Martin Luther King, Jr. Believed In God

D’you really think the most anti-”organized religion” types actually just hate God? Good luck with this one…

Well, I gotta call them as I see them…I hear the names that Christians we DON’T like get called and almost all of them would apply to people like King and Lowery as well…I don’t think they hate God – I take them at their word and think they don’t believe in God. Hating something implies a belief in it.

>>I hear the names that Christians we DON’T like get called and almost all of them would apply to people like King and Lowery as well…Sure they would. Speaking for myself, a former Catholic school student, former altar boy and current non-radical atheist, I only get prickly about religion when it’s used to justify oppression or when it’s pawned off as secular laws or science. Unfortunately, certain political and social leaders have used their interpretation of faith, the Bible and God as a justification for setting boundries around who enjoys equal protection, freedom and liberty, and who doesn’t. The predecessors of these same leaders also used religion to justify slavery and racial separation; they used it to justify the indentured servitude of wives and daughters, while others used it as a reason to slaughter millions of innocent human beings.While it’s nice that peaceful movements to break to bonds of inequality were inspired by religion, there’s also an extraordinarily dark side to religion, embodied in extremism, zealotry and fundamentalism. Enough to spook many of us into name-calling, some of it fair, some of it hateful. However, I know of zero serious anti-religion advocates who would seek to deprive anyone of the right to freely practice their religion in private as long as it’s not restricting the freedom of others who might not share the same religion or morality. Naturally, the opposite also applies.Also, and with all due respect my friend, I would argue that Rick Warren prays to a different construct of Jesus than MLK or Rev. Lowery. There’s more than one interpretation of Jesus and his teachings.

@MG>>Cesca, although you didn’t create this post yourself, it’s consistent with what I’ve seen here lately. You really should take a basic logic course.Well, you went and did it. You accidentally gave away — free of charge — your very first lesson from MG’s Basic Logic College of Trolling Douchebaggery. Tell me if I’ve understood correctly, Mr. Professor.Step 1) Preface by admitting that Bob didn’t write this post and, in fact, had nothing to do with it.Step 2) Make a broad, specious generalization based on the post that Bob had nothing to do with.Step 3) Use this broad generalization as a reason to tell Bob that he should squeeze into his schedule a college course on ‘basic logic’ and then expect that Bob will take seriously the advice of a trolling douchebag just because it’s posted in the comments under a blog post he didn’t write.Logic! Thanks, MG’s Basic Logic College of Trolling Douchebaggery!>>…but I’m coming to expect these sorts of posts on this blog.And yet you keep coming back. More logic!

I love Bob Cesca.

I hate this post and I domt believe in it.there is some dumb logic behind this Lee.I hate the use of a God for any reason. yeah civil rights good but crusades bad ethnic cleasning bad

amen

I believe in God. I answer “spiritual but not religious,” when given the option on a drop-down. I grew up going to church three times a week – Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. I stopped going to church in high school when the hypocrisy of organized religion finally got on my last nerve.What bothers me about Rick Warren, and many of his ilk, is the use of his position as a spiritual leader in politics. If you think that homosexuality is a sin, grand. Stay at home and tell your little flock that homosexuality is a sin. Don’t go on Fox News and tell an entire country that “the gays” are going to hell and should be discriminated against using a legislative system which should not use a religious belief as a basis for creating laws. I understand that Warren has done good things for the poor and HIV/AIDS, but I would prefer that he do his ministry in those areas and stay out of the political arena.>>He and King both prayed to Jesus. That’s the same Jesus that Rick Warren prays to.Perhaps, but I would argue that King’s interpretation of Jesus is different than Warren’s. And isn’t that what religion comes down to in the end – how each individual interprets it.

as a christian,i have a problem with rick warren not because of his beliefs,but with the way he and others like him have come to represent christianity as a whole in our country.its the walmart-ification of my faith,which is extremely important to me.also,i wish that those on the left would realize that being a christian and being a progressive democrat are not mutually exclusive.my religious beliefs are not tied to the purse strings of this country’s various mega churches.there are plenty of christians who support gay marriage.personally,i have taken part in two demonstrations since the election.

Gee whiz Stranhan, if you love the country the way it is so much, why don’t you just marry it?So what’s the line a MAN OF GOD has to cross in order to not deserve a high honor such as speaking at the Inauguration? Perhaps some child molestation? Holocaust denial?I just would like to know which forms of bigotry and hatemongering you find acceptable, I ‘spose.

The thing about fundamentalists – hardcore, social-conservative fundamentalists – is that while I resent their influence over our politics and culture, I can at the very least respect them. They are loyal and adherent to the things that are actually in the Bible and the writings of Christendom’s historical theologians. They have turned their back on reason, but they at least embrace their faith – the grace and elegance along with the horrors, embraced furiously and completely as if there were no alternative.

Liberal Christians, on the other hand, have abandoned both reason and faith. They use their element of faith to inflict judgment upon the faithless, and they use their element of reason to inflict judgment upon the orthodox faithful. In neither case do they ever use those capacities to examine their own inconsistencies, and as such each element has a great capacity for becoming a tool for the justification of whatever their shallow, rudderless emotions tell them is moral.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a great man because of his faith – his faith would have warned him away from putting too much stock in the pagan philosophy of Gandhi. King was a great man (like so many great men) in spite of his faith. Most devoted Baptists did not share his multiracial worldview.

Our political leaders today absolutely must pay lip service to Christianity. The reaction to non-Christian persons is so visceral among Americans (and even non-Christian Americans) that there is simply no alternative. However, the rest of us can only hope that all the God talk is only talk, that they are lying to us about the role faith plays in their lives, and that the politician in question in fact has a firmly secular moral sense.

That has been the case most of the time, thank God.