Since reality-based folk do not merely take another's word for it, eternal life seems a stretch if not completely based on words alone. Maybe someone could point out that buying the Brooklyn Bridge is a real deal, if merely a hist, compared to eternal life. If one is so disaffected with reality as to seriously beleive in eternal life, than it seems one will be hard pressed to "sell" reality to them. I have not read a poll that asked "Do you believe in eternal life?", but I suspect a majority of those polled would. Therefore, a broadside against non-reality based folk may not be the best approach. A society that is reality-based may not be possible. A society that approaches reality more than our present administration eschews it may be a more moderate if less satisfying approach. It strikes me, as much as I agree with this article, that it is not really reality-based.

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It makes them somewhat stupid, Jan. Read Schmookler's article at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0131-29.htm.

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is that part about: "We're all trying to reject this Thing that demeans us, steals meaning from our lives, " and how we should approach appealing to that need without going religious.

I agree - to go religious isn't the answer. Too many posters on the other threads that broach this topic immediately react as a vampire does to sunlight. They are instinctively defensive when it comes to anything spiritually-based.

I think, however, that the way to appeal to that need within all of us to find meaning lies only in a sort-of spiritualism. Not a God-type of spiritualism, but a Balance-type (if Balance were in fact an ideology). Balance in life and in political approach to it would use words such as value, equality, diversity, fairness, attention, replenishment, respect and integrity. It would have long range and short range goals. it would speak to the ethics that are inherent to most of us but that religion has claimed to have invented.

That's the secret, I think - to remind people that religion didn't invent our values and ethics and morality - instead our ethics, values and morality invented religion.

Spin it around. Take it back. Speak secularly but think "eternal-life" in terms of this planet and our legacies.

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Sounds like an oxymoron, no? If there's one near you, visit your nearest Unitarian "church."

There's no official creed. No holy book. There are a few simple principles. Each one appeals deeply to me. Here are a few, taken straight from www.uua.org:

* The inherent worth and dignity of every person
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence...

As a root source, UUs draw from "Humanist teachings which counsel the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn against idolatries of the mind and spirit."

Mostly, what I get from attending UU services are dynamite sermons that make me think, laugh, or cry -- about politics, ethics, art, about the Cosmos one Sunday or about Darwin on the next.

I've found a smart, warm, caring community. Lefties, check it out. You may not find salvation, but you will find Liberal religion -- the religion of Emerson and Thoreau.

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DUPES.

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... lazy, silly sheep, who are one day going to be eaten up by the wolves in sheep's clothing... in fact, they are even now: dying because they can't get their Medicare prescriptions. Because of what Robertson and his neocon/Dominionist gang have already wrought.

Hey wait a minute: on that note, before I forget: Send me your health care horror stories: an appeal from Michael Moore.

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These are but of a few of the latest in a long line of people (and it is a very long one) who have used/abused people seeking god and meaning in their lives for their own selfish purposes. These pastors/prophets/whatever no more represent the orthodox (in traditional-not denominational) Christian faith than OBL and his kind represent orthodox Islam.

A simple question for the faith healers-

If you can heal people, why aren't you emptying the St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Shriner's Burn Hospitals and other places full of innocent children who did not earn their fate/condition by any life choice of their own? How about going to East Africa, where tens of millions are infected with HIV?

I see the legitimate church running homeless shelters, homes for abused women, orphanages, charity hospitals and clinics, literacy programs, digging clean water wells in the third world, feeding hungry people and more. Samaritan's Purse, The Salvation Army, International Catholic Relief and others are working all over the world taking care of people in great need. Not only are they frequently there first- they are many times the only ones to arrive and are there long after everyone else is gone.

By their works you shall know them...

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What do you mean "if"?

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What's causing pain for Christians in the US (and most everyone in the developed world) is the same problem you face when you want something from the fridge but don't want to get up off the sofa. You have to give up something to get the thing that you need to make you feel better. In the case of all of us, we need to give up our addiction to a consumerist vision where the reward is always over the horizon (you'll feel good when you buy this, you'll be better off after doing that...). Plain and simple - cut it cold. Maybe the Buddhists have it right - existence is suffering and the thing to do is deal with that.

No one wants to peddle this unlovable message so instead we get compromise solutions - which is what the Christian right is selling. You can have your cake and eat it too because they will assuage the pain caused by living in this world. It's about selling a promise of something better.

Enough foolishnes. Treat the disease, not the symptom.

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Mr. Frel, I respect your work, but I have to say that you fell right in to the trap that's been laid by the GOP for the last 30 years. "Liberals Hate God." I know that's not a fair assessment of your position, but you let your jusitifiable anger at the damage done by the TV "preachers" pull you into one more glib dismissal of Christians in the US. It's ahistorical, and ultimately anti-intellectual, since it ignores extensive research into the history of social movements in America. The left needs to engage with people where they are, not imply that they are responsible for everyone who claims to speak for them. Calling people "servile and deluded suckers" and questioning whether they should "be around" is not getting us anywhere. They ARE around, and there are reasons they are where they are. If we can stick up for gang members on death row, surely we can have a little compassion and grace for people who are having their beliefs manipulated for profit and position.

I don't suggest that you kowtow to a cosmology you don't believe in, that serves no one's interests. However, tactically speaking: a large majority of Americans believe in invisible things of one kind or another. A large majority of Americans also supports national health care, a redirection of spending priorities away from the military, better stewardship of the environment, and limits on corporate activity. Therefore, there is a huge overlap between religious belief and support for progressive causes. That ain't going away. If you want to effect change, then it would be useful to have a little forbearance and grace when addressing this difficult issue.

Finally, for what it's worth, I am a music director at a pretty square church, in conservative Virginia. I talk to Christians all the time, from various denominations, and with a few unfortunate exceptions, I find that people are embarassed every time these guys open their mouths. Does the DNC speak for liberals? Nope. Does the small cadre of televangelists speak for Christians? Nope.

I won't deny the damage done by political preachers. I absolutely deny that they are in line with the Gospels, or that they represent the views and un-trumpeted practices of the great majority of churchgoers in the country. And I suggest that progressives need to actually get to know a wide range of believers before they wipe them off their mental and tactical maps. You might be very surprised at what you find out there.

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Why do you want to "insult the flock at the outset"? To score points with your readership? How many useful conversations start with an insult? The structure of your piece demonstrates the way in which progressives do exactly what the right-wing faithful do: get together and bitch about how stupid the other side is. Meanwhile, the great, bland, relatively uninformed center waits for someone to show some vision and commitment to something besides power and money.

I grieve for the day when people understood that we don't have to agree on everything to work together. Did the college liberals and the Jewish activists and the Black Baptists and Methodists of the Civil Rights Movement agree on the nature of the universe? Of course not. But they worked with their shared desire for justice, and they accomplished huge things. We have walked away from that mutual respect and consideration, and that's reflected in the fact that very few black and white people are working together in social movements anymore.

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Worrying about gaining voters should be secondary to losing real supporters. I will NEVER again vote for or support in any way present democratic leadership. They haven't even been able to ensure voting machine integrity! They have repeatedly shown they can't even enforce party discipline on the most important party issues, against the most outrageously partisan assaults. They are bankrupt of ideas, & are unable to communicate a clear sense of right and wrong. Has everyone forgotten it was President Clinton who signed the Telecommunications Act and who started the corporate rush to outsourcing, without getting ANY intellectual property right concessions?
Democratic leadership should have threatened to THROW any Senator who voted for Alito out of the party!. They long ago should have thrown Lieberman out of the party! They no longer will get my support just because the other guys are terrible. Instead, I will ridicule and shame them at every opportunity. Hillory Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, what a travesty. Hear this Democratic leadership: YOU ARE INEPT; YOU'LL GET NO MORE DONATIONS, NO MORE FUND-RAISING, NO MORE PRECINCT WALKING FROM ME. YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF MY SUPPORT!

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My mother watched Pat Robertson every day for 30 years. She's still waiting for the Rapture, even though she's in her late 60s and has had a stroke (it looks like mortality will overtake her before the Rapture, unless Yahweh gets busy with the end times finally). But she isn't a right-wing wacko. She believes the environment is in trouble, and she sees how my siblings can't make ends meet because the economy's been rigged for the rich.

So why do people like Mom listen to lunatics like Robertson? It's because the Left doesn't appeal to them because the Left has made "cultural" issues like gay marriage into non-negotiables. People like my mother have to believe that someone speaks for them - the ordinary, somewhat rubish American - and they'll stick with whoever speaks to them, no matter how crooked, rather than face the fact that the ordinary middle American is on their own.

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