A couple of nights ago I witnessed a brilliant debate about God.
Once again arguing the Atheistic perspective was Christopher Hitchens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens
In previous debates he has tangled with Dennis Prager and Dinesh D’Souza. This fine evening had him grappling with Rabbi David Wolpe.
(Full disclosure: Rabbi Wolpe was my professor in college)
http://www.sinaitemple.org/temple/staff_president_bios.php#wolpe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wolpe
In 1990 I debated Rabbi Wolpe, and I was definitely not the winner. I was an 18 year old freshman, and his exam had an essay question asking who was best equipped to run the Roman Empire. The choices were between men like Julius and Augustus Caesar or men like Horace and Cicero. While the question was subjective, “no one right answer” does not mean “no wrong answer.”
I wrote that Horace and Cicero were best equipped to run the Roman Empire. It is not just the notion of the pen being mightier than the sword (a stance I have since disavowed), encapsulated in the notion of “writers over fighters.” It is that “the warriors could make it work, but the intellectuals could understand and explain why it worked.” If there were problems regarding management and bureaucracy, it was necessary to have fine minds to fix and maintain the Empire.
Rabbi Wolpe gave me an A- on that question, explaining that “This was a very good stab at the question, but I do not need to know how to make my car run or understand the intricate nature of every car part that causes it to run. I just need the car to run.”
I was not a student that argued about grades, especially not high ones. I was very deferential, and explained that the grade was not the issue, just the idea that I disagreed with him. He allowed me to present my case. I explained to him that if his car breaks, he needs to know maintenance. He replied that his mechanic handles that. I took one last shot.
“Ok, but what happens if you are stranded on a cold winter morning?”
He calmly replied, “I have Triple-A.”
I did my best impersonation of a deer in the headlights as he calmly smiled and let me know that the discussion had reached its conclusion.
I am still humble around him, which is not a common trait for me. Perhaps the reason I am so deferential is that no matter how much time goes by, as I expressed to him on a couple of occasions, he will always be the teacher and I will always be the student.
Yet Rabbi Wolpe had a tougher task the other night than debating an 18 year old who only thought he knew everything. Christopher Hitchens might not know everything, but he sure knows a lot. I have met him once before, and met him again several minutes before this event started.
As he autographed my book, I said to him, “You enrage me, and yet I thank you for it.” He laughed, and let me know that he truly did like making people think. I told him that I walk away from his speeches having thought deeply. He told me that his father was named Eric, and that Eric is his middle name. He asked me if I spelled it the proper way with a “c,” and I explained that of course I did. He said, “good, because some people spell it with a “k.” I told him that “I am not a Viking.”
The last thing I said thoroughly amused him. “Mr. Hitchens, Rabbi Wolpe was my professor in college. He gave me an A- instead of an A, so please shred him this evening.” Mr. Hitchens then had some very complimentary words about Rabbi Wolpe.
The moderator for the debate was Rob Eshman, the editor of the Jewish Journal. While I have met Mr. Eshman personally and been in his office, his opening remark will be an entire separate column unto itself. In a debate about God, he opened his remarks saying that he “believes God exists, with the proof being November 4th.”
The audience, consisting of many elderly liberal Jews that still think FDR is God himself, reminded me of why I support euthanasia. They clapped wildly, reminding me that ideological bigotry is alive and well among those that have suffered the worst intolerance of life. As I said, I will address that remark separately.
Despite the fact that the Jewish community leans politically to the left, this was a debate about God, not politics. Both men left their personal politics out of the debate, which was most appreciated.
With that, below is the debate between Monotheist David Wolpe and Atheist Christopher Hitchens.
DW: “Sorry for the delay getting started. Backstage I almost persuaded him.
Being a non-believer does not make the world simpler. It makes the world meaningless. Free will comes from God. It is not from our genes. For a non-believer, the person next to you is a product of chemical accidence. There is not a soul in them or us. Belief not only makes sense…it makes us better. Believers give more blood and vote more often. Humans are meant to be noble. We are meant for better things.”
CH: “I trust when Rabbi Wolpe states that religious people vote more often that he is not talking about fraud. I suspect he means to say that they vote more diligently.
Life would be terrible if we were constantly supervised. If there is a just God, why do people tremble about things? If God was just, everything would be proportional.
Overcoming badness does not require religion. How do we end slavery? We invoke humanism. It is much more noble, logical, and ethical, as opposed to a supernatural totalitarian, a celestial dictator.
This week a 13 year old girl was beaten and sodomized in Somalia. She was then convicted of adultery, and stoned to death. Her abusers were not against religion. They were acting within their holy texts. With a celestial dictator, badness is required. Suicide bombers and genital mutilators act based on religion.”
DW: “Human society without religion leads to serial genocides. Rome fell because Christianity is too peaceful. Explicit murders of people occurred due to Stalinism and Nazism, whi9ch embrace secularism.
Fanatics exist inside and outside of religion. Humanism is not anti-slavery. Moses freed the slaves of Egypt. Abolitionist John Brown was an evangelical.
We are not animals. The 20th century tested the idea that power was more important than God. This led to the most awful century, filled with wars and savagery.”
CH: “Genital mutilation should not be taken lightly. Nothing about my penis should be taken lightly.
How much crime and misery has occurred due to sexual repression? Take out the word Facism, and you have Catholic Right Wingism, or Vatican Right Wingism. It is the same thing. From Franco to Mussolini, there was Catholicism. The Vichy regime had Vatican support. Hitler never renounced his Catholicism. Stalin graduated from the Seminary in Georgia.
You should not be a dictator if you cannot exploit. Stalinism was religious. North Korea is the most religious state in the world.”
DW: “Epicureus was a poet. Galileo was a believer. Religion did not invent otherness. The new kid on the playground is treated differently. This is built into the human system.
Why did religion need to be taken out of the equation to produce Hitler and Stalin? North Korea worships a person, not a God. South Korea is religious and democratic.”
CH: “South Korea has no official religion. North Korea is ruled by a dead man. It is a “necrocracy.” They have the father and the son, and are one short of a trinity. They also walking around thanking each other for everything.
When a non-believer dies, they can escape everything. When religious people die, God is just getting started with them.
Picture a Saudi Arabian child today. Is it better that they grow up a Wahhabiist or secular?”
DW: “I will decline your offer to defend the Trinity. The choices are not only between atheism and religious fanaticism. An average approach in the Saudi Arabian example is to be a moderate Muslim, and influence Saudi Arabia for the better.”
CH: “That is a warm and fuzzy sentiment.”
DW: “It is not just about atheism or being a conservative Jew. There are other choices.”
RE: What is wrong with liberal Judaism?
(This is about Judaism that is not Orthodox and doctrinaire. There is flexibility and a belief in an evolving Torah. It has nothing to do with political liberalism, although liberal Judaism is on the left politically. In Judaism, the Conservatives are the centrists, and the orthodox are on the right.)
CH: “For one thing, there is not enough to argue with.
Also, it is cowardly. Things may or may not be important. It is morally ‘slushy.’ This is equivalent to being a ‘Cafeteria Catholic.’ We simply pick the bits we like. Is this ethics or doing God’s will?”
DW: “The irony in this argument is that atheists say that fundamentalists follow everything in the bible. Then they turn around and say that they feel that religious people should follow everything in the bible.
Life is complicated and slushy. This is a partnership with God. Moses wrote the second set of tablets.”
CH: (After much applause, which both men received throughout the evening) “Rabbi, your congregation is in here somewhere.”
DW: “They are all getting dues reductions.”
CH: “Liberal Judaism teaches that if you don’t like what you consult, just ignore it. It is easier to just be secular.”
DW: “I agree with Mr. Hitchens regarding his Talmudic citations.
Rebellion against God is impossible if there is no God to rebel against.”
CH: “That is like saying that my not believing in God proves that there is God I don’t believe in. This is logically fallacious.
Jews are secular worldwide since their own religion teaches them to be like the Greek Hellenists.”
RE: “Why is religion worse than other tools such as politics?”
CH: “Religion teaches compulsory love. You love what you fear.”
DW: “That describes Jewish mothers.”
CH: “God is not a father. Tyranny, unlike fatherhood, never goes away. You never break away.”
DW: “My congregation is charitable by nature.
God is not a human parent. God is a creator who loves us. This is consoling and meaningful, not terrifying.
People in the hospital crying their deathbed wishes do not hope for no God. This is the opposite of tyranny. This is love.”
CH: “Some say God is dead. Freud said God is dad.
How about evidence? Evolution does not know we are here. There is zero evidence to suggest otherwise.
It is immoral to preach to ill and dying people that Daddy God will care for them. I won’t listen to such rubbish.”
DW: “How can God be stern, and yet also point out that a loving God is wishful thinking?
We have consciousness. Consciousness proves that the world knew that we were coming, and made provisions, and is glad that we are here.”
CH: “Benevolence and dictatorship are not contradictory. We are not needed. We are just here to applaud God.
We may have something now, but there is a great deal of nothingness headed our way? This suggests that any creator of this is capricious, cruel, or incompetent. He did not leave a nice table spread.
Do you think the Jewish people have a covenant with God?”
DW: “Judaism does not teach quiescence. We are here to do good deeds. There is a moral order.
Eye rolling is fine, my congregation does it.
We are not here to just applaud. In 500 million years we may not be here, but that does not invalidate belief. Jews have a special covenant, but so do other religions. I argue Judaism’s excellence, not its superiority.”
RE: “Why do religions rely on stories over history?”
DW: “One does not preclude the other. They are interdependent.”
CH: “Hanukkah has been discredited as a historical event. Walking away from Hellenism was simply best.”
DW: “That brought slavery and the Pelopenesian War.”
CH: “The best achievements of the Jewish people have come during the Diaspora and secular society.”
DW: “What about achievements based on the Torah?”
CH: “Jewish achievements came after executing Spinoza, and leaving behind the Rabbinate.”
RE: “How did prayer affect 9/11? How does one explain the prayers of the hijackers? What should the victims have done?”
DW: “Prayer is not about magical intervention. It is not a slot machine.
You pray to not be alone. The Talmud states that there is no reward for Mitzvahs (good deeds). We pray to change ourselves, not God. There is good and bad prayer. The prayers of the hijackers distanced themselves from God. The prayers of the victims brought them closer to God.”
CH: “Faith is another form of fanaticism. It defies reason, and reduces us to primates. We are one half of one chromosome away from being a chimpanzee.
As for United 93, the three men that took back the plane did not pray. They acted. Had they been invoking God on their knees, the plane would have hit the Pentagon.
I am not saying Hitler shouldn’t be judged. I am saying he won’t be.
We tremble at the thought that God is not just. The irony is that we agree that the hijackers won’t get to paradise. I wish they could be like, ‘D@mn, there’s nothing.'”
We should be ashamed until and each and every one of us does something to help kill one terrorist. We should each contribute to killing one Islamofacist murderer.
(Yes, I clapped wildly, and only stopped when it was clear that the debate was continuing. Mr. Hitchens then went completely in another direction that was as out of left field as it was provocative.)
I did pray once…for a hard-on.”
RE: “Is there a middle ground?”
DW: “Pluralistic and democratic religious societies are good. They lead to more stable families and more charitable behavior. Religion works.
People speak of secular Europe, but the Swedes and Danes are Christians. They baptize their children. They are not secular.
We are all one people because of moral obligations due to being children of God. Why should I care about you if we are just chromosomes and not images of God?”
CH: “I have a challenge for you that I have presented before, that nobody has taken me up on. If you are a believer, I challenge you to think of one positive statement or one good action that I as a secularist cannot do. Yet many wicked deeds require religion.
I give blood, but I don’t lose it. They gain. Secularists have the Golden Rule. Human solidarity is not divine.
Divinity is needed to shed blood. Only divinity could make a people make their penis bleed.
I look for contradiction and polarization, not common ground. It is how we learn. Thinking requires confrontation, which brings intellectual combat. Heat produces light.”
(Rabbi Wolpe mentioned the word “Shiva” in his reply. After a person dies in Jewish culture, families “sit Shiva,” or mourn, for seven days. Every evening during those seven days a prayer service is held.)
DW: “Believers and non-believers have the same physiology. Yet Shiva meetings, as well as comforting the dying, helps the dying.
Religion has brought us beautiful religious poetry and religious music.
Heat is not the only source of light. There is non-chemical light. It exists inside all of us. Religion inspires. Atheism diminishes us. Feeling that our self is less than eternal makes us unnoble. Insulting our self is not permitted.”
CH: “Only religion can lead to beauty and aesthetics? Not so. Painters, writers, and thinkers who did not believe were murdered.
Praying at deathbeds is not a tautology.
The supernatural and the superstitious leads to the barbaric.”
After a well deserved standing ovation for both men, they went to sign autographed copies of their books. While neither man needs my help getting promoted, they both deserve it.
Christopher Hitchens’s book is, “God is not great: How religion poisons everything.”
David Wolpe, author of “Healer of shattered hearts,” has now authored “Why faith matters.”
(In college, a lighthearted mocking of David Wolpe as a seven year old budding intellectual has him hawking his book, “Healer of broken toys.” I did not participate in the mocking since I did not want to lower my A-. Rabbi Wolpe was a benevolent dictator. The mocking went unpunished, but I did get a better grade.)
Since I had already had Mr. Hitchens autograph my book before the debate, after the debate I sought out Rabbi Wolpe. I let others go in front of me since his Synagogue is one block from my home. I can see him any time. When he autographed my book, I told him “I will be at your Friday night service, but I was not going to ask you to autograph this on the Sabbath.”
He then laughed when I told him, “I told Mr. Hitchens that you gave me an A- in college instead of an A, and that he was to shred your arguments.” As expected, he had complimentary words for Mr. Hitchens.
On the way out, I saw both men sitting next to each other autographing their respective books. I simply told Mr. Hitchens that I found his arguments brilliant. He thanked me.
As for Rabbi Wolpe, he is giving his sermon tonight. It will involve the Jewish effect of the election of our next President-Elect. Even though it is a public speech, I was concerned about blogging about it since it might be off the record. Also, it will be given on a Friday night, the Jewish Sabbath. Writing is not allowed, so I would have to rely on my memory.
Rabbi Wolpe explained that a copy of the sermon might be on his website, and that I should check. I did have permission to blog about it, and he appreciated my ethics in checking with him first.
Smart aleck that I am, I asked him, “Am I allowed to manipulate it?”
He laughed, and I let him get back to the throngs of fans that engulfed both men.
I may have gotten the last word with both men, but that hardly means I “won” anything except significantly deeper insight into complex and important issues.
Besides, I will always have the A-. They both get an A+ from me. I disagree with them both on politics, but remain deferential. After all, students can disagree with their teachers, but must always respect them.
I have much in life to learn, and David Wolpe and Christopher Hitchens are both stellar teachers.
eric
Okay people, how many of you got the “Erik the Viking” joke? I liked that.
Actually, Hitchens is wrong in that “genital mutilatiors act based on religion.” Genital mutilation is a cultural tradition that predates religion as we know it. There is no requirement of genital mutilation in any modern religion I know of, but rather some religious traditions have coopted the practice. GM is practiced by many different cultures around the world among both Christians, Muslims and others. It is unpleasant and unfortunate, but not a direct consequence of religion. As a proud anti-theist like Hitchens, I’m always ready to blame religion when blame is due, but he is mistaken here. And this is unfortunate in that this very argument is made by Muslim-baiting, rightwing, warmongering, fear-peddlers to show the alleged unique barbarity of Islam, when in fact the tenets of all the Abrahamic faiths are basically the same, while only culturally traditional ways of interpretation and practice change.
Rabbi Wolpe is treading on some serious historical revsionism by asserting that “religion need(ed) to be taken out of the equation to produce Hitler…” I’m shocked to hear this from a Rabbi. He of all people should know better. First, it simply isn’t true. Hitler did and needed no such thing. Second, without religion, the Holocaust would never have happened in the first place. And third, without the ability to use old religious tensions, Hitler would never have been able to carry out the Final Solution. Hitler in fact NEEDED religion to commit the Holocaust. But what bothers me most about Rabbi Wolpes serious error here is that it mirrors apologetics made by rightwing authoritarian Christians to distance themselves from what there philospohical forebearers committed in the very name of their religous philospohy. Again, I’m just shoocked that a Rabbi would make such a dangerously wrong assertion.
Here we see both arguers arguing rather ironically. If I had been there, I’d have asked them to rethink those statements.
“Rome fell because Christianity is too peaceful. Explicit murders of people occurred due to Stalinism and Nazism, whi9ch embrace secularism.”
From this statement alone I now have zero confidence in the argument of Wolpe. That point about Rome is just plain wrong. First of all, to unite Stalinism and Nazism is inane. The only thing they had in common was a lot of dead bodies. Other than that, they completely diverse. And that “Swedes and Danes” comment was just plain laughable. I was “baptized” too, Rabbi. How religious do you think I am?
JMJ
“But at the village level, those who commit the practice believe it to be religiously mandated. Religion is not only theology but also practice. And the practice is widespread throughout the Middle East. Many diplomats, international organization workers, and Arabists argue that the problem is localized to North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa,but they are wrong. The problem is pervasive throughout the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, and the Arabian Peninsula, and among many immigrants to the West from these countries. Silence on the issue is less reflective of the absence of the problem than insufficient freedom for feminists and independent civil society to raise the issue.”
Still, the practice is held in high regard by Islam.
So yea, we can bait the Muslims that practice this whether it was a direct result of original doctrines or not.
Christians do it too, Micky. Can we bait them too? How about those jungle tribes down in South America? Maybe we should start a GWOJT?
As long as you reactionaries keep baiting Islam, you will be pouring fuel on the fire. You can’t, as Hitchens and his ilk don’t get, argue away religion, especially on the macro-societal scale. Besides, it’s pointless. Religion is a symptom, not the disease. The disease of Middle Eastern tumoil is a far deeper, baser and more complex ailment.
JMJ
Oh, and the VAST majority of GM takes place in Africa, not the ME.
JMJ
Spare me the crap.
Christians do it so we should allow it ????????
Grow up.
Christians dont do it on a level nearly as large.
Nor do we perform honor killings which also are not a part of Islam but rather a cultural tradition brought in from Hindu and Indian cultures.
The religion, Islam has adopted these barbaric customs as a part of its culture also.
That is the point, whether you want to go to the acts of other religions is irrelevant.
Islam does it, they defend it, they adopted it and they use it as an a adaption to there culture based on Islam.
And yes I will bait their rumps til the day I die as long as they are baiting innocent Americans who have done nothing to them, mutilating womens genitals, promoting homocide bombings and religious bigotry.
Sheez, you are actually going to argue for a religion that beheads those that convert ?
Do Christians do that too ???
If you want to believe that you’re an accident of science go right ahead.
I happen to think that myself and all of mankind is worth more than that.
Micky, plaese top lowering the discourse. No one’s talking about “allowing” anything. It’s a cultural thing, it should be dissuaded, there really is only so much we can do, and we certainly aren’t going to change any minds at gunpoint. If you want people to change, carrots work a lot better than sticks. Trade, media, cultural exchange – that’s how you change other cultures.
And Christians in areas where this practice already and has always taken place do it just as much Muslims or anyone else. Islam, being particularly popular among the poor and dispossessed these days, just happens to be present in more of these places where this old practice takes place.
Islam has never formally adapted GM as a doctrinal ritual. I don’t know where you got that from. Islam is a very orthodox faith that concentrates wholly on a single text – the Koran, unlike Christianity and Judaism where many different sources of doctrine and knowledge are embraced by and included in the faiths. Therefore, Islam doesn’t change and therefore it allows no new practices or doctrines into it’s tenets of faith. It simply is adapted to accept or deny what certain people or peoples want. In this sense, it is a lot like Christianity, in which the various sect selectively pick and choose which tenets to follow, which tio ignore, and which can or can not be incorportaed into or allowed by the faith.
Christians used to behave much as Muslims do now not so long ago. Same with the Jews. Muslims were once much more tolerant and liberal than Christian or Jews. It was not the religions that changed, but the cultures.
As for Mulsim-baiting, just like any other “baiting,” it’s just plain stupid.
JMJ
I don’t think I expressed that one point correctly. I should have said:
In this sense, it is a lot like Christianity, in which the various sects pick and choose what can and cannot be allowed by the faith – though Christians selectively pick and choose which tenets to follow, which to ignore, and which can or can not be incorporated into or allowed by the faith.
JMJ
Just a question?
Isn’t Rabbi Wolpe the one who stirred up a ton of controversy a few years back by saying he did not believe the Exodus occurred at a Passover Sermon?
Oh, you cant rebut so you call it “lowering the discourse ”
Of course they allow it.
I never said they “adopted it as a “doctrine ritual”
I said that Islam has adopted it to their culture.
So please. if your going to lie dont talk to me about “discourse”
If you think that one culture, the American culture, is going to be able to change a sect of Islam that hates our guts I will refer you to a good shrink.
As I said;
“Sheez, you are actually going to argue for a religion that beheads those that convert ?
Do Christians do that too ???”
Its painfully obvious that you’ve answered this quite clearly.
I’m not here to argue what is one of my biggest problems with religion, which would be the “organized” aspect of it.
I am stating that organized Islam has without a doubt embraced a cultural ritual coming from Indidan and African culture.
Its actaully not “baiting”
get of your PC horse.
Its a fitting label/description/characterization of a religion that even though you say is not open to interpretation or variances like christianity you forgot to take into account the hijacked version of Islam that dictates the death of all westerners, Jews and Christians.
Please, you idealogic ignorance is all to easy to place.
Oh, you cant rebut so you call it “lowering the discourse ”
Of course they allow it.
I never said they “adopted it as a “doctrine ritual”
I said that Islam has adopted it to their culture.
So please. if your going to lie dont talk to me about “discourse”
If you think that one culture, the American culture, is going to be able to change a sect of Islam that hates our guts I will refer you to a good shrink.
As I said;
“Sheez, you are actually going to argue for a religion that beheads those that convert ?
Do Christians do that too ???”
Its painfully obvious that you’ve answered this quite clearly.
I’m not here to argue what is one of my biggest problems with religion, which would be the “organized” aspect of it.
I am stating that organized Islam has without a doubt embraced a cultural ritual coming from Indidan and African culture.
Its actaully not “baiting”
get of your PC horse.
Its a fitting label/description/characterization of a religion that even though you say is not open to “pick and choose” like christianity you forgot to take into account the hijacked version of Islam that dictates the death of all westerners, Jews and Christians.
Please, you idealogic ignorance is all too easy to place.
Well, I for one don’t know if he did or not, but I also don’t know what’s so controversial about it. The vast majority of relevent archaeologists, historians and anthropologists agree that the story of Exodus is probably much more myth than history. It is widely believed now that the Egyptians did not even keep slaves during that period, let alone entire enslaving entire tribes of people. They have no record that resembles anything in the story of Exodus, but there are records depicting active working classes with trade guilds and contracts and such. These scholars believe that the element if truth lies in the probability that some early Jewish or pre-Jewish tribe was employed by the Egyptian state and at some point relations became strained and the tribe moved on. And the “Exodus” taking place during a yearly recession of the Nile makes perfect sense. They probably finished work on a pyramid during the flood season, and then moved out in the off-season. Sort of like a football team that only plays on muddy fields (LOL!).
As for the miraculous elements of Exodus, only Biblical literalists believe that nonsense. It’s not unusual at all to meet a Rabbi who would laugh at you for even suggesting the stories are literally true.
JMJ
Actually, Micky, anti-theists, like Hitchens or Harris (and humbly myself), would argue that Muslims are not “hijacking” or “twisting” the faith, but rather taking it too literally. This is a cultural phenomenon. In the past Jews and Christians have engaged in this sort of behavior as well. In the case of Christians, not so long ago.
You’re just being a bigot.
JMJ
http://rattlergator.typepad.com/rattlergator/2008/11/the-irrevocability-of-every-human-act.html
I hardly think its bigoted to know for a fact that moderate Muslims who are devoute and adhere to the Koran as it dictates condemn the brand of Islam that is radical and subsbribes to radicalism.
You seem to forget that I do not adhere to traditional christianity and frown on organized religion, so you’re whole concept of my beliefs is ignorant, to say the least. Generalized through idiocy at best.
The fact still remains, that you cannot refute.
Islam has a adopted the violence of cultures not there own and some out of convenience for ulterior purposes that we dont see in christianity today on scale that can even be compared.
Honor killings, genital mutilation are part of mainstream Islam, be it originating from Islam or not, they do it.
Kiliing of converts is still done in modern Islamic cultures also.
Not in modern christian communities.
Its not baiting.
Its actually the whole fish, the truth.
Fact.
Period.
See how far your athiest self gets in an Islamic tribe.
I’ll bet you long in a heartbeat to be surrounded by christians once your head is on the chopping block.
“Not so long ago”
Thats my point Einstien.
Chritianity does not operate on ancient fire and brimstone penance like it used to , unless your a member of Westboro Baptist or some deranged christian occult.
As opposed to Islam which has hardly changed with the times at all.
I would say its actually bigoted on your part not to acknowledge that we are entitle to discriminate for just reason without prejudice or contempt, but to just look at the facts.
By the way.
Taking things too literally is in a sense hijacking.
By holding any written word to its exact meaning when metaphors or colorful examples are used is much the same as taking things out of context.
The key word being “taking” which is much what hijacking is.
To take something and alter its use for ones own purpose.
Thats just some more left wing PC crap designed to change the speech and justify our enemy thereby degrading our efforts to be somehow injust.
These are the same brand of jerks that call murderous tyrants “freedom fighters”
Saxby Chambliss calling for a Money Bomb…Mana from Heaven?
http://sarah-palin-2008.blogspot.com/2008/11/going-down-for-thethird-count.html