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I'm tracking with you Scruffy. As a former EOA I go with announcing the main line of hate groups. Like KKK, Black Panthers, certain Islamic groups, Neo Nazi's and what not. I do not pull a list from a "questionable" source and go with approve DoD subject matter. Its not my job, same as the instructor, to start classifying organizations as Hate groups. Go with the material in hand and leave that sort of decisions to those higher up on the food chain. Then again I be real damn leery on calling any Christian group based off the Bible a hate group.

 Jihadin wrote:
Then again I be real damn leery on calling any Christian group based off the Bible a hate group.

This jibes really nicely with what Ahtman said earlier.

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think it is that they are defending a hate group so much as they have trouble believing there could be such a thing as a Christian hate group. Intellectually I think they know that there are many different manifestations of Christianity, but whenever they hear that a Christian group is added to a list the "us vs them" mentality kicks in and suddenly it is a homogenous group; it is an emotional response, not a measured, thoughtful one.

 Ouze wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Then again I be real damn leery on calling any Christian group based off the Bible a hate group.

This jibes really nicely with what Ahtman said earlier.

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think it is that they are defending a hate group so much as they have trouble believing there could be such a thing as a Christian hate group. Intellectually I think they know that there are many different manifestations of Christianity, but whenever they hear that a Christian group is added to a list the "us vs them" mentality kicks in and suddenly it is a homogenous group; it is an emotional response, not a measured, thoughtful one.

Pretty much. I can't see any difference between a group which chooses to read and take to heart (and include in their policies etc) all the violent, hateful parts of the bible and a group which chooses to read and take to heart all the violent, hateful parts of other religious/political/social works. They are a hate group, no matter what book they are basing their work on. It's ridiculous to say that the because they are based on Christianity and the bible that they are somehow exempt from this.

Still waiting on those criteria for defining a hate group someone implied they had earlier in the thread.

 Seaward wrote:
Still waiting on those criteria for defining a hate group someone implied they had earlier in the thread.

I'm fairly sure the whole hatred of homosexuality (i.e hating a group of people) defines the group as a hate group.

 Imposter101 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Still waiting on those criteria for defining a hate group someone implied they had earlier in the thread.

I'm fairly sure the whole hatred of homosexuality (i.e hating a group of people) defines the group as a hate group.

And since it is (now) perfectly legal for gay Americans to serve in the armed forces while not having to either lie about being gay or hide it, it is probably best not to put in people that don't consider our gay countrymen people, and are ok with laws that call for the execution of gays just for being gay. If we replaced their hate speech for homosexuals with African Americans I don't think there would be this confusion. If they said their hatred of blacks was based on biblical teachings (and there are those who do say that) I don't think they would have trouble seeing them as perverting the religion to some odd end either that is beyond the pale.

Sounds like you guys should have a very easy time coming up with some clear, concise criteria, then.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/15/pentagon-admits-christian-ministry-not-hate-group-says-label-does-not-reflect/?intcmp=latestnews

Sorry if posted already, I'm not digging through 6 pages, but figured if it's just hitting a major site now, it's pretty recent.

Pentagon says that the call was wrong.

 Seaward wrote:
Sounds like you guys should have a very easy time coming up with some clear, concise criteria, then.

Why should we define it? We don't set military policy, so the one that matters in this case is theirs, and if you want to know what it is look it up. If anything it seems like you are obliquely trying to make the argument that there aren't hate groups, which is far more interesting.

 djones520 wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/15/pentagon-admits-christian-ministry-not-hate-group-says-label-does-not-reflect/?intcmp=latestnews

Sorry if posted already, I'm not digging through 6 pages

It had not been, and you didn't really miss anything.

Meanwhile, the president of the well-respected Christian ministry says his organization may file a defamation lawsuit against the military.

Best of luck with that.

Also, many lol's at "well-respected".

“Here you have a Christian ministry trying to do good work and you have the Department of Defense going around smearing your name and trying to turn people against you – spreading false statements about you,” Sasser told me. “It’s just awful what’s going on.”

Unintentionally hilarious quote of the year.

 Frazzled wrote:
Yes indeedy. Like PETA, they started off good but expanded into just being their own little fringe group. Anyone who's conservative is pretty much a domestic terrorist in their eyes.

This is just total and complete bs.

The latest list of hate groups breaks down as follows;
186 separate Ku Klux Klan groups
196 neo-Nazi groups
111 White nationalist groups
98 White power skinhead groups
39 Christian Identity groups
93 neo-Confederate groups
113 black separatist groups

Out of 1,007 hate groups, 855 are groups that no-one would think are contraversial (skinheads, KKK, neo-confederates etc). Of the remaining 152 groups, 113 of them could, if assigned to any political wing, be assigned to the left. That leaves us with 39 Christian groups... and apparently that's evidence of an anti-conservative bias.

And of those Christian groups, no-one.... not one fething person in this thread has attempted any kind of defence. No effort at all to explain why the AFA isn't a straight up hate group. Instead they've just vaguely asserted that the SPLC is all left wing and stuff, so people should just ignore their classification... and whatever you do don't ever actually read up on the groups or find out what they actually argue for. That would involve learning, and perhaps finding out that these groups really do preach hate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:
It does perhaps inadvertently bring up an interesting point, though, in that shouldn't we have some sort of solid definition for such a thing that we can all use

Funnily enough the SPLC has exactly that very thing;
"have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

I'm not saying we should, necessarily - I generally don't agree with the whole "hate crime" thing, and I tend to fall into the camp that says as long as you're not committing crimes, you can freely associate with like-minded people and spout whatever vile stuff you want.

Sure, and it's worth pointing out that one can be agreement with the identification of various groups as hate groups, to encourage awareness about the the hate that group is preaching, without actually being in favour of legal action against them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
However, I did see several accusations that the Army basically simply copies the list from the SPLC which I find somewhat questionable since, as noted, they tend to be pretty quick to label conservatives as hateful.

Except, of course, that suggestion that the SPLC labels conservatives too quickly is pretty much a great big lie, told to protect very specific hate groups from being properly identified.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Then again I be real damn leery on calling any Christian group based off the Bible a hate group.

See, there's the problem. You see Christian, make a bunch of assumptions about the group, and give them a hell of a lot more leeway than you would some other group. Christian groups can be hateful as well, a few of them including the AFA make it their business to tell lies about other groups in society.

You don't get a pass on that because you claim you follow the bible.

Sebster. A EoA and a EO do not label any groups as a Hate group or a Extremist group. We do not make the decision to clarify any organizations as either. The instructor screwed up by using subject material that's not approved and back by the US Military and making it part of a quarterly training. There is no official list that I know of stating what organizations the US Military consider Hate or Extremists (domestic). We give the criteria that signify what is possible Hate or Extremist group.

 Jihadin wrote:
Sebster. A EoA and a EO do not label any groups as a Hate group or a Extremist group. We do not make the decision to clarify any organizations as either. The instructor screwed up by using subject material that's not approved and back by the US Military and making it part of a quarterly training. There is no official list that I know of stating what organizations the US Military consider Hate or Extremists (domestic). We give the criteria that signify what is possible Hate or Extremist group.

Yeah, that's cool. Note I didn't comment at all on what you should do as an EoA. It makes sense that acting on one's own initiative to go outside official channels and form a list of extremist groups based on a non-government list is a really bad idea.

I was just commenting on your claim that seeing that it was a Christian group would give you pause before you considered it a hate group. It shouldn't - whether there are religious justifications for their extremism or not shouldn't matter, all that should matter is whether the group spreads hate about others.

Christers being persecuted? Sounds like sweet, sweet, Karmic justice to me.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Christers being persecuted? Sounds like sweet, sweet, Karmic justice to me.

Because all current Christians have persecuted other people? Or out of some misguided need to see folks you disagree with persecuted?

Just curious as to your reasoning.

 CptJake wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Christers being persecuted? Sounds like sweet, sweet, Karmic justice to me.

Because all current Christians have persecuted other people? Or out of some misguided need to see folks you disagree with persecuted?

Just curious as to your reasoning.

I'm thinking B.

 Frazzled wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Christers being persecuted? Sounds like sweet, sweet, Karmic justice to me.

Because all current Christians have persecuted other people? Or out of some misguided need to see folks you disagree with persecuted?

Just curious as to your reasoning.

I'm thinking B.

I must have misunderstood him, or maybe I just hope that people are more reasonable than they appear in writing. I thought that, by "christers", he meant the kind of christian who hates gays/blacks/whatever with the burning passion that seb' posts showed that the guy holds. Not Christians in general. But I could have been off, maybe he'll clarify.

Christer is a derogatory term for Christian, usually said by coffeehouse idiots who never worked a day in their lives but believe the world owes them.

 Frazzled wrote:
Christer is a derogatory term for Christian, usually said by coffeehouse idiots who never worked a day in their lives but believe the world owes them.

I know it is a negative term, I was just saying that I'm hoping he means more the latter (in my post), which while I don't agree with him (yeah they should get in trouble, but it's not nice to take joy in someone else's suffering), is a lot more understandable than the former (again, of my post). I guess I'm just hoping for him to mean the best rather than the worst of the options available.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So, normally you'd be right, but there's a specific word for a sub-religion of Christianity, which is why referring to Christianity as a religion proper is ambiguous and confusing.

If you misread Catholic as Christian, with all the evidence showing that I was specifically referring to Catholics, then the fault still lies with you.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Yes indeedy. Like PETA, they started off good but expanded into just being their own little fringe group. Anyone who's conservative is pretty much a domestic terrorist in their eyes.

This is just total and complete bs.

The latest list of hate groups breaks down as follows;
186 separate Ku Klux Klan groups
196 neo-Nazi groups
111 White nationalist groups
98 White power skinhead groups
39 Christian Identity groups
93 neo-Confederate groups
113 black separatist groups

Out of 1,007 hate groups, 855 are groups that no-one would think are contraversial (skinheads, KKK, neo-confederates etc). Of the remaining 152 groups, 113 of them could, if assigned to any political wing, be assigned to the left. That leaves us with 39 Christian groups... and apparently that's evidence of an anti-conservative bias.

And of those Christian groups, no-one.... not one fething person in this thread has attempted any kind of defence. No effort at all to explain why the AFA isn't a straight up hate group. Instead they've just vaguely asserted that the SPLC is all left wing and stuff, so people should just ignore their classification... and whatever you do don't ever actually read up on the groups or find out what they actually argue for. That would involve learning, and perhaps finding out that these groups really do preach hate.

Is that the US Army's list of hate groups? If so then what does that have to do with Frazz said about the SPLC being less than accommodating towards right leaning groups? I'm trying to see the connection you're making.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Christers being persecuted? Sounds like sweet, sweet, Karmic justice to me.

This is just delicious irony.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So, normally you'd be right, but there's a specific word for a sub-religion of Christianity, which is why referring to Christianity as a religion proper is ambiguous and confusing.

If you misread Catholic as Christian, with all the evidence showing that I was specifically referring to Catholics, then the fault still lies with you.

There was no evidence when I made my post. You had made one post that didn't even mention Catholicism (although the post that you responded to did), so when you said religion I assumed that you meant religion and not a denomination, the same way that I'd assume you meant fruit in general as opposed to an orange if you used the word "fruit". It's not that you're incorrect, it's that saying religion when you mean a denomination is confusing, the same way that saying Third World when referring to Sweden is confusing but not incorrect.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
There was no evidence when I made my post. You had made one post that didn't even mention Catholicism (although the post that you responded to did), so when you said religion I assumed that you meant religion and not a denomination, the same way that I'd assume you meant fruit in general as opposed to an orange if you used the word "fruit". It's not that you're incorrect, it's that saying religion when you mean a denomination is confusing, the same way that saying Third World when referring to Sweden is confusing but not incorrect.

I made one post in response to the singling out of Catholicism. That should have provided ample enough context for you, but even if that was not sufficient then everything after should have been more than clear, as shown above. Instead after clarification and all evidence to the contrary you continued to argue, and still do, even when shown that you are wrong.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Yes indeedy. Like PETA, they started off good but expanded into just being their own little fringe group. Anyone who's conservative is pretty much a domestic terrorist in their eyes.

This is just total and complete bs.

The latest list of hate groups breaks down as follows;
186 separate Ku Klux Klan groups
196 neo-Nazi groups
111 White nationalist groups
98 White power skinhead groups
39 Christian Identity groups
93 neo-Confederate groups
113 black separatist groups

Out of 1,007 hate groups, 855 are groups that no-one would think are contraversial (skinheads, KKK, neo-confederates etc). Of the remaining 152 groups, 113 of them could, if assigned to any political wing, be assigned to the left. That leaves us with 39 Christian groups... and apparently that's evidence of an anti-conservative bias.

And of those Christian groups, no-one.... not one fething person in this thread has attempted any kind of defence. No effort at all to explain why the AFA isn't a straight up hate group. Instead they've just vaguely asserted that the SPLC is all left wing and stuff, so people should just ignore their classification... and whatever you do don't ever actually read up on the groups or find out what they actually argue for. That would involve learning, and perhaps finding out that these groups really do preach hate.

First the list is incomplete. any rational list would also include rabid Zionist organisations, including the ADL but your list doesnt include a single one. No Islamic groups either although the US does have an Islamic fringe, and its as vocal as ones in Europe.

Secondly the list doesn't appear to give weighting, from the evidence your present as to level of culpability, and there is a temptation to label them all as no better than Nazis, which probably isnt fair, especially when other categories of hate group are clearly absent.

 sebster wrote:

no-one.... not one fething person in this thread has attempted any kind of defence.

I will take that challenge.

One of the biggest problems a society finds over haste speech is that once someone or some group is accused of hate speech, rightly or wrongly its becomes acceptable to use hate speech against them. All too often the rights of the accused are trampled over in the expedience of a little schadenfreude. Frankly its more damaging than the original movement being targeted, in fact most hate agendas stem from an assumption of hate and the consequent belief that one doesn't have to keep to any moral standards in opposing it.
At least in the US there is protection, protection in theory also exists inthe UK, but it is quickly diminishing, people are accused of being exteremeists and extremism is sanctioned against them.

You yourself have fallen into this trap here.

 sebster wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
I've a lot of respect for them. Unlike the Westboro faction

Bryan Fischer is a lying, deceitful little gak, who peddles his lies in order to spread hatred.

Fischer said God could have stopped the Conneticut school massacre, but didn't because God won't go where he's not wanted (so Fischer's God is so petulant he'll let children be killed...)

He's also a great old racist; "Hispanics … don’t vote Democrat because of immigration. … It has to do with the fact that they are socialists by nature. They come from Mexico, which is a socialist country. They want big government intervention, they want big government goodies."

This is a direct quote from Fischer, through his twitter account;
“New pill stops HIV virus. But won’t stop AIDS since caused by extensive inhalant drug use, not HIV.” So in addition to worshiping a really cruel, hateful God, and being an old fashioned racist, Bryan Fischer is also an AIDS denier.

I've got pages more of this stuff if you want it. There is an immense amount of blog work done on the Patheos network discussing Fischer's hateful little place in the Christian far right.

Now, it might be that you just didn't know about Fischer and the kind of work he does as the leader of issue discussion for the organisation, but there it is. Fischer is hateful bigot, and he's been given a platform by the American Family Association because they are a hateful, bigoted organisation, and exactly the kind of fringe Christian organisation that people, including soldiers, need to be made aware of.

America likes to grow people like him, and a natural counterpoint of others who hate God so much they will do anything to take a shot. Shouldnt they be considered hate mongers too, shouldn't you? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Most, nearly all of the above are political comments with no actual or implied connection to religion. I don't know how close Fischer is to the AFA and don't really need to know, it would be interesting if the above comments were made on church time through church media and if that media was AFA controlled.

However lets look at the one relevant portion, which I highlighted in bold. I don't know the context of what was said, but from the context you give and the weighting of the words its quite a reasonable comment which has been twisted unfairly.
You dont have to believe in intercession but if you want to make comment on it then you ought to understand the theology of it, rather than take off on a rant based on a very skewed opinion of the subject.

"Fischer said God could have stopped the Conneticut school massacre " - theologically speaking yes, God can stop any atrocity.

"but didn't because God won't go where he's not wanted " - Fischer might have a point there, he might not. I don't know about prayer ministry in Connecticut. However he implies that there was no faith to be found there. Thats a hard point to make, and is unscriptural because we are warned not to assume on other relationships with God, wheras Fischer appears to be doing just that, claiming their faith was deficient. Despite this the theologicak conclusion regarding an assumed lack of intercession is a fair one.

"(so Fischer's God is so petulant he'll let children be killed...)" - If you want to draw a conclusion draw on one based on theological evidence. You have two options - a non belief in prayer which makes Fischers comments void from your paradigm. Or taking prayer at its value, hypothetical or real, in which case one needs to make comments based on understanding the theology of prayer.

The theology of intercessory prayer.
God is kind and cares about the worlds suffering. however God is also just and cannot dispense justice unless judgement is dispensed fairly. Thus God is self restricting about what he can do:
- He can show mercy, to groups or individuals, and it is said that 'his mercy triumphs over his judgement', those shown mercy have sins forgiven, but its a one way process, God can forgive unilaterally but cannot condemn unlaterally as that would not be fair, whereas mercy need not be fairly distributed as its a gift.
- He can show justice, but that has to be done fairly, to do so unilaterally means everyone must be judged equally or the justice would be unfair, this is a literal everyone. God can effectively do this only once and is referred to as the apocalypse/judgement day/second coming etc.
- God can judge people groups in isolation, such as whole cities but always by offering mercy first, with substantial time to repent, normally this is who generations and thus doesnt cover isolated events. An example hence the story of Jonah being sent to Ninevah.
- The only other exception is to respond to prayer, that is to work miracles where invited to do so. In this being wanted is important. Even Jesus had his powers shut down in Capernaum because of a lack of faith in the general area.

So a theologian could argue that an event could have been stopped by God but God did not because of lack of intercession. This does not in any way imply a "God is so petulant he'll let children be killed" and "worshiping a really cruel, hateful God". The mentality of God as explained by the correct theological teaching shows God to embody patience, mercy, and justice with a deep concern for people. To say otherwise is to deny the teachings of Christianity as applied to the quote you commented on. This doesnt prevent Fischer from having a skewed theology himself but there is no excuse to claim he has here, at least with regards to God's policy on prayer.

Now I am not expecting you to believe in prayer, but you have no excuse to make assumptions based on what you don't even believe in while completely ignoring the thinking behind it in order to present a skewed and frankly ignorant view of the subject. That is hate speech.

I am concerned that the US is growing a large number of donkey-cave preachers that do Christianity no good. But don't use them to hit at God.
It's taken as understood by practically everyone that the Westboro Baptists don't speak for any God the Christian community represents, and only a few desperate fanatics try to use them as examples to discredit Christianity itself.
Likewise I dont know Fischer or what he stands, perhaps you are right and he stands for hate speech, for but there is no excuse to twist words based on a theology you haven't bothered to try to understand, in order to come to the negative conclusions you prefer.

Sebster, I do not believe you to be an intentional bigot and want to break the cycle here. Your an atheist, I have no choice but to be OK with that, but please be more dispassionate about these sorts of arguments, if you hate God, keep it to yourself don't add it as an ingredient in arguments about religious groups because you cant look at them fairly when you do, and thus subject your victims to discrimination. This on a much larger scale is what is happening in the West with religious groups, Christian and otherwise and I suspect other groups also.

 Orlanth wrote:
I don't know how close Fischer is to the AFA and don't really need to know, it would be interesting if the above comments were made on church time through church media and if that media was AFA controlled.

I think it is important to know something like that though, because it should influence whether you judge those statements to be the ramblings of a random individual, or to be representatitve of an organisation's stance. I fail to see the relevance if the speeches are made on church time through church media though (I don't get what church time is, do you mean during the service itself?), unless the AFA is actually a church... (wikipedia-ing now). Ok, they don't seem to be a church, focusing mainly on "activism efforts, including boycotts, buycotts, action alert emails, publications on the AFA's web sites or in the AFA Journal, broadcasts on American Family Radio, and lobbying". So since it isn't a church, and it wasn't the catholic church/christians in general being labeled a hate group, I don't see how that would be relevant?

I know its just wikipedia, but assuming no one has edited it since the beginning of this discussion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Fischer

"Bryan Jonathan Fischer is the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association (AFA). He hosts the talk radio program Focal Point on American Family Radio and posts on the AFA-run blog Instant Analysis (formerly Rightly Concerned)."

So it sounds like he's very closely linked to them, and makes those comments through AFA funded and controlled media.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
There was no evidence when I made my post. You had made one post that didn't even mention Catholicism (although the post that you responded to did), so when you said religion I assumed that you meant religion and not a denomination, the same way that I'd assume you meant fruit in general as opposed to an orange if you used the word "fruit". It's not that you're incorrect, it's that saying religion when you mean a denomination is confusing, the same way that saying Third World when referring to Sweden is confusing but not incorrect.

I made one post in response to the singling out of Catholicism. That should have provided ample enough context for you, but even if that was not sufficient then everything after should have been more than clear, as shown above. Instead after clarification and all evidence to the contrary you continued to argue, and still do, even when shown that you are wrong.

Right, you're not even reading my posts now. I've said that it's clear enough once you started posting additional posts, but that the original one (you know, the one I responded to without the gift of prescience) referred to singling out a religion, as opposed to a denomination. When the post you're accusing of singling out a religion mentions Catholicism I went ahead and assumed that the religion you were referring to in that post was Christianity because that's the religion mentioned, seeing as Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity. Your clarifying posts have nothing to do with my argument, what I'm arguing is that using the word "religion" when you were in fact referring to a denomination is sloppy and causes misunderstandings such as this.

http://equalitymatters.org/blog/201310150001

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/15/bryan-fischer-thanks-fox-for-its-very-friendly/196438

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/bryan-fischer-underground-railroad-gay-parents-kidnapping-_n_1757378.html


what a charming fellow he is.

However lets look at the one relevant portion, which I highlighted in bold. I don't know the context of what was said, but from the context you give and the weighting of the words its quite a reasonable comment which has been twisted unfairly.
You dont have to believe in intercession but if you want to make comment on it then you ought to understand the theology of it, rather than take off on a rant based on a very skewed opinion of the subject.

From wikipedia,

On April 16, 2007, following the Virginia Tech Massacre, the AFA released a video titled The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools, in which God tells a student that students were killed in schools because God isn't allowed in schools anymore. The video claims that the shootings at Virginia Tech and Columbine, among others, are in part the result of: decreased discipline in schools; no prayer in schools; sex out of wedlock; rampant violence in TV, movies, and music; or abortions.

So in relations to this particular issue, it isn't just Fischer but the AFA in general.

 Ahtman wrote:
Why should we define it?

Because I don't really think you can, and wanted to see.

We don't set military policy, so the one that matters in this case is theirs, and if you want to know what it is look it up.

They don't have one.

If anything it seems like you are obliquely trying to make the argument that there aren't hate groups, which is far more interesting.

No, more the argument that most people appear to have an extremely flexible definition that will encompass anything they choose to have it encompass. You may not have been here when Kanluwen was trying to tell us how the NRA's a hate group. It's not an uncommon approach.

Here is how the US Congress and FBI define a hate crime.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes/overview