What Bible Is Santorum Reading?

[NJMaverick]

Quote:When conservative Congressman Todd Akin a few months back suggested that liberalism was a "hatred of God," I postulated that given the overwhelming support for liberal and progressive values in the Judeo-Christian Bible, perhaps he had never bothered to actually read the Bible. With Rick Santorum's recent comment that Obama's agenda is "Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," I am now beginning to wonder if Santorum, Akin, and other conservatives are just reading a different Bible entirely than the one I read.
Because here's the thing: while you can -- if you really work hard to do it -- find verses here and there supporting a more conservative political point of view on certain specific issues, there is simply no way to read the Bible I read and not come to the conclusion that it is overwhelmingly supportive of helping the poor, showing mercy to the weak, refraining from judging, treating others as you would treat yourself, calling on the wealthy to give their money to the poor, and all kinds of other liberal, lefty, progressive values. You would have to ignore a great deal of Genesis and Exodus, with their talk of being our brother's keeper and bringing justice to the poor, oppressed slaves in Egypt; you would have to skip over a great many of the verses of Psalms with its poetry about justice and mercy for the poor and the widow; you would have to avoid the books of the Prophets almost entirely since so much of what they are angry about is the Israelite society's mistreatment of poor people and immigrants in their midst. Then there is the New Testament, where between St. Paul, the relatives of Jesus, and the big guy himself, there are so many verses on these subjects that it is virtually impossible to ignore them.
In fact, as I noted in my piece about Todd Akin, Jesus talks about mercy to those in trouble in 24 verses of the Gospels, tells people not to judge in 34 verses, tells people to love and forgive even their enemies in 53 verses, tells people to love their neighbors as themselves and treat others as they would want to be treated in 19 verses, and specifically tells people to help the poor and/or spurn riches and the wealthy in 128 verses.
That is a lot of verses, 258 by my count, where Rick Santorum's savior and George W. Bush's favorite philosopher sounds like a tried and true, solid to the core, far-out, lefty liberal. And all those where Jesus sounds like a conservative? I couldn't find a single one. He never once condemns abortion, even though it was very common in ancient times. He never speaks against homosexuality, even though the ancient Greeks before him and the Romans living in those times openly practiced and celebrated it. He called on the Romans and the Jewish establishment to treat the poor better, not condemn an adulteress to death, and to take the moneychangers out of the temple, but he never once asked the Romans to lower their taxes or lessen their regulations on over-burdened businesses. He never celebrated the greatness of the invisible hand of the market, and never discussed the virtues of selfishness, as conservatives today are so fond of doing.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/...88094.html

[jaxx]

Quote:...Conservatives like Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich celebrate we're all on our own selfishness, and are happy to let the poor starve and the ill die from lack of health care, yet they proclaim their Christian holiness and denounce Obama's theology. As Jesus would have put it: you have to take the log out of your own eye before you can take the speck out of your brother's, you hypocrite. Mr. Santorum, if you don't know the Bible any better than you do, you should be careful calling other people anti-Biblical.

Excellent piece. The hypocritical GOP candidates are fooling some, but not all. Sad that so many believe the hatred and will vote for one of them.

[SeattleGirl]

I think the Bible they are reading is comprised of The Book of Revelation.

[NJMaverick]

(02-24-2012 12:00 PM)SeattleGirl Wrote:  I think the Bible they are reading is comprised of The Book of Revelation.

or the Book of Incorporation

[SeattleGirl]

(02-24-2012 12:02 PM)NJMaverick Wrote:  

(02-24-2012 12:00 PM)SeattleGirl Wrote:  I think the Bible they are reading is comprised of The Book of Revelation.

or the Book of Incorporation

Actually, I think that's the one that Mitt reads.....

[Andy823]

They simply make things up, claim it's from the Bible, and if nobody challenges them on it, not problem. Many religious groups to it, and you can take the same scripture and ask people from different groups what it means and you can get numerous "interpretations". Religious leaders have done this for years in order to make it look like the bible backs what they teach. Jehovah's witness's are really good at picking out scriptures all over the bible, linking them together in order to try and prove they only teach what the bible says, such as saying the bible prohibits the use of blood. It used to be "ALL" forms of blood, no exceptions, but now they have find tuned it so that many components of blood are allowed, you just can't put the all together and have a "transfusion"! It makes no sense, but their followers accept it without question, even when they change a teaching it's still the word of God no matter what it used to be, or what it has changed into.

For Santorum it's the same things, trying to back his insane ideas by saying they are from the bible, and he also knows that the vast majority of those he is speaking to won't know the difference and won't take the time to check out what he is claiming.