i am no one to make that judgment. i have no idea who's going to heaven or hell or if there is a heaven. what i'm saying is, there is no way to read the new testament and come to the conclusion that your power comes from your physical might. if the gun is preeminent, if force is preeminent, if that's where your power comes from, this is at odds with not only christianity, but every belief system that relies on the power of ideas, whether religious or secular.

accordingly, if you're jesus, if you're ghandi, mandela, MLK, it's the power of ideas upon which you rely, and none of them required the gun (or whatever the preeminent force of the day). in fact, they all expressly argued against the power of physical force.

i'm not arguing against 2A, nor am i arguing pacifism. rather, i'm arguing against the exaltation of 2A. once you exalt the gun, once you've determined that the gun is the key that unlocks the american experiment, it's no longer the american experiment. it's some other base experiment.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I probably understand them at least as well as you, Dan. Like you, I've also relied on the 1st Amendment and the freedoms it prevents the government from circumscribing in order to earn some coin. I've also sworn a still-active oath to support and defend the Constitution as a military officer (retired now, but officer's oaths are still legally binding) against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I don't recall my oath saying that I'm to support the government no matter what, however.

So I take the rights guaranteed by the Constitution very seriously, as you can tell. And my point still stands when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and its reason for being. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, according to some legal scholars. It lays out what the government MAY NOT do to its citizens. But words without the means to enforce them or prevent them from being usurped ("usurpations" was one of the reasons cited by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence) are just that: nothing but words.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

whoa. as a full time church worker, you're the one to ask: is christianity a definable thing? if so, can you define it? what is it? i'm eager to hear what it is. because, it seems to me that if it can mean anything, then it means nothing. so, teach me what it is.

just, as you're teaching me, what's being argued here is not that the second amendment belongs (i'm not disagreeing with that) but that the second amendment stands above the others. that what allows us to enjoy all the other freedoms and privileges is the second amendment. if you go back and read what it is i responded to, it's this idea, that the second amendment is what unlocks the power of the american experiment.

so, i'm here to learn my mistake. tell me what christianity is, based on your 30 years. it's my guess that while it took you 30 years to live it, it shouldn't take you more than 20 seconds to define it. and then tell me how that's compatible with, not the right to own a gun, but the exaltation of civilian gun ownership above all other rights.

jesus had that conversation with pontius pilate, who was "almost persuaded." are you capable of having that conversation with me?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

This is a pointless discussion, //

Mark it down folks, I believe I have finally shut BK up!! HE has run out of rebuttals to his original premise( as in not happening) and he tapped out!!


Of course it was with the caveat that I don understand the original preposterous OP, and I'm not worth arguing with anymore, but this rarely ever happens, I feel so special, thanks BK!!!

Wow. You really do not understand the US military or the oaths taken by the men and women in uniform.

What is even more amazing is how much ignorance and disparagement you are able to exude in a single post.

Impressive.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

bear in mind that i'm not arguing against 2A. i'm arguing against the primacy of 2A. i don't see this in the text (perhaps if it was the 1st amendment?), and i don't see this in history. yes, it's hard to win a war without the means to fight it. not impossible! but hard. still, i think it's just as fair to say that the american experiment is just as much based on giving up power as in using it. more so, i think. as you say, the american experiment is all about the peaceful, willing abrogation of power. very rarely has the threat of force activated the abrogation of power.

again, i'm not arguing against 2A. rather, if you look at govts the world over i don't see any nexus between civilian gun ownership and democracy. i see no evidence that 2A is the key that unlocks the other rights. if anything, 1A is the key that unlocks the rights, which might be why it's the 1st listed. happy to have the debate. but i don't see any evidence for 2A's exaltation.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Your outrage is noted. I think I understand exactly everything I said, remember I do live in the real world here.

I didn't figure you for one of the num nuts, but sorry if I offended you..

Outrage? Not in the least. Amazement at the ignorance? Yeah ... little bit.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

One response, Slowman....


First "If it can mean anything, then it means nothing" Logically flawed, rhetorically ..... cliche.

Second, I am with you that placing the 2nd Amendment above others through selective interpretation of history is incorrect.

Third.... stop it. Your smirk is deafening. Condescension in the guise of meekness is ugly.I didn't flash my meager credentials because I have answers (I certainly don't), but to point out that you are trying to "fit" matters of faith into a political topic vastly removed from theology. If you felt that I was out of line, that's your impression. Mock me all you want, but DO NOT MOCK FAITH. It is a profound insult to many here, and it is far beneath anything that you have done before. Think about how low you are sinking, it should take about ... 20 seconds. Rant off.

i spent several years of my youth investigating christianity and the upshot is, as of today, i'm not a christian. however, i am still amazed by powerful elements of that faith. i find this a marvelous textual and historical study and it is, to me, still captivating. from tertullian to abelard, jan hus to john wycliffe, and to the extraordinarily courageous journey of the latter day saints once tossed out of the midwest, both christians and mormons (regardless if you consider them christians) are a part of the western world's fabric. pennsylvania was established on quaker principles. rhode island was a similar story. certain americans want to claim this as a nation largely built on christian principles and though not a christian, i have no problem with that characterization.

if you read what i write, esp on the front page, you'll see me quoting scripture a lot, and i get a lot of emails asking if i'm a christian. the answer is no. but there is an honesty, and a starkness, and a crisp beauty that i don't find anywhere in contemplative life. when james writes, "this is true religion, to come to the aid of widows and orphans in distress," well, that about says it, doesn't it? except that martin luther considered james, "an epistle of straw" for this very phrase i quoted. there is a tension in the new testament between behavior on the one hand, and justification by faith on the other, and i don't mind that tension (i find that tension part of the charm and texture).

that established, two things are happening in america today: we have a political party that aggregates interest groups into a majority, and those groups seem to me disparate in their needs. do business interests and the former dixiecrats have much in common? do farmers and hard line anti-immigration advocates share interests? do gun rights advocates and the religious right find common cause? i don't see it. i don't see that nexus. but i'm happy to have it explained to me. second, christians have certainly made their own faith part of public, and policy and political life.

as i "worked out my salvation in fear and trembling" during my younger years, one thing that i determined to do was not live two lives: my christian and my secular. whatever it was i'd end up believing, however i thought and acted, it would be seamless. no more talking and behaving one way to my christian friends, another to my secular friends. i had to adjust both my secular behavior and my religious beliefs to find that stasis and i guess for that reason i just don't find these conversations hard to have. i don't have two lives. i don't have an untouchable side of my life.

i flew to michigan a couple of weeks ago, to speak to a tri club there. on the tarmac, getting ready to take off, two men whose jobs were in christian ministry were talking right behind me. so i wheeled around and asked them about their faith in the context of our current administration. one said, "it's easy. i don't vote. it's not that i'm not interested in civic life. it's that my kindgom is not of this world." the other does vote, and we had that respectful, civil, enlightening, conversation. well, it wasn't a conversation. i just listened. and learned. because i travel a lot i get to meet people. i met a man while in michigan who is a pretty staunch conservative republican, and we talked a lot about the political environment today. i saw him the next day and i met his wife. i think he and i are fast friends. because i meet so many people face to face, and see what we have in common, it's easy for me to have conversations that are personal, introspective, but not threatening or divisive.

so, my aim is not to ridicule or condescend. i'm certainly not mocking your faith. if your approach to this is different than mine, i respect that. just, this is life. this is part of life. i think it's fair to ask this question; and to hope to have that conversation without getting castigated for, "how low i'm sinking." what you're asking me to do is to just not ask these questions here. not on this forum. okay. where do you want me to ask them? it's going to get expensive if i have to buy an airline ticket in order to ask questions of faith and politics on airport tarmacs.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Saved for posterity, with parenthetical commentary and added punctuation. Have a nice evening, Slowman.





There, even that took over .... 20 SECONDS. I'm sorry, there is just so much that is so irredeemably wrong with your post. It's impossible to know where to begin....

Well, as you write it there for me I see how I was flippant. I apologize. Truly. But I did not mean to, and do not, mock your faith. I think this was one of those times where expressions aren’t translated well by keystrokes. I didn’t mean to mock; rather I was honestly glad to find a person adequately equipped to have the conversation. But I certainly see how I wrote it so badly.

In my post I was quite transparent with you about my beliefs and how I came to them. If that explanation had so much wrong with it, okay, but it is the faith I’ve arrived at for me.

But the bigger point, there’s a trust among people. With you, I broke it. Unwittingly, but I did. I’m sorry.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Don’t know if this was already addressed, but how much of our military would fire upon their fellow citizen? As a private citizen, I’d have no qualms defending myself vs an aggressor (robbery, etc) but can’t see raising arms against my fellow citizen in a military capacity.

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If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

I couldn't see myself, as an officer, obeying such an order absent extremely good reasons for doing so. This might include rioting, looting, an extraordinary declaration of martial law and so forth... but even then it would really take a world-shaking level of such things for me to give the order. There's a good reason for why a US military officer's oath of office differs from that of the enlisted troops under his or her command.

By the way, that new handgun I bought the other week, I obeyed the law and took the Michigan State Police copy of the pistol sales record to my town's police department and turned it in, meaning it's registered. The vast, vast majority of all such gun owners, when required to do so by their own states' laws, do this without hesitation. This, in effect, provides a record of gun ownership to the authorities, which I don't mind and which most gun owners I know also don't mind. Because we're good, law-abiding, citizens.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Now that.....is a man's man! You are back on my good side Dan (not that it mattered...lol). I don't have have enough intelligence to argue and counter argue the Christian faith. However if I were challenged like you challenged Old and Slow, I'd define it in two seconds with one word....Grace. --I read a book awhile back that I think you would like. It's called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. It'd be a good one for you to read during down time while traveling. It's definitely on your intelligence level!

Tim

Thanks for that, I am better this morning ;).

Back to "this Christian thing", sorry, 20 seconds, 20 years, 20 lifetimes.... I couldn't give you the answer (libraries are stuffed with attempts). What "it" means isn't everything (... and therefore isn't nothing), but it is personal, and it is a primarily a choice to walk on that path, and the grace to return when we stumble (which is every single f-in day). Glad you brought Martin Luther and James' "epistle of straw" (takes me back several decades). The relationship between personal faith and public policy is tenuous at best, and fraught with wrong turns. Of course, personal faith and religious teachings enter the public sphere, but it is simply not prescriptive enough (which is maddening). I tend to diverge with my conservative brethren on a host of issues, and on the specific application of scripture in modern society.

Faith aside, we clearly agree on political subjects far more than we disagree. That does not make any Christians who disagree with me "less" in matters of faith. My views on folks selectively parsing history to exalt one's own bias on a particular issue is an intellectual dispute, and it is as nothing, compared to the personal shortcomings regarding the two great commandments (Love God... Love your neighbor....). As much as politically engaged folks like me want a faith to define politics, and for our faith to bear "good fruit", it just isn't that easy. Hopefully, honest and respectful dialog can move the needle slightly, pedantic "one-upmanship" notwithstanding,

I'm rambling, this forum is piss-poor for expressing oneself....

i think this forum can be pretty good at imparting wisdom, and i'm likely to get some from you. whether the recipient (me, as an example) is able to intake the wisdom, well, that's another thing!

i am the very last guy to tell anyone how to live his life. i am the last guy to lecture christians on true christianity. just, did you see this today? the summit at wheaton college? national news. i wrote on the front page a year and a half ago about tony campolo's oped in the nyt, where he said of his brand of christianity (evangelicals) "we need a new name." so, it's not me who's asking christians what it means to be a christian in today's political climate. it's other christians who're fearful that trumpism is perverting a large swathe of american christianity.

it's not only fine, but necessary, for christians to advocate for (as an example) those who they consider fully vested persons, even tho others would consider them not. public life needs that voice. but if christians are going to make public policy cases on the rights of the unborn, climate change, same sex rights, the role of religion in schools and govt, then it doesn't seem to me fair to wall off one's faith as personal, private, off limits, not subject to civil discussion.

if we're textualists on the interpretation of the constitution, why aren't we textualists on the interpretation of the bible? isn't textualism a touchstone? a virtue? isn't this the imperative asked of christians and their text, just as it is for judges and theirs? if so - and this is just my opinion - i just don't see how the exaltation of the gun squares with a textual read of the bible.

and, again, i don't have the answers. i don't know who's going to heaven. i'm not the judge. but i'm in a public policy discussion with christianity writ large for the rights of gays to marry, or of women to control their own destinies. don't i have an implicit invitation to parse the text that guides the policies for which christians advocate? if we are asking muslim extremists to prove, in their text, the justification for their bloody jihad, isn't it fair to ask where in the christian text we see not just the allowance, but the exaltation, of the means for physical violence? did paul the apostle keep a collection of the most deadly weapons of his day? if we found out he did, what would we think?

and, i know i'm walking a fine line here. i don't mean to denigrate anyone's faith. just, if a pennsylvania quaker worked in pennsylvania-based magnum, making desert eagles, i think it would be fair to ask him how he (a pacifist by religion) squares that. if he answered, "it's the only job i can get, and my higher call is to feed my family," that is an eminently honorable answer. accordingly, i'm happy to be shown my blind spot.

and i hope i didn't step in it again. if so, i apologize in advance. wouldn't be the first time.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman