Roberts' Hearing A Forum For Catholic Bashing

[theim]

I strongly support the freedom of all religions to practice openly and without fear of retribution

Just not on public land, right?

And how in the world is a nativity scene "shoving my religion down somebody's throat"? I go to school at a public university. There was a flyer for an art exibit put up. Were all those hippies shoving their art down my throat?

It is the simple fact that you seem to see no difference, none whatsoever, between displaying a public creche and holding a public execution of homosexuals at the local stadium that makes your ideas laughable, and causes you to lose nearly every ounce of credibility you have mustered by studying religions extensively, as you claim.

 

[KarlMarx]

Marx: No one called Roberts a "papist", that was what Republicans called Kennedy. As for your silly, drivel-filled diatribe about me being a socialist, try reading a few of my posts and you'll see you're wrong. Lenin wasn't a marxist per say, he took some of Marx's philosophy and put his own spin on it, but I won't bore you with facts and history, you like fiery rhetoric better. If I had to place myself on the political spectrum, I am to the right of Hillary Clinton, but to the left of Joe Lieberman. In other words, I am center-left.

When has the government denied you the freedom to practice your religion as you see fit? Are you upset because you can't force your particular religious views down the rest of our throats? Do you crave the kind of power the Taliban had in Afghanistan? It sure sounds like it. Also, just an FYI, I'm not an atheist per se, I practice Buddhism, and so am a religious person, just not your religion. I read the Holy Bible, some of what it said made sense, some didn't it. I have also read the Holy Qu'ran, the Talmud, as well as some Hindu texts, and the Sutras I study in my particular form of Buddhism. Don't lecture me on religion, I know way more about it then you, but I hope you decide to make a study of it, it gives you a whole new perspective on the rest of the world. I strongly support the freedom of all religions to practice openly and without fear of retribution, something you clearly don't support.

Acludem

No, I don't want to blow up any Buddhas..... but I really have a problem that doesn't see anything wrong with my religion attacked openly and shamelessly in the Senate. Religious tolerance is for everyone, even the ones you don't agree with.

And don't give me the "I know way more about religion than you do" shtick...... this isn't a thread on theology. I've read the Bible, the Baghavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, I know about the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path of "your" religion, and I studied some Eastern religions when I was a kid..... you think of me as some trailer park hick who handles snakes but you'd be wrong.

Apparently what you've lost in your perusal of the texts you mentioned is the fact that people PRACTICE those religions and cherish them. People take great umbrage at having their religions attacked because when you do, you attack THEM... Apparently, you and your ACLU buddies don't seem to understand or don't care about that. You fancy yourselves as defenders of freedom and are willing to paint anyone who disagrees with your left wing world view as some religious extremist. The fact is that you're just trying to force your way of thinking on the rest of us.

BTW.... I grew up as the son of Italian immigrants and I've put up with a lifetime of being treated like something less than worthy by "Americans" who think that they're better just because my parents speak with an accent and their ways were different from them. That's what I see in you.

 

[KarlMarx]

He's good, but not the best. Not surprised about Ann Coulter, she looks like pure skank, groupie potential very high. But Jack wasn't in the Dead, he was in the Airplane. And Hot Tuna.

Yes, I know his history.... (btw he's still playing with Hot Tuna)... I think everyone has an opinion as to who is the "best" this or that (some people think Jimi Hendrix is over rated)

 

[Nuc]

Yes, I know his history.... (btw he's still playing with Hot Tuna)... I think everyone has an opinion as to who is the "best" this or that (some people think Jimi Hendrix is over rated)

I feel sorry for anybody who thinks Hendrix is overrated. Jack Casady is great, but I would have to vote for John Entwistle.

 

[Bonnie]

Oh, God, Sen. Feinstein's at it againJonah Goldberg

September 16, 2005

During the first day of questioning at his Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts was asked about his religious views by Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif.

"In 1960," she noted, "there was much debate about President John F. Kennedy's faith and what role Catholicism would play in his administration. At that time, he pledged to address the issues of conscience out of a focus on the national interests, not out of adherence to the dictates of one's religion." She quoted JFK as saying, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," and then delivered what was supposed to be a hard-hitting coup de grace: "My question is: Do you?"

Roberts replied with the usual fog of generalities we've come to expect from Supreme Court nominees, while Sen. Feinstein tried to press him into saying he either did or didn't believe in an "absolute" separation between church and state. The incandescently clear implication of her remarks and questioning is that she'd prefer it if Judge Roberts did hold that there should be an "absolute" wall between all things religious and all things governmental.

Now, the funny part was that Sen. Feinstein had been sitting there just a little while earlier when Judge Roberts had been administered the oath to tell the truth "so help me God." She'd also sat there when he'd been asked by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., about the oath he took when he was sworn in as an appellate judge and the oath he'd take again when/if he's confirmed. It goes in part like this "I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (title of position) under the Constitution and the laws of the United States, so help me God."Why didn't Sen. Feinstein cry "foul"? Why didn't she say "Whoa, whoa, whoa! There will be no God-talk here"?

This is, after all, a heartfelt conviction on Sen. Feinstein's part. For example, in 2003, she was very upset to learn that Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. - Bush's nominee to the 11th circuit court of appeals - had once told a Catholic high school that while the "American experiment is not a theocracy and does not establish an official religion" the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are "rooted in a Christian perspective."

"What," Sen. Feinstein asked Pryor at hearings on his nomination, "are others to think of that statement as to how you would maintain something that is important to this plural society, and that is an absolute separation of church and state?"

The reality, of course, is that not even Sen. Feinstein believes that there should be an "absolute" wall between religion and state. If she did, she would be aligning herself alongside the legal pest Michael Newdow, who recently won a big victory in his one-man war to create a truly absolute wall when he got another court this week to rule that having the words "under god" in the pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional. But she's not. Why? Probably because she knows that would be politically stupid and because she thinks Newdow's position is stupid on the merits.

Feinstein also would have objected when John Kerry insisted during the presidential campaign that his religious faith is "why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That's why I fight for equality and justice."

And she might even go so far as to denounce the Reverend(!) Martin Luther King Jr. for his entire civil rights project, which was so thoroughly rooted in religious faith that if you tried to remove it, there would be virtually nothing left.

Look: The view that the Constitution was ever intended to create an atheistic political culture is so universally recognized as ahistorical claptrap, it's become almost a cliche to debunk it.

The real issue is more complicated. In recent years, conservatives have used religion in good faith and bad, reasonably and unreasonably, to assert their political agenda. Lately, liberals have started to do the same thing, arguing that a "proper" religious attitude requires support for the welfare state, environmentalism and the like. Some conservatives are dismissive, others appalled.

But the reality is that liberals claiming God is on their side is the norm. As with Martin Luther King Jr., the liberal tradition in America has often been suffused with religiosity. When I hear self-described "progressives" talk about purging religion from public life, I wonder if they've ever even read a single book on the history of progressivism in America. If they have, it must have been one with all the chapters on the Social Gospel, Christian Socialism, Jane Addams and Woodrow Wilson ripped out. Progressives then, and today, never objected to the use of God in public arguments. They merely objected to the claim that God disagreed with them.
The most charitable thing one can say about Sen. Feinstein is that she's continuing in that tradition by claiming that religious doctrines that lead to policies she dislikes - i.e. abortion - have no place in public life. But religious convictions that support causes she likes are just fine. It's a double standard, but that's the American way.


Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/printjg20050916.shtml

 

[acludem]

I practice Soka Gakkai Buddhism, most of the members of the group I practice with are Japanese immigrants. If you want to know more the website is www.sgi-usa.org

I have never attacked anyone for practicing their religion publically. I do, however, have a problem when people of any religion want the government to fund, support and promote their particular religious views. That's incompatible with Democracy.

I am truly sorry, Marx, that people treated your folks as second class. I've grown up with a father who has a spinal cord injury and uses a power wheelchair. He works full-time and I am extremely proud of him, but I do know what it is to have people look down on your parents. People frequently assume because my dad uses a wheelchair that he's mentally retarded or deaf.

acludem

 

[theim]

I do, however, have a problem when people of any religion want the government to fund, support and promote their particular religious views. That's incompatible with Democracy.

Really? We have had God in the pledge for quite some time, God on the money even longer, People have sworn on the Bible in court for centuries and when the new Capitol building in Washington DC was opened in 1800 Congress authorized it to also be used as a church. Somehow the Republic managed to survive.