Cashew
12-04-2004, 08:19 PM
I have compiled a complete report for my formal debate class that I will present in a in full suit and tie in an auditorium in front of two hundred plus of my peers as part of a student congress simulation. The bill I am speaking for (this will be a senate like fillibuster with no time limit) is a bill to establish a formal "wall" between church and state (because those Christian Coalition basterds don't think the first amendment is enough).
*Note: When I mention my constituents, these have been actual arguments brought up on the simulated floor of our simulated senate (I was elected from my Class as a Libertarian Senator).
Here goes.
I read a bumper sticker a few days ago. It was next to a fish, it simply read "Evolution is a lie". Next to that bumper sticker was a faded "Bush Cheney '04" magnet. I shook my head and passed the car smiling. When I got home that evening I watched the local and national news. Something distrubed me. It is something that has always disturbed me. I see more and bills and laws being pulled out of the hopper that are based squarely in religion. This I cannot comprehend. It frightens me in the worst way. So today I propose a bill creating a formal wall between church and states and I believe my case to be sound.
When faced with questions concerning the nature of reality and existence, many people turn to religions for answers. A "Religion" is supposed to be a repository of some kind of knowledge/information, or state of being, which is desirable in the sense that it makes possible a higher, or fuller, or more authentic life than that which we normally live. We go to a religion to learn about the so-called "meaning" of life, or to participate in rituals which we suppose will have some effect on the way we exist in the cosmos.
The assumption present in this way of thinking is twofold: first, it is implied that there is something that we do not know, yet need to know, in order to live our lives rightly, and second that communion with God/life, the desire for which attracts people to religion in the first place, is not our natural state, but needs to be attained, and even more importantly, needs the intermediary presence of another person (priest, guru), a belief system (any religion) or certain sacred/magical rites in order to exist at all.
Although religious people seem to be interested in life and meaning, actually the religious individual is a no-sayer to life. Why? If life, as we live it, is complete in itself, if our experience is complete without the need for theories of transcendence, then to go looking for superfluous meaning means to substitute an imagined content for an actual one. To insist upon the need for religion is to insist upon the imperfection of life; life is not complete, or even real, unless it is experienced from a not-given-but-attained consciousness, or from within a certain system of beliefs and practices. Naturally, the only true beliefs and practices are the ones which you happen to ascribe to, usually the ones you were born into. How lucky to have been born into the one true religion! Or, how lucky to have been born into a moribund, empty religion, and then quested on to discover the one true exotic foreign religion that your own dense people cannot understand! Either way, the immature insecurity that these points of view represent, or rather the often obvious immature insecurity of the people who are found to profess these views, speak a strong warning to anyone who might suspect that the "religious" impulse proceeds from strength instead of weakness.
Unfortunately, many people are far more interested in avoiding life through all kinds of evasions and obfuscating interpretations, and this is just the problem. The religious mentality arises from an inability, or unwillingness to accept the actual intensity of life as it is. This mentality balks at accepting that all the "meaning" or "content" of life is already contained within life itself, without the need to appeal to "higher authorities" or "higher" states of consciousness.
Religions, which unfortunately still hold considerable sway in this world, are dedicated to educating the population, from the earliest age possible, to need their services. All religions teach that there is something missing from life, or that there is something wrong with our relation to life, and that without their services, we are doomed to whatever it is that they say we are doomed to. If you believe that there is something wrong with your relation to life, you will experience life as a wrong-relation and act accordingly. And this is just the problem. Some might object that, without religion, man is a sinner, a criminal, an animal. But on the contrary, it is the warped human beings that religions have produced which are the ones who go out and commit all the horrors to which they have been led, step by step, by religion. Examples are not hard to produce. The politicians and generals who invoke the name of God to sanctify their bloodbaths take the examples of history as justification. People who quietly, or not so quietly, torture themselves and those around them because of values and judgments (sin, guilt) promulgated by religious institutions bent on self perpetuation and aggrandizement. The feeling of isolation, of helplessness that is inculcated by constant conditioning to consider oneself a sinner has undoubtedly driven multitudes to acts of desperation.
In India, one is told again and again that this world is a meaningless dream, and do you really think that this will not have an effect, in the long run, on how people conduct their lives? Will this effect be beneficial or not in terms of making people happier or enriching their lives? The first fundamental truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering (at least this is the simplistic way that it is translated and understood in the West). This being so, can life be of any value?
And what of the great Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition that came out of the middle east, and collectively represents the most profound no-saying the world has ever seen? To be fair, the most benign form of this tradition is undoubtedly Judaism, whose only mistake was to take too seriously the superiority that every people feels about itself, and make a religion out of it. Their culpability is more subtle, though, because of their role as unwilling parent to the other two religions, which is like being a slightly closed-minded and fussy parent who finds his offspring turning out to be mass-murderers. This scenario is complete with said offspring resenting the parent to such an extent that they desire the parent's death. No one wants to admit that Judaism is the real root of Western culture. Christianity is, at bottom, Judaism, of course mixed with Hellenistic culture and all kinds of other agendas. Therefore, you can say 'Judeo/Christianity' to refer to what is really at the bottom of western culture. Judaism is Judaism, but Christianity is Judeo/Christianity.
Oh, woe is the day that those first "disciples" sat around the carpenter, with the kind of hatred in their eyes that wanted to take revenge on life. Woe is the day that some said, "We know the truth, for we have seen it with our own eyes. Or rather, we have been told about it by those who thought they saw something, and anyway, here is a book which comes straight from the mouth of God which will back up everything we say." One can no more discuss anything with this type of mentality than ask a dead person to go have a drink.
Why is it that the birth of a child is not sufficient in itself? Why do Christians feel the need to perform a ritual over the baby, not as a celebration of the event, but as a way of saying, "The birth of this child is fine, but of itself, it is not enough. Without the value-bestowing ritual, baptism, there is something missing." And this was expressed by saying that if the child died without the value-bestowing ritual, it's soul would be banished to a region called 'limbo' that, without necessarily being a punishment, was not the heaven of beatific vision. It matters not a whit that the Church has since retracted this kind of mythological blackmail, the fundamental attitude, the assumption of incompleteness-without-our-ritual remains to this day in full force with those who still cling to this kind of thinking.
This way of thinking also stems from the desire to feel that one has got something that either one's neighbor does not have, in which case he is lost, or which he does have, in which case he is your brother because he brings the comfort of conformity. The fundamental idea that one has to "make a deal" with God/Life, in order to "attain" something, lies at the root of much childish and un-self-conscious thinking about life.
The shocking truth is that once you realize that there are no deals to be made, and nothing to attain, then you see that what already is, is already the ultimate meaning, the most intense beauty, and the greatest responsibility.
Christianity and Evolution:
My constituients say Evolution is a lie because it is full of loopholes. Or that it is just straight up evil and therefore a lie. I say it's more solid then a book written more then two thousand years ago then translated a hundreds of times into many warped and degraded forms. Religion (specifically Christianity and Islam) are nothing more then tools used to spread hatred and a sense of manifest destiny into the hearts and minds of the inherently mentally creature that is a human being! But before I get to that, I would like to dispense with the bull and show you what evolution really is I am not going to bother proving my point, just going to counter theirs
Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.
One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you.
As a Darwinian, something strikes me when I look at religion. Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. The vast majority of people have an allegiance to one particular religion. there are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of those.
Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favor, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity.
This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one.
Truths about the cosmos are true all around the universe. They don't differ in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Poland, or Norway. Yet, we are apparently prepared to accept that the religion we adopt is a matter of an accident of geography.
Another constituient of mine mentioned martyrs, those who died for christ, another, the his guilt over not being able to die for Jesus the way he died for them. What about those who have died for Christ that were not martyrs, but victims.
"The Europeans saw themselves as the superior culture bringing civilization to an inferior culture. The colonial world view split reality into popular parts: good and evil, body and spirit, man and nature, head and hear, European and primitive. American Indians spirituality lacks these dualism's; language expresses the oneness of all things. God is not the transcendent Father but the Mother Earth, the Corn Mother, the Great Spirit who nourishes all It is polytheistic, believing in many gods and many levels of deity. "At the basis of most American Native beliefs is the supernatural was a profound conviction that an invisible force, a powerful spirit, permeated the entire universe and ordered the cycles of birth and death for all living things." Beyond this belief in a universal spirit, most American Indians attached supernatural qualities to animals, heavenly bodies, the seasons, dead ancestors, the elements, and geologic formations. Their world was infused with the divine - The Sacred Hoop. This was not at all a personal being presiding ominpotently over the salvation or damnation of individual people as the Europeans believed.
For the Europeans such beliefs were pagan. Thus, the conquest was rationalized as a necessary evil that would bestow upon the heathen "Indians" a moral consciousness that would redeem their amorality. The world view which converted bare economic self interest into noble, even moral, motives was a notion of Christianity as the one redemptive religion which demands fealty from all cultures. In this remaking of the American Indians the impetus which drove the conquistador's invading wars not exploration, but the drive to expand an empire, not discovery of new land, but the drive to accumulate treasure, land and cheap labor."
There are thousands of other documented cases such as this all through-out History. The genocide of the American Indian (the worst in the history of the world almost one hundred million men women and childern child, the closest any race of human being has ever come to extinction) was racially and religiously motived, they believed they were racially superior because of their religion.
It could probably be best summed with a quote from a member of my state (*The class I was elected from) "I am not a racist or anything, but the isrealites were gods chosen people and they had to kill alot of people, but god still chose them, maybe go chose white people to rule America"
And African American member of my state spoke up "What about minorities"
"Sin" she simpled responded.
She didn't elaborate further but there is an obvious connotation. In Dominist Christian theology and in the book of Mormon minorities are described as the sons of lucifer and therefore are inferior, their skin was scorched by the fires of hell.
"No person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the Priesthood" - Brigham Young.
"Tough he was rebel and an associate of Lucifer in pre-existence, and though he was a liar from the beginning whose name was Perdition, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those sprits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born though his lineage. He became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition. As a result of his mortal birth he is assured of a tangible body of flesh and bones in eternity, a fact which will enable him to rule over Satan." - The Book of Mormon
"Now let's talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? When the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation...
Who placed the Negroes originally in darkest Africa? Was it some man, or was it God? And when He placed them there, He segregated them..." - Elder Mark E. Peterson
That is my next big topic.
Christian Dominism:
Where to start with this one? Oh I know! Where the trail of bull shit begins! Here is a perfect example of the high horse Christian, up on his righteous soap box telling me how to live and that the only right way is his way and if not I am going to hell if I don't do it his way and eventually his god will tell me the right way (isn't that a pleasent message of peace and love). This is the stem of the current phenomion occuring in many sects of Christianity; the dominionist movement. It is basically the theory of Christian world domination stemming from the belief in some kind of manifest destiny.
It can probably be best summed up by a man who preaches the importance of domionism George Grant.
"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ"
Now you think to yourself "that can't possibly happen, that's silly". Well yes it is. Because there will always be educated people out there to halt the march of the wacko. The problem here is that those wackos we need to stop are in very prominent positions in our nations Government.
They are the members of the "new" Republican party (the reason I abandoned the GOP) better known as neo-conservatives. They hold their religious values above all else. They are willing and have tryed in the past and are still trying to enforce Christianity on the masses by passing laws and even trying to amend the constitution.
This flyer was not distributed by some right wing extremist group like the Christian Coalition... no it was distributed by the Republican party itself.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/arkansas_flyer.jpg
(this will be posted on a projector behind me)
Basically trying to scare voters away from Kerry inferring that he (a practicing Catholic) would try and ban the bible and homosexuality and perversion will rule the nation and corrupt their childern. All of which is not true.
The "new" Republican party has chosen it's enemy and it's enemy is the homosexual. Plain and simple. **Gay is the new nigger. Liberal is the new communist and they will spread fear and misinformation about these two groups until they are shunned from society totally. They have the majority in the house and the senate and will soon control the supreme court once George W. Bush is able to appoint new justices. Therefore all checks and balances are gone. I am afraid.
Still think George W. Bush is a good guy? Well if the one hundred thousand dead civilians in Iraq arn't enough how about this? He is the defacto leader of the "new" Republican party and lives by (and governs by) everything it stands for.
From www.counterpunch.org
"An omnipresent consideration for Christian fundamentalists is the "Great Commission" biblical mandate, in the book of Matthew, of "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." The felt responsibility to live out this command, both locally and globally, has become intertwined in the eyes of the Religious Right with support for the principles of political freedom and liberty."
"The Bush administration, therefore, has offered a dangerous combination: the president claims to know God's wishes and presides over a global landscape in which the administration believes that it can act upon such beliefs without compunction."
Don't believe me that these guys are homophobic, xenophobic, and generally bad guys? How about a quote from another leader of the movement Jerry Falwell!
""[T]hese perverted homosexuals. Absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, God-fearing citizens stand for. Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom..If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!""
And how about this Nazi Tradition now being practiced in the south.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/berlin_book_burning.jpg
http://www.theocracywatch.org/book_burning_penn.jpg
(Again on the projector)
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10076
"On Sunday evening, members of the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Penn Township sing songs as they burn books, videos and CDs that they have judged offensive to their God."
I may seem like a radical. But this is really happening in our nation. The land of the free! We cannot let it happen. Please join me today in voting for this law. It is a not an attack on religion, it is a helping hand for freedom. Only throught keeping religion out of government can we achieve our goal of religious equality.
I will end with this quote.
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." Heinrich Heine, nineteenth century German author.
**Thanks to a member of this board for this quote, but I cannot remember your name.
*Note: When I mention my constituents, these have been actual arguments brought up on the simulated floor of our simulated senate (I was elected from my Class as a Libertarian Senator).
Here goes.
I read a bumper sticker a few days ago. It was next to a fish, it simply read "Evolution is a lie". Next to that bumper sticker was a faded "Bush Cheney '04" magnet. I shook my head and passed the car smiling. When I got home that evening I watched the local and national news. Something distrubed me. It is something that has always disturbed me. I see more and bills and laws being pulled out of the hopper that are based squarely in religion. This I cannot comprehend. It frightens me in the worst way. So today I propose a bill creating a formal wall between church and states and I believe my case to be sound.
When faced with questions concerning the nature of reality and existence, many people turn to religions for answers. A "Religion" is supposed to be a repository of some kind of knowledge/information, or state of being, which is desirable in the sense that it makes possible a higher, or fuller, or more authentic life than that which we normally live. We go to a religion to learn about the so-called "meaning" of life, or to participate in rituals which we suppose will have some effect on the way we exist in the cosmos.
The assumption present in this way of thinking is twofold: first, it is implied that there is something that we do not know, yet need to know, in order to live our lives rightly, and second that communion with God/life, the desire for which attracts people to religion in the first place, is not our natural state, but needs to be attained, and even more importantly, needs the intermediary presence of another person (priest, guru), a belief system (any religion) or certain sacred/magical rites in order to exist at all.
Although religious people seem to be interested in life and meaning, actually the religious individual is a no-sayer to life. Why? If life, as we live it, is complete in itself, if our experience is complete without the need for theories of transcendence, then to go looking for superfluous meaning means to substitute an imagined content for an actual one. To insist upon the need for religion is to insist upon the imperfection of life; life is not complete, or even real, unless it is experienced from a not-given-but-attained consciousness, or from within a certain system of beliefs and practices. Naturally, the only true beliefs and practices are the ones which you happen to ascribe to, usually the ones you were born into. How lucky to have been born into the one true religion! Or, how lucky to have been born into a moribund, empty religion, and then quested on to discover the one true exotic foreign religion that your own dense people cannot understand! Either way, the immature insecurity that these points of view represent, or rather the often obvious immature insecurity of the people who are found to profess these views, speak a strong warning to anyone who might suspect that the "religious" impulse proceeds from strength instead of weakness.
Unfortunately, many people are far more interested in avoiding life through all kinds of evasions and obfuscating interpretations, and this is just the problem. The religious mentality arises from an inability, or unwillingness to accept the actual intensity of life as it is. This mentality balks at accepting that all the "meaning" or "content" of life is already contained within life itself, without the need to appeal to "higher authorities" or "higher" states of consciousness.
Religions, which unfortunately still hold considerable sway in this world, are dedicated to educating the population, from the earliest age possible, to need their services. All religions teach that there is something missing from life, or that there is something wrong with our relation to life, and that without their services, we are doomed to whatever it is that they say we are doomed to. If you believe that there is something wrong with your relation to life, you will experience life as a wrong-relation and act accordingly. And this is just the problem. Some might object that, without religion, man is a sinner, a criminal, an animal. But on the contrary, it is the warped human beings that religions have produced which are the ones who go out and commit all the horrors to which they have been led, step by step, by religion. Examples are not hard to produce. The politicians and generals who invoke the name of God to sanctify their bloodbaths take the examples of history as justification. People who quietly, or not so quietly, torture themselves and those around them because of values and judgments (sin, guilt) promulgated by religious institutions bent on self perpetuation and aggrandizement. The feeling of isolation, of helplessness that is inculcated by constant conditioning to consider oneself a sinner has undoubtedly driven multitudes to acts of desperation.
In India, one is told again and again that this world is a meaningless dream, and do you really think that this will not have an effect, in the long run, on how people conduct their lives? Will this effect be beneficial or not in terms of making people happier or enriching their lives? The first fundamental truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering (at least this is the simplistic way that it is translated and understood in the West). This being so, can life be of any value?
And what of the great Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition that came out of the middle east, and collectively represents the most profound no-saying the world has ever seen? To be fair, the most benign form of this tradition is undoubtedly Judaism, whose only mistake was to take too seriously the superiority that every people feels about itself, and make a religion out of it. Their culpability is more subtle, though, because of their role as unwilling parent to the other two religions, which is like being a slightly closed-minded and fussy parent who finds his offspring turning out to be mass-murderers. This scenario is complete with said offspring resenting the parent to such an extent that they desire the parent's death. No one wants to admit that Judaism is the real root of Western culture. Christianity is, at bottom, Judaism, of course mixed with Hellenistic culture and all kinds of other agendas. Therefore, you can say 'Judeo/Christianity' to refer to what is really at the bottom of western culture. Judaism is Judaism, but Christianity is Judeo/Christianity.
Oh, woe is the day that those first "disciples" sat around the carpenter, with the kind of hatred in their eyes that wanted to take revenge on life. Woe is the day that some said, "We know the truth, for we have seen it with our own eyes. Or rather, we have been told about it by those who thought they saw something, and anyway, here is a book which comes straight from the mouth of God which will back up everything we say." One can no more discuss anything with this type of mentality than ask a dead person to go have a drink.
Why is it that the birth of a child is not sufficient in itself? Why do Christians feel the need to perform a ritual over the baby, not as a celebration of the event, but as a way of saying, "The birth of this child is fine, but of itself, it is not enough. Without the value-bestowing ritual, baptism, there is something missing." And this was expressed by saying that if the child died without the value-bestowing ritual, it's soul would be banished to a region called 'limbo' that, without necessarily being a punishment, was not the heaven of beatific vision. It matters not a whit that the Church has since retracted this kind of mythological blackmail, the fundamental attitude, the assumption of incompleteness-without-our-ritual remains to this day in full force with those who still cling to this kind of thinking.
This way of thinking also stems from the desire to feel that one has got something that either one's neighbor does not have, in which case he is lost, or which he does have, in which case he is your brother because he brings the comfort of conformity. The fundamental idea that one has to "make a deal" with God/Life, in order to "attain" something, lies at the root of much childish and un-self-conscious thinking about life.
The shocking truth is that once you realize that there are no deals to be made, and nothing to attain, then you see that what already is, is already the ultimate meaning, the most intense beauty, and the greatest responsibility.
Christianity and Evolution:
My constituients say Evolution is a lie because it is full of loopholes. Or that it is just straight up evil and therefore a lie. I say it's more solid then a book written more then two thousand years ago then translated a hundreds of times into many warped and degraded forms. Religion (specifically Christianity and Islam) are nothing more then tools used to spread hatred and a sense of manifest destiny into the hearts and minds of the inherently mentally creature that is a human being! But before I get to that, I would like to dispense with the bull and show you what evolution really is I am not going to bother proving my point, just going to counter theirs
Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.
One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you.
As a Darwinian, something strikes me when I look at religion. Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. The vast majority of people have an allegiance to one particular religion. there are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of those.
Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favor, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity.
This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one.
Truths about the cosmos are true all around the universe. They don't differ in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Poland, or Norway. Yet, we are apparently prepared to accept that the religion we adopt is a matter of an accident of geography.
Another constituient of mine mentioned martyrs, those who died for christ, another, the his guilt over not being able to die for Jesus the way he died for them. What about those who have died for Christ that were not martyrs, but victims.
"The Europeans saw themselves as the superior culture bringing civilization to an inferior culture. The colonial world view split reality into popular parts: good and evil, body and spirit, man and nature, head and hear, European and primitive. American Indians spirituality lacks these dualism's; language expresses the oneness of all things. God is not the transcendent Father but the Mother Earth, the Corn Mother, the Great Spirit who nourishes all It is polytheistic, believing in many gods and many levels of deity. "At the basis of most American Native beliefs is the supernatural was a profound conviction that an invisible force, a powerful spirit, permeated the entire universe and ordered the cycles of birth and death for all living things." Beyond this belief in a universal spirit, most American Indians attached supernatural qualities to animals, heavenly bodies, the seasons, dead ancestors, the elements, and geologic formations. Their world was infused with the divine - The Sacred Hoop. This was not at all a personal being presiding ominpotently over the salvation or damnation of individual people as the Europeans believed.
For the Europeans such beliefs were pagan. Thus, the conquest was rationalized as a necessary evil that would bestow upon the heathen "Indians" a moral consciousness that would redeem their amorality. The world view which converted bare economic self interest into noble, even moral, motives was a notion of Christianity as the one redemptive religion which demands fealty from all cultures. In this remaking of the American Indians the impetus which drove the conquistador's invading wars not exploration, but the drive to expand an empire, not discovery of new land, but the drive to accumulate treasure, land and cheap labor."
There are thousands of other documented cases such as this all through-out History. The genocide of the American Indian (the worst in the history of the world almost one hundred million men women and childern child, the closest any race of human being has ever come to extinction) was racially and religiously motived, they believed they were racially superior because of their religion.
It could probably be best summed with a quote from a member of my state (*The class I was elected from) "I am not a racist or anything, but the isrealites were gods chosen people and they had to kill alot of people, but god still chose them, maybe go chose white people to rule America"
And African American member of my state spoke up "What about minorities"
"Sin" she simpled responded.
She didn't elaborate further but there is an obvious connotation. In Dominist Christian theology and in the book of Mormon minorities are described as the sons of lucifer and therefore are inferior, their skin was scorched by the fires of hell.
"No person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the Priesthood" - Brigham Young.
"Tough he was rebel and an associate of Lucifer in pre-existence, and though he was a liar from the beginning whose name was Perdition, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those sprits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born though his lineage. He became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition. As a result of his mortal birth he is assured of a tangible body of flesh and bones in eternity, a fact which will enable him to rule over Satan." - The Book of Mormon
"Now let's talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? When the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation...
Who placed the Negroes originally in darkest Africa? Was it some man, or was it God? And when He placed them there, He segregated them..." - Elder Mark E. Peterson
That is my next big topic.
Christian Dominism:
Where to start with this one? Oh I know! Where the trail of bull shit begins! Here is a perfect example of the high horse Christian, up on his righteous soap box telling me how to live and that the only right way is his way and if not I am going to hell if I don't do it his way and eventually his god will tell me the right way (isn't that a pleasent message of peace and love). This is the stem of the current phenomion occuring in many sects of Christianity; the dominionist movement. It is basically the theory of Christian world domination stemming from the belief in some kind of manifest destiny.
It can probably be best summed up by a man who preaches the importance of domionism George Grant.
"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ"
Now you think to yourself "that can't possibly happen, that's silly". Well yes it is. Because there will always be educated people out there to halt the march of the wacko. The problem here is that those wackos we need to stop are in very prominent positions in our nations Government.
They are the members of the "new" Republican party (the reason I abandoned the GOP) better known as neo-conservatives. They hold their religious values above all else. They are willing and have tryed in the past and are still trying to enforce Christianity on the masses by passing laws and even trying to amend the constitution.
This flyer was not distributed by some right wing extremist group like the Christian Coalition... no it was distributed by the Republican party itself.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/arkansas_flyer.jpg
(this will be posted on a projector behind me)
Basically trying to scare voters away from Kerry inferring that he (a practicing Catholic) would try and ban the bible and homosexuality and perversion will rule the nation and corrupt their childern. All of which is not true.
The "new" Republican party has chosen it's enemy and it's enemy is the homosexual. Plain and simple. **Gay is the new nigger. Liberal is the new communist and they will spread fear and misinformation about these two groups until they are shunned from society totally. They have the majority in the house and the senate and will soon control the supreme court once George W. Bush is able to appoint new justices. Therefore all checks and balances are gone. I am afraid.
Still think George W. Bush is a good guy? Well if the one hundred thousand dead civilians in Iraq arn't enough how about this? He is the defacto leader of the "new" Republican party and lives by (and governs by) everything it stands for.
From www.counterpunch.org
"An omnipresent consideration for Christian fundamentalists is the "Great Commission" biblical mandate, in the book of Matthew, of "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." The felt responsibility to live out this command, both locally and globally, has become intertwined in the eyes of the Religious Right with support for the principles of political freedom and liberty."
"The Bush administration, therefore, has offered a dangerous combination: the president claims to know God's wishes and presides over a global landscape in which the administration believes that it can act upon such beliefs without compunction."
Don't believe me that these guys are homophobic, xenophobic, and generally bad guys? How about a quote from another leader of the movement Jerry Falwell!
""[T]hese perverted homosexuals. Absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, God-fearing citizens stand for. Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom..If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!""
And how about this Nazi Tradition now being practiced in the south.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/berlin_book_burning.jpg
http://www.theocracywatch.org/book_burning_penn.jpg
(Again on the projector)
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10076
"On Sunday evening, members of the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Penn Township sing songs as they burn books, videos and CDs that they have judged offensive to their God."
I may seem like a radical. But this is really happening in our nation. The land of the free! We cannot let it happen. Please join me today in voting for this law. It is a not an attack on religion, it is a helping hand for freedom. Only throught keeping religion out of government can we achieve our goal of religious equality.
I will end with this quote.
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." Heinrich Heine, nineteenth century German author.
**Thanks to a member of this board for this quote, but I cannot remember your name.