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This is obviously part of the evil WAR ON CHRISTMAS (c)O'Reilly
:rolleyes
hmm
very interesting - you lot (in USA?) talk about things I know nuthin of at all.
I had to google 'War on Christmas'...but am still in the dark about the connection between a jewish guy praying in a plane, and being thrown out and secularism v the nativity etc...
somebody explain????
any chance???
No room ...in the Boeing 747?
In the latest instance of decrying the purported "war" on Christmas, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly claimed that "it's all part of the secular progressive agenda ... to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square." He then added: "[b]ecause if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs, like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious-based, usually." O'Reilly's comments came during a November 18 discussion on his television show, The O'Reilly Factor, with guest and fellow Fox News host John Gibson about "which American stores are using 'Christmas' in advertising this Christmas season and which are not." Gibson is the author of The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel, October 2005).
NEW YORK - A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.
Praying passenger removed from S.F.-bound flight at JFK - Yahoo! News (broken link)
Was this unreasonable?
Nope, pray at your seat, or pray before you get on the plane, or don't take a flight when you need to pray.
There are many ways to get around this. If they ask you to take your seat because we are preparing for take off this means ALL PASSENGERS.
Why should one guy disrupt the whole flight?
P.S. IF he is already starting trouble by disobeying the flight attendants and they are still on the ground, what makes you think they want to spend the whole flight with this anarchist in the air and him not listening to their instructions? I would have him removed as well.
In the latest instance of decrying the purported "war" on Christmas, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly claimed that "it's all part of the secular progressive agenda ... to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square." He then added: "[b]ecause if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs, like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious-based, usually." O'Reilly's comments came during a November 18 discussion on his television show, The O'Reilly Factor, with guest and fellow Fox News host John Gibson about "which American stores are using 'Christmas' in advertising this Christmas season and which are not." Gibson is the author of The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel, October 2005).
I disagree with O'Reilly, although I consider myself a right-of-center thinker and a staunch traditionalist. Although I do indeed believe that there is a secular progressive agenda to eradicate or at least delegitimize Christian-based observations and rituals in our culture (while venerating those of other faiths, which I find puzzling, since such efforts contradict the First Amendment rationale which is often used as a purported legal motivation), I do not connect these efforts with attempts to enact the kind of legilsation to which O'Reilly refers.
My opinion is that the anti-Christmas and anti-Christianity folks sincerely believe that Christmas and its related holidays and sociocultural artifacts being more harm to our society than good, and actually cause suffering and intolerance which exceed their beneficial manifestations and effects.
I cite as evidence of this the recent controversy over the atheist display in the capitol building of my state (Washington), which was permitted to be erected on public property next to a traditional nativity scene, and which was really little more than a listing of hateful criticisms of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
That our governor supported the court's opinion that such an insult was nothing more than justified payback for the apparent insult which Christmas has, lo these many years, inflicted on the helpless people of our state, is less a comment on her political cowardice and utter lack of ethical sensibility, than powerful evidence that the motivation for such increasingly widespread manifestations of anti-religious bigotry has nothing to do with a specific political strategy, as Mr. O'Reilly would claim, nor with some perverted view of freedom of speech, and everything to do with an attitude of tangible loathing toward faith and its manifestations itself, coupled with an apparently Manicheaen view of life, whose proponents have decided that Christianity itself is so heavily freighted with evil that it and its adherents deserve be mocked, insulted, and if possible, eradicated.
One can only speculate as to the source and degree of bitterness which animates this thinking, capable as it seems of such wanton metastases of sneering unhappiness at a time of the year which has traditionalloy been the setting for rituals and invocations of good cheer and hopefulness -- be they Roman, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Norse, Druidic, Shinto, or any of the many faiths which are cyclical or seasonal in nature.
O'Reilly's error is to limit his perspective to the world of partisan politics, of whose soiled arts he is an especially vituperative practitioner. He misses the point that those he criticizes are both more ambitious and less "progressive" than he imagines them to be. Their goals are not to expand abortion or to see gay marriages conducted at the Vatican -- rather, they seek the burning of the cathedrals, the hanging of the priests, and the utter eradication of the faithful, the hopeful, and the charitable. Such progressiveness is neither new, nor truth be told, progressive. Its forces have swept over humanity in waves from time to time; in that snese, perhaps they are the true "traditionalists" after all...
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:5-6)
You don't have to make a big scene when you are praying.
NEW YORK - A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.
Praying passenger removed from S.F.-bound flight at JFK - Yahoo! News (broken link)
Was this unreasonable?
No, not unreasonable. Why couldn't he pray in his seat instead of holding up everyone else?
Now there will probably be delays at all major airports, as people sympathetic to the Praying Passenger (he'll have to acquire some sort of nickname) will deliberately stand up on airplanes and make a big show of praying--daring the airlines to summon police and remove them. Fox News, if not CNN, reporters will be close by.
Then the original Praying Passenger will write a book, someone will make a movie about it, and six months later we'll all be allowed to forget that it ever happened--but only because some other ridiculous non-issue will have commanded all the screaming headlines and website postings.
Interesting...
I think the bottom line at present - seems to me - to be the need for a precise appraisal of what is actually meant by 'secularism'.
And at any given time, too, since it probably shifts around quite a bit.
Im quite sure that what it isnt and cannot be - is a simply *an absence of religion*.
I think that your idea they may simply want to burn cathedrals and priests etc, is possible - but could be a tad OTT.
If only because I live in a country with a secular government - & at least at present, it is still quite strongly against some, if not all of those views which O'Reilly considers to be a central motivation. And there are no signs of any cathedral looting and pillaging, at all.
I suppose what it might be - is more likely to be a group of people with very strong views who recognise that attaching any particular religious or political labels to them - may cause those of different religious/political persuasions - to oppose them.
That those views might - in fact - be based very firmly, in this or that religious or political agenda - is by this method - quite well concealed.
I agree with you - that O'Reilly seems to be making a naive error.
(Or it might well be a calculated one!)
The Nativity scene with anti religious addition in Washington - had reached me here in France, I think the effect seems to be quite opposite of one hoped for.
Theres nothing like a bit of harsh and unpleasant criticism - to bring about
a sudden consciousness and a change of heart.
The result of bad tempered action - is quite often a rebound .
I wont be surprised to see people flocking back to churches pretty soon.
I *might* do a spot of carol singing myself this year -
...Cant remember the last time. So much vitriolic attack on a few blokes dressed in strange kit and some bad singing - seems unkind, and a lot of fuzzy pink memories of midnight masses and singing carols in the street in the snow - collecting dosh for the local hospital - flooded back.
.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yeledaf
I disagree with O'Reilly, although I consider myself a right-of-center thinker and a staunch traditionalist. Although I do indeed believe that there is a secular progressive agenda to eradicate or at least delegitimize Christian-based observations and rituals in our culture (while venerating those of other faiths, which I find puzzling, since such efforts contradict the First Amendment rationale which is often used as a purported legal motivation), I do not connect these efforts with attempts to enact the kind of legilsation to which O'Reilly refers.
My opinion is that the anti-Christmas and anti-Christianity folks sincerely believe that Christmas and its related holidays and sociocultural artifacts being more harm to our society than good, and actually cause suffering and intolerance which exceed their beneficial manifestations and effects.
I cite as evidence of this the recent controversy over the atheist display in the capitol building of my state (Washington), which was permitted to be erected on public property next to a traditional nativity scene, and which was really little more than a listing of hateful criticisms of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
That our governor supported the court's opinion that such an insult was nothing more than justified payback for the apparent insult which Christmas has, lo these many years, inflicted on the helpless people of our state, is less a comment on her political cowardice and utter lack of ethical sensibility, than powerful evidence that the motivation for such increasingly widespread manifestations of anti-religious bigotry has nothing to do with a specific political strategy, as Mr. O'Reilly would claim, nor with some perverted view of freedom of speech, and everything to do with an attitude of tangible loathing toward faith and its manifestations itself, coupled with an apparently Manicheaen view of life, whose proponents have decided that Christianity itself is so heavily freighted with evil that it and its adherents deserve be mocked, insulted, and if possible, eradicated.
One can only speculate as to the source and degree of bitterness which animates this thinking, capable as it seems of such wanton metastases of sneering unhappiness at a time of the year which has traditionalloy been the setting for rituals and invocations of good cheer and hopefulness -- be they Roman, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Norse, Druidic, Shinto, or any of the many faiths which are cyclical or seasonal in nature.
O'Reilly's error is to limit his perspective to the world of partisan politics, of whose soiled arts he is an especially vituperative practitioner. He misses the point that those he criticizes are both more ambitious and less "progressive" than he imagines them to be. Their goals are not to expand abortion or to see gay marriages conducted at the Vatican -- rather, they seek the burning of the cathedrals, the hanging of the priests, and the utter eradication of the faithful, the hopeful, and the charitable. Such progressiveness is neither new, nor truth be told, progressive. Its forces have swept over humanity in waves from time to time; in that snese, perhaps they are the true "traditionalists" after all...
Now there will probably be delays at all major airports, as people sympathetic to the Praying Passenger (he'll have to acquire some sort of nickname) will deliberately stand up on airplanes and make a big show of praying--daring the airlines to summon police and remove them. Fox News, if not CNN, reporters will be close by.
Then the original Praying Passenger will write a book, someone will make a movie about it, and six months later we'll all be allowed to forget that it ever happened--but only because some other ridiculous non-issue will have commanded all the screaming headlines and website postings.
NEW YORK - A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.
Praying passenger removed from S.F.-bound flight at JFK - Yahoo! News (broken link)
Was this unreasonable?
Of course it wasn't unreasonable. He was ordered to return to his seat so the flight coud take off, and he refused. It matters not that he happened to be praying (instead of reading a novel, doing jumpng jacks, etc).
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