If you are going to use the word "religious" say "extremist" with it

[rpgamerd00d]

I see too many posts with headlines like "Abramoff & his religious right-wing cronies".

Frankly, this can be very insulting to religious groups. It really should be: "Abramoff & his religious extremist right-wing cronies".

While I am not religious in any way, I can definitely see religious people that are NOT extremists being insulted by the implication that all "religious" people are extremists.

Just sayin.

[FSogol]

1. I agree. Language is important, so use these also

Its not a scandal, its the Republican Scandals
Its not the National deficit, its the Bush Deficit.

[FreedomAngel82]

7. Yes

I as a Christian don't like being automatically lumped in the group. There are all types of Christian's just like there are all types of democrats.

[Bill McBlueState]

2. I don't think that's necessary.

"religious right-wing cronies" gets the point across pretty well that these aren't Ma and Pa Churchgoer we're talking about.

I guess I'm just tired of having to carefully couch my language so as not to offend the religious. It seems like it doesn't take much to get many of them going.

[rpgamerd00d]

4. Dude, seriously.

Many of "them" going?

Guys, we HAVE to respect peoples religions and their sensitivities to feeling their religion is being attacked. Most people in this country worship SOME kind of religion. We can't be seen as the party that "hates religion" because we aren't. Every time we say "religious" without "extremist" we make it seem like its whole religions or large portions of one, rather than what it really is - small, extremist splinter groups.

[China_cat]

9. Sorry, but those who are religious and not extremist

are the only ones that can fix THIS. Until they stand up and loudly denounce those who hate in the name of Jesus, they'll be tarred with the same brush because the only ones that get heard are the extremists.

If those who are religious don't want to be lumped with the likes of Falwell and Robertson, it's up to them to stop it...not us to let up on the extremists simply because a few non-extremists might get their feelings hurt.

[rpgamerd00d]

10. How can you possibly say such a thing?

You are saying that every christian is at fault because the KKK exists?
Dude, they have the RIGHT to exist, no matter how hateful and repulsive they are. Yet, everyone identifies the KKK as "nutjobs", racists and extremists. Why? Because everyone always REFERS to the KKK as extremists.
Its not our job to "stop" Falwell and Robertson, nor is it the christians job. Its our job (all of us) to refer to them as they are - extremists - without insulting people that don't agree with them but happen to be christian.
Jeeze.

[China_cat]

12. If you let the extremists speak in your name without

correcting them, then you are just as bad they are.

Whatever extremists.

[rpgamerd00d]

14. The general populace has no voice

They gain a voice when we refer to their leaders as extremists and trivialize them.

[Bill McBlueState]

11. I'm not sure the groups are that small

The portion of American Christians that enable the Bush regime is anything but small. If the "Christian Taliban" is such a small, extremist splinter group, how do they keep getting right-wing crazies elected to high office? Average churchgoers enable this further by having no concept of what modern theology has to say about hot-button social issues, and by making little effort to combat the Christians with the loudest voices.

There are definitely progressive religious leaders who are making a positive difference in the US, but I have to go googling around to remember their names. Jim Wallis is one of them. If such leaders would make more of an effort to connect with the people in the pews, they might have more success.

In any case, believers of all stripes have been stomping on secular society long enough that it's hard to suck it all up and let their dark ideas about *fundamental aspects of reality* go unchallenged.

[rpgamerd00d]

13. Think of the masses as sheep, and the extremists as shepards

Be referring to them as extremists, no matter how large or small they might be, you trivialize them.

Saying "Wow the religious nuts are at it again" is not the same as "Wow the religious extremist nuts are at it again".
One implies that its a force to be reckoned with, the other that its a joke to be mocked.

[Bill McBlueState]

18. I do agree with your points about language

now that we've each taken a few chances to better explain ourselves.

Another advantage to using language to trivialize the extremists is that by calling them "religious extremists" you make it clear that the theology they espouse is not necessarily what average churchgoers believe. Many mainline churchgoers tend to instinctively afford respect to anyone calling himself a pastor, without using that spiritual gift of discernment to think about what these pastors really are preaching. Anything we can do to get people to more critically evaluate the pronouncements of the extremists will help.

[blm]

3. True - the difference is enormous.

I started out a Kucinich type Catholic, and even though I am an atheist now, I have great respect for that type of Catholic and other peaceful religious missions.

I am deservedly tough on those fundamentalist groups who have been nurtured by political characters over the years.

[C_U_L8R]

5. Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwall

and all the other jesus-profiteers
don't consider themselves to
be extremists.. in fact they think
they represent the majority.

Now if other religious folk
disagree with what these shitheads
have done in the name of religion...
then they ought to be up in arms about it...
afterall it was their complacency that in
part helped these creeps ascend to power
(truthfully we are all to blame).

[rpgamerd00d]

6. All the more reason to refer to them as Extremists, eh?

[FreedomAngel82]

8. Which is sad

Check out these groups though. I really love them:

Christian Alliance- Progressive Christian group: http://www.christianalliance.org

SoJourners- Another progressive group http://www.sojo.net Not long ago a group of them got arrested at the Hill for protesting the neocon spending and were protesting on how they should be more concerned with the poor and middle class instead of the rich and war. This is a great group and I love them. Jim Wallis is affiliated with this group and he wrote the book "God's Politics: how the right gets it wrong and the left doesn't get it." I've heard good reviews of this book from people here and on this Christian forum I frequent.

[Bill McBlueState]

17. good examples

But it seems only internet junkies know who these guys are. They'll be successful when the day comes that the average men and women in the pews are more familiar with Jim Wallis than they are with Jerry Falwell.

It wouldn't hurt for mainline clergy to start grounding progressive politics in modern theology -- and openly discussing such things from the pulpit. For example: There are a lot of people out there who are basically kind individuals, but are still stuck in a nineteenth century interpretation of the Bible that keeps them from accepting gays and lesbians as fully human. They need some help from their spiritual leaders to really come around, but those leaders are all too often afraid of schism.

[LittleClarkie]

15. Like O'Reilly today talking about "Secular Progressives"

Like if you're progressive, you have to be secular. Horseshit. We shouldn't feed into that mindset.

[rpgamerd00d]

16. Uh, no, just the opposite

He is saying if you are progressive and not secular, he isn't referring to you.

[LittleClarkie]

20. That give O'Reilly too much credit

I think he lumps the two, and others do when they talk about those "secular humanists" on the liberal side as if that was all we were about over here. I'm not sure in Bill's tiny little brain, he makes the distinction, or even thinks there is one. After all, EVERYONE knows that if you believe in God, you should be a Republican.

I've had freepers at the pub ask me that when I tell them I have to leave early on Saturday because I'm going to church on Sunday. "Shouldn't you be a Republican?"

When a picture of me showed up in the local paper, praying, they put it up with the caption "Doesn't she know God is a Republican?"

Actual photographic evidence:


It's perpectuating a stereotype.

[Zenlitened]

29. What's wrong with being secular?

Aren't we a secular society, or secular nation?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

19. Somehow I don't think inserting that particular word "extremist" is

going to help people make the distinction.

[Zenlitened]

21. Why is "religious right-wing" not descriptive enough?

:shrug:

Right there, in just that phrase, the religious left-wing has been informed its not the subject being discussed.

[rpgamerd00d]

23. Because religious moderate republicans are still included

We can win moderate votes.

[Zenlitened]

24. So "moderate" and "right wing" now mean the same thing?

I think you're doing more to blur language than clarify, here.

[rpgamerd00d]

25. When I see "right wing" or "left wing", I dont think "extremist"

Maybe that is just me, though. I just hear "right" or "left" and view that as a shortcut to saying "Democrat" or "Republican".

[Zenlitened]

26. Well, if you're going to use such squishy, personalized definitions...

... maybe lecturing on vocabulary issues is not the best match for you?

:shrug:

[Bridget Burke]

28. "Religious Right" does it for me.

Theocracy Watch has lots of info on these guys.

www.theocracywatch.org/

[lukasahero]

22. Good luck with that

While I agree with your intent, you will find little refuge for an idea like this here. Good luck in trying to get the point across though. :hi:

[sweetheart]

27. religion comes from an "extreme" place in the human heart

Religion throughout the ages has been lead by persons with a passion, with
an unbending "knowing" or inspiration that is so central and core to the
persons who are religious, that it is unitary nature to it,
as my religion is not separable from my own beliefs. I am set with this
burden of subjectivity, like we all are, and my subjectivity is, much as
yours is, your religious frame.

Not being religious, one might not recognize the way one becomes religious, and
if you're not dead, that still could be you. Part of freedom of religion is
the freedom to *change* religion.

My religion is truth. It changes all the time, with every moment, and yet
it is eternally the same. It is difficult to describe except in metaphor as
what is there on the alter of my "truth" chapel except empty space where
a "truth" might sit. It is extreme to reject all convention, all preconception,
and to decide for myself what my alter of "truth" holds. Even your own process
of that, however you semantically frame it, is likely similar.

Truth inevitably confronts the ego with the fact that it is ignorant and unwise.
So the truth is that we can be both ignorant and unwise, yet zealots of religion.
As our religion is our zest for truth. And myself, i pray for more zealots, not
less. I pray for people to take whatever is sitting on their "truth" alter off
and examine it. But all of this comes from a radical impulse that just won't
settle for a false truth, from a militancy that won't settle for liars and
criminals as my leaders, from a ferocious angry rooted civility that does not
and will never recognize what those men stand for as in any way legitimate.

God save the zealots. 1 zealot for truth is more powerful than a nuclear bomb.

[in_cog_ni_to]

30. I like calling them "the RW religious Taliban"

because that's what they are. They are no better than the Afghanistan Taliban. In fact, I think they're WORSE beause they hide their evil crap from the sheeple. The Taliban didn't.