[Vision2020] Prediction/pin drop

[Paul Rumelhart]

Keely,

You are one of the people I admire.  I get that you have differences.  
That's fine.  I get that certain of their leadership appear to be 
arrogant idiots.  I understand that they think they are God's gift to 
the world.  That's their beliefs, and they are welcome to them.  I have 
no problem with your having a differing viewpoint or for disagreeing 
with them. 

However, I think there are a few lines around here that are at least 
played with if not fully leaped across.  When it comes down to it, they 
have every right to believe as they do.  Trying to limit their expansion 
into Moscow, for example, by changing the laws to suit their detractors 
is crossing that line.  Trying to rezone areas of the city with the 
express purpose of curtailing these people crosses another line.  If 
certain circumstances have led the people of the town to determine that 
their laws are inadequate, fine.  If it's just a blatant ploy or a move 
on a gigantic anti-Kirker chessboard, then I want  nothing to do with 
it.  I also don't think that going out of your way to deny them money is 
any more rational than refusing to talk to them or just doing an 
old-fashioned shunning. 

I would also argue that people don't necessarily have control over what 
they believe.  I don't think it's a choice anymore than I think that 
your sexuality is a choice.  You can limit what you are exposed to, but 
when something "clicks" or "rings true", you have no more control over 
it than you do when you realize who you are attracted to.  It may take 
you years to determine what your fundamental beliefs truly are, and it 
may take exposure to other concepts to find all the things that you do 
believe, but in the end I think you are as much a victim of your beliefs 
as you are a master of them.  At any rate, you are right that I missed 
the point with my question about businesses owned by women or the 
disabled.  For that, I apologize.

Paul

keely emerinemix wrote:
> Paul,
>
> I'd like to think I'm one of those people you might admire, except for 
> my "clouded thinking" on this matter.  So I'll jump in. 
>
> Your suggestion that the slippery slope of "what's next?  Businesses 
> owned by women?  The disabled?" misses the point entirely.  Women are 
> women ontologically;  I think that can be said also of the disabled.  
> To engage in a boycott against someone because of their very being 
> would be bigoted.  However, Christ Church members and supporters are 
> not ontologically  Kirkers.  They choose to be.  They choose assent to 
> a set of ideas that many people find offensive; they choose assent to 
> a man who is offensive not because he's a man, but because he's a 
> divisive, mean-spirited, disingenuous, bigoted man.  It's not his 
> "religious views," in terms of basic Christian orthodoxy -- it's his 
> ancillary views, what some might call "secondary doctrines," and his 
> behavior in living them that requires that I do more than just not 
> support them, but actively condemn them.  You'll remember that I'm a 
> devout Trinitarian who holds a high view of the Scriptures.  So are 
> Baptists, Methodists, Bridge Bible Church members, Presbyterians, and 
> Gospel Temple Pentecostals. 
>
> It must not be his Christianity that offends me, then.  It must be his 
> arrogant and blatant misrepresentation of the faith and its Author 
> that offends me.  Thank God no one is "born that way," although a 
> devout Calvinist might disagree with me.  But I'm not any kind of 
> Calvinist, so I'm free to believe that as Doug Wilson chooses to act 
> badly, and his followers choose to proclaim allegiance to him, I'm 
> free to not offer a dime in support.
>
> On a quick note, I don't believe "their worldview" casts them as 
> people "deluded by some of those in power" in the church.  They 
> believe they ARE the church, waiting to establish full dominion in 
> Christ; any suffering they've experienced, any disenfranchisement, is 
> to them the chastening of a Sovereign God for their failure to live 
> out that dominion.  Again we disagree.  I think their "suffering" is 
> simply the consequence of really bad behavior and indefensible beliefs 
> rejected by the marketplace of ideas.  And rightly so.
>
> keely
>
>
>
>
> > Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 06:37:43 -0800
> > From: godshatter at yahoo.com
> > To: thansen at moscow.com
> > CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
> > Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Prediction/pin drop
> >
> > I believe I mentioned that people have the right to do business with
> > whom they wish. I'm not calling the authorities on these people. I'm
> > merely explaining how I hate this kind of thing. Of course people are
> > free to target a religious group with their boycott merely because they
> > disagree with them. And I'm free to stand up and tell them how bigoted
> > they are being.
> >
> > Yes, freedom is great.
> >
> > What's next? Women-owned businesses? Businesses owned by the disabled?
> >
> > The ironic thing is that their fight is not with these people. In their
> > world view, they are some of the masses that have been deluded by those
> > in power in that church. So why hurt them specifically with this boycot?
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > Why do people I normally respect cloud their thinking so much on this
> > one issue?
> >
> > Tom Hansen wrote:
> > > Paul Rumelhart stated:
> > >
> > > "Freedom of religion means that even the people you don't like get to
> > > worship as they wish."
> > >
> > > Yes. I agree.
> > >
> > > And free enterprise (coupled with capitalism) means that people 
> are free to
> > > spend their money where they wish and NOT spend money where they 
> do not wish
> > > to spend it.
> > >
> > > Isn't freedom GREAT!
> > >
> > > Seeya at the polls, Moscow.
> > >
> > > Tom Hansen
> > > Moscow, Idaho
> > >
> > > "We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The 
> college
> > > students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."
> > >
> > > - Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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> > mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
>
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