OrP straight killin' it itt.

Wait, so Shuffle was raised by Christian Wolves and has never heard of Exclusivity?

I would greatly prefer that question to what actually happened, which was along the lines of this:

"Mr. Vought. You are an exclusivist Christian. That means you hate Muslims. So, are you really an exclusivist Christian?"

I don't mind so much if Senators ask questions which are prejudiced towards religions as long as they still adhere to liberal principles of freedom of religion in their votes, which I take to include political offices being open to all religions. I might vote against these prejudiced Senators when they run for re-election, but I don't think they are doing anything more wrong by asking these questions than they already were by holding those prejudiced views.

You are here asserting that it is hateful for a private religious school to require its teachers to adhere to the beliefs of their religion. I don't really know how to respond to this - your rhetoric seems so hyperbolic to me that it is difficult to take seriously. Do you also believe it is hateful for a Christian church to require that its pastor be a Christian?

I'll just say this. I think you are making two mistakes here. At the core, you seem to think that Christian exclusivism, taken seriously, is a hateful belief. However, I'll point out that neither you, nor Senator Sanders, nor anyone else in this thread have stated a single thing that follows from this belief about how we should treat other people. In fact, the only thing we have gotten is a statement by Vought that he believes people of all religions should be treated with dignity and respect, which is not very hateful imo.

Second, at the end, religious freedom means letting even religious bigots into public office. As long as someone is qualified for the job, and their religious beliefs will not interfere with that job, then we shouldn't discriminate against them.

How do you know that his stance is one of certainty? You have shown no evidence of knowing more about his beliefs than two sentences. For many Christians, statements of faith such as those made by Vought are by their nature beliefs for which they lack certainty. Their faith consists in accepting those beliefs and trusting in God regardless of the doubts they sometimes experience. Anyway, who cares? Certainty is not usually considered disqualifying for public office.

And if you perceive bigotry and hatred in a man's heart on the basis of these few sentences, one of which was this: "I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian, that's how I should treat all individuals--" then I would caution you to look to your own heart.

Again, you seem to be unclear about the situation here. In fact, this quotation comes from an article Vought wrote in response to a controversy in the evangelical Christian world. The article starts with the word "Wheaton College" and ends with what is supposed to be an encouraging quotation from the prophet Jeremiah, not "condemned." Read the article if you don't believe me - or even just the longer segment I quoted above to Dr. Modern. That passage is very clearly an argument for the necessity of experiencing God through Jesus to achieve salvation. Since, Muslims do not experience God through Jesus, they are not saved. That is the argument. That is also exactly what he is saying in the quotation you find objectionable.

Also, I don't know if you mean these to be exclusive, but I don't see any contradiction in something being both a profession of someone's personal faith and a statement of intolerance, although I do not think Vought's statement here was intolerant.

This is not an adequate response. Yes, of course, not all Catholics accept Catholic doctrine on the priesthood of women. But many of them do. Would you reject a Catholic from all public offices if he publicly stated that he supports the position of the Catholic church on this issue? If your defence against holding anti-Catholic prejudice is that you are not prejudiced against the Catholics that reject Catholic theology, I don't think you are going to reassure anyone.

Agreed.

The main problem here is that you are making a unwarranted normative distinction between Vought's belief in religious exclusivism, and a particular statement of that belief in relation to Muslims. After all, the statement that Muslims are condemned by God logically follows from the claim that anyone who rejects Jesus is condemned and that Muslims reject Jesus. Those two statements will commonly be accepted by Christian exclusivists. You claim that Vought's belief in Christian exclusivism is acceptable, that it is a purely religious matter. However, you also think him stating that belief in relation to Muslims is hate speech and so evidence of bigotry and hatred.

First, I disagree with this characterization of hate speech. Hate speech is characterized by the meaning of the statements made and the intentions of those making it. Here you are not looking at the context of Vought's statement in order to understand what he meant. Instead, you are following Sanders in taking a statement out of context in a way that makes it seem like hate speech when it is not.

Second, you are still not getting to freedom of religion with this distinction. Here you are saying that it is okay for Vought to hold a bigoted and hateful belief (i.e. Christian exclusivism), but it is not okay for him to state it. If you force someone to keep their religious views secret if they wish to hold public office you are not allowing them to practice their religion freely.

You know there's a million percent chance he has not and will not, right?

It could've went the way our conversation went in Unchained Pv8.8 Well Named's Repressed Anger Forum. I said, 'Damn, that dude hates himself some Islam,' you said, 'No, that's a snippet of a snippet of a quote, here's the full thing,' and I said, 'Oh, ok, he one of those guys, I get it now.'

But Shuffle wouldn't be Shuffle if he did that.

The main point is Vought wasn't singling out Muslims, rather it just so happened that Muslims were the ____ being filled in the context of that issue at his alma mater.

I'm an atheist who really loves himself some Jesus but that also would not qualify me for the afterlife according to his brand of Exclusivity. Which is fine. I don't even want to go to the heaven where his people go. I want to go to the heaven where the dogs go.

^ That's a pretty confused post. Seems like Shuffle just doesn't understand what the word "condemned" means in this context. How is it different for a Christian to say that "only Christians go to heaven" vs "non-Christians are condemned in the afterlife", and why is one hate speech and not the other?

Condemn often means no afterlife. Death. Which i figure whats going to happen anyway. So as long as that belief in and of itself is not affecting policies. Meh.

I'm glad that Sanders and you are concerned about religious prejudice. Sanders was concerned that Vought was prejudiced against Muslims (and Jews) on the basis of the passage from the Resurgent article. However, as I think you've acknowledged, this is a misunderstanding of Christian exclusivism, which doesn't imply that Christians should discriminate against Muslims or other nonbelievers in general society.

However, you are concerned not with Vought's belief, but that he used that belief to support firing a Christian faculty member for expressing solidarity with Muslims. Now, I'm not sure the distinction you are trying for here really works. But even so, I would argue that you are not being charitable to him. As I said previously, everyone (I assume?) would acknowledge that a church can fire its pastor if they became apostate. Private religious colleges have similar exemptions in hiring and firing their faculty. Maybe you disagree in this case whether the firing was justified. That's fine. But nonetheless, you should not ignore that his motive might have been a concern to preserve the doctrinal purity of the college's Statement of Faith rather than hatred of Muslims. After all, this is the motive he claimed for writing the article, both in the hearing and in the article itself. Furthermore, this motive has long driven Christians, especially Protestants, and especially American Protestants into exactly these kinds of institutional controversies and schisms. Assuming that it can only be anti-Muslim prejudice reflects an ignorance of religious history. These debates are typically an internal matter, a disagreement between Christians (as it in fact was in this case as well).

Evangelical Christianity is a proselytizing religion. They (typically) believe that without a personal relationship with Jesus people will go to hell. They believe that Jesus commanded them to go to the nations and preach the good news. This good news starts with bad news, that you are a sinner condemned to hell. Whatever religion you currently adhere to will not save you, it is a false religion. Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Buddhists, anyone who does not have a personal relationship with Jesus is condemned to hell.*

No doubt Vought believes that Islam is a false religion that is providing false hope to its adherents. He is not doing Muslims any favors (in his eyes) by not speaking clearly about this. You want him to be polite or speak softly, but he will answer to God at Judgement Day about why he didn't tell his neighbors that without Jesus they are condemned. God will not be impressed by him being worried that he might offend them by saying they follow a false religion.

That being said. The article you are worried about wasn't about Muslims, which is why it doesn't say more about them. But, when Senator Sanders asked Vought his view of Muslims, he did qualify his statement in the exact way you ask him to here, by acknowledging that all humans are created in the image of God and so should be treated with dignity and respect. As such, your concerns should be alleviated.

*There are some exceptions.

Bernie voting against Rusher sanctions matters more to me than any of this

Looks like the bill also included sanctions against Iran, which he opposed enough to vote no.

https://www.thenation.com/article/be...ned-this-week/

You truly don't understand why someone who believes that Muslims "do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned" might have difficulty upholding Muslim-Americans' right to the free exercise of their religion? Awkward.

You truly don't understand why someone who believes that Christians "do not know God because there is no God" might have difficulty upholding Christian-Americans' right to the free exercise of their religion? Awkward.

Shuffle, the reason that you are entirely wrong is that it's not hate speech. Again:

How is it different for a Christian to say that "only Christians go to heaven" vs "non-Christians are condemned in the afterlife", and why is one hate speech and not the other?

Pretty much.

I guess this is the issue. I read that passage that you think is hate speech and it looks to me like a theological argument about the centrality of Jesus to salvation. You read it and it looks to you like a demeaning and slanderous hate speech against a US minority religion. I'm not a relativist on this issue - I think your understanding of this passage is clearly incorrect and argued as much - but there is little point in pursuing that further.

I tend to agree with original position on this. Just let people think what they want as long as they can leave it at the door.

As a child I was told, relatively frequently, by classmates and teachers, that I was going to hell. The compassionate ones gave me propaganda and tried to proselytize me.

Dude, what? This has no bearing on the topic we're discussing.

I'm literally questioning whether Original Position understands what religious extremism is and why it's a dangerous ideological force in a government that claims to uphold the right to free exercise of all religions.

I guess I don't, at least not as you understand religious extremism. You quoted the passage we've been arguing about and asked me if I really believed what I've said in this thread. Yes, I do. If you have a criticism of this view, feel free to make it.

Compare your initial post (anti-Christian exclusivist) and my post that changed some words from yours (to make it anti-atheist). You'll find that the reasoning that you think supports anti-Christian exclusivists would also support anti-atheists. It should be obvious that it is bad reasoning.

If not, then why is the reasoning okay in one instance and not the other?

Another way of saying it, is that the views expressed (about Muslims being condemned and not going to heaven in the afterlife) are not extremist and are not a dangerous ideological force in a government that claims to uphold the right to free exercise of all religions, just as atheist views (about there being no God and Christians not going to heaven in the afterlife) are not extremist and are not a dangerous ideological force in a government that claims to uphold the right to free exercise of all religions.

Even more simply put, somebody can believe either of those things, and yet still uphold the right to free exercise of all religions.

I'm saying that Sanders' question goes to the issue of whether Vought is a religious extremist, the definition and parameters of which are debatable (as we've established here). I think there's clearly a plausible (or "colorable," to use the legalese) set of inferences from the passage you quoted to a suspicion of religious extremism. Thus, Sanders' question doesn't represent the improper imposition of a religious test for office; it's a suggestion that staunch dogmatists who might improperly inject their religious beliefs into policy-making aren't qualified for legislative office, the oath for which requires a pledge to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," including (of course) the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.

I don't object to Sanders questioning Vought about his religious beliefs. My objection is to using those religious beliefs as a reason to vote against him.

I think it is reasonable to require all nominees to not behave prejudicially towards Muslims (or Jews, blacks, Hispanics, etc). Thus, if Sanders thought Vought's writings seemed prejudiced against Muslims, then it is reasonable for him to probe Vought on those beliefs. However, Vought directly addressed this issue and said:

Now, if you think he is lying, then you can still vote against him on these grounds and I won't object. My argument here is that the reasons given to think he is lying are improper or based on a misunderstanding of Christianity.

First, the passage itself is taken to be a token of prejudicial hate speech, and actions speak louder than words whatever he says now in the hearing. I've addressed this reason by showing that this is based on a misunderstanding of the original passage, which was about a Christian theological dispute, not about Muslims. No one's really challenged me on this, although Shuffle wasn't convinced.

Second, some seem to suggest that exclusivist Christian beliefs are inherently prejudicial against Muslims. I argued this is false because exclusivist religious beliefs are fully compatible with also holding liberal principles of freedom of religion. I'd also argue this concern is based on a misunderstanding of Christian doctrine (specifically of Original Sin).

Thus, I see no good reason to assume that he is prejudiced against Muslims merely because he is an exclusivist Christian. Assuming that he is prejudiced against Muslims for this reason would itself be prejudicial. I'm not saying that it isn't statistically more likely that he is prejudiced given his Christian beliefs. Rather I'm saying that you have to give people an out. If you directly question him and he assures you that he is not prejudiced against Muslims, and you have no other reason from his actions to think that he is, then if you still vote against him because you think he isn't telling the truth you are effectively banning people with those religious beliefs from public office. I think that would be a grave error.

Meet me in Dog Heaven y'all, we're having a party in a tree.

I just don't understand this logic where we (or Sanders) have to take Vought at his word, where his reassurances are supposed to just end the inquiry, or where political leaders are obliged to "give people an out," especially since you concede it's "statistically more likely that he is prejudiced given his Christian beliefs."

I mean, you expect that most religious extremists would just openly confess here? Vought's reply contains a troubling insistence on his religious identity and suggests an overall doctrinaire attitude.

The reason this guys fundamental Christianity is a problem is not because it makes him prejudiced against Muslims. Its because once he can have such a stupid belief it could carry over to other things. He likely has that exact thought about religious Muslims in government. And that would be one case where he is right.