St. John's Lutheran school in Baraboo, Wisconsin, has found itself in a bit of a bind! You see, although it is a parochial school, run by a church, it receives federal funding for its free lunch and transportation programs through No Child Left Behind. Even though, AS WE ALL KNOW, federal funding for things that help poor people is bad and we should leave that stuff to churches.
Strange thing about Luther. Early-on, he was tolerant and benevolent towards Jews, although he seems to have thought that his politeness would result in mass-conversion.
He became more and more intolerant as he aged and formed political alliances with the anti-Semitic princelings who kept him and his movement alive.
By the end, he was writing the shameful documents you mention. I also suspect that he was drinking heavily, if the story about heaving a pot of wine at the Devil is to believed.
"In other news, my brain just broke from trying to figure out the difference between excluding someone and telling them they are not welcome."It means,we won't tell you that you can't come to our school (tuition, obviously), but expect to be treated like shit should you insist.
As an ex-Lutheran, I recognize that Luther himself was not, by any stretch, advocating religious freedom in the First Amendment sense. He just differed with the Pope about what the doctrines should be and when he didn't get an answer to his satisfaction, decided that his ideas should prevail but was quick to set up state churches with any local German ruler who was tired of playing money to the Pope for religious validation.
He didn't quite set himself up as a rival Pope but where his Princes were in charge, he had the say-so. He was willing to
So the Lutheran church is much more of a top-down religion than many later Protestant denominations.
But the mainstream versions, in America at least, work more like constitutional monarchies at the moment.
I'm not sure what the point is of ZB's atheistic message in this context.
Of course, autocracies want to set themselves up as the sole, unquestionable moral authority. They always have and always will. Whether they decree a state religion or a state unreligion means nothing.
Now of course you'd be more of an expert than me, but surely the deal in the PRC is that religion isn't abolished, it just submits to the State like every other civic organisation? So, for example, the Communist honchos get to choose Catholic bishops and the reincarnations of Tibetan lamas?
It's supposed to have been a pot of ink rather than wine, but the heavy drinking is very likely. When a young man wrote to him confessing the despair he felt at the thought that he might be damned, Luther wrote back advising him to go and get drunk. That, he said, was what he did when he felt despair.
In old age, having seen things spiral beyond his or anybody's control or even imagination (he said he never intended to start the Reformation, let alone any religious wars, it all just sort of happened while sat there drinking beer and watching) he may have just decided that since everybody was acting like a hateful bastard now, he might as well give in to the Dark Side too.
Which, now that I've written it, is...not a pleasant thing to speculate.
Quite. They're quite miffed that the current Dalai Lama has hinted he may, ahem, choose not to reincarnate next time, rather than let his next incarnation be raised as the puppet of the PRC. The PRC's response was that this would be terribly selfish of him, and he'll bloody well reincarnate if he knows what's good for him!
It was completely abolished for quite a while, until the PRC started to open back up in the '80s, I believe. Now it is the case that the government gets to have veto power over the leadership of (certain) religious denominations, but religion was completely and totally outlawed for a very long time.
That being said, at the height of the time during which religion was abolished, namely the Cultural Revolution, there was plenty of killing and xenophobia and fanaticism and general strife. My personal feeling is that people who have extremist, fanatical tendencies have those tendencies regardless of the presence or absence of religious belief- if they don't wind up locked into some kind of fundamentalist religious tendencies, it will be something else, be it a political philosophy, atheism, money, whatever. The people I know who were raging douchebags when they were religious but then became secular were usually equally obnoxious post-religion, they just filtered their assholery through a different worldview.
The Freedom From Religion people used to have a "Test Your Bible knowledge" quiz on their website that was chock full of great stuff. I don't know if they still have it but I send them small donations from time to time because they truly are doing GODS work. They wouldn't like that I said it that way being freethinkers, agnostics and atheists...but I think anyone who is trying to get people to open their eyes and stand on their own two feet qualifies as doing charitable work in America.
Strange thing about Luther. Early-on, he was tolerant and benevolent towards Jews, although he seems to have thought that his politeness would result in mass-conversion.
He became more and more intolerant as he aged and formed political alliances with the anti-Semitic princelings who kept him and his movement alive.
By the end, he was writing the shameful documents you mention. I also suspect that he was drinking heavily, if the story about heaving a pot of wine at the Devil is to believed.
"In other news, my brain just broke from trying to figure out the difference between excluding someone and telling them they are not welcome."It means,we won't tell you that you can't come to our school (tuition, obviously), but expect to be treated like shit should you insist.
Who doesn't need a dick? <g>
As an ex-Lutheran, I recognize that Luther himself was not, by any stretch, advocating religious freedom in the First Amendment sense. He just differed with the Pope about what the doctrines should be and when he didn't get an answer to his satisfaction, decided that his ideas should prevail but was quick to set up state churches with any local German ruler who was tired of playing money to the Pope for religious validation.
He didn't quite set himself up as a rival Pope but where his Princes were in charge, he had the say-so. He was willing to
So the Lutheran church is much more of a top-down religion than many later Protestant denominations.
But the mainstream versions, in America at least, work more like constitutional monarchies at the moment.
I'm not sure what the point is of ZB's atheistic message in this context.
Of course, autocracies want to set themselves up as the sole, unquestionable moral authority. They always have and always will. Whether they decree a state religion or a state unreligion means nothing.
Now of course you'd be more of an expert than me, but surely the deal in the PRC is that religion isn't abolished, it just submits to the State like every other civic organisation? So, for example, the Communist honchos get to choose Catholic bishops and the reincarnations of Tibetan lamas?
Them bad seeds are fouling the sweet terlits for everwon agin! What's a poor church school to do?
It's supposed to have been a pot of ink rather than wine, but the heavy drinking is very likely. When a young man wrote to him confessing the despair he felt at the thought that he might be damned, Luther wrote back advising him to go and get drunk. That, he said, was what he did when he felt despair.
In old age, having seen things spiral beyond his or anybody's control or even imagination (he said he never intended to start the Reformation, let alone any religious wars, it all just sort of happened while sat there drinking beer and watching) he may have just decided that since everybody was acting like a hateful bastard now, he might as well give in to the Dark Side too.
Which, now that I've written it, is...not a pleasant thing to speculate.
I can't speak for Lutherans in general, but my grandmother certainly was!
Quite. They're quite miffed that the current Dalai Lama has hinted he may, ahem, choose not to reincarnate next time, rather than let his next incarnation be raised as the puppet of the PRC. The PRC's response was that this would be terribly selfish of him, and he'll bloody well reincarnate if he knows what's good for him!
Politics + Metaphysics = Alice in Wonderland
ha!
So, if California were to decide that its state religion required the worship of its namesake, Queen Calafia, that would be just fine?
It was completely abolished for quite a while, until the PRC started to open back up in the '80s, I believe. Now it is the case that the government gets to have veto power over the leadership of (certain) religious denominations, but religion was completely and totally outlawed for a very long time.
That being said, at the height of the time during which religion was abolished, namely the Cultural Revolution, there was plenty of killing and xenophobia and fanaticism and general strife. My personal feeling is that people who have extremist, fanatical tendencies have those tendencies regardless of the presence or absence of religious belief- if they don't wind up locked into some kind of fundamentalist religious tendencies, it will be something else, be it a political philosophy, atheism, money, whatever. The people I know who were raging douchebags when they were religious but then became secular were usually equally obnoxious post-religion, they just filtered their assholery through a different worldview.
The Freedom From Religion people used to have a "Test Your Bible knowledge" quiz on their website that was chock full of great stuff. I don't know if they still have it but I send them small donations from time to time because they truly are doing GODS work. They wouldn't like that I said it that way being freethinkers, agnostics and atheists...but I think anyone who is trying to get people to open their eyes and stand on their own two feet qualifies as doing charitable work in America.
Rachel Maddow?
I'm pretty sure the Soviets listed the Scouts as a para-military organization..
I was by no means trying to make a serious point, if that wasn't evident. God forbid! Nor did I realize The Bible for Dummies was an actual thing.