Huge Problem with Evangelical Christians

Comments closed. I think we beat this dead horse long enough. thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Jonathan Falwell had this to say last week:

“I appeal to all believers across this nation to rededicate ourselves to the Reagan agenda. Let us fearlessly stand up for the unborn, the biblical family, strong national defense and unswerving support for Israel. This is what Ronald Reagan taught us.”

So, we need to rededicate ourselves to the Reagan agenda. Hmmmm... Interesting. I'd have thought we'd want to rededicate ourselves to Jesus.

Link: Jerry Falwell Ministries.

Comments

[Fred]

I guess it depends on who you are following.

[Jake]

What? Ronald Reagan wasn't a theophany?

[ZCT]

I have to say I get a little bit fed up with hearing from the radical Christian right about how we should be standing up for the rights of the unborn.

Our infant mortality rate isn't even in the top 25 countries of the world, because right wing politics has not given two hoots about the rights of the recently born.

Our babies are dying because we don't make health care a right for children.

So until the right start demanding free health care for babies, this whole abortion issue is nothing but a political football.

[Clint]

I guess some of those that are still living in the 80's confuse Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ still. That's a shame. :)

[kristine]

There's no way I'd place the thoughts of Reagan and Jesus together...
The Reagan years were not 'glorious' times for me or my family.

[K....]

In response to ZCT...I think: due to how inhumane and violent 36 wk abortion are, I would have to call the whole "abortion" issue more than a political football. This sounds like it came from someone who hasn't actually seen the clips of a fetus being violently sucked out of a womb...And, who exactly should be standing up for the rights of the unborn?

[C]

Abortion shouldn't be political football, but it is. We've had the "pro life" party in control of the white house and the congress...nothing happened. I think they only use it to drag evangelicals along to help them gain power. I honestly believe that as a whole they have no intentions of changing anything.

If we want to see changes, let's start caring for our neighbors and investing in our communities. A political organization will never accomplish the mandate that Jesus gave His followers to live out.

I stand up for the rights of all unborn and born alike, I just don't for a moment expect Reaganites or republicans (or democrats)to do it. They only exist to be in power.

That's our problem we want to cast a ballot every 4 years and let other people take care of it while we live out our self-centered lives.

enough ranting for one day...

[ZCT]

@K

No one is pro abortion. Abortion sucks, obviously.

The reason I call it a political football is because every election Republicans bring the issue up and tantalize their pro-life supporters with their condemnation of abortion.

But in case you hadn't noticed, we've just endured an eight year president who claims to be a pro-life right wing conservative Christian. Yet abortion is still legal.

I truly believe that the right enjoy using this difficult and emotive issue to try and get their base out to vote, but they have not real or sincere intentions of outlawing abortion.

And as I said in my earlier post, if you are REALLY pro-life, you'd be questioning why Republicans don't make health care for babies free for all.

Because if we're going to talk about dead babies, you can't really ignore the fact that the richest and most powerful nations in the world ranks 29th in the world for babies dying before the age of one. Now THAT is the REAL pro-life issue.

[Rob]

My wife works on child birth wing of a local hospital. More than half of the births there are people without insurance. They are also without jobs and usually drug abusers. There unborn and recently born children are cared for the same as the people with insurance. We pay for insurance and we pay a lot because these people will never have insurance and dont care one way or the other if they do. That being said, I will be more than happy to pay my insurance premiums if it keeps these precious baby's from being murdered because of their ignorant parents who are on the dole. Universal health care? Who needs it or wants it. You will get what you pay for, and our government is so adept already at everything else it does I just can't wait for them to take care of mine and my family's health.
Free health care for all. I guess it will buy the votes of these kind of people. Getting welfare, free housing, ssi checks and paying no taxes is not enough I guess.
I checked those numbers on death before age one. I am curious where your info is coming from and like most left leaning individuals you pull a number with no context.
I could care less about abortions relation to politics. Even if you are not a spiritually inclined person, it is completely barbaric. At this point ZCT will say it barbaric to bomb innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq or something along those lines. I say this. It is horrible but thats not what we are discussing. Barrack Obama will make sure no one gets bombed again. Its not his job to make people not have abortions, its our job to pray and help people stand up for once in their lives and be a responsible, ethical human being.

[Rob]

My wife works on child birth wing of a local hospital. More than half of the births there are people without insurance. They are also without jobs and usually drug abusers. There unborn and recently born children are cared for the same as the people with insurance. We pay for insurance and we pay a lot because these people will never have insurance and dont care one way or the other if they do. That being said, I will be more than happy to pay my insurance premiums if it keeps these precious baby's from being murdered because of their ignorant parents who are on the dole. Universal health care? Who needs it or wants it. You will get what you pay for, and our government is so adept already at everything else it does I just can't wait for them to take care of mine and my family's health.
Free health care for all. I guess it will buy the votes of these kind of people. Getting welfare, free housing, ssi checks and paying no taxes is not enough I guess.
I checked those numbers on death before age one. I am curious where your info is coming from and like most left leaning individuals you pull a number with no context.
I could care less about abortions relation to politics. Even if you are not a spiritually inclined person, it is completely barbaric. At this point ZCT will say it barbaric to bomb innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq or something along those lines. I say this. It is horrible but thats not what we are discussing. Barrack Obama will make sure no one gets bombed again. Its not his job to make people not have abortions, its our job to pray and help people stand up for once in their lives and be a responsible, ethical human being.

[ZCT]

@Rob

First off, please don't tell me what I am going to say. If you're going to do that, you are basically just arguing with yourself.

I never suggested that people without insurance were giving birth on the streets. But the issue of a lack of insurance will affect the frequency with which people will visit their doctor, especially if they are poor.

I love how you assume that people without insurance are unemployed drug addicts.

My wife has no insurance right now, because she is getting a PhD and her job as a professor doesn't offer it because she is still technically a student. So let's not be judgmental about those with no insurance. And in any case my argument was concerning babies under the age of 1. It doesn't matter if their parents are Satan worshiping whale hunters, the child has no control over their life or health at that age.

As for the figures on infant mortality, here are some links:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

You'll notice that these are not left wing propaganda sites. Most of the figures come directly from the CIA. Not noted for their liberal lies.

You will also notice that we fail to make it into the top 25. And as far as I am concerned, this means that babies are dying unnecessarily in this country.

Is there seriously any reason why we can't be in the top 5? After all as a nation (per capita) we spend more on health care than any other country in the world.

http://zct168.blogspot.com/2008/10/dead-baby-update.html

I believe that we do agree on one thing. Abortion issues are not something that the government should be imposing on people.

This year three different states were asked to vote on tightening abortion laws. All three states rejected the proposals.

California, South Dakota, and Colorado were the states in question.

Now sure California is a liberal state, even though they just voted to ban gay marriage. But Colorado voted Bush, both times, even though it did go blue this time. And South Dakota gave McCain an 8 point lead over Obama this time around. They rejected another abortion ban law change in 2006 too.

I think the reality is that mainstream America wants the government to butt out and leave mothers to talk to their doctors, family and religious leaders.

Which finally brings me back to my original point. Isn't it more important to work to lower our infant mortality rate? Or does being beaten by Cuba not concern you?

[rob]

Sorry if you took the insurance statement as a blanket statement. It was based on an observable situation in my wifes workplace in regards to childbirth and the types of people their having children.
What it boils down to is what you believe government is responsible for. I do not want them responsible for my healthcare, my job, what i can buy, etc. When I was growing up this was called communism, which has repeatedly shown itself to be a failed governmental exercise leading to a elite ruling class tyrannizing us poor, ignorant working class.
I am more than willing to listen to any suggestions you have that will lower our infant mortality rate, that do not include the government being given any more powers over us as individual citizens.

[rob]

ps. I always thought debating with a left winger was pretty much like arguing with yourself :)

[ZCT]

@Rob

If you believe the government having any involvement in health care is communism, then you need to do some research into what communism really is. And since Tennessee has TennCare, are you going to argue that we live in a communist state?

Did you know that every industrialized country in the world, except South Africa, has some kind of government involvement in health care? And most, if not all of these countries are beating us not only in infant mortality figures (that I already showed you), but also longevity, and preventable death statistics.

Now I don't really think America is anywhere near accepting socialized medicine, or adopting systems used in France, Germany or other places that are doing really well in this area.

But there are certain things they could do here. The least of which should be government regulation.

Right now it seems that insurance companies can do just about whatever they like. Ask for the most intimate details about your medical history. Refuse to offer coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or give you limited coverage because you didn't have insurance for six months.

It's extraordinary.

Meanwhile hospitals and doctors offices know they are going to be screwed by the insurance companies, so they massively over bill for everything. That way after some negotiation they will end up in about the right place.

So how do we solve this problem? Well I don't pretend to have all the answers. But the first thing we need to acknowledge is that we have a problem, and we need to change the way we do things to fix it. It is an absurd argument to make that given our lackluster statistical performance, that costs thousands of people their lives each year, that no change is needed.

I like part of Obama's plan here. To make affordable health coverage available to the public, the likes of which he already enjoys as a politician.

That way if you have coverage you already like, you won't have to do anything at all. But those without coverage can get some.

Then I'd like to see some crack down on what kind of policies can be written. I'd like to see a ban on excluding people for pre-existing conditions or for other excuse based greed reasons.

I'd also like a study done to determine why America pays more per person for health care than any other country in the world (and yet yields mediocre results).

Then I'd like to start moving the perception in this country so that people view receiving health care as a right (especially in children), not a privilege of the rich.

Typing back and forth on Rich's blog isn't going to fix the health care problem. I'm not intelligent enough to figure out the solution, and frankly, I doubt you are either.

It will take some brilliant minds to get together and figure it out. And the solution isn't as simple as just copying France's system.

But to come full circle in my discussion with you, I'd just like to remind you of what kicked all this off.

There are many right wingers, and many Christians who are very strong in their opposition to abortion. Many get very vocal about it every election time when the Republican party trot out the same old arguments about killing babies to rouse their base.

All I'm suggesting is if we accept that a babies life is a precious gift, we need to acknowledge that thanks to our infant mortality rate, and lack of a safety net for poor people, our babies are dying.

It seems odd to fight so hard to prevent abortion, if you are going to turn your back on the child after it is born, merely because the parents were poor, unfortunate, or dead beats.

I think that the Christian thing to do is to care for everyone, and take care of people when they are sick.

In my mind you can't argue against abortion, without also being in favor of making changes to protect the lives of children.

PS It might surprise you to know that I was once very much on the right politically. I went to a private school in England, and was surrounded by the children of wealthy people. If you did a poll in my school, I suspect that 95+% would have been Conservative (the British equivalent of Republican).

When I voted for the first time, I opposed Tony Blair who was the equivalent of a Democrat.

But through debate, discussion, reading, studying, and growing as a person, I have become center left.

So your right wing viewpoint is not foreign to me, I get where you are coming from, I really do. It's not just a position I share any more.

[rick]

@ zct if you hate this county and at least 44 % of the people that are conserative and probably most of the independents, then why do you stay here. i can appreicate all opinions anyone has to offer, but it seems you think a conseratives opinion is "right wing". your posts are very condescending to anyone who doesnt agree with you. it is very easy to tell what you havent been reading, studying,debating and discussing as you have been growing as a person.

[Rob]

Just to clarify all I said was I did not want the government responsible for my health care. These socialized european systems sound great, but I would imagine waiting for a year to see a doctor is not real cool.
I don't even consider myself right wing. I am just not for a huge beauracracy of government trying to control every facet of my life.
I do believe our constitution is an excellent document to go by for government and still valid today. I am also aware after this election that our country as a majority has swung to center left with you.
I can live with that, so long as we do not have policies enacted to take freedoms away. We had enough of that under "W".
"change is coming". They haven't said whether good or bad. I hope good.

[Eric]

Whether a "change" is good or bad will always depend on our personal beliefs and values. We will all continue to argue till we are blue in the face as we've seen here on poor Rich's blog over the past couple topics. There is no balance anymore, just extremes with little room for anything else. You are Dem, then Republicans are evil... you are a Rep. and all Dems are evil, etc., etc. One side will always contend that they are "always" right and the other is "always" wrong.

For example.. I watched a highlight of Olbermann from last night (just for laughs). In his worst person in the world segment he gave them to Bill Crystal, Rush, and O'Reilly.... because they are Republicans and they, his quote, "don't matter anymore!" Now please, PLEASE understand what I'm getting at here, I admit that they represent a "hardcore" right ideology, ok, but they still express opinions that at least 45% of Americans agree with, generally speaking, a conservative view point. Again, don't misunderstand, I'm not glorifying O'Reilly, or Rush, in fact I don't like them because of their attitudes and often times hateful things they say. But to say because your guy won that they "don't matter anymore," very closed minded. And if McCain had won and O'Reilly said the same about Olbermann, as much as I dislike him also, I would feel the same way.

We all have issues that we are passionate and extreme about, but we should realize that there are plenty of issues out there and we shouldn't drop them all for one issue, OR drop the one for the rest.

Too often a politician will say something along the lines of "my opponent feels this (insert issue) is a moral value, well I believe (insert issue) is a moral value." Then they will go on to talk only about their issue and ignore the other.

Can we not agree that abortion is evil AND agree that we need to treat our poor and our children with the same passion? See how there is room for both?

Probably not...I guess I don't get it and I'm sure somebody will tell me why.

[rob]

Thats the best way to end this thread Eric. There is room for both and I will say I wholeheartedly agree.