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David Knowles reports at Bloomberg that former Hewlett-Packard CEO and potential 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina called out Apple CEO Tim Cook as a hypocrite for criticizing Indiana and Arkansas over their Religious Freedom Restoration Acts while at the same time doing business in countries where gay rights are non-existent. “When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he’s in, including China and Saudi Arabia,” Fiorina said. “But I don’t hear him being upset about that.”
In similar criticism of Hillary Clinton on the Fox News program Hannity, Fiorina argued that Clinton's advocacy on behalf of women was tarnished by donations made to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments where women's rights are not on par with those in America. ""I must say as a woman, I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton travels the Silicon Valley, a place where I worked for a long time, and lectures Silicon Valley companies on women's rights in technology, and yet sees nothing wrong with taking money from the Algerian government, which really denies women the most basic human rights. This is called, Sean, hypocrisy." While Hillary Clinton hasn't directly addressed Fiorina's criticisms, her husband has. “You’ve got to decide, when you do this work, whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country,” former president Bill Clinton said in March. “And I believe we have done a lot more good than harm. And I believe this is a good thing.”
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday April 06 2015, @03:14PM
Your ignorance is overwhelming.
ISIS (or what everyone who actually lives in the Middle East calls "Daesh") is currently a declared enemy of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, UAE, and Syria, and is widely opposed by most of the residents of the Middle East as well as by their governments. It's about the only thing that everybody in the Middle East agrees on. The only reason Daesh has any kind of traction whatsoever is that the governments in Baghdad and Damascus have been even worse to the residents of the area now controlled by Daesh than Daesh has been.
The reason that liberals tend to be supportive of Islam is not because they support terrorism or stoning people to death, but because the vast majority of Muslims don't actually behave like that and blaming them all for that is both bigoted and wildly inaccurate. Mosques don't, as a rule, promote terrorism as an appropriate action to take, and numerous clerics and scholars have spoken out against it (sometimes risking their life to do so). Your average Muslim basically wants a good job, a reasonable guarantee of personal safety, and time to spend with his family - in other words, what your average Christian wants.
Liberals also are quite supportive of liberal Christianity: When Pope Francis goes around emphasizing taking care of poor people, liberals are happy to support it. Heck, many liberals *are* Christians - I've found people with liberal views in Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal (Anglican), black Baptist, and congregational churches.
Also, if you're looking for some bad stuff that Christian churches have endorsed:
- Christian ministers pushed Uganda to pass a law that allowed the government to round up and kill homosexual people (they eventually were convinced to change that to locking them up for life). Hundreds of thousands of people have signed on to a similar measure in California.
- There are many Christian ministers who endorse the utter slaughter of the non-Jewish residents of the Middle East. They're truly upset that the US isn't at war with Iran right now.
- There are many Christian churches that advocate the male head of household beating his wife and children. In addition, many Christian leaders do not consider it rape if a husband forces his wife to have sex.
- Many Christians (and pretty much all Jews, for that matter) endorse male genital mutilation a.k.a. circumcision.
- Many Christian churches historically were advocates of racial segregation and discrimination. More than a few had ties to the KKK.
- Many Christian churches oppose abortions that are necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman.
- Many Christians in the United States endorse very publicly the idea that Christians should have more political rights than everybody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 06 2015, @03:33PM
"(sometimes risking their life to do so)"
Imagine that. When was the last time the Pope, or a bishop, issued a fatwah against some other cleric with different views? What barbarians - and you help to make my point.
Your points against Christianity are noted. Also noted, are the lack of citations.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 06 2015, @06:53PM
Here is another citation for you to ignore:
Lord's Resistance Army [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 06 2015, @07:04PM
Uh-huh. And, who endorses this "army"? The pope? American baptists?
Maybe you should read the article you cite in it's entirety. It explains who and what the "Lord's Army" is. It could go further in depth with the explanation, but it most assuredly makes the point that it is NOT part of Christianity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:09PM
You've got a big case of no true scottsman fallacy going on there.
> And, who endorses this "army"? The pope? American baptists?
So if religious authorities fail to endorse a sect that makes the sect not part of the religion?
What if religious authorities actively denounce a sect? [mediamatters.org]
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Monday April 06 2015, @07:52PM
Death of Savita Halappanavar:
The death of Savita Halappanavar on 28 October 2012, at University Hospital Galway in Ireland, led to nationwide protests—which spilled over into India, Britain and many other countries—calling for a review of the abortion laws in Ireland. Halappanavar, a woman of Indian origin, was suffering from a miscarriage (which was later assessed to be most likely due to a bacterial infection), when she was some 17 weeks pregnant, she sought medical attention and treatment at University Hospital Galway. Beginning no earlier than the date of her hospital admission on October 21, her requests for an abortion were refused, instead being told that due to her fetus retaining a heartbeat and her life not appearing to be in physiological danger, this was not legal. On one occasion she was told "it was the law, that this is a Catholic country." On the night of October 23, according to Praveen, her husband, Halappanavar was standing in a restroom and collapsed. The following day the foetal remains were removed from her womb on 24 October in the operating theatre due to a diagnosis of septic shock being made by a consultant, per Irish law. Savita Halappanavar's septicemia further deteriorated despite being treated with oral antibiotics for infection since late October 22 and intravenous antibiotics since October 24. Both were ineffective and her condition rapidly evolved to the point of organ failure and finally cardiac arrest and death on 28 October 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar [wikipedia.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 06 2015, @08:29PM
Doctors were less than competent - and they allowed their religious beliefs to interfere with their diagnosis. Got it - and your point? Oh - abortion. Well - I'm opposed to abortion in general, so I can't follow you on that line of thought. I can agree if you are condemning those doctors for incompetence.
Oh - you're trying to make a case that incompetent doctors are a Christian thing? I certainly hope not!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:30PM
I think the point is that religion (specifically the Roman Catholic form of Christianity in that case) interfered with proper medical care. The religiously inspired laws directly contributed to that woman's death. You can't simply call the doctors incompetent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday April 06 2015, @08:08PM
WRT circumcision:
Male circumcision has arguments in it's favor, as well as against it. It does, e.g., offer a measure of protection against some diseases. It's not profoundly disabling. (There are those who claim a minor decrease in sensitivity, but I doubt that there can have been reasonable comparison studies, so I feel free to doubt them.)
OTOH, other similar practices, e.g. subincision, or when circumcision is performed in a non-sterile environment, etc. really are difficult to accept. I understand their historic rationale, but I still find them hard to accept. Also I'm assuming that circumcision is performed under an anesthetic (local).
Even so, this is a matter that is ... I have difficulty accepting it as desirable. I just don't consider it horrible. Perhaps if I had not been circumcised as an infant I'd have a different feeling. I doubt that it would be more positive.
Still, I don't think that it's correct to lump circumcision in with the other abominations committed by those Churches and Ministers that, without much contradiction, call themselves Christian. But do note that many Christian Churches and Ministers don't accept the abominations that you recite as valid Christian behavior. And certainly the New Testament gives them scant grounds for acceptance.
The Muslim situation is a bit different. Their primary source book was written by a Religious leader engaged in armed struggle for dominance, and it reflects that. There has been a great Muslim civilizations that did not consider those an essential part of the teaching (at least the fragmentary records seem to indicate that), but it was wiped out by the Mongols. The survivors were from the fringe, and again needed to practice the military virtues, and ignore the military vices. This has created a quite unfortunate religion that the planet would be much better off without, but there's no obvious reasonable way to get from here to there. The ideal way would be to de-emphasize the effects of religion in communal life, but many people seem to have an inbuilt need for some "great sky father", however unreasonable that may be. And certainly there are plenty of reasons to not trust those who are guided by non-religious emotions. They are often merely power seekers, and have no care for ethics. (I'd say "or morals" but too many people read that as sexual, which is only vaguely related to what I'm talking about.)
Please note: One shouldn't whitewash the vile Christian behaviors on a wide scale just because it is currently restricted to relatively powerless groups. But the New Testament doesn't give them valid religious grounds for their behavior. So that is probably more a matter of "the love of power entices the corrupt, and further corrupts those it entices", and ANY group that seizes power on that scale should not be trusted. No matter HOW they got it. The Catholic Church became powerful through largely peaceful means, if you exclude things like the forcible conversion under Constantine and Charlemagne. And you will have to excuse me if I consider that more a means of shrewd amoral politicians seeing a path to power. Then, of course, it was powerful, and embraced the amoral corruptions of power rather then attending to the actual religious message. But do note that as soon as the Christians became powerful, rather than abolishing the arena they started sending Pagans to it. (And I must admit that even in this case I'm avoiding such things as the massacre of the Nazarenes under a Christian general of a Roman army. This lead to the destruction of those maintaining (as near as can be told) the original Christian belief...whatever it was. The New Testament is a grossly unreliable source in this matter, being mainly that which the Christian group at Rome found acceptable and desirable. Much was censored long before the Council of Nicea, but nobody is quite sure what it said. That it may well have been radically different is shown by how different the Gospel of Thomas (from the Coptic Church) is from the others. but this doesn't mean it was like that, either. All of the "official documents" were preserved by some group with a particular ax to grind. The variation from different sources (and forgive me if I count the standard New Testament as being from only one source, but it came under the power of the Church of Rome. I believe that the Nazarenes has a quite different set of beliefs, just judging from fragmentary records I've encountered. The Byzantine Church and the Church of Rome made various agreements as to what should be included, so their general agreement doesn't count for much. And both gave clear evidence that they were more interested in power than in purity of doctrine (unlike the Jews arguing over the meaning of the Torah, who seem to have given priority of purity of doctrine, even if they seem to have occasionally gotten it wrong).
FWIW, most Muslims seem concerned with purity of doctrine. If I thought more highly of their doctrine than I'd approve of this more. And with most doctrines different groups hit on different parts as the most important. So many Muslims actually are peaceful, and see their religion as peaceful, despite the literal reading of the scripture if you give equal weight to all parts. Unfortunately, there are enough parts encouraging violence that purity of doctrine doesn't provide any shield against the more violent desires that some people have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Monday April 06 2015, @09:54PM
I think people got it backwards. There is no good liberal Christianity against bad Christian fundamentalism.
The faith is fundamental by definition. Deploring fundamentalism is being a troll or having been trolled, because a Christian fundamentalist is a Christian, can't do anything but follow the word and example of the guy called Christ (with the problem of trusting written words, or the tradition, or the examples of earlier believers), who was a pretty harmless guy.
Some examples you reported are clearly not following the words nor the example of Christ.
Forcing people to follow your belief is especially anti Christ, the guy never ever forced anybody. Attention to sexual issues is also suspect because the guy never raised the subject (being adulterous is a breach of social contract more that a sexual issue). What about discussing the things that made Christ angry in the temple, instead?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @10:46PM
I don't think I've ever met a self-proclaimed Christian who followed the words or example of Christ. Every single one I've met just cherrypicked and twisted the scripture to support their pre-determined biases and prejudices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:15AM
There is a word for people who cherrypick facts to support their pre-determined biases and prejudices: "People"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 06 2015, @11:03PM
That, in essence, is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: I was responding to the argument that Christians don't endorse awful things by pointing out many awful things that were indeed endorsed by Christian leaders. The answer of "Well, they aren't real Christians" doesn't hold any more weight than the argument (which many have made in the Muslim world) that Daesh leader Ibrihim al-Badri is not a true Muslim.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:15PM
I don't think that the No True Scotsman fallacy applies here. Being a Scotsman (or whatever) is both an inherent quality and one that does not prescribe behaviour. Being a member of a religion however has neither of these traits (even though most people only belong to their religion because of what they were raised to believe by their family and society, it is still not an inherent quality). It does prescribe behaviour. So if you belong to Religion X, and it says "Don't kill under any circumstances" and you go around killing people, I think that that disqualifies you from being properly called a member of that religion because you are not following the prescription. If there are many such prescriptions (as there usually are), how many you follow properly I think qualifies you as being "more or less" of a member of that religion, and if not all then you can say that they are not a "true" member. NTS only applies when characteristics are being talked about that do not have anything to do with the actual quality or requisites of the thing being discussed (such as wearing a kilt a certain way for a Scotsman, since the only thing necessary to be a "True" Scotsman is to be born in Scotland).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:09AM
I agree, but at the same time I don't. The only way we can know somebody's belief system is by them self-identifying it, and the church isn't going to ban people from attending because they don't follow Christ's teachings perfectly, so even if they do the opposite of every single teaching in the book they can still be "Christian", otherwise we need new terms for people who state they have a certain belief system but whose actions say otherwise.
When it comes to religion, whatever they self-identify as is their religion is their religion, whether they practice it or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:51AM
No True Scotsman applies when someone completely arbitrarily decides that someone isn't a True X even when they fit the definition.