Shadi Hamid on Morning Joe. The single worst guest I think I have ever seen on that show.

[Celerity]

ETA, single worst non Rethug guest.

A Muslim, but is arguing that the nation needs a nationwide resurgence of Christianity in the USA to fight the secular Democratic party's out of control 'wokeism' AND then, whilst defining wokeism, they then attack LGBTQ rights and BLM style racial justice. They are whingeing that 'Christians' (and they said mainstream, not RW MAGAts) feel 'cancelled' because LGBTQ rights are against Christian values and they are afraid to speak up now.

They tried to use Obama (who was against gay marriage and they painted that as his Christian values driving this) as evidence of a person being forced to turn on his values. Hamid said that Trump pulled 30% of the Muslin vote despite all the anti Muslim rhetoric because they saw him as upholding traditional 'values' and that the Democrats have to retake that initiative and fight against secularism. They are painting this bloke (and he claims it as well) to be anti RW.

FUCK this gaslighting shit!

[MrsCoffee]

1. Obama was the first president to support same-sex marriage.

[Celerity]

3. yes, and they were using that example as a bad thing, a cave in to what he called 'wokeism'

[Caliman73]

29. He was not always in favor of it.

President Obama said that he "evolved" on the issue. Right wingers are saying that he "caved" because of pressure from "wokeism". That is the whole point of the OP. Saying that some forces within or external to the Democratic Party are trying to have us pull back from advancing civil rights saying that religious people are going to retreat from the party if we don't shun LGBT people.

[MANative]

2. The less "religion", the better.

The repubs use a totally bastardized version of Christianity to promote hate, division and bigotry and that's what has dominated "religion" and fundamentalism for the last 40 years. No thanks.

[jcgoldie]

32. agreed

It often seems to me that when people need massive amounts of religious canon to do the right thing they can be skewed to some very immoral ends...

[secondwind]

4. Interesting. I watched more than half that interview, and

didn’t get a sense of this at all.

[duhneece]

10. Me, either. nt

[CurtEastPoint]

5. He was blathering about his Atlantic article, link below

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/

[Celerity]

7. thanks for the link!, and yes, very similar (obviously, lol, it is the same person)

He has it so wrong. Secularism is fighting the tyranny, and a crazy radicalized form of Christianity is becoming a huge threat. He divvy answer is to reinvigorate old mainstream Christianity, BUT that mainstream form was also against many human rights.

He also is completely ignorant about Sweden (quelle surprise) when it comes to debates here over what is 'Swedish'.

[hunter]

19. DU thread on the Atlantic article here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215213996

Many gods are worshiped in the U.S.A.

Most of these gods are capricious assholes who depend upon fools to do their bidding.

Nationalism can be another form of idolatry.

[dhol82]

6. He did an article in the Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/


I read it and got pissed.
Guess that’s how he landed on the Joe show.

[Celerity]

8. yes, thanks for the link, I am reading it now from another poster who gave it to me

[JI7]

9. Obama supported same sex marriage before running for President

he only claimed to be against it when he decided to run for President to help him win.

So it's actually the opposite of what they say.

[Celerity]

11. he started opposing it when he ran for Senate in 2004 according to this article below

He started out supporting it, then went to undecided, then to opposing it, then he switched back to his supporting it (thanks in part to Biden I think)

See Obama's 20-Year Evolution on LGBT Rights

https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

[Hortensis]

12. "As Christianity's hold, in particular, has weakened, ideological

intensity and fragmentation have risen.

American faith, it turns out, is as fervent as ever; it's just that what was once religious belief has now been channeled into political belief."

People who imagine religion only causes trouble are vastly mistaken. The many flaws and passions of human beings will always exist. Religion channels and contains them in adherents, and far, far more often for better than worse.

He's saying our nation needs Christians who dumped Jesus for Trump to return to the beliefs that taught them to be their brother's keeper. Not exactly a new or radical idea.

Btw, irreligious people are hardly immune from religious-level passions. Political believers have caused those rivers of blood to flow also. They just claim other justifications for their behaviors than a god's instruction is all.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. lolwut

Religion channels and contains them, and far, far more often for better than worse.

Yeah... no.

[Celerity]

15. Indeed, that was a head spinner for me. It goes against tens of thousands of years

of human history.

[Hortensis]

16. :) You can hold to that belief with religious-level dogmatism even

as you live through what people who've abandoned the precepts of Christianity for political passions are doing? As the OP suggests, Whatshisname on Joe is just plain wrong, a real goofball at best, promoting the evils of religion for what's probably a suspect agenda?

To me that looks like clinging to faith over fact. People of zealous religious faith are more similar than otherwise to those who are equally passionate and aggressive in pursuit of secular beliefs taken on faith. Just look at all the genocides caused by ethnic, racial, economic, geographic, political, etc, etc, kind of hates. Over farming versus grazing?

The big, important difference isn't in religion or secularism. It's between those who can respect and tolerate different groups, who are able to just plain respect that others have a right to be themselves, well enough to live together amicably -- versus those personal dispositions won't let them believe in the rightness of "live and let live."

In any case, Trumpists lie to themselves that they're still following the principles of their religion, but the reality is the radicalized secular political behaviors of people who've transferred their allegiance to an earthly clown. They chose him to lead them to political victory over those they are unwilling to "let live."

Their abandonment of religion while still claiming its cloak is perfectly understandable to thoughtful religious leaders. They've always known that in significant percentages of their supposed followers religion, and commitment to its precepts, is as shallow as a label "people like me" wear.

[shrike3]

18. In "It Can't Happen Here," by Sinclair Lewis, a character says the next great battle will be between

tolerance and intolerance. At one point in the book, people are crowded into re-education camps and they come from all lines of thinking: atheists, agnostics, Christians, Jews. What they all have in common? They're tolerant people.

[Hortensis]

24. Tolerance! Yes. I just mentioned that below, and then found this. Yes!!!

Refusal to tolerate differences is trumpeted as a false virtue by radicalized types on both right and left. It's one of the most defining characteristics. Only they are right, and everyone who disagrees is the problem they must overcome.

[Celerity]

21. I find his ideas repugnant, bigoted, and his analysis shoddy, simple as that. It really pissed me

off that he chose to toss LGBTQ rights under the bus by trying to frame it as being some sore of outcome of 'wokeness', a concept which he chooses to make one of his principal foils via a negative framing that comes straight out of the RW playbook.

I do not engage with religious people (on the topic of religion) until their beliefs impinge upon my rights or they wish to have a colloquy in regards to religion. I am most definitely not a proselytising atheist, but I refuse to cede ground to people who try and interfere with my life and other people's lives based off their religious beliefs. Radical interpretations of religions are not woven out of the aether, they are an inevitable consequence of the entire concept of religion to begin with. Religion is nothing if not a system of control, and when control is intertwined with magical thinking and the baser parts of human nature, horrid outcomes are fated to occur. The answer to that is not to introduce a variant of further magical thought and control, as that ploy is once again reliant on the baser natures somehow being held in check by the same apparatuses that lead to the negative outcomes in the first place. It is simply setting up humankind for further misery down the road, kicking the 'god can', if you will, down the road.

[Celerity]

14. profoundly disagree with this take

The willing suspension of disbelief that is necessary to be believe in a god or gods is one of the biggest dangers, if not the greatest danger, in human history.

Also, I found his tossing LGBTQ rights under the bus via a tying of the subject to his own arbitrary (and negatively framed) definition of 'wokeness' (which is now a standard RW trope to attack the left) as being extraordinarily offensive.

He also was quite clueless on his takes on the European experiences, especially those bound up with claims of identity, authenticity, and what forces are ties that bind versus the forces that cause atomisation.

Finally, you do NOT need a robust return of religion to deal with MAGA Jesus. That is also patently offensive and condescending.

[Hortensis]

20. "Suspension of disbelief" requires only the will, not a god, Celerity. nt

[Celerity]

25. but a god or gods require it nt

[shrike3]

17. I sort of agree with him.

With one in five Americans having no religion, you'd think our lives would be all about science, reason, etc. Hell no, I know an awful lot of non-religious people, and they are into some of the craziest shit I've ever heard. I think some people just need to believe in something and they cabbage onto whatever happens to grabs their fancy. I know devout Catholic ladies who pray the rosary every day but also watch Rachel Maddow and say, "Trust the science." I know stone atheists who say, "It's all a hoax." Go figure.

I also see a rise in nihilism, for lack of a better word. Nothing matters, it's all bullshit, etc. Belief in nothing. If you believe in nothing, why even believe in people? (My observations only.)

That said, what he recommends is impossible: America will continue its drift toward the secular. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. But surely there are ways to cultivate community that don't involve religion.

[Hortensis]

23. :) Oh, excellent. "some people just need to believe in something and

they cabbage onto whatever happens to grab their fancy."

Agree entirely, except maybe the last. There is no one big action that will restore calm and confidence in ourselves to our nation, but many smaller actions can. While the shift of some to secular beliefs continues, rooting corrupting political influences out of churches and restoring moral teachings will do enormous good for those who attend. A job for the churches themselves, and, boy, don't those who still have the right stuff know it.

Speaking of moral teachings, healing America requires once again recognizing tolerance as a virtue. The Big Lie trumpeted by intolerant-trouble makers on both right and left is that it means supporting or caving to what is wrong. Not!

Tolerance as a virtue critical to society means accepting differences that are inevitable among people living their lives, enjoying their liberties, and pursuing their happiness in their own ways.

The old living by the golden rule and meaning it.

[Celerity]

26. most religions, and certainly the 3 Abrahamic ones, are by definition, the epitome of intolerance

I am hard pressed to think of a more intolerant concept than that of the christian hell. Believe what I say, believe in me, worship me, or you shall suffer for eternity.

[Hortensis]

27. True or not, they'd hardly be the ONLY epitomes of intolerance.

This thread is full of contenders, or at least prime examples.

[Celerity]

28. oh, do tell

they'd hardly be the ONLY epitomes of intolerance.

This thread is full of contenders, or at least prime examples.

[Hortensis]

33. If it was necessary, what'd be the point? If not necessary,

isn't it a game not worth playing?

[shrike3]

31. Hell is actually a very old concept that predates Christianity probably by thousands of years.

Probably because people have always done terrible things, and one would like to think they experience some sort of "justice" in the next world if not this one.

[shrike3]

30. All good suggestions. An emphasis on ethics, simply doing what is right, in small ways as you say.

Certainly one can be good without God and religion.

[Hortensis]

34. Certainly. But we almost all want to be good, but without guidance

don't always know what good is or how to be good. Instead we too typically get tugged and buffeted one way and another until blown together with people who validate unexamined notions by sharing them.

Speaking of, I was shocked on moving to rural GA to discover that many evangelical and fundamentalist churches offer no moral lessons during Sunday services and that many ministers simply don't have the ability to teach them if required. Most mainline churches require studies in theology and screening for ability.
And no wonder so many rural evangelicals without good inner voices are so screwed up these days. But they're hardly worse off than anyone else without a decent moral foundation and the ability to apply it.

[dsc]

22. I watched and listened to that this morning and was irate

I am so sick of hearing this crap about how only by f ing over LGBT folk can society work. LGBT aren't asking for special rights, we are asking for our rights to be respected just like his.

[themaguffin]

35. Um, I remember a guest in 2015/16 who was worse....

[Celerity]

36. I said non rethug (added it in close to the time I posted it)

[msfiddlestix]

37. I caught some of this interview. I missed the swipe at LGBTQ but boy howdy...

My take away closely matches your take. I could not disagree MORE with that line crap he dished out. His analysis and his idea of how the Democratic Party is responsible for the extremism is beyond the pale of "flawed" to put it mildly.

I recall feeling like calling Ron Regean Jr. with FFRF to respond swiftly and with precision. I've been busy and haven't a chance to check into FFRF website for their take away, but I have to believe they've responded to the interview or at least the article.

Gaslighting Secularists, blaming us for White Supremacists and insisting that WE enable and appease THEIR fears.

fuck him.


ETA.. Just checked Freedom From Religion Foundation's webpage and I don't see anything at the moment in response Shadi Hamid's Screed. I hope to see something soon which addresses serious flaws in Hamid's hit piece.