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TechnoratiKeep Religion Away From the Ballot
The Constitution, Article VI, Section 3, states "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, said, "An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against."
Here's Theodore Roosevelt: "If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross- examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office."
Yet we have now instituted such tests. We line up the presidential candidates and cross-examine them about their faith. They respond with Sunday school sagas about how they met God and pander to us with stories about how prayer will help them lead. How did this come about?
In 1979, four conservative activists, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Richard Viguerie (all Catholics) and Howard Phillips (a Jew who'd become an evangelical Christian) were looking for wedge issues to break up the Democratic Party. Right-wing economics and foreign policies had no popular appeal. So they came up with abortion, opposition to gay rights and (thinly disguised) racism, concerns that could be found clustered among religious conservatives. They recruited a minister, Jerry Falwell, funded him with corporate money and started the Moral Majority.
It succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The Religious Right became the base of the Republican Party, and the GOP gained control of federal government for the first time since the Great Depression.
Democrats were slow to respond. But politics is a business of learning what voters want to hear and then finding sincere ways to say it. Now, they've joined the choir. Meanwhile, sincerely religious liberals who hate the way faith became identified with right-wing politics were politicized in response.
Is faith a good guide to how someone will perform in office? George W. Bush, a born again Christian, claimed that God contacted him and said, "George," (they're on a first-name basis) "invade Afghanistan." So he did.
Although George failed to apprehend Osama bin Laden, God was apparently delighted, called back and said, "George, liberate Iraq."
Bush had a lot of support in all of this. Many people felt that he had been chosen by God to lead America in this moment of crisis and told him so. Here we are, a trillion dollars later, missions not accomplished, our armed forces too used up to respond to a new threat and our nation on the verge of bankruptcy.
If we accept it as true that God chose George and gave him specific instructions, and then look at the results, we have to form a very poor judgment of God, indeed, both as a human resources administrator and as a military strategist. Or, we might say that faith is not a good guide to competence in office.
I liked Jimmy Carter. Many did not. They felt that he was too goody-goody and too slow to resort to force -- the very qualities that came out of his version of born again Christianity. American presidents of little or no faith include Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln (though he could use biblical language to great effect), John Adams and George Washington. Yes, George Washington.
Washington did go to church, five or 10 times a year. But when people tried to box him into making a religious stand, he deftly evaded them. He gave moral advice to his adopted children, but, so far as we know, never urged religion on them.
He wrote: "Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.
So if you are judging candidates by their religious stands, perhaps we should look to the model of the old George, the one who kept whatever faith he had to himself, and be more than a little worried about the candidate who more closely resembles our George. The one who gets bad guidance from God.
45 Comments so far
Show AllSpot on dmia. The same also applies to fascists within the Republican party and media hacks like Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and others. They spin the truth however they want and preach hatred toward anyone who doesn't see the world the same as they do. To me, they are one of the most divisive and destructive forces in this country today. (see more on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer).
Hey, it's a big world. Can't we all just get along?
It's time to take America back from the Christian Right. Don't get me wrong - they have every right to believe whatever they want. The problem is that Evangelicals believe they are obligated to "convert" non-believers to Christianity, and that if you don't accept their ideology, you're just wrong. They are every bit as bad as the Taliban - both are example of a religion taken to the extreme.
Right now in right wing Christian churches people are being told that Obama is Satan, and his followers are doomed. It's true. I've seen it. Does it sound familiar? If so, it's because it's the same thing the Taliban says about us.
Fight terrorism, but begin at home here in the USA. I believe the Christian Right is AT LEAST as dangerous as the Muslim extremists.
You might not agree with any or all of the following quotes, but if you have an open mind, you might at least find some food for thought.....
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Sinclair Lewis
“The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example” Mark Twain
“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.”
Anais Nin
“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.” Stendahl
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” Seneca
“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.” Bertrand Russell
“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men” Voltaire
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Bishop Desmond Tutu
“People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.” Dave Barry
"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." David Hume
"Those who blindly accept and embrace the absurdities of religion will have no problem blindly accepting and embracing the absurdities put forth by politicians and the media. Unknown
"It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith." John Stuart Mill
"For Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing."
George Santayana
"Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founder's than any other agency of the world." Richard Le Gallienne
"By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God. Gloria Steinem
"Individuals having no religious affiliation show on the average less prejudice than do church members."
Gordon W. Allport
"Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence." Francis Jeffrey
"As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." Voltaire
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear" Thomas Jefferson
"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life." Sigmund Freud
"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." Thomas Alva Edison
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
Napoleon Bonaparte
"It is conceivable that religion may be morally useful without being intellectually sustainable." John Stuart Mill
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." George Bernard Shaw
"The dogma of the infallibility fo the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes."
T.H. Huxley
"I consider Christian theology to be one fo the great disasters of the human race... It would be impossible to imagine anything more un-Christlike than Christian theology. Christ probably couldn't have understood it." Alfred North Whitehead
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the wolrd to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and toruring one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." Thomas Jefferson
"Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and helathy and happy." Kurt Vonnegut
"History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth." Ashleigh Brilliant
"Christians were put on earth to suffer and churches were put her to make sure that they do." Unknown
"The best religion is that which makes you happiest."
Unknown
"The... clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence."
H.L. Mencken
"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly has made the world evil and ugly." Friedrich Nietzsche
"To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all creeds."
Robert Ingersoll
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." Blaise Pascal
"We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Johnathan Swift
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
John Lennon
gerix, I just yesterday sent an email to a local paper in reply to a Voter
Issue Guide advising people to "Pray" then "Vote". The guide was filled with
"reasons" for "Christians" to vote McCain. Most were half truths at best, on
Obama's voting record. I'm sure I'll catch holy hell for it. Hope you don't
mind if I copy these quotes and maybe use some or all later. They were great!
Gerix, I just did something I have never done before: I copied and saved all these brilliant quotes you collected.
You rock, my friend.
Thank you Gerix! Great quotes...
gerix,
That is very good----------true words of wisdom are timeless, and cross cultural.
It is well past time that a counter to the fallacious argument put out there by the Christian right that the Founding Fathers intended the USA to be a "Christian Nation" be put out there. The harm brought about by that crowd has led America down a very dangerous road, and one of their main planks they spout to their lemmings needs to be decisively debunked. Let this be a part of it.
They intended our nation to be one where every man was free to practice (or not) any religion he choose. We have christian principals simply because then most were Christians,so it would naturally be grounded that way wouldn't you say?
Not at all. The Founding Fathers meant for religion to be a private affair that did not intrude upon matters of state. In fact, quite a few of them were Deists, plus were mindful of the wars of religion that had bedeviled Europe in immediate prior centuries. If anything, the majority of their governing ideas (Plato, Aristotle, Sparta, etc.) came from classical antiquity, Greece and Rome, that predate the cult of Jesus Christ.
"quite a few of them were Deists"
Good point. They were quite a mixed bag. But I don't believe they intended to particularly exclude religion from our government, mainly based on the writings of the time and common practices...prayer, etc.
At the same time they obviously meant to exclude any form of state religion or religious predominence over government like, say Iran. In God We Trust, prayer before Congess starts, sworn oaths on the bible....thats about it. Otherwise butt out.
And never try to impose your specific religious views in law. I prefer to think of it less as a cult than a religion though, being a Christian.
FYI: "In God We Trust" did not appear until 1864 & did not become the national motto until 1956 (the original, from 1782, is E Pluribus Unum). In fact, a lot of the obvious public religiousity began to rear its' head during the 50's as a way of "combatting godless Communism." It is part of the national myth put out by the christian right that the USA has always been a "christian nation." If one bothers to actually pay attention to history, one will find that malarky is not so.
Actually I was aware of that, but since we were settled by Christians and the major religion has always been Christian, right up to today, I'd say we are a Christian nation.
But you are correct, I should be more precise and I should have said this first.
I'll try to be more careful. Thanks.
Yes, I read a bit about the book, "He Walked In The Americas." I personally don't have any politics. Way more than old enough to know that I am just seeing the same political parties hustle the same old lies. Noticed long ago they wrote their election laws so no one could really challenge them thus creating a dictatorial stranglehold on holding the seats of their govt.
I don't have any religion. Even though I live in the modern day Pyramid World I still live the way of the circle. Plant earth is still orbiting around in a circular motion. Most people can't even consider that when the land belonged to the Tribes they perhaps had 5% of the problems their world has now. Out of those 5% of problems most were minor.
Talking to an elderly black man back in the 90's as he was talking about everything people were doing, and all the problems. I said to him, "Just think how little bad news you would have ever heard had you lived here when the land belonged to the tribes."
He said, "I never thought of it that way."
Of course he never thought of it that way but I did, and do. Mathmatical projections state if things are this bad now then they are only going to get worse & they will. All prophecy reduced to one sentence is, "Over the long run of time things on the whole merely get worse."
Life is good. Life is an experience.
Larry Beinhart's posts are always full of original thinking but do yourself a favor and get his books.
They're all thrillers in a way but instead of some whacky plot or suspense for suspense's sake his tales are political dramatizations that, unfortunately, just might be true. His latest, Salvation Boulevard, kept me up until 3am. An atheist philosophy professor is killed, a muslim student is the prime suspect, and an evangelical prosecutor is hired by a jewish attorney to take the case apart. It may seem like an unlikely setup but that's the beauty of fiction, to be able to give a more focussed view into what's at the core by creating a highlighted reality. Fiction, to come back to the theme of this article, allows you to look behind the politician's "religious" Sunday school tales by inventing a plausible look into their minds to tell you what is behind the facade: power politics.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Let's elect Obama and support Progressive Democrats of America http://pdamerica.org to convince him that progressive policies make sense and resonate with people's ultimate desire for peace, sustainability, and responsible economics.
Native Son,
I like your posts. Mostly I agree with you.
A little soapbox speech...pardon my verbosity.
In the days that a man named Jesus lived, religious leaders (Pharaises)(spelling?) criticized and tormented him. They were threatened by his simple message. It made their endless rules and shallnots seem cumbersome and ridiculous. Jesus taught one simple rule: Love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, and soul...and your neighbor as yourself. That's it really, and in that order.
The Pharasies were white washed sepulchres....their ancestors are the Fundamentalist right-wing so called Christians of our day. These people are not Christians.....meaning followers of Christ. They don't follow anything that Christ taught at all. They are "rule-mongers." They are false prophets who lead others astray. They are white washed sepulchres. They are following the course that the Pharasies followed in Jesus time....they are really anti-Christ. They are leading others away from Christs' teachings and turning many against Christianity. They have been doing this for centuries!
A true Christian/believer.....has the indwelling Holy Spirit, models after the life of Jesus, and truly believes that God is both Father and Mother (God made them in His image....male and female he made them....in His/Her image. ) God is Spirit and is in fact the same "Great Spirit" that tribes people believe in. God is all and in all. There is nothing that is not God.....including us. Jesus shows the way. That way is not through "religiosity" or "church buildings." The Church of Christ is the spiritual body of believers. The "Way" is for each individual to find....by opening that door to their heart.
Government and true Christianity are totally at odds. They cannot thrive together. Jesus said give unto Caesar what is due Caesar.....and what is due God...give unto God. They were to remain separate.
Every one has a God, may not be a spiratual God but every one has somthing they worship. It could be sex, power, money thier own point of view but every one worships somthing in this world before all others and that is thier God.
The same bible thumpers who accuse others of not believing in God are themselves hypocrites by going out of their way to "legislate" morality. DISGUSTING !
Excellent wisdom from George Washington, the inveterate and distressing hostilities created by religion.
Unfortunately God also judges from time to time.
If hurricane Katrina was sent by God to punish New Orleans for the evil the thrived in its city's, then surly this economic disaster is punishment for greed, empire, and illegal unjust wars.
"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
Maybe , now that we can admit that God has spoken, we can admit we were wrong about war.
All of us, including the right wing ,neo-con ,unpatriotic,fear mongering, lunatic fringe, religious, abortion hating, war loving, fake christian assholes, can now see what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek.
I don't like the fact that a hand full of terrorists hurt us by the attack on 9/11, but our retaliation has certainly hurt us in unmeasurable ways for many years to come.
Economic disaster, two wars, 8 years of fear mongering.
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781
Shit can the Patriot Acts, end these Wars, and restore the constitution and our freedoms, for I refuse to live and be governed by fear.
Demand it be done, for it is the will of "We the People"
Where is your faith.
Live Free or Die.
BornFreeMen
Wovoca stated Jesus visited him here in this dimension from the dimension Spiritual Kingdom where Jesus resided. www.wovoca.com Jesus did not teach religion, nor gave any indication he came to start a new religion. Jesus taught his Father's Spiritual Kingdom that is not of this world, nor worldly things. Could this mean it isn't about America, or any other Nation upon the earth? Perhap it isn't about the world of man's political parties or man made religion either one as Jesus told the political religious factions if Israel their father was the devil who has been a liar & a murderer since the beginning.
Since Jesus railed mostly against the rich & the religious he might have felt quite at home with the Native Tribes of Turtle Island who lived as Tribal Commualist, had free trade routes that spanned the areas of what would be many States, but did not have a system of money, banking, & mammon.
After all Jesus was born of the Tribe of Judah & his pardoxical name is the Lion of Judah.
The Kingdom of God/Heaven is here on earth as well as Jesus said to the Pharisee's the Kingdom is within. The Kingdom of God being a Spiritual Kingdom as God is a Spirit, is not a Democracy, not a Representative Republic, not a Constitutional Republic, not a Socialistic govt of men, not a Communistic govt of men, or a worldly Kingdom.
Jesus knew men would take his name & use his name to do nothing more than perpetrate their own evil worldly agendas upon the earth.
After his resurrection Jesus told his disciples he had to leave them to go feed sheep in other lands before he ascended back into the Kingdom. Difficult to say where all Jesus traveled, whom all he taught, or when?
You may wish to do some deeper study on Wovoca. A Missionary trained apostle, he was rising to the occasion where he witnessed his people and their future blowing away with the wind. They needed a messiah (just like the Jews under Roman occupation) and he brought them the story of the "Ghost Dance".
There is not one piece of evidence that can be produced to prove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact the "Gospels"-- Matt,Mark,Luke,John of the "New Testament" are inadmissible as evidence in any court in the USA or the world forum, because they do not pass the "here say rule".
They are someone else's rendition of what was said, yet none of the authors of those books could have been present when the story reputably took place, since they were first written seventy or more years after the supposed occurance.
People need a Jesus, Mohammad, Moses/Abraham/Issac/Joseph "Wovoca"--Buddha etc-or a culture hero--you name it ---even "Elvis"---. They think they need a "Culture Hero" to help them deal with life's challenges and better understand their concept of their place in the cosmos. "Are you the eater or the eaten?"
This "need" usually arises when a people/culture etc are threatened by outside forces they cannot explain, nor defeat. Instead of learning as much as possible about the opposition, finding the weak points and using them for self defense; they usually "make up a culture hero--- who is coming back real soon and saves us"....
A recently discovered tribe (within the past fifty years ) deep within the Amazon was filmed performing a "Dance" that clearly had Christian influence, since they "Danced in a Circle" and ceremonially sacrificed one of their infants, who would be held in high esteem for the period until the next "Dance" was cycled in----uncannily close to a calender year---which those people did not recognize in the normal existence in the Amazon---their numbers had dwindled from disease (which they could not understand fully) and they were sacrificing "ceremonially" one of their "young", which represents the future----to all cultures-----
Does that sound familiar?
You might try reading one of Joseph Campbell's 80 Books (then another and another etc) and you might free yourself from the slavery of ----needing a culture hero.
Thank you for the link. There are many stories and artifacts throughout the Americas about a bearded white man who came with a message of peace.
One out of print book about this is, "He Walked the Americas" by L. Taylor Hansen. I was able to find a used copy at B&N. I searched for it for about five years before I found it (I had the wrong title).
I must hurry and catch up with the others for I am their leader - T-shirt slogan
I think it's disgusting how the religious right will in one breath say that “we are all god's children” and then in the next go on about supporting the war. And the other inconsistencies like being against abortion but for the death penalty. IMHO, religion has been the cause of more suffering than any other institution in the history of our species. If you want some “straight talk” about religion go to YouTube and check out videos where Bill Maher, Penn & Teller, and George Carlin talk about religion in general and christianity in specific. If you haven't got time for the whole movie, at least see the first part of Zeitgeist. All very illuminating.
I want to second that recommendation about Zeitgeist The Movie. It's not exactly a high video quality movie, but the ideas it expresses in the first part (and the rest I suppose) are right on the money. 200 years from now, when religion is just a curiosity like astrology, kids will read in their history books about similar ideas expressed in Zeitgeist.
If enough so called liberal Christians would get the point that their religion is just so much derivative narrative, maybe they'd help the rest us of against the dominate-the-world Christians.
I guess this would mean we should keep "Evangelical on a Mission" GOP tech guru Micheal Connell off of his vote hacking machine for the next few weeks. Check out the explosive new revelations about how he stole the 2000 and 2004 elections.
Give GOP techguy/coup plotter Mike Connell a phone call (330)659-7373 over at New Media http://www.technomania.com/public/About/Default.aspx
and ask him why he feels committing felony vote rigging is preferable to democracy.... (hint: it's about the innocent 'babies')
You can read about Mike's crimes here:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Republican_IT_consultant_subpoenaed_in_cas...
and here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/22/votes
Abraham Lincoln:
When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Perhaps Mr Beinhart didn't read the newspaper that broke the story about just who was speaking to Bush in the Oval Office.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43189
I was told this story many times when a child.
It may have some significance now.
When my Tribal People (I will not mention the tribe so as not to cause any embarrassment to my relatives since I seem to make many people here in this forum very angry, and often, with my 'point of view" on matters) were first placed on the reservation at Fort Sill Okla, they were allowed to live in the old manners for just a very short time. Soon enough the management of the "agency"--came under the control of a "devout christian" and he began to make the "changes" he felt that "the Lord had placed upon his heart--concerning the savages I am charged with managing"----so he made some very pointed changes.
Prior to this, the members of the tribes there would come in to the agency on Saturdays to pick up the supplies they had been guaranteed by treaty. This was the custom set up by the agency, in order to keep any Jewish merchants from participating since this was the "Jewish sabbath". The agent soon changed this day to Sunday, using Jewish merchants working for Christian merchants as the "distribution day".
The new twist was that the people had to attend "Christian Services" at the church of their choice (very few there on reservation lands) BEFORE they could receive their supplies.
My Great Great Grandfather's older brother who had been a war leader, and had also signed the "Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty" that established Ft Sill was faced with a problem he had to use his intelligence (which according to many others was of a very sharp and high level). Prior to that he would have "kicked some ass and taken some names"---to coin a modern phrase---before he allowed anyone to tell him what he could or could not do. Now however he was far too old to put up a fight, this taking place in the early to mid 1890s.
So, each Sunday, he would attend a DIFFERENT church which soon angered the Agent who eventually called him in. He had learned English at the reservation school, in fact attending it with children and had inspired many others of his age to do the same---so he could speak with the agent without a translator.
The Agent told him that he had to "choose a church" and go to it regularly. At which he answered (according to his children, several who were there) "I have studied what the White Man teaches about GOD, and it all is very interesting, but none of them have convinced me yet; I need more time. I have asked the preachers and the priests to give me the numbers of the stars up there in heaven where God lives. Do you know?" The agent then said no, and asked him how much time did he THINK it would take to make a desicion--- and he answered with "how long did it take you to choose which church you would attend" at which the agent answered that he had been born a Christian, and had attended the same church since his birth. My GG Uncle answered " I was born on the Prairie,wild and free, and never attended church until you forced us to, so I need more time to make up my mind, and cannot tell you when any more than YOU can tell me the number of the stars up there in heaven where God lives"----the agent left him alone after that--most likely not even knowing that he had been out smarted by a "savage".....
I take his approach with a little more radical application-----
I'll bend my knee, and pray to the God that these "religious people" worship--IF THEY CAN PROVE TO ME THAT HE EVEN EXISTS---BUT THEN IF SO ----WHICH OF THE CHURCHCES SHOULD I ATTEND. ----OR ----"if they can tell me the numbers of the Stars."
Without the proof that the God these "religious people" talk so much about even exists---they should shut up about it.........
Keep religion away from the ballot, and every where else but at the home --or if they absolutely need to, a church---but do not bother anyone else with it.
So far it has done nothing but create problems for the entire planet and all of the living things upon it.
That is so right on, NativeSon! Hey brother, I left a "track in the sand" in that one article some days back. Know which one I'm talking about? Not a live link, just a track. If you're a good tracker, you'll find me. If you're around, we'll put together a lodge with the elders pouring water. Come on up sometime. Bring your drum, and a pipe if you carry one.
~~In the Spirit of Crazy Horse~~
~Moondog~
At the end of every speech by most politicians is heard "God bless America". But what does that mean? Are people supposedly comforted, reassured by such an invocation? Is it an invocation, a request? Sometimes it sounds more like a demand. "GOD BLESS AMERICA! (dammit).
Leaving aside the immensely vague concept of what God is, what does it mean to "bless"? The word has it's origins in the old English word for blood, specifically blood used to consecrate in ceremony, which was likely used originally in blood sacrifices, human or animal.
So "God bless America" could actually mean, "God up there, or in here, or wherever you are, please spread some blood around in the name of our nation called America".
Maybe that's the problem, he/she's actually listening.
Sioux Rose
Good points, particularly POPE SERI. I'd like to add that this notion of God as a male father figure has certainly not been the only means to address the Infinite in mankind's history. Prior to the ENFORCED belief in one god with patriarchal characteristics, human beings worshipped a variety of spiritual forces said to influence the kingdoms of nature. Pantheism was the universal spiritual dialect predating Judaism & Christianity. In order to sway the masses into the new "worship structures" the Christmas holiday came about. That was a segue from one belief system into another.
By anointing macho traits to the Deity, rather than relating that "God made man in HIS image and likeness," (true on an energetic level) into MAN made GOD into HIS image and likeness, and woe unto all those that didn't fit that preconceived fallacious mold. When sincere Black persons worship a white Jesus in their enthusiastic Sunday services it blows my mind. This does not mean to take away from the ingenious and TRULY blessed work of persons like Martin Luther King. AS someone else noted, religion is not required for those of innate integrity and compassion to do the right things. And religion is one kick-ass excuse for those with immoral agendas to hide behind.
It's a sign of consistency that Jesus isn't portrayed as an African in African churches (tho' some do): the early Church was quite strong in Africa, and yet iconography from the early centuries portrays a dark-haired man with prominent eyes & nose; the paler blonder Jesus comes only in the second millennium.
It's contradictory that people complaining about the patriarchal divinity frequently complain about Marian devotion; the growth of devotion to a holy Mother in the second millennium demonstrates that there was a felt need for a balance in faith; Christ was portrayed, following St. Bernard, as the dutiful son who was wholly under the sway of his mother's requests. This angered, and still angers, Protestants.
With regard to the pre-monotheist forms, a commercial from the '70s has Mother Nature waxing wroth after being fooled into believing that the margarine is butter -- "It's not NICE to fool MOTHER NATURE", she says, as the sky darkens & lightning flashes. This was an old cultural remnant of the ancient mother, generously imparting her substance but also extremely capricious.
Keeping religion out of American politics is like keeping flies off feces. Never happen!
Throughout history religion can be blamed for most wars on the planet. If there is a "god" then it can hardly be described as good as it seems to enjoy it's creations killing each other and destroying large amounts of the jewel it also created, the Earth.
Once you look into religion it becomes clear that it is a control method invented by man to control man to make us live in servitude, to make us live in fear, to make us kill our brothers and sisters, to make us believe we are special and different from the rest of life we co-habit with on Earth.
The Roman Catholic bible was edited and compiled by Emperor Constantine and the Protestant bible was edited from the Constantine bible by King James...
and yet here we have people who put so much faith into the words which not only contradict themselves but are downright sexist, racist and horrific in places and the whole eye for an eye justice just leaves the whole world blind.
There are good people who are religious just as there are good people who are not but the fanatical religous people think they can impose their narrow mindedness and hang-ups on everybody else which is just wrong, if you are doing no harm then there is no harm.
And if (and it's a big if) that there is an afterlife which consists of heaven and hell then George W Bush has a hotline to hell.
Do what you will but cause no other harm. Love is the law.
x
Bill Maher, is that you?
Even as a liberal Christian, I agree with your criticisms of the Moral Majority, pro-unimpeded Capitalism, pro-military, pro-super-patriotic, (Not very)Crypto-Fascist, ultra-conservative, obscurantist, "Intelligent Design," Flat-Earth religious types.
But there are people who are more "Faith-and-Reason-Based" than simplistic "Faith-Based" in their worldviews. To be fair, remember that it was religious (but progressive) Americans who first preached and at least contributed in important ways to antislavery, women's rights, regulated capitalism, pacifism (admittedly an unpopular position), and civil rights.
Of course, conservative religion often opposed these movements and leaders, but still, without religion and spokespersons like ML King, would we have as progressive a country as we do?
Whether religion preserves or conserves the status quo all depends on the kind of religion in question. Gimme that Newfangled, Progressive religion.
I agree that there was a time when the fundamentalists looked outside of themselves and tried to improve the world. The objective at that time was to make sure that the world was ready for the second coming. To do that, the fundamentalists tried to remove injustice, poverty, and ignorance. They stood against slavery with their words, money, and sometimes, their lives. They fought for the education of women. They volunteered their time to teach people to read. They fought against the "demon rum" that caused so much violence.
Somehow, this all fell apart. Although clergy were part of the civil rights movement of the 60s, the fundamentals were missing. By that time, they had closed themselves in their own narrow, rigid world.
What went so terribly wrong?
There ARE progressive people out there with 'Faith'. But that does NOT mean that those acts of alturism are BECAUSE or are a PRODUCT of faith.
Faith is not necessary for one to act in the best interest of humanity and the Earth. I think the current base of the Republican party is proof of this. How often are those that profess faith in God and Jesus doing so in order to positively benefit the world and all species in it? .... We all know the answer to this question.
But I love a lot of Jesuits. They accept reality, and still have faith.
Desmond Tutu- an amazing man.
If the 'religious right' in this country were like these people, we wouldn't have an issue with organized religion. I have a problem with organized religion because in the same breath as "God bless America" these people shout "Drill Baby Drill"
http://www.oilism.com/oil/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/oilspill0.jpg
This is "drill baby drill". Hard to take seriously "God Bless America"
Thomas Paine in AGE OF REASON puts religion in its proper place. When we bless our wars and our president says god guides him we are no different than a country run by Muslim extremists.
Hoa binh
Once and for all, let us just focus on reality. People who vote, run for office, make life/policital decisions based on faith, are truly dangerous people. Why? Because these decisions not only affect others, they are not based on REALITY. Does everyone out there have a window? Good. Go to it- what do you see:
People making billions of dollars exploiting the Earth and human beings in the name of Capitalism and 'free market' ideology.
Gay people. They are there. They are living their lives honestly.
Unbelievable suffering of children who have no voice and no choice.
What does religion do to reconcile REAL problems? Problems caused by human beings? Absolutely nothing. You have faith? Great. Doesn't look like that is working. So let's focus on the NOW. Let's focus on REALITY. If there is a 'God'-- Great.
What do 'conservatives' and 'religious conservatives' actually believe in?
Really. I want to know. Free Market economies? Are they working for the majority of the human population? Of course not.
Smaller government. What the hell does this mean?? Government is PEOPLE. PEOPLE who are supposed to act in the best interest of ALL other PEOPLE. Are they doing that? Of course not... How about an Altruistic Government?
Are human beings not capable of this?
Birds don't become obese. Polar bears do not create waste. Elk do not blow the tops off of mountains. Cats don't create religion.
We are not civilized.... yet...
Get rid of religion. It provides nothing of value. And if you think it does-- keep it in your heart, because it isn't genuinely applicable to the world at large.
"Get rid of religion. It provides nothing of value."
I totally agree. in my case it basically destroyed the first 26 years of my life. It's a worthless invention designed to control and to conquer the mind. Many religious people are great people but religion is not great
Although it is a mixed bag, sometimes religion (and even organized churches) do indeed help to "reconcile real human problems".
The abolitionist movement against skin color slavery in the United States was religiously based, as was the later campaign to end Jim Crow racial segregation in the American south. The international movement to abolish capital punishment has a large religious component to it. The anti-Vietnam war, anti-draft, and anti-nuclear weapons movements in the United States were very infused with appeals to religious principals, and couched in religious rhetoric by many participants. And it's really hard to deny that church based soup kitchens, homeless shelters, AA, and other charitable social service type outreach programs for those in need literally mean "nothing" in terms of ameliorating immediate, real world problems.
As for our Deist founding fathers, I've always been rather amused at the raging historical battles over who did and who didn't believe in God at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the drafting of the Constitution. Isolated passages from fragmentary bits of private correspondence are cited (pro and con) as proof of whether America supposedly is, or is not, a "Christian nation". I see little utility in that whole debate.
Whether George Washington was an atheist, an agnostic, a believer, or a non-believer as evidenced by his public pronouncements and behavior has to be looked at in the historical context: divine right monarchy was the way of the world and the law of the colonial landscape. If a colonial public figure of any sort was pressed around the time of the war for independence to confirm or deny holding a belief in God, this was a gotcha question of the greatest magnitude, potentially wrought with dire collateral consequences.
Deny God outright, and you deny the divine right of the King to rule - this could be called treason.
Admit to a professed belief in God, then you've taken the bait to legitimize the fundamental organizing principal upon which divine right monarchy is based. Thanks for the vote of confidence - unless, of course, you plan to dispute that God has in fact chosen and blessed George III to work his magic in the world. Drawing such a distinction, too, could be called treason (and perhaps heresy to boot), all the better to cost you your head.
One way to wiggle out of this 18th century European semantic trap was to bob and weave and equivocate like George, John, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and many of the others in the colonial era did: conjure up a hybrid belief system labeled Deism that is partly fish and partly fowl - religion enough to avoid being labeled an agent of Satan by the Christians who were calling all the shots, but not so doctrinaire a religion that you would be drawn into endless sectarian name calling disputes, and/or compelled to proclaim allegiance to some jerk with a crown on his head claiming to speak for God.
That's why I think the whole quest for historical accuracy reconstructing the role of origin in America's founding needs to be taken with several grains of salt.
Bill from Saginaw
So because there is a religious component to these movements, religion is RESPONSIBLE for them? No, it isn't. You don't need to read a bible, or pray, or listen to a priest/pastor/preacher to see the brutality of racism. You don't need 'faith' to sympathize with human beings. This is exactly my point. The REALITY of suffering is enough to convince anyone who is willing (honestly) to see it for what it is. You don't need another person or a book to TELL you what is wrong and unjust. Oppression, exploitation, greed in and of themselves is wrong. Period.
Does this make sense?
truthbetold---I totally agree with you.
Organized religions have at the core, the teaching and deeply entrenched belief in 'original sin'. Therefore, we are flawed by nature and can't trust ourselves. So, we need our leaders and authority figures to be our rulers and dictate to us.
They create the deepest insecurity in the masses and then presume to be the experts. As for the churches doing good works--well, if it weren't for the colonialism which was an expression of christian exceptionalism, and using evangelism as an excuse and tool to conquer the non christian world (missionaries are the first psy ops people), perhaps we wouldn't have needed so much so-called help from churches. I needn't bring up the subjugation and destruction of the indigenous civilizations of the 'Americas'....
It isn't just the protestant fundamentalists. The catholic church has been at this much longer.