LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY einatlanta)

Hi out there! I'm two months along now in the tagging project over here, and I have a new disambiguation question for everyone. Currently there are three tags that overlap (christian zionism, israel, israel and lebanon). It occurs to me that we not only need to decide which of these terms to use, but whether or not the concept of dominionism and zionism really should apply to all posts regarding the middle east. Please vote!

[Error: Invalid poll ID 1013131]

For those of you new here, this is the third tagging poll associated with this project. You can see the last poll by clicking here. The last poll also links to the first poll.

As always, you can help with the tagging process! Just tag up your entries as you post them - the best way to do so is to hit the "edit tags" button after your entry has been posted, and choose tag terms from the drop-down list provided. To pick multiple terms, just hold down the control key while you click. Thanks Again!

( more details on project )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

EDIT:
NB - Please put your introduction posts on THIS THREAD ONLY - we're getting swamped by the individual intro posts on the main list! Thanks.


Since Dark Christian has increased membership so much over the last few months - and also to see just how diverse a bunch we are - we're asking everyone here who is willing to post a short introduction about themselves.

You don't have to post any information you don't want to share - and you can be as detailed as you want if you do join in.

The main things we'd like to hear about you are:

Who you are - your LJ handle (and if you are so inclined, your real name).

What you do - work, student, whatever. (Again, only be specific if you really want to).

Your beliefs - religion, political and whatever else matters to you.

How you came here - what drew you to join DC and how long you've been around.

What can you do - what active efforts you are doing or are willing to do to oppose Dominionism.

Anything else you'd care to add - your age, sexuality, your family status, whatever matters to you that you want to share with us.

Guess I'm first...

I'm Ian Vincent. Most folk know me as 'Cat'. I live in Bristol, England.

I'm founder/director of a company which specialises in paranormal security - ghost-busting, curse-breaking, (non-violent, non-denominational) exorcism and the like.

My beliefs are best described as 'eclectic' - though raised in a not-very-devout Church of England home, I'm now a Goddess-worshipping Taoist heretic with elements of various occult/shamanic traditions and a flavour of Discordianism and the use of sex-magic as a sacrament. As far as the beliefs of others go, I think all belief systems have an element of truth to them - and that none of them have *all* the truth.
That includes my beliefs!

Politically, I'm a cynical skeptic - mostly I believe in equal human rights for all and anything that gets in the way of that (especially for reasons of power or profit) makes me quite annoyed.

I joined DC quite early on - long ago enough that I can't remember how I got here!

Aside from being a Moderator here, I try to spread alternatives to the Dominionist mindset/memes wherever I can. I'm lucky to have a wide network of friends involved in various forms of activism (from womens issues to Deep Green alternatives) as well as writers in many fields. Between us, those memes get quite widely spread.
I'm always looking for other ways to make the message go wider.

Somehow, I managed to make it to be 43 years old.

I'm in a long-term poly triad with two wonderful women (which has lasted longer than most of my friends' straight marriages...) so queer rights and support/recognition of non-traditional family groups is very important to me. Having gone from low-lower-working class to middle-class over my lifetime, I'm quite sensitive to class issues - and when I get intense or angry my voice becomes rather Cockney!

Enough about me.
Over to you...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY einatlanta)

Hello all! This week I'm still tagging away, and I'm only about two years behind the current entries now. Last week we had a great poll where over 150 readers let me know how they would like to find things. Most of the questions had strong results, but unsurprisingly the last question - about categorizing the Marantha, Every Nation, and Campus Crusade folks - was a close one, with the most popular choice getting only 42.9% of the vote. The reason the answer to this question was a close run was because it was really a question about disambiguation, or how to agree on the specific meaning and use of related terms.

I expect this week's poll to also produce close-run results, because it is all about disambiguating some terms. I know some of the questions below may seem picky, but they are important - knowing how the community answers these questions will help me catalog things correctly, and ultimately that can help us all find the information we need. I will implement the results of that last poll into the tagging process as soon as y'all can help me with these interesting little questions...

[Error: Invalid poll ID 987239]

As always, you can help with the tagging process! Just tag up your entries as you post them - the best way to do so is to hit the "edit tags" button after your entry has been posted, and choose tag terms from the drop-down list provided. To pick multiple terms, just hold down the control key while you click. Thanks Again!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY einatlanta)

Hi folks! I've been tagging away for the past week. I started with the very first post in 2003, and now I'm about halfway through February of 2005; this is when the volume of posts here really started to pick up, so I have some questions about how y'all would like to find things here.

Remember, if you'd like to help out, the best thing you can do is tag up your entries as you post them. To do this, hit the "edit tags" button after you post, and choose tags from the drop down menu. To choose more than one tag, hold down your control key as you click away. I plan on keeping this poll up for a week to get a good sample of replies.

[Error: Invalid poll ID 983072]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Mixing God And Politics: Where Do Americans Really Stand?
By Charles C. Haynes
First Amendment Center senior scholar
09.03.06

Caught in the crossfire of culture-war battles over religion and politics, most Americans may be ready to say “a plague on both your houses.”

At least that’s one way to read a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and released Aug. 24.

According to the survey, nearly half of Americans (49%) believe conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to impose their religious values on the country. At the same time, 69% think liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of schools and government.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I did this on my own LJ, but since I have a much larger sample size here, I want to know what the age range is for readers of this community. So, please pick a button and answer my poll.

[Error: Invalid poll ID 685414]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Or, once again, the better educated and older the respondent, the less likely s/he is to think like a right-wing lunatic....

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051002115209990008

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I've noticed that our subscriber population is over 360 people- welcome aboard! Since the post below mentioned folks from the Southern Hemisphere, I thought that it might be time to poll the population to see how we are spread out. The list is general, if you wish to get specific, you may do so in the comments.

Enjoy!

[Error: Invalid poll ID 549122]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thedemonprist)

This is what dominionists would love to see, simply so they can have the sick, spiteful pleasure of saying "see, we were right and you were wrong, neener neener!" to everybody that they hate. This is why *everyone* MUST work together to stop them asap.

Poll says many Americans think a third world war is likely ( Article inside )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

[Error: Invalid poll ID 530326]

Be sure to read the post below to learn about other peoples' criticisms and recommendations for nomenclature.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ccroft)

I don't think any of us here can really be surprised by the findings of this poll; what folks might find interesting is how the US stacks up compared to the rest of the world... like those 'Cheese-Eating Surrender-Monkeys', France:

A nation under God: US tops religious poll

Religious devotion sets the United States apart from some of its closest allies.

Americans profess unquestioning belief in God and support mixing faith and politics at much higher rates than people in other countries, a poll has found.

Respondents in Western Europe, where Pope Benedict XVI has complained that growing secularism has left churches unfilled on Sundays, were the least devout among the countries surveyed.

Only Mexicans come close to Americans in embracing faith, among 10 countries polled for Associated Press by Ipsos. Unlike Americans, Mexicans strongly object to clergy lobbying lawmakers, in line with Mexico's historic opposition to church influence.

The polling was conducted last month in the US, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain.

Nearly all US respondents said faith was important to them and only 2 per cent said they did not believe in God. Almost 40 per cent said religious leaders should try to sway policymakers. "Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian policies and religious leaders have an obligation to speak out on public policy, otherwise they're wimps," said David Black, a retiree from Pennsylvania, who was polled.

By contrast, 85 per cent of French objected to clergy activism. France has strict curbs on public religious expression and, according to the poll, one of the largest shares of atheists: 19 per cent, equalled only by South Korea. ( Read more... )

Source: Stuff.co.nz

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Let's talk about that Bush Fish, shall we? I see it as a surfacing of things that the Religious Supermacists have been believing in and promoting for years. Now that they finally have Their Guy in the White House- for a second term, it's time for a bit of Sore Winnership.

Personally, I think that the thing is heretical. The original purpose of the fish symbol was a code word for an acronym in Greek: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. The words in Greek spell out the word for "fish". When Christians were being persecuted, that symbol was a means for them to identify each other.

Putting the President's name in it is therefore heretical, or maybe even blasphemous, as it creates a new 'son of god' in place of the original. Religious experts, you are welcome to answer the burning question:

What would Jesus say?

Mind you, I have a 'fish' symbol that is actually a fish skeleton, and I have seen footed fishies with "Darwin", and "Sushi" (I want one of those!), and other variations on the theme, but putting the President's name into it, with all the other implications of the symbology- steps over a line that I wish wasn't there.

[Error: Invalid poll ID 493248]

And no, this post won't be deleted. I think that problem is now worked out.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

It seems that there is a lot of news about the Dominionists out there, and I expect that there will be more as things continue to heat up in Congress and elsewhere. I've been chasing down as much of it as I can, plus cruising about a dozen blogs to keep posted on various things.

Up until now, I've been posting articles as I find them, but perhaps I should adapt twistedchick's aggregator style and put the newsworthy and blogworthy stuff into a single or twice-daily digest with links on them.

I figured that I should toss this out to the rest of you, and see what you think. This does not mean that if you find a post-worthy article that you can't post it individually- please continue doing so.

So, here's your poll question:

[Error: Invalid poll ID 490861]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY anarchys_savior)

( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Results of an ABC News poll make it quite clear that yes, evangelicals do have a tendency to think differently from the rest of Americans:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=599622&page=1

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Congratulations! You scored 40 correct out of 50! You know more than a minister, priest, or rabbi!

(My score on "The Bible Quiz")

Check it out!