to the “leave it the beaver” America. His agenda was about creationism in schools and the appointment Christian leaning of judges. He is just as likely setting the smoke screen. The realization by thinking Americans is that the religious element in America is just as dangerous and radical Islam. Things have gotten so bad for the white house that even the religious conservatives don’t want to be associated with Bushes administration.

He is saying that Bush didn’t deliver for the Christian zealots with all the raising the name of God and those Christian judges all the talk about the evils of stem cells and abortion. All I can say is eat the steaming pile of spew you’ve made your not going to kiss and make up with the left.

Hell, if the promise of smaller government and fiscal conservatism that the Republicans have promised from Nixon, rayGun and Busk one was never delivered and the people still voted for bush (maybe not) twice! What is hell complaining about! He is plainly too stupid to be of use. He gets no props from me.

"The realization by thinking Americans is that the religious element in America is just as dangerous and radical Islam."

Do you and the rest of "thinking America" think so hard that you don't have to do any research to figure out that radical muslims consider themselves to be Takfiris, that is excommunicators, of the general Muslim public. In short, that means they're allowed to kill Muslim civilians because they're apostates from God. When have you ever heard the Christian Right say that it's okay to shoot and bomb and stab and behead people who don't believe and/or pray hard enough?

That's right, never.

Warmest regards, a representative of researching America

I have to agree, I think Kuo is basically an opportunist. I'm a Christian and on the left, so I'd normally eat up a lot of what he's saying here. But why did he think faith-based initiatives were a really great way to help the poor in the first place?

Now he's doing the rounds as a Bush critic, who, it turns out, doesn't have much to say about the role of religion in politics, mainly just a bunch of dirty secrets to tell (which, truth be told, are not that damning). Of all the anti-Bush books that have ever come out this one seems like it has the least to say. "Hey everybody I've got secret proof that Bush really isn't a compassionate conservative!" What a news flash. Five years ago you're convinved that Bush was really big not just on charity but social justice (!), and today you're saying Jesus is a hippy. I swear in the last generation Christians in America have not seriously thought much at all about what the heck they are supposed to be doing in the public sphere, and how they are supposed to be doing it. Everything that's out there now is little more than a tool to capture the votes of those Christians who are animated about one thing or another.

It's a lot like the story of Damon Linker, author of the recent book, The Theocons. The guy only became a Christian a very short time before he became the editor of the most important highbrow publication of Christian political thought in the country. Now he's written an expose from a perspective which is only slightly more thought-out than his previous alliance with the intellectual Christian right. And we're supposed to care.

anony: I live in the south and I've heard them say that quite a few times.

Well, Dionysus, I’m sure you consider yourself a good Christian and as such you follow the Bible as “the word of God”, correct? You ask a question:

"When have you ever heard the Christian Right say that it's okay to shoot and bomb and stab and behead people who don't believe and/or pray hard enough?"

I have, in fact, heard the Christian Right say that The Bible is The Word of God. So, to make a claim like that would be to live by the examples of the “good book” word for word, right? So, here are some excerpts from your “good book”. Read them and ask your question again.

Deut 25:11-12

1. If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, 12. you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

Deut 21:18-21

1. If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, 19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. 20. They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21. Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

Ex 35:2

2 For six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

Lev 20:13

13If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them

Isaiah 13:13-16

1. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts on the day of his fierce anger. 14. Like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, all will turn to their own people, and all will flee to their own lands. 15. Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. 16. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.

Num 31:14-18

1. Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. 15. Moses said to them, ‘Have you allowed all the women to live? 16. These women here, on Balaam’s advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. 17. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. 18. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.

When you research, Dionysus, don't cherry pick.

'Dionysus', despite your clear expertise in religious ethnography, 'Kuo' sounds rather more like a Taiwanese or another non-Mainland Chinese name. And yes, the act of seeing a yellow face, and immediately associating it with other yellow people who you happen not to like en masse, is racist in perhaps one and a half to two different ways.

Jef - I'm not Christian, and what I am is of no importance. Your Biblical exegesis grossly failed to give any case studies of the equivilent of Christian takfiris in America (as per Anonymous' generalized b.s. shooting from the hip assertion). The text commands a lot of things, the only people who even ponder the idea of enforcing Mosaic law are Dominionists, and none of them are launching mortar attacks against a Mormon picnic because they're "apostates".

Tze Ming - where did I say that I do not en masse like Korean people? I believe I said Korean Christians I have typically had negative experiences with. If I had said Irish Catholics, the only person who would have had a problem would be Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, who is a victim-mentality imbecile. You wouldn't want to be like him, would you? I'll disregard your yellow face remarks as a blight on your logic due to emotional distress at what you poorly perceived to be racism (perhaps with more than mere minor vested interest).

Dear Dionysus: thank you for your touching concern as to my imputed emotional distress. Nonetheless, here are my grounds for perceiving your comments to be racist. Now, I am neither Korean nor a Christian, and agree that there are plenty of fundamentalist Korean Christians around who are just as whacked out as white American Christian fundamentalists. However, the issue people take with your comment is that your little rant just wasn't particularly related to David Kuo. As I see it, you saw David Kuo, and despite the lack of evidence that he is Korean, or whacked out and nasty, you decided to connect him personally to whacked out nasty Koreans you have met. Your connection of the two issues was made purely on your assumptions or perceptions about his race. Similarly, if I had gone on the Maher show and made the same points as he did, you probably would have said the same thing about me - even though I am demonstrably not Korean. Or even Christian. Whacked out and nasty though? Remains to be seen I suppose.

Dionysus said: “When have you ever heard the Christian Right say that it's okay to shoot and bomb and stab and behead people who don't believe and/or pray hard enough?”

They don’t have to say it. It’s been done before by Christians

Just read up on the Dark Ages and inquisitions, as well as the Jewish prosecution since the time of Constantine all the way to the time of Hitler.

Then come back here and tell us again that Christian zealots do not victimise or slaughter people for believing in the same way they do…

Dionysus -

Mr. Kuo stated while a guest on 'Washington Journal' that his father is an immigrant whose country of origin is China.

Dionysus, whether or not you think that the comment was racist is irrelevant. You obviously offended a few people, and rather than apologize you acted like a jackass.

It was an ignorant and foolish thing to say, and every smartass remark you've made since has made it that much worse.

"Similarly, if I had gone on the Maher show and made the same points as he did, you probably would have said the same thing about me"

That would be a counterfactual statement with no basis in reality. My comment was an aside that deviated from the topic, your attempts to connect it are tenuous and presumptuous, and entirely predicated upon the idea that I am a racist against Asians. Keep trying though, I admire your desire to be right.

kes : "Then come back here and tell us again that Christian zealots do not victimise or slaughter people for believing in the same way they do…"

You say: Tell us again. I never did in the first place. Read closer, grasshopper, the come back and deliver your apology again to me.

Valkesh: "Dionysus, whether or not you think that the comment was racist is irrelevant."

And your thoughts are more relevant? Forgive me if I greatly disagree.

Valkesh: "It was an ignorant and foolish thing to say, and every smartass remark you've made since has made it that much worse."

Channeling Keith Olberman might be impressive to nitwits who get their news from blogs and TV but I'm afraid your sanctimony, which is built upon error anyways, has no footing with me. But I do appreciate your valiant attempt to prove you're more righteous than I.

Quote : When have you ever heard the Christian Right say that it's okay to shoot and bomb and stab and behead people who don't believe and/or pray hard enough?

That's right, never. ??

Answer : Not real sure here REP of America .. but I think they called it the Inquisition .. or in your case the Ignorant

When have you ever heard the Christian Right say that it's okay to shoot and bomb and stab and behead people who don't believe and/or pray hard enough?
That's right, never.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,224359,00.html

Ohio executed the self-proclaimed religious prophet Tuesday for the brutal 1989 slayings of a Kirtland, Ohio, family of five that Lundgren said he killed because God spoke to him and said they weren't enthusiastic enough about his teachings.

Norm that's a lunatic, not a movement. To illustrate the difference let us compare Khalid Islambouli, the assassin of Anwar Sadat, to this imbecile you cite above.

They both committed acts of terror inspired by religious exegesis and fundamentalism.

Khalid Islambouli belonged to a radical fundementalist network of many others, who had modern religious philosophers commanding them to commit acts of terrorism.

Lundgren was a single member who grew dissatisfied with modern materialism and apostasy so he shot people without any transnational network in his midst.

Is the difference clear to you? Because it's either that Lundgren is a representative of the Christian Right entire or not at all, as he wasn't a member of a "Christianist" terror/guerilla network.

We also have to consider how Khalid Islambouli didn't have voices in his head and Lundgren did, further invalidating the argument that you pose.

"Answer : Not real sure here REP of America .. but I think they called it the Inquisition .. or in your case the Ignorant "

Yeah, which was the responsibility of American Christians, any more people ready to toss anachronisms my way? I'll keep hitting these out of the park.

Ha! If Jesus was around today, the christian far right would crucify him..........