Heard of Ian Paisley?

Warm Christian Greetings!

Answer to "Galatian":

I cannot possibly answer Mr "Smoke eater's" question while he is in this current frame of mind; he needs to calm himself down first.

Kind regards

Robert J Hutton

 

If I asked you the same question, would you then give me an answer?

 

That's the whole issue with Paisley. He always stresses his Bristish heritage. He is a Bristish subject who claims that he is fighting for the right of "Protestants" to remain as part of the United Kingdom. He and his Democratic Unionist Party decry the efforts of the UK government to come to an accommodation with the Irish Government and with Republicans. It's not just selling out to IRA terrorists in their opinion but to Rome via the Irish state where Catholicism is very strong. The DUP are much slower in condemning "Protestant" terrorist groups when they commit atrocities. protestant paramilitaries have largely pulled out of the Good Friday accord whilst the IRA are still there and slowly starting to comply with what they agreed to.

Tony Blair represents to him the ultimate sell-out. He is a man from a mixed Protestant/Catholic family who has roots seeking peace through dialogue with the "enemy" - which has brought a number of years of relative peace to the province. In contrast the DUP represents the old devisiveness.

What we need to understand about the situation in NI is that politics, race and religion are all tightly meshed there so that religion and politics are very hard to separate. The tension seems to actually be between the UK/Irish establishment, moderate NI politicians, many Christians usually of an evangelical stance, the RC hierarchy and most of the NI population; and the extremists who want to continue a struggle whose raison d'etre should have died over a century ago when it did in most of the rest of the UK.

For those of us living in other parts of the UK, we find the whole thing in NI goes counter to the trend in culture in the rest of the UK towards religious, racial and political tolerance.

Let's not be critical of NI too much though. I often find that satan is hard at work where God is moving and Northern Ireland is a part of the UK where evangelical churches are growing and are a force towards peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. As I understand it, this growth is within independent evangelical churches, the Baptist and the Pentecostals, not in the main denominations.

 

By "extended family" do you mean your parents and siblings?

They are Catholic are they not?

[ August 06, 2002, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: trying2understand ]

 

All I said was that I was still waiting for you to elaborate on a vague statement you made and had been questioned about twice.

Why do you find that so intimidating?

What goes on between DHK and me is between us. If you'll notice the way I've interacted with others in this thread, you'll see that it's very different than the way I interact with DHK.

Unlike DHK, the others are here to have a conversation, not "drink the Cool Aid" for Paisley, as Sean Hannity would say.

I'd like to try to have a conversation with you, as I suspect that you're a great deal more thoughtful on this issue than DHK.

If you don't, then that's OK, too. We'll all just sit and wonder where you got the idea that there was ethnic cleansing.

 

Gentlemen -

Please, let's try to keep the conversation civil. As Brother Barnabas has recommended so many times, seperate the issue from the person you are debating. Bear in mind that this is a Christian site with thousands of visitors daily from all over the world.

Clint Kritzer
Moderator

 

I"m sorry, I know I've said twice now that I was leaving this thread but I just can't let these things go unanswered.

 

Smoke_Eater,
It is amazing what a search engine will do. The above information was obtained that way. There were ten pages on Ian Paisley; I don't remember how many hits. I didn't go past the third page. Most of the sites said basically the same type of thing. Very few of them recorded biased information against him. That can only lead me to the conclusion that for some reason you look at Paisley with some unwarranted prejudice. He said plainly that he does not condone violence, yet you automatically assume that he is the one responsible for the violence. That is not a fair assumption to make is it? I have said from the beginning that I do not agree with everything Paisley does, nor with everything Paisley believes. I have said from the beginning that I simply believe that the man should be given the credit for standing up for what he believes and taking a consistent stand and not backing down. He does not condone violence as he has said. Unfortunately many protestant fringe groups in Ireland do. We both are not in agreement with that, and I am sure that Paisley is not either. He said himself that it has to stop. Why not take the man at his word? Has Paisley made mistakes? Yes. We all have. Yet I count him a brother in the Lord, a Christian, not worthy of the slanderous names that you call him. Having said all that why don't you let the matter rest now.
DHK

[ August 07, 2002, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: DHK ]

 

DHK, I think that this typlifies your outlook.

If something is not supportive of your views, it is "biased".

BTW, you said some of your "extended family" is Catholic. By extended family, do you mean your parents and siblings? They are Catholic, are they not?

 

DHK, I think that this typlifies your outlook.
If something is not supportive of your views, it is "biased".

Not always T2U. There are some good newspaper reporters that will report both sides of the story objectively: good and bad. I accept facts. I don't accept hate-filled sites or sites that are obviously written by the "other side" so that they are prejudicial to begin with. They will not report "the facts" fairly.

BTW, you said some of your "extended family" is Catholic. By extended family, do you mean your parents and siblings? They are Catholic, are they not?</font>[/QUOTE]Yes that is true.

 

If your parents and siblings are Catholic why refer to your "extended family"? Do you consider your parents to be "extended family"?

No big deal, just seems odd to me.

 

to differentiate between my wife and children.

 

No, it's not, but I forgive you for doing so.

I've never said that he is responsible for "the violence", but that his extremist political views, incindiary rhetoric and associations with loyalist paramilitaries, his opposition to teh peace agreement and his opposition to policing reforms have contributed greatly to violence and hindering the cause of civil rights.

I've never claimed that Paisley was responsible for anything other than his own actions.

I'm not responsible for what you find or don't find on the internet, nor do I know where on the net you're getting your information.

You've admitted a couple of times that you're not really familiar with what's going on in the North or who the principle players are.

Maybe instead of just trying to find a couple of random websites that support your views in order to win an argument, you could spend a little time really looking into things there.

Fine, but what if what he's standing for is wrong?

George Wallace and Bull Connor believed that what they were doing was the right thing to do and took a consistant stand without backing down.

Do you support them, too?

I'm more interested in what he does than what he says. What he does is at direct odds with the idea that he is a peace loving man.

Because when he says one thing and does another, his word is no good.

First of all, these are not "mistakes". This is an ongoing, deliberate pattern of behavior over which he isn't the least bit repentant.

Secondly, if he really is a follower of Christ, can you really imagine Jesus doing the things Paisley has done?

[ August 09, 2002, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: Smoke_Eater ]

 

I agree. Most people consider parents and siblings "immediate family".

Of course, they are Catholic.

 

to differentiate between my wife and children.</font>[/QUOTE]Makes sense to me.