[Tanada]

Does Political Correctness in modern culture equal an anti-Christian movement? Every year in America we get the stories about how this town or that place removed a nativity display or renamed their Christmas Tree a 'Holiday' tree. Silly humans, Holiday was originally Holy Day, what could be more religious than that? Anyhow it seems pretty clear in many cases that Christian displays are targeted while those of other faiths are not, for example in years past (not sure about this year) Detroit would have Kwanzaa displays put up without a peep. Menorah's are often displayed by towns for Hanukkah almost without comment. Other than Ramadan I do not know of a fall/winter Islamic holiday but I wouldn't object to their holy display either, nor those of the other faiths with large community representation.

Now I was sent an article on line about an anti-christian vandalism case in the UK right before Christmas and I ask myself, where are we headed? Is this any different than the Taliban blowing up a very old statue of Buddha when they took power in Afghanistan? Tolerance is the supposed goal of the PC movement but it seems clear to me that most people shouting PC slogans are the least tolerant amongst us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw7tK8qk ... re=related video giving some background of the tradition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk3GQf8k ... _embedded#! video tribute after the vandalism

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/famous- ... own-in-uk/ news link about the vandalism

OK call me a tree hugger if you must, but anyone who chops down a 2000 year old tree as a political statement is disgusting.

[vtsnowedin]

Good question. I don't know as being PC is one and the same with being radically atheist. Those that feel it necessary to drive all observances of religious practice out of daily public life are a one song band and may or may not subscribe to the rest of what is considered PC.
I'm with you on the tree thing 100 percent. What a shame.

[SeaGypsy]

Short answer, no. PCism is the new Christianity.
PCism has taken Chistianity's place in a world without time for Church or money for 'God'.
Tearing down idols might be seen as a Christian act.
Society is in or nearing maximum flux.

Calvinism / Lutheranism were radical in the time because they were based on self decoding of 'sacred (secret) text'.
At it's best PCism is based on this same principle; free flow of information allowing the individual to make a fully informed choice.
At it's worst, it's a mask for genocide.

Julian Assange could be seen as a modern Calvin.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Does Political Correctness in modern culture equal an anti-Christian movement? .

Yes, and I can tell you this as an atheist.
Antichristianity is one of features of PC and wider understood Liberal ideology.
I observe some increase of PC related activity while we are approaching collapse of current paradigm.

Perhaps Liberals understand that their days are counted and they are trying to implant as much as possible of their legacy before they are gone, in hope that it will take longer to unwound it.

I was observing similar behavior towards collapse of communism.
As collapse was approaching there was more and more public statements of various officials that "there is no alternative to communist future, there is no return from once chosen communist pathway" etc..
they was doing that until the very end when everything unwounded.

You should expect more and more such activities while Liberal system approaches its end.
And obviously once it is gone there will be retaliations from another side and orthodox Christians will paddle back their agenda.

[Novus]

You could say Political Correctness is a form anti-Christian prejudice. But I also find the Political Correct movement to be sexist (anti-male) and racist (anti-white) and in general anti-American. But what PC'ism really is just a cover for rich elitist snobs to kick the working classes and get away with it. Political Correctness divides the masses leaving them confused and fighting amongst themselves. It is all about money, power, and control in the end by the Politically Correct thought police.


BTW the Muslim equivalent of Christmas and Hanukkah is Ramadan.

[SeaGypsy]

I observe some increase of PC related activity while we are approaching collapse of current paradigm.

Translations please?

You should expect more and more such activities while Liberal system approaches its end.
And obviously once it is gone there will be retaliations from another side and orthodox Christians will paddle back their agenda

What drivel.
Churches are hungry and compliant.
The most compliant is the biggest; hence the business model.

[Ludi]

"Politically Correct" = code for "I want to be able to say any kind of hateful bigoted thing I want and not be told it is hateful and bigoted."

[Cog]

Politically correct=Code word for people who want to suppress the First Amendment when the message is something they don't want to hear.

[ian807]

"PC" probably isn't the correct term, but incidents like removing nativity scenes from public buildings was an attempt to get government out of the religion business. The motivation was fairness. Since you can't sponsor every religion, you sponsor none, and leave religion to individuals and private organizations.

This worked until conservatives found that religion was a great political tool for manipulating stupid people (a time honored political tradition) - something modern American liberals haven't quite lowered themselves to yet.

[Cog]

Ahh so only stupid people are religious? How PC of you to say so.

[Ludi]

"PC" probably isn't the correct term, but incidents like removing nativity scenes from public buildings was an attempt to get government out of the religion business. The motivation was fairness. Since you can't sponsor every religion, you sponsor none, and leave religion to individuals and private organizations.

The government is not allowed to "sponsor" ANY religion. Can't promote it, can't discourage it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

[ian807]

Ahh so only stupid people are religious? How PC of you to say so.

Wow! That's quite a leap from what I actually said. How do you get from "religion can be used to manipulate stupid people" to "All religious people are stupid?"

The particular "AND" area I was discussing was the subset of people who are both stupid and highly religious. The rest would be:

Highly religious and smart
Not too religious and smart
Not too religious and stupid

If intelligence and religiosity are evenly distributed, then "highly religious and stupid" would represent about 25% of people - a significant voting block, but surely not everybody.

[ian807]

The government is not allowed to "sponsor" ANY religion. Can't promote it, can't discourage it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Quite so, and this is the crux of the matter. When the local government in Backwoods, PA pays for a nativity scene or the 10 commandments to be placed on the publicly funded courthouse lawn while rejecting a similar setup from the local pastafarians, satanists, mormons or shatnerites it is effectively "making a law respecting an establishment of religion" even if it's not written into legislation.

And do you want local bureaucrats determining what religious displays are allowed on public property? What about cases where the catholic display prominently showing Mary gets rejected by the local baptist contingent? Even between christian sects, this could get quite ugly.

[Ludi]

Some of the smartest people I know are religious. My dad, my sister, my sister's husband, my husband's oldest sister are all definitely of above-average intelligence, all quite religious.

[ian807]

Some of the smartest people I know are religious. My dad, my sister, my sister's husband, my husband's oldest sister are all definitely of above-average intelligence, all quite religious.

Agreed. The traits of intelligence, per se, and religiosity don't appear either strongly connected or disconnected.

[Ludi]

Quite so, and this is the crux of the matter. When the local government in Backwoods, PA pays for a nativity scene or the 10 commandments to be placed on the publicly funded courthouse lawn while rejecting a similar setup from the local pastafarians, satanists, mormons or shatnerites it is effectively "making a law respecting an establishment of religion" even if it's not written into legislation.

And do you want local bureaucrats determining what religious displays are allowed on public property? What about cases where the catholic display prominently showing Mary gets rejected by the local baptist contingent? Even between christian sects, this could get quite ugly.

Yep, it's a mess we have to keep stepping in. Because a certain contingent of "Constitutional Originalists" think the wording "make no law respecting the establishment of religion" means "make no law respecting the establishment of a specific Christian sect." Yes, as far as I can tell, they think the US is a Christian nation and the only arguments we should be having are about which Christian sect displays we should have on public ground. Other religions be damned. Literally.

http://texasteaparty.org/christianheritage.html

[EnergyUnlimited]

Churches are hungry and compliant.
The most compliant is the biggest; hence the business model.

You overestimate power of churches these days.
In US they are probably more influential than in Europe, but still a shadow of their former self.

[PrestonSturges]

All Christmas traditions and symbols are pilfered from other, older religions, keeping with its pagan origins.

Also, the story of the half mortal/half divine savior was common to the Egyptians, Mithrans, and Zoroastrians, all of whom predated Christiantity.

So the whole Christmas story is pagan bullshit, start to finish.

Why do I want my local government promoting paganism?

At least if we had a Bavarian Christmas Krampus parade, that would be fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R4R6p23WA

[Ludi]

The Baby Jesus is not pushy.

Baby Jesus is just all right with me.