I seriously question any religion that casts shame on providers or hobbyists.
Jesus Freakin' Christ- He's a total Born Again! Took the whole thing hook line and sinker- no wonder the rest of the world's leaders think we are retarded!
If Tony Blair said his life was based on Green Eggs And Ham, we'd think him a fooltoo! But our leader can baee his life on my ancestor's kinda silly creation myth and its alright?!
If Religion is the Opium of the People- Bush's wacky beliefs are like doing crack.
From Now on he's the Big Crackhead to me- you vote for him? You're a crackhead!
isn't something a person of your intelligence should be engaging in. You do not have to believe in any religion or God or what have you, but to call any religion an ancestor's silly myth really isn't a valid argument. Its an opinion you have every right to, but doesn't do much to persuade anyone.
I have studied Christianity and many religions including Islam. Many people today get their Christianity and Islam from Falwell, Robertson, Bin Laden, and Khoemeni. What they do to manipulate powerful and noble teachings for personal power has no bearing on the teachings themselves.
Just because Bush is president, doesn't mean our constitution and our very foundation is as empty and ignorant as Bush as well. You can't fault democracy itself due to the likes of Bush, just as you can't blame Christianity or Islam for the likes of Falwell and Bin Laden. They are corrupt religious leaders, just as we have many many corrupt political leaders.
It's not Christianity that's defamed, it is a brand of interpretation that is ... immature. There is little difference in fundamentalism in Christianity and in Islam. Both are extensions of a relatively immature personality/cultural structure.
Which, of course, makes this all the more dangerous.
On the one side, fire-brand Islamic reactionaries, and on the other evangelical Christian zealots. No wonder that some in the U.S. (hopefully a majority in November) and the rest of the world are appalled at what seems to be a a latter-day re-creation of the Crusades.
And for the record, the Christians fared rather badly in that undertaking.
that Sully calling Christianity an "ancestor's silly myth" doesn't accomplish anything.
You are right in the sense that really lunatic Christians who are trying to bring about a nuclear WW3 so Jesus can return to earth, coupled witht he really extremist lunatic elements of Israeli Likud who believe they are going to rule the world are a really dangerous group of zealots and they do have too much influence in the US govt and the Israeli govt.
Couple that with the lunatics in the Middle East who also want nothing more than to start WW3 so someone can come from heaven and save them, and you have an extremely explosive political situation.
But you also have to understand that the majority of the public is too stupid to realize of what is really going on, so as long as they feel they can chug a few beers with the president and he is an "ordinary man" you really aren't going to have much change.
Forget the Taliban, you are trying to reason with a society in which 80% of the public probably still believes Saddam was behind 9-11. And we are going to change and democratize the "backward" Arabs???
And I'll tell you they ARE too stupid because they ARE religious!
Fuck religion- Its just superstition in a cool veneer!
I would never act on my opinion, except to vote. I don't think their right should be taken away.
But one reason I love Europe is that in more mature societies (longer lived not better) they have seen the damage religion does and moved on. We are still a young society enamored of the promise of religion, and secure behind our oceanic walls so we never play the price of our mistakes. I am as sure as I can be that if we ever fight a home game militarily over a religiuos issue- we will leave it in the trashbin of history along with fascism and Marxist-Leninsm and Stalinism.
-- Modified on 5/21/2004 3:33:44 PM
I seriously question any religion that casts shame on providers or hobbyists.
Falwell, Robertson, Bin Laden and Khoemeni have everything in common with Moses, Mohammad and St. Paul. You can't renounce the first four without renouncing the last three. People who try to practice benign monotheism, refuse to recognize this, perhaps in the hopes that humanity hasn't been so thoroughly duped, or perhaps hoping that something, anything is in charge of this universe. Your hope and its inaction may just kill us. The denial of moderate people like yourself is no less than a sell out to fanatics, who will force the world into an apocolypse without a rapture before they are through.
Neither Islam nor Christianity are religions of peace, and I get sick of hearing that they are. Judaism is not a religion of peace either. The latter two may be in a mostly benign stage right now, but they may always revert to their more virulent form. Read their scriptures. Read their history. Look at what they insist upon now as a price for staying peaceful. Look at what upsets them and puts them up in arms now.
You may argue that Jesus's teachings were peaceful (not true), but there's not a lot of them, and St. Paul, his main mouthpiece, doesn't mention any of Jesus's teachings *even once.*
The Judeo-Christian-Moslem religions were all conceived as a means to manipulate. Entertain the thought that perhaps there was no God in the Sinai desert when the Hebrews left Egypt, then ask yourself what Moses and Aaron were really pulling off there. This does cast them in a light similar to Falwell and Robertson.
Not the exception to this, Islam spread through warfare. Plain and simple. There is no argument about this. Go to the heart of Islam, Saudi Arabia, and try to set up a Church, and see what happens to you. Try to publish this post, and see what happens to you. Just tell a devote Moslem that you read the Koran in Arabic and you weren't impressed. Your literary criticism will probably cost you your life.
Islam is a religion of peace when everyone is a Moslem. That's the promise anyway. However, because it is, in every way, as bad as medieval Christianity, there's no reason to believe this. Following the pattern, if it conquers everyone, it will then scism, and even if it doesn't, believers will set to killing those not faithful enough.
And if you are allowed to survive the next Jihad, Holy War, Crusade and Inquisition, if any of us can survive it, don't try to say that being fan of a fictitious god, one who insists on everyone's belief as a price for your health and his favor, wasn't the cause all along.
Don't they have good teachings? Yes, by accident.
/Zin
There was a particularly chilling moment when George W. was speaking before a religious group to tout his "faith-based" initiatives, in which he told them not to worry about governmental regulations. George W. then asked for a copy of the "Holy Bible" and said this was what they were responsible to.
Frontline made the point that George W. swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, not to defend Christianity.
What's stunning to me in 2004 when we have access to all the world's wisdom traditions plus a lot of science that paints an authentic picture of how psychospiritual growth and true moral development happens is that in America we have such a large number of people with amazingly immature notions of what Christianity intends.
What seems critically important is that how a person views and shapes their attitiudes about something as ambiguous as Christian doctrine is a function of their own maturation. His belief system reflects a person incapable of resolving ambiguity except through a black and white rule book.
I have lived through some presidents I distrusted - Nixon at the top of the class. Never have I felt as strongly about the poverty of leadership as I do with this man. The challenges of the 21st century are simply beyond his grasp - intellectually, morally, spiritually. I am eager for November. I think he's going to be overwhelmingly rejected. I hope I'm right.
"A starved dog at the Master's gate, predicts the ruin of the State." Wm. Blake
William, with George W. as the Master, I know I feel like the starving dog that you memoralized in your poem.
Dude-
You are letting yourself be a party to the problem! The world biggest Military is NOT OURS! The Chinese have it- and its freakin' huge!
Any time your standing military is over 3 TIMEs as big as your top rival you are a factor- even if you don't have cool gizmos! We SPEND more than they do- they HAVE more than we do.
Remember unless we go nuclear- we LOSE every simulation to the Chinese! I am NOT saying they are gonna hit us soon, but to spend our valuable resources fighting colonial wars while ignoring our real rival is totally asinine.
And to hold on to fairy tales as a basis for one's life IS also stupid. I know a lot of good people are so mentally misled, but it doesn't make the fallacy any less real.
In a battle of wits between the religious and the fossil record, the religious are UNARMED. I bet even bribri and JimIQ will see my point there- they are not stupid, just misguided.
And those of you who think of me as a tree-huggin' peacenik may be shocked but I did use to be officer material... and a cold war hawk!
I have little objection to smacking around Saddam- its the when and how that I find so poorly done.
Your disdain for faith is really way over the top for a mentally healthy atheist or agnostic.
... I can't stand his brand of religious beliefs. However, I don't think the world is any more dangerous because he has them. Presidents all have their "foibles": religion, strange pussy, getting back at their political enemies, ... and the republic survives.
In all honesty, I happen to currently have grave reservations that our democracy can even survive the TV sound-bite era unscathed. And I believe that our Constitutional Republic will become unstable if we allow the wall of separation between Church and State to be whittled away. IMHO, this and freedom of speech are the ABSOLUTE most important bedrock founding principles of the Republic. Take away either one, and our fate is to collapse under our own weight like the Roman Empire.
BTW- When I say religious, I mean anyone who believes that any religiuos book is THE WORD OF GOD and literally true. For the rest of us, I have no problem with a codification of enlightened self interest or using stories as allegories. But Bush claims to BELIEVE that the Universe was created in 144 Hours! No wonder he thinks global warming is not happening- he believes in fairy tales- and that those self same fairies can't marry each other!
I need to score. I am way too pissed off about this- but I see my kids legacy being tossed away by a moron and it burns me!
I use to work with a very religious guy who HONESTLY believed that the earth is only 10,000 years old.....I thought he was joking, but he was serious.....I think scientists will disargee JUST A LITTLE with that....
They've used carbon dating (think its called)some rocks, fossils, etc. have been dated back to billions of years.....
that the earth is only 10,000 years old - that's not faith but ignorance IMHO.
If the religious right were to try and understand that we are all Gods creatures and have the right to freewill - in contrast to them trying to shove their beliefs down everyone else's throats - Then I believe we could all ``just get along''. Afterall, if there is a God, I have faith that he would want everyone to just be good people - That's it.
Now, today (10,000 years later) I'm also quite sure that if GWB were to announce to us all that the earth is only 3,000 years old that there are those among us, THE TRUE BELIEVERS, who would nod their heads in unison, with faith by their sides, and give thanks that they have such a fearless leader with all the answers who can identify and track down all evil-doers. Boy, I feel safer already - Ooops, maybe I do evil .....
I think it's safe to say to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that the earth is billions of years old based on carbon dating and/or other scientific methods.....Now, as to HOW we got here, whether one believes in creation by some diety, or the big bang theory, that's a WHOLE OTHER issue...I just think the AGE of the universe issue has been proven scientifically...
-- Modified on 5/23/2004 10:45:40 AM
... I grew up in a fundamentalist household which only gradually became more comfortable with dealing with the world.
An argument, which I remember as a teenager, summed up the problem with Mr Bush's Creatioinist Ideas. It was entitled "Your God is Too Small". People that reject reality because of their interpretion of scripture basically suffer from emotional problems: they have never grown up intellectually. Quote some more scripture at 'um "when I was a child, I thought as a child and I acted as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things." Knowing more about HOW something happens should never make an adult reject reality to maintain childish beliefs.
-- Modified on 5/25/2004 10:08:39 AM
And which is why the man is not competent to be President of the United States. We live in a complex world, and those complexities are beyond Bush's capacity of comprehension.