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Ok, yes – you got it! It was apparently one of the biggest mess ups in TV history when the game was cut off for an episode of Heidi.
Obama will not want to be upstaged by Hillary, and he knows she would steal his thunder. Ryan is already stealing Romney's, but Mitt doesn't care so long as he wins.
Well, with what you said - why would Obama care if Hillary steals his thunder, "so long as he wins"? All he needs is to get in office one last time. What happens after that won't really matter to him.
I would not be surprised if Obama pulled this out of his bag of tricks. Yes, it is late, but if Obama is dragging in the polls over the next month he may need something that he thinks will energize voters. I also think that Hillary would be the obvious choice since she's already a well-known figure (i.e. no “getting to know you” period), currently in a high-profile diplomatic position (which gives her some credibility), and since she's a woman, she would enable Obama to keep trying to hammer Romney on his alleged “war on women”.
and don't we villainize immigrants and want to "send them all home" many of whom are Catholic?
I think that issue is more like apples and oranges with the other issue (or at least it can be like apples and oranges). I don't think it is "un-Christian" to want to protect one's borders or to want to regulate immigration in a sensible way so that it doesn't become a "free-for-all". With that said, I will agree that vilifying immigrants and trampling upon their dignity is un-Christian. Even still, name calling hardly rises to the level of genocide.
Why did the United States permit slavery for so long? Weren't we a Christian nation too? Why did the Chinese conquer and destroy the Tibetan way of life? Why did the Spaniards eradicate the Inca, Aztec, and Mayan cultures? What about Stalin's purges that killed tens of millions of Russians? Was what the Germans did any different other than scale and technology? The patterns of force and brutality exhibited by the human race is a constant theme throughout history. It will not change, but only become more brutally efficient as technology allows man to sanitize his ability to kill, persecute, and oppress.
Ok, that is a good argument. However, in at least some of those instances involving the Spaniards, both sides were armed, even if unevenly, and there was no deliberate attempt at genocide of the Indians, as far as I know. Stalin's USSR was atheistic in nature, which makes the morality behind killing an enigmatic issue. I am not sure about the Chinese suppression of the Tibetans, although this kind of thing does seem to be at odds with traditional Buddhist and/or Daoist teaching. The closest parallel to what the Germans did, IMO, is slavery in America. Why did Christians participate in it? I cannot say, but at the very least we can say that Christian Abolitionists were at the forefront of those who opposed it. In Germany, was there widespread opposition to the Nazis? I do realize there was some opposition, which was suppressed, but still... Far too many people, including the soldiers who participated in violence and killing, should have been trained in Christian morality. Were they simply afraid?
I have not yet found the answer, but this is interesting about what he says (2006) about twentieth century scholarship on the issue:[html][/html]Still, he doesn't talk about morality among people as connected to religion. Duty toward the gods is one thing; duty toward one another, which in turn has divine repercussions, is another. That is the thing I'll have to read up on.
Alright, you’re forcing me to dig up some information to back what I said. 🙂 This is good because the semester is starting now and I should know this when we cover the ancient Near East.According to historian Thomas F.X. Noble, Sumerian/Mesopotamian culture had religion which “was pessimistic and fatalistic; it had no ethical dimension at all.” Speaking of the Epic of Gilgamesh, he states that “It contains a mythical account of the civilizing process and a poignant reflection on mortality as the irreducible element in the human condition.”
I think this backs up what I am saying. It’s not that people didn’t believe in any innate sense of right or wrong, it’s just that they didn’t believe the gods would punish them or reward them for their vicious or virtuous behavior on earth. That is, their religion didn’t dictate behavior to practice or behavior to avoid. As for Gilgamesh, it seems that it is more of a philosophical or existential examination than a tale in which man is punished or rewarded by the gods. So even if there was morality within the Epic, a connection to religion is not necessarily within that framework.But perhaps you know of other/more recent scholarship which asserts a moral component within Mesopotamian religions? If so, my ears are open.
Donnie, Paul Ryan is into hunting. Are you afraid he could take you down in target practice at the shooting range? 😉 He seems like an all-around good guy.
Yeah, me too for that last part. The guy who won the platform diving gold for the U.S. did that as well. Actually, there apparently was a gay kiss at the 2008 Olympics with one of the gay divers, and the commentator said something about how it “reverberated” around the world or something like that. Blah blah.
Carol, I think the answer would be “no” – there was no “moral code” as we know it in Mesopotamian religions. There was Hammurabi's code, but that of course was a body of legal restrictions or obligations rather than one which pertained to personal morality. We all know that the Hebrew religion contained instruction on personal morality.
Well, between Bob Costas' PC remarks I discussed earlier, and the drive for sympathy for homosexual athletes, it was somewhat ridiculous to me.
Well I had enough of NBC's politically-correct Olympic coverage. Anyway, watched the closing ceremonies last night and it was like a partial tribute to the classic rock bands of the 70s. The show was pretty good, but not quite the same level as the Chinese. All in all, I really enjoy watching the competition, but in a sense I'm glad it's over since now I won't be quite as distracted from work.
