Wow.

But you are free to believe what you wish.

on par with actual religion.

Sweet. Thanks!

But you are continuing your pattern of dismissing what does not conform to your own beliefs.

Points for consistency, but not positive points.

Then explain it to me.

Tell me what the point is, in your very own words.

Bet you can't!

You know how stupid I am.

Use your own words. Short ones since I have trouble understanding otherwise.

If so, what do you think that the author of the piece was attempting to say?

Fill in the blank please.

Or, an opinion that a President is expected to fill many roles.

As we are discussing an opinion piece. The writer, Trotsky's and.... What? You have something in mind?

No matter the situation, the venue, his words always seem awkward and forced, except when he is at his rallies where he plays his role as the tough guy talking to his followers.

Almost as if he cannot understand how people should respond in situations. Like saying "have a nice day" to people who have lost everything to a hurricane.

He's like an alien trying to mimic human patterns and it just comes off in the uncanny valley.

But, every word is directly to his followers, and he doesn't have to say the whole thing, they can fill in the rest.

A script that was spoken by Reagan in 1980.

The orange road rage simian is quite capable of it on his own.

So much insecurity and defensiveness, and anger.

So I'm not sure why you felt the need to slap your "good news" prefix on it. Force of habit, I guess?

If so, it might be good to google the term, but it happens constantly here, including in your own posts.

but if you did read the entire piece, you might have read this ending note:

RNS columns are direct-published opinion pieces. They are not always edited and reflect the views only of the author. ,

indicating that these pieces are direct-published opinion pieces. (Bold is my addition for clarity.)

So we are in agreement that these opinion pieces are in fact opinion pieces?

It's about your error.

Now explain again about the victory and the humiliating defeat if you wish.

This was just a simple error on your part.

The humiliating defeats come when you try to label atheism a "belief system," or try to suggest that no one who does a bad thing in the name of their religion is actually acting according to their religion as you define it, which you can't do for others but only for yourself, but which you do anyway, but then point out that you're not either so there nyah nyah.

Those humiliating defeats.

good or bad. It is a repository for some writers' opinions.

Opinions are not news items. They are just someone's opinion about something.

Here's one of my opinions: "Civil religion" is a contradiction of terms. It's a false construct used to argue that there is some connection between laws and religious beliefs.

As to the title of the organization, I trust that the average DU reader will recognize that an opinion piece that is specifically labelled at the bottom of the piece as an opinion piece is, in fact, an opinion piece.

And not news. Glad you finally agree with us.

Rather than simply admit error and let it go, you have to make it into a silly fight.

If they put opinion at the bottom, where most people don't get to, but the site claims news. Huge warning sign there.

Even though it's in much lighter gray than the rest of the text, of course. Just another little thing that should cause a little concern about its legitimacy.

"dynamic equivalence" of Eugene Nida's "Good News" translation of the Bible? Meaning that it is sort of news and sort of a translation, but not really either?

Is it news at all, or even good at all? Based on the last quoted paragraph in your post, I'd say it's neither. The concept of "civil religion" seems bogus to me, in that in conflates religion with civil society, which is not necessarily based on anything spiritual at all.

I'm often puzzled by articles, stories, opinion pieces and other assorted collections of words that you post from religionnews.com. They rarely seem like news stories, and often like poorly thought-out opinion that should have been revisited and edited for meaning.

Simply calling a website a "news" site does not make it so. News is generally accepted as an objective telling of a story that actually happened somewhere, with as little bias as possible. That's how I judge news. The more bias evident in the story, the less value it has to me as news.

That same last paragraph you quoted is like that. It is a statement that is clearly not objectively true at all. Of course, there is a disclaimer about the opinion piece being an opinion piece at the link, but you referred to it as "Good news." I'm thinking that your sense of "dynamic equivalence" is off just a little bit, perhaps.

So if a poster labels a post, such as I did, it represents an opinion, very similar to your signature line.

The site that I use has a mixture of reporting and opinion, similar to magazines such as Time, and The Nation, and many others so that format is a familiar one.

You speak of being puzzled by what I post on the subject, and I must confess that I am often similarly puzzled as to the relevance (and motivation) behind why you post your various personal commentaries centered around religion, but I respect your right to post whatever thoughts occur to you on the subject of religion.

signature line. There is never any confusion. If I quote from a link, though, I provide the link and use a title that reflects the contents. If there is any confusion, due to the excerpt limitations, I'll add additional explanation.

Almost all of my posts in this group, however, are my opinion and thoughts about something. I never pretend they are anything else. They're openers for discussions, in which I am certain to participate and answer any replies that need answers.