Ah, religious freedom. As long as you restrict yourself to being a fundamentalist Christian. And if you read the article, you’ll see the protester doesn’t know his history.
Christian Right Activists Disrupt Hindu Chaplain In The Senate
Today was a historic first for religion in America’s civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.
[…]
The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God’s forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.
There is a simple beauty in declaring what you know to be right regardless of the views of those around you. The actions of these Talibangelists should have alot of support in the conservative christain community–after all, these fine folks are being oppressed right to their faces when some different religion is allowed to present itself.
And so goes the natural tendency of any group having a monopoly on the truth, a truth that does not elevate the freedom of man as their first principle.
Amen, and pass the ammunition.
Oh may ye great plate of spaghetti forgive the nonbelievers, for they are not sinners, just merely misguided. Ramen.
There is something much, much higher than the Son of God. Pursue Leisure and you will realize the Absolute Truth.
Ahhh religion!
Helping people wih limited IQ’s and/or low self esteem and raised without the intestinal fortitude to live on this planet without having to believe in invisible people.
You can belive in whatever you want to believe in. I don’t care. As long as you can act like a civilized human at the same time, respect others and keep your religion to yourself.
“As long as you can act like a civilized human at the same time, respect others and keep your religion to yourself.”
The problem is that our country’s civilized society is based on christian religion. So these right-wing a-holes think that they have a right to act like this.
Oh you poor lost sheep, will not you come to th light? Place your trust in Bob Dobbs!
The problem is that people can say whatever they want about the US and it’s religions but they really have no right to do so lest the guilty cast the first stone. In other words the vast majority of religions in the world spend their greater time oppressing or trying to oppress other religions. Every major country I can think of has this problem.
Nothing to see here…just more rude scumbag jerks sticking their nose into other peoples business… move along.
This reminds me of why I gave up Christianity a few ago. I grew up in the Washington DC area, with kids of every make, model and religious affiliation. Everything from Catholics to buddhists to scientologists. To think that all of them were wrong, and all of my friends (who are some of the most amazing people on earth) are all doomed to an eternal damnation just because they say different things when they bow their heads. I was always against the grain when It came to who is wrong and who is right. The straw that broke the camels back was when the giant tsunami wiped out most of south east Asia, and one of my acquaintances said that it was God punishing those people for not believing in Him. I promptly told her in the most polite manner possible that she was a stupid bitch, and went along with my day. It wasn’t until a few days later when I saw footage of Christians going to southeast Asia, handing people Bibles, and going “geee, your God sucks! read this, and this wont happen again!”
I pretty much distanced myself from Christianity at that point.
Thats beside the point tho, and I apologize for straying away from the real issue. The United States is a nation founded on the principle of religious freedom. Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians are fighting their hardest to make it not so. They wasn’t everything in the country to be run according to the word of God (a highly misinterpreted word of God I might add). Religious equality cannot happen if Christianity is deemed the only correct religion.
Also those people need to get a grip. Its the Senate, not the pulpit.
It looks like these losers were affiliated with the “Reverend” Don Wildmon’s American Family Association.
They start every senate meeting with a morning prayer? I mean, WTF? Shouldn’t they be working instead?
The U.S. founders had opinions on the “Christian nation” question:
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
– George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
– Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814
Lord, save me from your followers!
These are the same losers who love forcing religion down peoples’ collective throats at school, in courthouses, etc. When other people are offended, they tell them to “don’t worry, we’re not forcing anything on you.” Then a reverse situation pops up and these are the first people to start screaming at the top of their lungs.
#12, TJ:
I think it speaks volumes that the founding fathers were largely religious men, but specifically left any mention of god out of the Constitution!
Gee, all of you have to change the religion and you have the United States of Iran!
Is this where America is heading to? Is America becoming a ‘Christian Republic’ intolerant of everyone who is not like ‘US’?
I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for many years, the world’s largest Muslim country. In November Christmas decorations like “Merry Christmas” signs, Christmas trees and the like went up. Shop keepers would wish you a Merry Christmas, people getting their photos taken with mall Santas…much to my surprise!
Many Indonesians told me that they think Christmas is a great happy time of year – though there isn’t any religious meaning as they are Muslims. They aren’t bothered at all about the Christmas carol lyrics about Jesus is the King etc. As well Christmas day is a National Holiday. They just enjoyed the season.
How surprised I was when I moved back to the States briefly in 2005 and at Christmas time what happened? It’s no longer Christmas but now a PC “Happy Holidays”. No one in stores can wish you a Merry Christmas; Christmas Trees are no longer being put up in public places etc.
SHAME on America!
A Muslim country like Indonesia can show America what religious freedom really means instead of America’s NATO – No Action Talk Only.
Oh by the way I pray to Joe Pecsi – he’s the kind of guy who gets things done!
Dauragon88 –
I grew up mostly in DC myself, just up Wisconsin from the Cathedral. People who have no experience of the city except as tourists and passers-through really don’t grasp that it’s probably the most multicultural, multiethnic, multitheistic city in the western hemisphere, if not the world.
I’ve since realized that growing up in such an environment, with the vast diversity of humankind as the normal atmosphere of everyday life, made me the independent thinker I am – and having a family completely oblivious to organized religion, I wasn’t indoctrinated as most Americans are, so the irrationality of the whole enterprise has always been obvious. I knew before 3rd grade that ‘ALL these different people can’t possibly be right’ and since the stuff they claimed to believe was all equally absurd, it was obviously all a load of hooey.
It’s true, it’s extremely difficult to shake off the brainwashing you receive in your impressionable stage, the formative years, so I tend to be more sympathetic than I know I should be with many of the sheeple. But if most Americans grew up the way I did, sans brainwashing, in everyday contact with people different from oneself in so many ways, we’d certainly have little of the ideological rigidity and intolerance – from ALL sides – that makes up so much of contemporary American life.
Busing kids to schools miles away and preaching multiculti value relativism is the naive, ineffective attempt to create that sort of formative experience – but it doesn’t work, being regimented and enforced by a combination of law, self-righteous ideology and a taboo against honest discussion. Now all we’ve got is a bunch of intolerant we-know-we’re-right liberals to mirror their counterparts on the Right. But they’re all intolerant assholes, as the subject of this post exemplifies.
Did you go to Wilson, Lauren?
18.
funny you mention Wilson,
I graduated from there last year
Small world eh?
#12
“The U.S. founders had opinions on the “Christian nation” question:
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
– George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
– Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814”
These are great! I had never heard these quotes before. I checked Wikipedia on the first on and it checks out (It’s unclear if Washington personally wrote the treaty but he certainly signed it.
I think I’m going to put the first one on a T-shirt.
I’m sorry to disagree with y’all but I respect what these people did. Like it or not, our country was BUILT on Christian principles and Christian based traditions. What really peeves me is how people get all “separation of church and state” when a Christian tries to pray in public but now is suddenly “historic” when a hindu “chaplain” delivers a prayer! Really now, does anyone NOT see the double standard there?
21.
Um I’d hate to burst your bubble, but Senate begins every morning with a prayer.
This is the first time a Hindu performed that duty.
Thus, it was a historic event.
I’m terribly sorry, I’ll get you another bubble if you need one.
#21, Russell:
Agree. Well said.
Actually, our country was BUILT by stealing every shred of land that we could from its original inhabitants and committing genocide on all their peoples.
21.
“Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.”
-Press Release from Operation Save America
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
– George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796
I still offer to replace your busted bubble 😀
21-
No it wasn’t. It wasn’t built on any religion’s tradition. That’s the mentality the brainwashed christian wants everyone to think, to push their agenda on the majority of the population, when this country was founded on the ideals of separation of church and state, of no state religion, of religious tolerance. What the religious right (and specifically, these 3 in this video) want is the abolition of those boundaries, of the removal of any competing religions.
Then to further the stereotype of these nutjob religious fanatics, they come here and defend the actions of these protesters? hah! Nice work.
If Hustler magazine investigates these senators, would they dig up a lot of trash just like it did with other politicians?
sheesh. That’ll really help america’s image!
(that was meant to be sarcastic, btw)
#5 – our country’s civilized society is based on christian religion
Bullshit and debunked too many times to be worth debunking again.
#12 – “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
– George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
– Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814
And yet the good TJGeezer does it for us. Amen Brother Geezer.
>>Really now, does anyone NOT see the double
>>standard there?
Nope. I’d be in favor of starting the sessions with a “moment of silence”, where people could pray to the god of the choice, or work on their list of which page boys have the nicest butts.
But if they’re going to start some days praying to the Christian God, it’s only fair that they start some days praying to the god of other religions. And maybe trees and grass, to appease the Wiccans.
What part of “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” do you not understand???