U.S. Army Instructor: Beware Religious Extremism of Evangelicals, Roman Catholics

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by lonewolf19792000

 

i'm not catholic, but those are some serious straw man depictions you give. set 'em up (incorrectly) so you can have a nice clean shot, eh?

a catholic perception of statues is to be reminded of the sacrifice that christ gave. they don't worship mary, and their prayers to her are done with the logic that it's easier to ask your friend to speak with someone you don't know (but that they know) than to speak with them yourself. they also don't believe transubstantiation turns the sacraments into his physical flesh and blood in a way recognizable by humans.

i've conversed with catholics before, and the above is what i could gather.

I'm not straw manning at all. The whole "you shall make no graven image of anything in the heavens, on the earth or in the sea" seems to go unnoticed in catholicism and if you know anything about God, he is unchanging, if something pissed him off 4000 years ago it still pisses him off today.

As for transubstantiation yes they do believe they turn the eucharist into Christ's actual flesh and the wine into his actual blood, thats the entire point of transubstantiation, to take something ordinary and turn it into something else.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

i don't have an issue with it so long as they're not worshiping the statue as being a god, which they don't.

the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus and that they are no longer bread and wine, but only retain their appearance of bread and wine.

carm.org...

they do not believe that they're eating flesh and blood, but that the sacraments obtain something called "real presence".

Roman Catholicism states that the incarnation of Christ itself, where Jesus was a man but contained an invisible divine nature, is analogous to the the doctrine of the real presence.

it is more that they are blessed by christ's divinity.

reply to post by R_Clark


having met some of the cazier of christianity i can see this, some of those people are complete whackos lol.
treee

personaly i dont trust anyone as far as i can throw em who puts their faith in an imaginary friend in the sky but to each his or her own.

Beware of godtards. Sound advice, indeed.

reply to post by burntheships


Cant you see what has been done, ATS has been bleached. If you cant see it your ignorant. Don't just look at one comment and then have your rant

reply to post by BlueMule


Umm.. It is not 'my little list'. It is the US Army Instructor list. Last looked, all religions including yours is protected against the state...

reply to post by ~widowmaker~


Is that a reason they should be on a Army target list?

Originally posted by sad_eyed_lady
So Billy Graham was a potential problem?

This brought something to mind- You said WAS- he is still alive. I only mention this because it has been on these boards before that many people "remember" details of him dying. Myself included.

Just thought it a strange phenomena.

So in other words, look out for the religious wackos with weapons and visions of changing the world by damaging the system in place. Nuns with guns.

Honestly, spend as much liberty as you think you need to in your religion, or efforts to maintain a lack of one, but at the end of the day no matter what your extra talents, real, perceived, or otherwise, you're still a puny mortal and the government is still made of other puny mortals aiming to rule. That's the motive of every government. Do something stupid, get caught, increase the likelihood of being squished.

This is just politically correct jargon for the blame game after some psycho with a crucifix comes out with violence. Surface judgments. They don't have a bullcrap detector that can tell if that nut is putting on a false image to deceive.

I wonder if they have a term for Military Extremism. There has got to be that influence in the world, where even after service is over, the hierarchic entitlements are still in place. It must trickle down in gangs in the military. When is the military going to address that?

What's difficult is that after this indoctrination, military ones have an extra layer of prejudice for religious ones. Oh but an atheist isn't on the map. There's the loophole in the training of perceiving threats. Brain-washing.

These religion threads act as ignorance catching fly paper.
How about some of you take a moment to compare the difference between "evangelicals" and "fundamentalist"
It would be a start at least, so many of you seem to think they are synonyms.

I hope nobody relies on these posts to inform them on what is true and not true about anyone's religion.
or better yet....if you read one that attacks another....ignore it...

reply to post by Res Ipsa

en.wikipedia.org...

Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamentalist Christianity, or fundamentalism,[1] refers to a movement begun in the late 19th and early 20th century British and American Protestant denominations among evangelicals who reacted energetically against theological and cultural modernism.[2]

This is why. They are not that easy to separate.

Fundamentalism as militant evangelicalism
Fundamentalism is defined by historian George M. Marsden in his seminal work Fundamentalism and American Culture as "militant anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism." Marsden explains that Christian fundamentalists were American evangelical Christians who in the 20th century opposed "both modernism in theology and the cultural changes that modernism endorsed. Militant opposition to modernism was what most clearly set off fundamentalism."[9] Other historians agree that militancy is a core characteristic of the movement.[10][11][12]

Militancy is a core characteristic of the fundie movement. And it was born of Evangelical nutters. It is what it is.


As far as the OP goes, I agree that the people who send their children to Jesus Camp are just as bad as Hamas.

But Catholics? Your run-of-the-mill parishioner? No. Not in general.

I'll tell you whom they are deeming extremists? Those people that do not toe-the-line in regards to what is being regarded as hip and popular as society disintegrates. If you have any concerns or conflicts with what is coming out of Washington? You are an extremist! If abortion does not mesh well with you? An extremist! You have reservations about the new government imposed definition of marriage? Extremist! You stand by conviction, integrity, and self-respect? You are an extremist! If you value our Bill of Rights and Constitution? You are an extremist! Get the idea!

In other words, if you are not blinding following the whims of the flock? People are going to go out of their way to find agregious monikers and labels to call you until you fall in line. This tactic has been done time and time again, and now it is showing its ugly head in the United States. Some places of mention from the past include Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. If it could happen in those places? It can happen here, and it is happening right now. However, people are to engrossed in themselves, the tabloids, and sitcoms to read the tea leaves. Ignorance is bliss!

reply to post by Jakes51

I'll tell you whom they are deeming extremists?

I'm confident that they are talking only about the ones who want to bring on Armageddon, and the ones who shoot doctors right in churches.

reply to post by camaro68ss

Bonus points for pulling up articles where a person killed someone in the name of Jesus.

Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Kansas Church - NYTimes.com

Children in Congo forced into exorcisms

And here's handy list of violence over the years against abortion clinics: www.prochoice.org...

Another day, another 'pro-life' terrorist bombs an abortion clinic

Those do it for ya, camaro?

Cause I can pull up a lot more... whole conferences of people in the Christians for Israel crowd who want war with Iran, for example. Heard of John Hagee? Yeah. Look it up.

reply to post by wildtimes

It looks like the Army should have done this back in 2009, since that is when the latest crime that you provide happened, with the exception of the firebombing... if you try to follow the link in the original story you can't find it.

I looked at them, the one about exorcisms in AFRICA didn't impress me that much, they still eat each other over there. Plus, I don't think the Army instructor was warning about native African people.

One thing I did notice in the dated news stories was the lack of ties between the perpetrators and organized Christianity. Even the story about the abortion doctor being murdered in church seems more like an indictment Christianity because they have an abortion doctor in their midst.

reply to post by wildtimes


Extremism comes in all shapes and sizes. Your examples are blatantly obvious. I was highlighting how this applies to the big picture. I see more to this than some US Army instructor singling out Evangelics, Catholics, or other religious groups. This is an assault on those that may happen to have an opinion that counters what is deemed socially acceptable by today's standards. We are seeing subtle attempts to weed them out. If we fail to see the subtleties? They will surely become blatant with time. I do not want to sound like a doomsayer or come off as a wet blanket. However, I do believe that society is in a downward spiral. Long held principles of good virtue like compassion, humility, self-respect, dignity, honor, and conviction are taking a back seat to malice, selfishness, hate, corruption, thievary, and other not so beneficial character traits. In all honesty, you do not see it? I do agree that Christian groups are just as capable of extremism as any other, but lets try and look at the larger picture. Thanks for the reply!

reply to post by butcherguy


What? Are you unfamiliar with the CUFI? Westboro Baptist Church? Those are RIGHT NOW active....
they are not from 2009.

January 1, 2012 Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, firebombed the American Family Planning Clinic in Pensacola, Florida with a Molotov cocktail; the fire gutted the building. Rogers told investigators that he was motivated to commit the crime by his opposition to abortion, and that what more directly prompted the act was seeing a patient enter the clinic during one of the frequent anti-abortion protests there. The clinic had previously been bombed at Christmas in 1984 and was the site of the murder of Dr. John Britton and James Barrett in 1994.[38]

April 1, 2012 A bomb exploded on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, resulting in a fire that damaged one of the clinic's examination rooms. No injuries were reported. On April 3, the FBI arrested 50-year-old Francis Grady on charges of "arson of a building used in interstate commerce" and "intentionally damaging the property of a facility that provides reproductive health services".[39]

Heard of the Army of God? One of them is now in prison.

This is happening, and they are getting louder.

reply to post by Jakes51

This is an assault on those that may happen to have an opinion that counters what is deemed socially acceptable by today's standards. We are seeing subtle attempts to weed them out.

I think you're painting with too paranoid a brush. There is no question that there are religious nutters who WILL and DO commit violence, and just recently a neo-Nazi skinhead murdered someone ....

it's all over the press. I also think that the Army trainer's presentation was a warning to WATCH OUT for them, because they DO have a tendency to get violent and a have very short fuses.

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by butcherguy

 

What? Are you unfamiliar with the CUFI? Westboro Baptist Church? Those are RIGHT NOW active....
they are not from 2009.

I missed where your links covered them.

I am familiar with newspapers and radio stations in my area. There are plenty of news stories with violence in them, but they don't connect with a Christian angle. They are usually drug-related, gang-related, home invasions and robberies.

Do you have a lot of militant Christians slaughtering people in your area? I have never even seen a militant Christian in person. There are a lot of churches in this area, but I don't see a lot of armed parishioners coming out or going in. Hell, when it comes right down to it, I don't see a lot of armed people around here of any kind.... other than cops, maybe they should worry us more, eh? I seldom see anyone even arguing, now that I think about it.

reply to post by butcherguy

Well, you're online just like I am. Do a google or bing or whatever for "Christian violence."
Christian Terrorism is an example from wiki.
There are several wiki pages related to the topic, all with links to further info.

And this recent thread by NorEaster speaks to the subject exactly:Would Christians Be As Violent As Muslims If Their Religion Was Threatened?

Lots of links in that thread to help you understand it better.

Be glad you aren't witnessing it. Or suffering it. The Army isn't training soldiers to patrol my neighborhood, or yours! They need to be aware of where the volatile extremist thinking might turn ugly. There are Christians abroad, too, you know, in places like Israel and Egypt.

reply to post by wildtimes


Perhaps, I am painting with a paranoid brush? Although, it is a given to keep on eye on people whom may do you harm. That much is certain. I just see too many folks getting ridiculed and lambasted as being bigots, prudes, old fashioned, and other names that cannot be mentioned on here, because they are of an opinion contrary to the so-called wisdom of today.

Instead of having a reasonable conversation about the matter, people resort to fight mode and start hissing and spitting at other. Just pitting sides against each other rather than encouraging dialogue and civility. The politicians and the MSM are guilty of fostering that environment. What happened to the notion of agreeing to disagree, and letting bygones be bygones? Furthermore, people that tend to dig their heels in and will not sway on a particular item or agenda have been referred to in not so many words as extremists. They may not come out and say it, but it can be implied through rhetoric and choice of words. Just trying to read between the lines.