Alan MacDonald

I agree with you that Chris Hedges needs to plow the road in the USA to try and wake up some of the sponsors and givers to the right wing theology theorist who never had their way from the start.  For their way has been patterned after the old line of barons of banking trade commerce makers of tools of war blue blood east coast elitists that I call the BEAST OF MANKIND for they are the chicken hawk cannibals that feed from other people’s spiritual carcass once dying or dead after listening to their voo doo of mishmash, hogwash, and mum boo jumbo that has no connection what so ever to the TRUE GOSPEL AND WILL, WORDS AND WAYS OF JESUS CHRIST MY KING NOW.

Now the big trouble Chris would find and you too is that light when it comes to many of them will scare them to death.  And many will think that Chris is the devil.  Out to steal their souls.  My preference for Chris time well spent would be to start making the case as short as he can and make it readable for most all to understand. And the far out right just let GOD bring them in if HE see fit.

Dwight Baker We The Peoples Advocacy
Co Founder of Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
Eagle Pass TX
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Chris, with your backing in theology you should address the issue of Jesus and Empire a la Richard Horsley’s ‘framing’ that Jesus was very anti-empire.

If you haven’t already, read George Lakoff’s “The Political Mind”, and work on the ‘framing’ for a ‘cognitive policy’ (Chap 10) that would bring the conservative evangelical crowd over to the metaphor that Jesus was sent to free us from empire (which I think is not too far from reality, or their beliefs) and that as such they should be motivated to confront the ruling-elite ‘corporate financial Empire’ that currently controls the US, and vote strongly in that direction as progressives.

You, more so than any author I can think of, could potentially use your grasp of religion and politics to reverse the kind of radical right-wing conservative propaganda that Thomas Frank wrote about in “What’s the Matter with Kansas” and get a vast portion of religiously focused ‘red staters’ to start voting FOR their own economic AND religious interests—- by voting and acting against the economic empire which is distorting the real message of Jesus to fool them into voting for the elitist empire that is now enslaving and screwing them.

Chris, maybe you could also partner with NewsWeek’s editor, Jon Meacham, fi you know and respect his viewpoints on such a project.

Sincerely,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

TAO Walker, March 24 at 4:46 pm #

HokaHey!

***********************************************

“Thanx and a hat tip to” Tao Walker!

(are you old enough to remember what THIS is from?)

While this probably won’t make much sense to Inherit The Wind either, his own generous words have “earned” him the following “datum.”  It isn’t really important whether anyone can “understand” the admittedly “strange” verbal arrangements of English this Old Man offers here.  Let’s face it, there comes a time (and this is it) when mere understanding gets to be a superfluous luxury-item we can’t actually afford anymore.

Simply making the effort to “read-through” this Person’s “drummings” here, however counter-intuitive that might seem, is plenty good enough for now.  So thank you for some of your precious attention….the “basic service” which, with our respect, is all we need “pay” for admission to the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth and the Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself.

HokaHey!

HokaHey!

CHRIS HEDGES

Seems every time some matter about religion philosophy or politics comes about OH NO here they come out.  When they began to come around, like a pack of hungry hounds, I try to set back have laugh and wonder what is so wrong that so many feel like they don’t belong?  Have those folks been left out abused misused denied some liberties, locked up in jail refused bail got an unfair trial?  Seems they just have mean streak. Besides that they seem to have their own language. Even though they try to converse in English I have a hard time making any sense of their connections of words to explain their positions.

My biggest concern is that most present to me that they feel that have been excluded from human reactions and common sense and reason in composing explanations. Now if my premise is correct and that population of that persuasion is more that 2% of our population——then I believe we are in far more trouble than banks going up sided down, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, or all screaming while in hot pursuit of the BUSH BUNCH for crimes of making war.

Chris, I wonder if there is an ongoing connectivity between those that comment in that fashion and is it likely that they communicate between each other to set the stage to be displayed for the public to view after coming up with their agreed rhetoric in derision. If so does that mean right here in America we have a sub-culture that has the techniques figured out——how to push their agenda on the Internet to try and sell their ways of [thinking?] by the use of baseless and tasteless nonsense language contrived behind the scenes in like sales boiler rooms.  If that be so OH NO.

Don Hanzen ALTERNT had an acute problem with that——not long ago and may still have today. He let those folks rant rave condemn confuses all who commented to their not liking.  Thus the bottom line is how——can we as a people——share converse move forward in some unified effort to begin fixing our broken government that has been laid to waste?  And if I was a person who thought wrong I might say——It is just too late.

Dwight Baker
WE THE PEOPLE LOBBY [now Advocacy]
JOIN IN contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Tao,
After Dwightbaker’s increasing vomitus, I find your confusing way of writing very refreshing!

(even if I still don’t understand a d*** word of it! )

BTW, I still think you do yourself a disservice referring to yourself as “this old savage”.

DWIGHTBAKER asks questions (except for the one about Frank Thomas, who offered a sensible “comment” a few entries below this one) which are based on assumptions fundamentally at-odds with actuality.  This old Indian doesn’t have a “web-site,” for example.  “Sacred Conversations” is the work of a Person who evidently finds occasionally in the offerings here of Yours Truly something worth repeating. 

Our People belong to Native NATIONS.  The “tribe” is a CONceit of “civilized” peoples who, CONtrary to their professed beliefs, coveted our Country and were quite willing to commit murder and mayhem upon us to occupy it.  It apparently eased their collective and “individual” consciences to make us out to be somehow less “human” then their “selfs.”

We do have Ceremonies for engaging effectively, as Persons and as Peoples, the Living Ground of our Being.  What some call the “Vision Quest” is among these, though it’s hardly limited in its benefits to only those of a “rite-of-passage.”

That DWIGHTBAKER (and maybe others here) has difficulty understanding this old Savage’s Way of stringing-together English words, could be due in-part to their not having done the Ceremony of Losing-One’s-“self.”  After all, the “I” cannot see The Eye.

Besides that, of course, the conceptual limits of English (not to mention the overweening CONceit of the English and their american heirs) render it less than ideal for expressing anything not “linear” in its fundamental assumptions.  The thing is, few using this “medium” would even have a “clue” if this was written in Ojibwa, f’r instance….which it could be.

So we’re stuck for now with the language we’ve got more-or-less in-common.  Anyhow, even if they’re used and arranged in “unusual” ways, the English words themselves are not all that un-common, and should be accessible to most people at-all fluent in that “tongue.”

DWIGHTBAKER’s interest, however misinformed, is nevertheless appreciated.

Hokahey!

TAO WALKER

I took the time to review your post and your web site; I do declare you lost me in your rhetoric.

So a few short questions might be in line if you agree.

Who is Frank Thomas?

What are your stated goals for posting what you do? 

And what is it that you want we readers to do?

What is it that we should give up to be a part of your tribe?

Is there any initiations RIGHTS OF PASSAGE that would be performed by your tribe?

What does your comments have to do with the essay by Chris Hedges?

What does it imply to have a Sacred Conversation?

DWIGHT BAKER
Chairman for the Voices of We the Peoples Advocacy WTPA

Frank Thomas below gets right to The Heart of what’s “the matter.”  Our tormentors and their two-legged tools, being abjectly subject to it theirownselfs, have only one imperative:  “By their fear-of-death we shall rule them.”

So they set-up a now “global” CONtraption for the sole purpose of inducing, in Humans not theretofore naturally susceptible to it, that crippling misCONception that is the absolute “monarch” of their own diminishing half-lives….a misery-loving company of damned fools.  “Individuals” are of course real suckers for the death-cult sales-pitch. 

The Living Human Communities our Lakotah Cousins call Tiyoshpayes enjoy a Natural Immunity to this air-raid-siren invitation to despair….with its accompanying promises of “....pie in the sky when you die.”  Tame Sisters and Brothers, you have nothing to lose but the chains that bind you to the “thing” that is eating you alive.

Hokahey!

DWIGHTBAKER, March 23 at 2:59 pm #

DWIGHT BAKER
WE THE PEOPLES LOBBY [now advocacy] WTPA
Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
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Nicely put.

You realized that you were in a hole you couldn’t get out of so it was best to stop digging and try to escape with at least one shred of your dignity intact.

I give you credit for that, at least, if for nothing else.

REPLY to the self-declared Illuminating Numinous Magical Mystic

I thought you might have been a little less inane than some of the others but your words have reveled you are not nearly illuminating in common sense and reason as you think you are for sure, and after re-reading you most psychosis post and I will not stoop so low to even respond—————because in my estimation you either want to fight or run away for you have nothing to say that would even interest me in revealing anymore of your lacks found in respect for others comments in the forum provided by TRUTHDIG for discussion.

DWIGHT BAKER
WE THE PEOPLES LOBBY [now advocacy] WTPA
Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
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DWIGHTBAKER, March 23 at 7:25 am #

You have not the faintest clue what the Apostle Paul was getting at in your seemed knowledge of the Biblical text.  How could you because you are NOT in the family of God?
********************************************

Uh-Huh….so, if one needs to be a believer to “understand”, and if one is not a believer than one cannot understand.

This then raises the obvious question: WTF are you doing here if not to simply blow up the thread?

How can I believe if I don’t first understand, but I can’t understand because I don’t believe.  That’s called a Catch-22, or, more formally, a tautology.

That also implies that YOU or I cannot condemn homosexuality if we are not homosexual because we can’t understand it, not being one.

Even sillier: Unless you or I are a murderer or a rapist, we cannot understand murder or rape.

Who in their right mind would believe either of these two implications?  Yet that is the logic of the argument you make.

So…Why are you here if not simply to disrupt the thread?

CHRIS

A few points of interest in your essay:

The name the——false idol of unfettered capitalism——-I am not sure was your message.  However many did find your writing skills and message very good as did I.  Number one all idols are false. We were instructed by GOD to not surrender our allegiance or will to anything made of man that represented their ideas of a god to bow down to and worship.

The message that you presented was that of the service to self or as Jesus defied the god of Mammon or self-deity.  And all who are sane and sound today know for a fact that is the root cause of our country being robed.  Those skilled in acts of collusion and turning worthless paper into assets was all a con run on our public therefore——from the lowest to the highest up the ladder some day are going to take a big hit and all those years of saving will go out the front door——never to return again.  Now most thought Adolph Hitler was the worst thief to ever come along and he did set the record when he ravaged all the Banks in countries he invade, but guess what the Bush Bunch in their reign of terror has eclipsed Hitler’s numbers by 100 to 1000 fold and maybe more.  And to that end the jury is still out to try and see into all the opaqueness of it all to see what course can be taken now to re-do or un-do and just let go of getting back to the place where Americans have lived for a long time.

Now the godlessness of all that is that those folks were of the Anti-Christ persuasion they had marketed themselves to be from god and about god and sold the idea to the hard core religious right to get the votes needed to get in power for eight long hard cold and ruthless years. GOD FORBID if we allow another time like that in our American history.

So MY TAKE is that your insight into those that fulfill the creeds in the need for greed was what called by you unfettered capitalism and partly I agree. But I think if any will look back in history the idea of capitalism has never been sound for any others than the ones who dealt the cards.  And that has been the ones that Jesus defined as the benefactors—- I refer to them as the BEAST—LUKE 22—25 History calls that class of folks the barons.  They were the ones many times that put in a military man to run their governments and his job was to invade and conquer other land masses and people—- then spread out the spoils of war NOT into the treasury of the nation but pass around to the barons for their wealth to grow.  And just a quick look back into history will confirm those are the facts.

So since the term that has been used by us Democratic Republic to define who we are——that practice has been the golden rule.  A quick study into the spoils of war coming out of IRAQ just that one will suffice to prove the point the rich keep getting richer because of war and plundering and pilfering other nations. While our war machines makers have had bountiful years to grow their seemed wealth too. And look at how much BLACK WATER and HALLIBURTON has taken from us because of the Bush Bunch chicken hawk war efforts.

Now I hope I did not divert to far away from your essay but I wanted to paint the picture the way I read your focus.  Most folks are good and morally minded and follow their conscience. But some do not and have messed their mind up with drugs and wrongful living and their transgressions are so many that they have lost their way totally being a part of our greater social sanguine society.  But the allurements that come from those groups have taken a toll on many good folks in America and they like many others will have to find a fall back position and re-group to carry on.  And that they can do like many others throughout history that have had to help shoulder each others burdens to get a fix on what each could and should do to become community again.

AKA Mr. Ms or It Inherit the Wind,

You are wrong because you have not a clue what you are talking about because your rage filled words tells all—- that you are not one of the family of God.  And that makes your voice nullified by your own words.

You have not the faintest clue what the Apostle Paul was getting at in your seemed knowledge of the Biblical text.  How could you because you are NOT in the family of God?  You are just one more of the 1 to 5% that want to rant and rave about how bad we are because we have a core in life to draw from the springs of living water as have you have never found for your heart is a self seeker of the lust of the flesh and your hate filled words define that very well.

Dwightbaker,
Congratulations. You have destroyed this thread with your endless religious rants based on inaccurate knowledge.

A few corrections to show that you don’t know what you are talking about.  There aren’t 10 Commandments followed by 613 laws of Leviticus.  There are 613 laws and the 10 Commandments are the first 10. They have been misinterpreted and miscounted since, in the Torah, they are not numbered.  Jews, Catholics and Protestants all divide them up differently.  Many of the 613 make no sense—if you suspect your wife of infidelity force her to eat dirt and if she dies and her belly swells with rot, she was unfaithful. If she dies and her belly doesn’t swell with rot, she was faithful.

But with Paul’s message to the Greeks, ALL the laws passed down, INCLUDING the 10 Commandments were put aside because he argued that all that was needed was faith in Jesus. (That’s because the Greeks didn’t want to be circumcised, as Jews have been since Abraham).

In other words, Paul said the ends justify the means—the ends being Faith, the means being throwing out 1200 years of the Law of Moses—of which, according to all accounts, Jesus was adherent to, but teaching mercy as well.

Funny thing: I’m not a biblical scholar or a Talmudic scholar or even an adherent, yet clearly I know more about this than you.

Why do fanatic religious preachers never understand that they can not reach logical, rational people because their arguments don’t make logical and rational sense?

MR. HEDGES,

I send my condolences to you for your journeys in life that have impaled on you the terrors and horrors of needless mindless wars that have always been waged by the BEAST of mankind. To rape pillage steal and kill all for the sake of getting more spoils of war or money.  The reckoning we must do each day within our selves is how do we take our sufferings and move toward using those to warn others and to set the record of history straight for future generations and our posterity.

Just couple of footnotes on your good piece of prose:

First: All laws given to the JEWS by GOD through the prophets were for them exclusive as were the Ten Commandments but also the other 613 laws that came at the same time. All found in the first five books of the holy text known as the TORAH.  However those laws were transferred orally for a long time before being written down. There is a much deeper and profound reason for those laws of GOD in His Great Cosmic Plan and Play. Sexual perversions by the Pagans had been rampant throughout history up to the time that the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses. Even today modern science and medicines has not the means or ways to know of the scarring of ones emotions/mind/innate humanity/ genetic history that comes about when the vaginas of women have been polluted and the sperm of man has lost its intended virtue. That has been proven / in that men and women who have a litany of sexual perversions will produce offspring dispossessed from being creative and out of the Indented Creative Will of GOD. I saw that first hand in multitudes of proportions [genetic flaws] when working in Mexico North of Poza Rica in the mountain areas of extinct volcanoes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poza_Rica, Thus it has been said that the sins of the father are passed down to his off spring.

Second:  Those same people that had been a witness to GODS grace and mercy being freed from slavery to Egypt had at the base of Sinai seen HIS fury too. Thus for forty years GOD set out to purge from them their polluted minds/morals and lack of respect for common sense and reason to prepare for HIM a people and lineage back to Judah where HE would have that perfect egg inside of Mary to become HIS earthly temple in becoming a mortal like us.  Thus Chosen people have a much deeper meaning than most have thought even though it has been there for all to see and bring into remembrance that GOD is GOD and we are not. Accordingly could it be said that GOD has a good plan for breeding HIS people? I believe the words in the Ten Commandments will prove that conclusively.  And when the entire 613 Laws are delved into deeper we will find the Mind of God for HIS chosen and that will again reinforce what the purpose for the laws were. A simple study of the bloodline from whence Jesus came is good but what ever is greater in the sense of this study is to see how GOD used HIS divine intervention to get what he wanted in the wombs of women chosen by HIM and the sperm of mankind. You might want to do that it will bring a smile to you all over to see our Great God perfecting his Cosmic Plan with the Players that HE chooses.

Dwight Baker
WE THE PEOPLES LOOBY [now Advocacy]
Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
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BEING ABLE TO HAVE A GOOD INFORMNED FORUM

Since getting involved in sharing information with others on the Internet I have been welcome by most.  Even on sites that attract others of un-like mind than most Americans the percentage of those folks is only about 1 to 5%.

For instance on CARE 2 the few that come in to deride chide and make most uncomfortable soon leave because seems those on CARE 2 are more vocal when they come around. 

ALTERNET had a large group in that crowd of dissents that all talked to one another as if they were in a boiler room with computers all on the same site to run up the hits to improve the ratings so more money could be asked for advertising. NOW that was just my suspicion at that time, since they took away from me——- to have a voice on that site———I seldom read any post and seldom read much from their staff writers. I simply do have the time to verify all the folks that write. All of us should remember we have been through eight long years with the BUSH BUNCH cramming down our throats and 90% of what they said was a lie so I have become more than cautions to believe most anything from ones who do not trust.  And a rule of thumb for me is when an AKA is used I suddenly think gotta watch them. Because I am proud of my name why would one be not? Hanzen has got some good writers but not all. And some of the works in the past were in not good taste that brought out the worst in the crowd commenting at that time. Even on CARE 2 some have the disposition that one who has a litany of information is a spoiler to there turf maybe————-that is what I have been perceived to be here on TRUTHDIG. 

Last I count it a pleasure and am humbled by the internet making a giant stride into news items media that allows forums like this to exist.

DWIGHT BAKER
WE THE PEOPLES LOBBY NOW Advocacy
Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

JADED PROLE

You replied to my post that only made it for a time then you or someone got rid of it—- now is that what your group calls a fair and unbiased forum.  Most do that do those kinds of things——such those that post the same kind of message that I have read from within your group?  They scream when one refuses to be stabbed in the back by those who obviously have lacks in the good sound reasoning common decency and manners——in which most good and moral people not only abide by but also live by.

When posting on ALTERNET there was a crew that cruised around for those of us commenting about the need to work together——like sharks.  Then in some manner or way they would attack——- when I finally learned all the AKA names it was easy to see them swimming thus I called them the CRAZED RAT PACK CROWD. They did as your group has done and got my post removed some how.  I kept telling DON HANZEN our President and others that on that site revolution was being encouraged and many had stated reason for revolt and who was first on their list ME.  I was really attacked they even posted my address and the best way to get here and all that tomfoolery.

But what most doesn’t understand is that I RESPECT ALL OF MANKIND, BUT I FEAR NO MAN, I DO FEAR MY GOD FOR I FALL FOR LIES AND LET HIM DOWN DAILY.

Now for all the seemed wits of your group want to take those words and spell out some moronic way on interpretation again——painting me as the BAD GUY. Frankly I could care the least if they do.

You know, Hedges may be onto something regarding the unfettered part, though not just capitalism. We may be watching the demise of capitalism as they have known it, for the bickering does seem to be coming from many different lofty ivory towers. Maybe the unfettering will include looking at tax free loopholes from those lofty bell towers.

False Idols? All the time I have been here, I thought Hedges title was “False Idiots”. Now, his article makes more sense. “The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism”.
Those darn speed reading classes have been such a pain.
Now I understand where the preaching fits in, has anyone tried standing on a soap box lately, they just do not make them like they used to.

I don’t hate you DB, I hate that you insist on preaching the same old fundamentalist garbage to us in capitals and thinking we’re evil if we don’t buy into it. It’s a narrow minded approach that leads to nothing good. As for me; I’m an unemployed blue collar type who believes that all of us together can create a more democratic, socially just society if we wrench it away from the greed-heads that are destroying the planet. We can’t do that with religious impediments because we are too diverse but one thing we all have in common is our class experience. Without the working class, there can be no “unified front” and without a class conscious you can’t possibly understand who the “bad guys” are or why they do what they do.  As a poet, I use my limited talents to inspire and educate and I’ve yet to make any money at it, nor is it the goal.  Institutional religion has always operated in the interest of the ruling class. Liberation theology is an exception which is why it is condemned by church officialdom. In stead of being defensive and insisting that you hold some great singular truth, try a little humility. We all have much to learn and reality is more complex than any mythology we can projection on it.

JADED PROLE

Your review and assessment of my work is wrong and your intent to put me in a box with others that you hold in low esteem, derision if not hate I find hateful. And MY TAKE is that you have found a niche to make a few bucks or still live off a trust fund and in doing again state your need for the blue collar workers to start a class struggle instead of a unified front to fight the real bad guys——and I am not one.

You supposedly represent the blue-collar workers and I know many of them and none that I know could follow neither your rhetoric nor you obvious hatred for those who go to Church.  In the LITTLE PRINCE we were——if half smart in reading told if we took on a person to rule over in any way then we owned them as if they were our slaves ALL.  Now you want to teach and preach your message of exclusion but when your converts need to propped up with anything———where can you be found, and then what is your fall back position?  Writing more poetry, about how bad things are now and might even get worse. So again for MY TAKE on your commenting and posting I find not one shred of what you said to be useful to any one———except maybe for the down and out that have chosen to be losers who want to follow your ideas on the need to REVOLT.

Sounds reasonable to me.
What DM illustrates in his most recent tirade is a real problem with fundamentalism no matter how well intended. His call for a cohesive, “moral based communed American society” really excludes those who refuse to buy his brand of mystical dogma— “the many vile and evil people.” It is a basic tenet of Christianity that Christians have a duty to “spread the gospel” and “save the souls” of others and they see this as a benevolent and necessary duty, thus the lengthy preaching here meant to bring us the “ONE TRUTH.” The rational among us realize not only that there isn’t one truth but that it is intolerant and unacceptable to force ones dogma on others.

Dogma, is an inflexible principal and is so necessary in preaching. Incomplete feelings, a individual feeling of being lost or alone, ready desire to seek an authority to explain the unexplainable can be intrinsically built in for some.   

Indoctrinations of agendas become brain washing and accepted through dogmas by preaching, the world is flat, the moon goes around the sun, etc.  Preaching as similar to lies requires constant repetition. So the stories become truths in the mind of a prisoner or the vulnerable of mind. This works well and always has, the main requirement is inherent absence of reason.

If reason is in the room, dogma has little chance of survival, inflexible absolutism’s cannot survive over reason.  Is this an inflexible absolutism?

SHOW SOCIETY YOUR DEEDS————SOCIETY WILL NEED TO READ YOUR WORDS
SHOW SOCIETY YOUR WORDS———-SOCIETY WILL NEED TO SEE YOUR DEEDS
BY Dwight Baker
March 21, 2009

Have many of us Americans become snobbish critics that have neither?  No societal words or deeds.

Thus have our state of the union and the well being of our society become for some just a casual satiated exclusion and satisfied to become a mere belittling critic?

If so, I submit we must ask ourselves what are those of that mind set ignoring, at this time when their skills observations intellect is most needed?

Has the many roads that lead to exclusion ever been good for the great encompassing societal sectors for the good of our moral based communed American society?

I think not.

Seems to me that more in our society each day is pulling back from the needs to be inclusive.

Hence those seeking that other and higher pompous ground to be walled up around with acts of exclusions may in fact be one more rub to come to try and destroy us from within.

If those premises be so——then who could ever report that those ideologies of life will ever defeat the many vile and evil people, matters and things that have come about to wreck our well being as a sovereign nation?

Thus let all of us ARISE and SHINE to once again be an inclusive communed voice for our Great and Abundant America and our sovereignty.

VISIT ME
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/white-house-we-want-non-traditional-media-to-have-seat-at-table/

Chris,

Let’s talk about God. I’m into God in the deist sense, the way Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein thought about God.

Here’s my favorite story:  Lightning rod. Franklin knew of holy men sending boys up to ring the church bells during thunderstorms to let God know the church was a holy place. The boys died by the droves.  Franklin seeing this result tried a different tact: he invented the lightning rod, which is to say God is the universe and its laws. 

Einstein often referred to God. But he did not believe in an afterlife, he did not believe in heaven or hell.  Whether he was contemplating the speed of light or the behavior of molecules, Einstein was contemplating God. 

And that’s cool because it does not necessarily contradict anything you said in your article above; it merely means we have to expand the Ten Commandments to include the laws of the universe.
For example:

You shall not destroy your ecosystem. 

Your economic system shall not impoverish the earth’s people and plunder its resources.

And maybe we drop a few along the way. The stuff about taking the Lord’s name in vain – we can probably let that slide. The stuff about coveting your neighbor’s man servant, maiden servant, donkey, wife—we can probably let that one slide too seeing as how this whole ownership of property thing is leading us to destroy the world and once again violate the supreme law the universe: Don’t destroy your ecosystem. 

Sigh.

Next commandment:  You shall not bastardize science down to your own stupidity, ala,  “Survival of the fittest.”  Darwin wrote about species, the best adapted species. Morons created social Darwinism to justify “survival of the fittest,” which is to say the attacking, impoverishing and mass killing of their own species.

Some John Cleese here: 

Apes don’t read philosophy.

Yes they do, Otto! They just don’t understand it. 

In short we will all live or we will all die.  And the ecosystem or physics in the form of an asteroid or a comet is much more likely to do it than we are.  Sure, we might kill off a few billion or so with a nuclear war. But what’s really likely to wipe us out is the universe itself.  The way we’re going now we got about five thousand, maybe ten thousand years left.  But it sure would be nice to have our species around for, say, another two hundred million years. 

But to do that, we, as a species, must work to survive as a species. Sounds silly doesn’t it? Yes. 

But it’s true. We will all live or we will all die. None of us is any more fit than the rest when it comes to the universe plowing an asteroid into the Pacific Ocean. So, we might be better off spending our resources on working as a species to prevent that particular catastrophe. 

As for an economic system that works, one that keeps all people as a whole, one that ensures everyone prospers or everyone suffers, well there is a precedent that too. It was the system non-system of the American Indians.

I know, I know, we killed them all.  But take a look: They were actively living in North America for five thousand years, and it’s arguable they had been in these parts for over twenty thousand years. What did we find when got here? Paradise.

What have we done the last six hundred years?  Think pig excrement bubbling in our streams.

So, yes, the Indians were godless savages who were easily destroyed by our pestilence and guns.  But in my mind, they were living much closer to god than we are now. 

So, I take it all back, we can probably just chuck all of the original ten commandments and just start of over with the Edicts of the Universe, starting with:

All human systems shall be in accordance with the laws of the universe.

Cool?  And watch out for them American Fascists, Chris, I hear they’re a sanctimonious and violent bunch.

Now for those espouse there is NO GOD then why do you defend your position with such fervor? 
****************************************************

Why do YOU defend YOUR position with such fervor and SO MUCH PEDANTRY????

4 max length posts followed by a few more…did anyone actually READ any of them?  Not me!  I skimmed them and realized it was a primal vomiting and did not want to be spattered with vomitus.

CORRECTED MISTAKE SORRY
Theocracy that is the word you used to put me in [the same kind of box]—-that I have never have been and will never become.  I have read the books you told me to read and many more also.  I was a searcher for a long time but was changed or as JESUS said converted from just mortal man to immortal man at the same time as HE proved when becoming the first of the SECOND ADAMS.  I have given you far more than you have given me and I have been kind generous and caring and serious about an open forum but now I am gone.

Theocracy that is the word you used to put me in [the same kind of box]—-that I have been and will never become.  I have read the books you told me to read and many more also.  I was a searcher for a long time but was changed or as JESUS said converted from just mortal man to immortal man at the same time as HE proved when becoming the first of the SECOND ADAMS.  I have given you far more than you have given me and I have been kind generous and caring and serious about an open forum but now I am gone.

THE HIJACKING OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH BY THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

The following is an excerpt from the site—- a wealth of information can be amassed.
http://www.dynionmwyn.net/enemies/CHRISHIJACK/hijack.html

I have been so concerned that many in America view ALL Christians as these kinds of folks.  I am not one and I know many others are NOT too. Some of the leaders in this Political Movement have more money than the USA treasury namely DAVID KOCH. His plan for man using religion is just horrid to the core. And we must as good and moral people rebuke him openly and stand definitely in his face and demand he halt his money giving for such purposes.

In the early 90s, there was a movement within the Republican Party that displaced many traditional members, and replaced them with younger people. At first, those who had been displaced interpreted this as a natural cycle of events, and welcomed the dedication and energy the new members brought with them.

Gradually, however, it became obvious to those who had been ‘displaced’ that they had in fact been dumped, kicked out of their own Party, and that there was actually something very disturbing about the agenda of the new members, and their involvement with the Religious Right.

Thus was born the Committee of Traditional Republicans, who took it upon themselves to finance the research they felt was needed in order to understand the new forces that were taking over the GOP.  Part of this research involved sending operatives undercover to learn about the powerful backstage maneuvering of the Christian Coalition.  This Web Published document was written by one of those agents.

It is very likely that the Religious Right will attempt to counter the charges made in this document by means of a tactic they have used before: a showcase gathering of representatives from a cross-section of America’s religious organizations and faiths, designed to mislead the public, and show that the Christian Coalition is utterly nonpartisan. Anybody who reads this document will not be fooled.

http://www.dynionmwyn.net/enemies/CHRISHIJACK/hijack.html

History is found the the physical remnants of prior civilizations and people; in many cases these remnants include writing history occurring in the stone age, Sumeria.  Mythologies exist to explain the world to the members of the cultus attached to the myths.

DB some suggested reading:

The Golden Bough by George Frazier – the abridged edition will suffice.

Joseph Campbell’s four part work on Mythologies

The legend of Gilgamesh

Try reading histories that are not designed to bolster the prejudices you have for your holy book of myth, fable and legend.

Your rants have illustrated by remarks better than I could have done.  Thank you.  Chris Hedges wrote an interesting book,  American Fascists.

None of us would deny you the right to living according to the arrangement of superstitions you find comforting. By the same token as a group we are objectively and rationally oriented, the world of signs, wonders, magic and miracles from the stone and bronze age find little credence among us.

A few of us may proselytize for an atheist point of view with the idea of conversion, but this is far from the norm.  Mostly we simply don’t want a theocracy.

Oh Jebith, we get the 10 commandmenths tothed at us by Hedgeith and now the rest of the far fetched thories from thop box Tham.  Where iith Trichinosiih when you need him?

Really DB, most of us don’t care about your mumbo-jumbo. You have the right to any beliefs you choose but maybe you should preach somewhere else. Some of us prefer rational issue-oriented matter.

For those who like serious study about the topics of discussion in this forum

World Religions from Ancient History to the Present——-
edited by Geoffrey Parrinder ISBN0-87196-129-6

Sex in History———by Reay Tannahill
ISBN 0-8128-6115-9

DEFINING THE INNATE FEARS FOUND IN OUR LACKS OF SERVITUDE OWED TO OUR CREATOR AND OUR FEARS OF OUR OWN DEMISE

Those are the real and pressing questions that have been pursued by good and morally sound folks following their conscience for a long time. And here again is just one of the many discussions that seem to never end about who, what, why when and how did so many go wrong in looking for the light and when finding what they thought was right then using their belief system to punish others for not doing as they dictated to others what was taught them to do by what order or religious assembly they were from. 

To set the record straight about those who call their selves Christians: 

JESUS CHRIST is KING NOW—- HIS KINGDOM is expanding as HE planned. JESUS arch rival enemy is the ANTI-CHRIST’S that is NOT just one mortal man but many of mankind that have a mind set that——- I call the BEAST——they are those that seek the need for greed at all cost to others while they worship self and that was called by JESUS the god of MAMMON [Self-worship or deifying ones self].

Many pagan priests and pagan prostitutes stole the message of JESUS soon after HIS return to GLORY. HIS life and words as told to many played out real well for the pagans to jump on board with a new message that would draw many others to them for it had all the elements needed when turned around by them—- for them to entrap and keep their new converts connected only to them providing them a constant a predicable FREE RIDE.  Therefore in the second century AD the supposed gospel [good news] of their said Jesus was taken to North Africa and off to the east to what we call Turkey today and that set the stage in the third century AD for the Roman emperor Constantine to proclaim that Christianity was the religion or church of the Roman empire. Because the many Roman pagan gods had led the city dwellers to debauchery to such a degree they had become worthless being contributors to the Roman society in whole. But out from the larger cities were those JEW and GENTILE alike that revered the Risen JESUS CHRIST as their master and their life styles were sane, sanguine and communed and more importantly those folks had learned to watch each others backs to keep all from the many tyrannical horrors that was prevalent in those days. Keeping things in the Roman order of doing Constantine sent his mother to Israel to identify all the sites in the gospels and mark them as such.  She did. The other thing that was on her mission was to find artifacts during the times of JESUS CHIRST claim them bring them back to Rome to become the property of the STATE as relics to be worshiped. During the same time Constantine made funds available for many of the Bishops of the Churches to expand their meeting places for worship in the enormous provincial Roman Empire. Thus came from Constantine again a need to organize a hierarchy for control.  But to do that scholars were needed to work toward finding proof in the biblical text at that time for justification. Thus came what is called today the founding fathers.  Most were intellectuals many were formally trained in law and they set out to formulate what the gospel of Christ really was about.

PART TWO

The honoring of the MOVE OF GODS HOLY SPRIT the Quakers came along about the same—- Unprogrammed worship is the more traditional style of worship among Friends and remains the norm in Britain, Ireland, continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and parts of the United States. During an unprogrammed meeting for worship, Friends gather together in “expectant waiting” for divine leadings. Sometimes a meeting is entirely silent, sometimes quite a few people speak. Meeting for Worship generally lasts about an hour.

When they feel they are led by the spirit a participant will rise and share a message (give “vocal ministry”) with those gathered. Typically, messages, testimonies, ministry, or other speech are not prepared as a “speech”. Speakers are expected to discern the source of their inspiration — whether divine or self. After someone has spoken, it is expected that more than a few moments will pass in silence before further Ministry; there should be no spirit of debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Society_of_Friends

The first “Pentecostals” in the modern sense appeared on the scene in 1901 in the city of Topeka, Kansas in a Bible school conducted by Charles Fox Parham, a holiness teacher and former Methodist pastor. And again sad it is to say just a name and hierarchy change but most of the tenets of the HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH remained the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Methodist_Episcopal_Church 
Now during the time from Constantine till today—- want to be scholars or just idiot preachers and teachers have taken upon themselves with no proof whatsoever to make a name for themselves by stating things about biblical prophesy history and our LORD and HIS messages that are just heretical and wrong and many have done so just for the purpose of making more money.

Then again here come another time for reformation like all of those before and it was called the charismatic or word ministries that flourished for a time so they again went about creating a new name and hierarchy change.  Most of the BIG MEGA CHURCHES keep all the money they get in [so they have become money mills for those starting a new ministry with all it new bells and whistles] now most of those have joined ranks with the FAR OUT RIGHT RELGIOUS WING that supported the BUSH BUNCH AGENDA ” Some history of how it all began when the first wave of Pentecostal pioneer missionaries produced what has become known as the “Classical Pentecostal Movement” with over 11,000 Pentecostal denominations throughout the world. These continued to proliferate at an amazing rate as the century came to an end. In retrospect, the pattern established in South Africa was repeated in many other nations as the movement spread around the world.

That is, an enterprising Pentecostal pioneers such as Lake broke the ground for a new movement, which was initially despised and rejected by the existing churches. This phase was followed by organized Pentecostal denominational missions efforts that produced fast-growing missions and indigenous churches. The final phase was the penetration of Pentecostalism into the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches as “charismatic renewal” movements with the aim of renewing and reviving the historic churches.

Strangely enough, these newer “waves” also originated largely in the United States. These included the Protestant “Neo-Pentecostal” movement that began in 1960 in Van Nuys, California, under the ministry of Dennis Bennett, Rector of St. Marks Episcopal (Anglican) Church. Within a decade, this movement had spread to all the 150 major Protestant families of the world reaching a total of 55,000,000 people by 1990.

PART THREE
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement had its beginnings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1967 among students and faculty of Duquesne University. In the more than thirty years since its inception, the Catholic movement has touched the lives of over 70,000,000 Catholics in over 120 nations of the world. Added to these is the newest category, the “Third Wave” of the Spirit, which originated at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1981 under the classroom ministry of John Wimber. These consisted of mainline Evangelicals who moved in signs and wonders, but who disdained labels such as “Pentecostal” or “charismatic.” By 1990 this group numbered some 33,000,000 members in the world.

In summary, all these movements, both Pentecostal and charismatic, have come to constitute a major force in Christendom throughout the world with explosive growth rates not seen before in modern times. By 1990, The Pentecostals and their charismatic brothers and sisters in the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches were turning their attention toward world evangelization. Only time will reveal the ultimate results of this movement that has greatly impacted the world during the Twentieth Century.
Yet many of us that came to know our LORD JESUS CHRIST as being born again with the infilling of HIS HOLY SPIRIT soon run from those churches when we saw the real need to do so to not forsake our own sanity.  Because for many of us the Pentecostal experience was not taught nor sought out on an intellectual level—- it came to many of us when we just gave up and gave into HIM.  Accordingly for me my infilling started in 1981 and that was just the start THANK GOD for since that time my life has been changing for the better and I have been taught by HIM and no man can do what HE does.

In simplicity how does OUR GOD THE LORD JESUS CHRIST SEE MANKIND TODAY?

SO Where do we fit it into GOD GREAT COSMIC PLAN AND PLAY And what can be expected when our life if fully spent

FIRST :  Those folks who do right things according to their good and moral conscience they have the rights to life in the world to come in lieu of being JUDGED by HIM in the future. They do not defy their mortal demise.  They die as just a mortal human or soul and that is that.  They do not come back again until in the mind of GOD they are recalled or resurrected from the dead.
The JEWISH RABBIS called those folks GOOD NOAHCIDES. JESUS called those folks HIS sheep that was lost and needed the real gospel of HIS BAPTIZIM TO COME TO THEM.  So that they could be a part of HIM BUILDING HIS KINGDOM now and not having to die a physical death but live on with HIM.

SECOND:  There are those that have sought out to be just one more ANTI-CHRIST to seek to accomplish the creeds to satisfy their need for greed that has no end to the lust of the flesh to commit all kinds of horrors on their fellow man. And for those you can read HIS words in Matthew Chapter 25.

THIRD :  For the many that have followed HIM into becoming a SECOND ADAM after HIS likeness that HE proved in his life-seemed mortal death, burial and resurrection then for us that has forsaken all the religions created by man and the many tenets or laws required to follow that are out of bounds with our LORDS words, will and ways——- HE has a plan for each one of us—that is needed in building HIS KINGDOM on this HIS EARTH for all of mankind HIS SHEEP. Then when it is time for our seemed mortal demise——HE IS THERE to welcome us as we are man woman boy or girl to go with HIM and work some more in HIS GLORIOUS place I call Heaven.

JESUS CHRIST SAID—- Choose this day who you will serve. 

Now some reading might say Dwight you got weird ideas and ways——OK I might have to you but my words are the truth with facts galore and in this forum of thought I am led by HIM to do and obey HIS words——- IF ANY MAN DENY ME BEFORE MANKIND I WILL ALIKE DENY HIM BEFORE MY FATHER.

Now for those espouse there is NO GOD then why do you defend your position with such fervor? 
**************************************************

Because down the generations I still “feel” the pain Crusaders’ destruction of towns and the rape and murder of the people by men charged in their “holy duty” by “God”, of Tomas de Torquemada’s tortures and flames, and the stones laid on Giles Corey’s chest, the ropes around the accused witches’ necks in Salem, by the stones killing a young woman in Afghanistan for “adultery” today…THAT is why!

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”—Voltaire.

delphine,

There may be atheists who feel the need to evangelize believers to become non believers to convert and demand people not believe.  I have not seen their churches, temples or synagogues or other religious establishments.

Some try to say the Communists were a formal group of atheists, I could agree that is so. What is troubling in your attempt to pigeon hole both sides, I suggest neither side is back and white.

Again, non belief is just what it is, no more no less. We may agree people should be free to believe as they want or not and keep it to themselves, but reason does not always find its way to reality.

Suggested exclusion is the work of religion not others. So TD posters need training on clearing the air of delusional remarks.

Fe Fi Fo Fum, I smell Fiddle FAddle doing his home work again or another fishing for responses.

If people do not want a sales pitch, why is it the problem of the receiver? Similarities of religious zealots, just like the annoying phone calls forcing us to listen to a hard sell program on why we need extended life insurance,  another con.

Where does the money fit in, after we are dragged in the door of a religious establishment or do we just send it to the soap Box?

LF: Be an atheist, be a true believer…... my point was that both groups show an inability to be open to new information should it come along that would alter their convictions. That, in my opinion, is a danger. However, ultimately all that matters is how people live their lives which is the point of Hedges article, I think. It’s been my personal experience that the most trustworthy, caring and responsible people have tended to belong to neither the true believer camp nor the atheist camp. That’s been my experience. As for reading the Bible, I concluded long ago that reading the Bible for guidance or comfort is a good way to make someone go truly and completely nuts…...

REPLY
Gosh seems all of us who have cleared out the many useless membranes that prevent us for serious dialog in our brains——have been left open for ridicule by many others that have retained the membranes for self protection in acts of exclusion from the more sane and sound.  Now for those espouse there is NO GOD then why do you defend your position with such fervor?  Who are trying to impress?  Others of your own kind that have a like mind?  Frankly I don’t care—-I am not out to change your point of views but I am out to clear the air from derisory remarks and vain vile attacks from those that I perceive to have many lacks needed in contributing or conducting a forum in any civil society.

DB,

It never fails to amaze me how religious types come here, preach their own particular dogma, tnen get angry and nasty and p*ss-ed off when an INCREDIBLY unreceptive audience responds with a very loud “BULL$#*T!” (and a snicker and a wise-crack or two)

Did you not know it was an unreceptive audience who have all heard that very same speech a hundred times before, nearly word for word?

I tell you flat-out I have never seen a miracle, never expect to see a miracle, and never want to see a miracle. There was one possible miracle in our Universe’s history—the Big Bang. That’s enough.  And it’s not even clear THAT was a miracle. 

There’s a new theory that’s actually testable, falsifiable, called the membrane theory that’s a little different than the Big Bang and resolves the issues of inflation and dark energy. (dark matter isn’t the problem).

So why don’t I want to see a miracle?  Because that will mean that God is imperfect and fallible, and I have no use for an imperfect and fallible God.

To all—-if the shoe fits wear it.

Seems many have an agenda on TRUTH DIG to slam anyone that comes along that brings into account of FACTUAL history. And for those that want to walk in that direction it becomes senseless to do so with them ——for there is no common reasoning or common sense leading to a central core for dialog in a forum as this. Some folks have pent up anger for other reasons and just like to fight for the fever that comes on them when doing.  I am not possessed to that weird kind of psychopath behavior.

The truth of the matters concerning the post that I referenced is that from those strange belief systems many are coming out—- and leading the folks who want to rebel in acts of revolution when doing taking it to the streets.  And if that comes about in America what will happen then——- there will be no way folks with that perverted sense of self and others will win——but along the way many good and morally sound folks will lose too for they were in the line of fire.

The BUSH BUNCH was chicken hawks crying for war.  I see the same in the way these words are formed on this site.  A chicken hawk is a coward through and though like Hitler and GW Bush’s. They cry out insane things to provoke the crowd to rebel then off they go in a corner to hide.

VillageElder,

Your points are well taken, looks as if one has felt your name threatening.  Wonder why? Sounds like the local witch Doctor is moving into new territory and wants a monopoly on soap boxes.

From what I understand there are over 400 religions and different gods in the world, why is one more worthy than the others, maybe because it was in Mr Rogers Neighborhood and competition is bad for business?

Snake oil salesmen start out by criticizing reason, then go into their well choreographed sales pitch. Freedom of speech should not be free, so we have the practice of Religion, the stifling of freedoms and most of all stifling of reason.

DWIGHTBAKER does a great job of making village elders point. It should be noted that using capital letters does not make bizarre beliefs any truer. If we are to avoid a barbaric dystopia and move forward as a civilization, we will have to put mysticism in the museum where it belongs and rely on rationality. It should also be noted that not all religionists are of the Dominionist type but that does not lessen the need to confront the disease of fundimentalism.

SOOTHSAYERS MAGIC MEN CHARLATANS CLERICS TO NAME JUST A FEW

They all have a similar agenda and it is not for the betterment of those they supposedly serve.  It is for their self-interest. Much like some commenting in the language of MUM BO JUMBO. 

But we are the makers or breakers of what our lives evolving become.  God gave us the choice of free will to decide to follow HIS light or follow the dark side into oblivion and despair. Magic is done daily by those whose power rest in deceit. Deceit is NOT a NEW thing at all some just drink in the poisons spewed out by the mystics then calls those avenues proof of where they are headed. There is ONLY ONE GOD——HE IS THE GOD OF ABRAHMAM, ISSAC AND JACOB, and then the twelve sons that made up the tribe of ISAREL.  JESUS CHRIST was born from the seed or egg from the genealogy of the tribe JUDAH. The sperm was from the ONE and ONLY HOLY GOD not man. Thus the Apostles have said that we if Gentiles have been grafted into the vine of ISARAEL to work for the LORD JESUS CHIRST NOW.  For at this time HE IS KING and he awaits patiently for all to come to HIM to be grafted in.  And that experience is called the INFILLING OF GODS HOLY SPIRIT.  I hope and trust that many more will go to that source for you daily living and in giving back to our KING.

Yeth, ith true, I do have a writing impediment, you silly savage.

FlamingLib,

Do you have a writing impediment? It is not Jebus, but Jebth, and who is Mammonith?

People like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are essentially—all the megachurch leaders, really—preaching the same thing as Gordon Gekko: Greed is good.  This is completely incompatible with true Christianity: the earliest Christians were socialists who believed that the concept of property is inherently evil.  Not for nothing did Jebus throw the money changers out of the temple.  They’re back, though, and with a vengeance.  It isn’t Jebus’ teachings that they follow but those of Mammon.

Mr. Villageelder

Your name leads me to believe you are a self styled guru of sorts. And you’re almost comedic effort to categorize all Christian believers into some inane insane box again makes me wonder what your true bottom line agenda might be.  But I have known many like you before currently Deepak Chopra is just one that his intent is to lead folks astray from others then suck them into his own mindless Indian agendas of worshiping the failed and dead now supposed great men and their frivolous fancies in fallacies developed over time. Yet I don’t dare to care about them at all it is their bait that they allure others into their traps that I hate.

Now whether one needs a GOD or not is not my problem I am ok whatever one believes I am just interested in whomever NOT encroaching on my rights to life. And now in America the freedom to speak and communicate without being harassed by some who have precipitous prescriptions of agendas is not taken lightly by me.

Therefore please accept my advice and keep an even keel for this forum without you needing to be grand standing and using your name etc as a bully pulpit.

Reading the comments on this article I am struck by the number of respondents who appear to be “Dominionists”.  The folks fall into the evangelical and fundamental camp.  Below are some key points in their belief system.

- The bible is inerrant.  Everything contained in this book actually happened are will happen.
- Evolution is false.  Everything was created in 7 days six thousand years ago.
- Man was given dominion over the world and creatures in it by god.
- One must be “saved”.  You can only be saved if you agree with them. People who are not saved will go to hell.  Not saved = satan’s and the anti-christ’s subjects and army.
- People who are saved are obedient to god’s law and obey those who speak for god.
- The USA is chosen to be god’s, aka evangelical christian country.  If the Constitution disagrees with the Bible the Constitution is wrong.  Replace the Constitution with the bible.
- Because they are god’s people is is their right to rule and destroy the ungodly.

A war between good and evil is underway.  They are on the side of god/good and liberals, freethinkers, ACLU,scientists, Democrats, Communists, Socialists, Progressives, homosexuals, abortionists and other folks who disagree are evil and must be removed so the “Second Coming” will happen.
Science must agree with the bible to be true; anything else is satanic fiction.
There can be no compromise about the word of god and his will.

The proper government is ruled from the top down in accordance with god’s word.  Those who disagree must be punished.  Totalitarianism!
God makes his people prosper through capitalism and the government is to do god’s will. Fascism!

There are more hallmarks identifying their beliefs, e. g., male dominance as per biblical teaching, most of which run contrary to the beliefs of those folks who believe in science, freedom of thought and speech and human rights.  If they can not enroll you into their church and belief system you are no longer human.

As members of an open discussion group we must remain aware that nothing we can say will deter the rants and political actions of this group.  They must be stopped in the political arena.  They are better organized then we, the left, are.  They have a single message and see themselves as part of a great crusade.

delphine,

Seems to be a mixing the “A’s”,  doubt applies more in the context of agnostic, not atheist. For instance, to doubt the existence of a guy or gal in the sky, Santa Clause the tooth fairy or anything else, would mean not being sure.  This is the sentiments of the Agnostic, in reference to the concept of belief, not being sure would mean doubt. Asking the atheist to doubt would be requesting them to be agnostic?

Hi Leefeller:
I think you might have missed my point. I was not referring to differing opinions but to differing convictions and my sense that these opposite convictions are held in place by the same forces: fear and arrogance. I have never heard from an atheist anything but the same absolute certainty that I hear from true believers.
Both are unwilling to be open to doubt.

delphine

“People who are absolutely certain in their atheism are as misguided, in my opinion, as those who are absolutely certain in whatever their religious convictions. Both polarities are held in place by arrogance and fear”.
Could the arrogance and fear really only be differences of opinion?

I remember the heady days of shock and awe. Back when it looked like we were kickin Baghdad butt there weren’t a whole lot of critics of the war in Iraq. So too, a few years ago, it was heresy to speak ill of capitalism. Americans love a winner it seems, regardless of the moral color of the victory.

Capitalism has always had an aspect immorality. Even hypercapitalism, which I’ll define here as the maximizing of profits with no regard for the social costs, has been around for generations. Just look at the case of the Ford Bronco. The model was the subject of multiple lawsuits for its propensity to flip over and kill it’s passengers. Later, inter-office memos surfaced showing Ford’s conclusion that it was more cost-effective to pay off the lawsuits rather than to admit the problem and undergo a national recall to fix the product.

In an evolved society, this kind of behavior would not be acceptable. But when nobody seems to have a problem with it as long their house keeps going up in value and they get to trade in their beemer for a new one every three years, this outlier humbly suggests that it’s not capitalism’s fault, it’s (y)ours.

People who are absolutely certain in their atheism are as misguided, in my opinion, as those who are absolutely certain in whatever their religious convictions. Both polarities are held in place by arrogance and fear.
As for the criticism that Mr. Hedges writes like someone in perpetual recovery it might be wise for such critics to wonder how an intelligent and sensitive person might go out into the world and really face it square on, eyes wide open, as Mr. Hedges has done and not spend the rest of ones life in perpetual recovery. He obviously isn’t stupid or blind.
By the way, I heard a broadcast of Hedges speaking a few years ago. He is as powerful a speaker as he is a writer.

Adrift in much that has been said about nothing much at all.

Give me history for real not perceived not from some group’s perspectives and I can go along on my own satisfied that I did all I could do on my watch during my time on earth.

FIRST Idolatry GOD concern, pagan man had sought out the forces of nature to satisfy his desires in all ways.  So man conceived and made gods that were created to do just that. So one of the things was perverted sex, to identify the gone wild EGO in man wanting all he cannot have, or lust.  But in doing the wombs of women and the sperm of man when perverted had proved to GOD that genetics mistakes was on the rise, and mortal man had not a clue what to do.  So here come some laws for the Israelites to obey, because GOD had all ready written his Cosmic plan and play and HE was going to appear as one of the Israelites some day and he needed to be recognized by them and HE needed purity in the egg from whence HE would come.

SECOND, where the author is right and wrong.  He is right that evil rest in the beast of mankind that takes and never gives back.  And we know those today they are called the BUSH BUNCH.
He is wrong in calling it Idolatry because it is not——- it is called self-worship or as Jesus called it the GOD OF MAMMON. The gross self-elevation of a man unto HIM being a GOD thus when those get together they each worship self and to hell with the rest of the pack of misfits.

LAST:  All the other voodoo and pagan symbols little magic potions and such and this and that is pale in comparison to the actions of the BEAST OF MANKIND just one more with an ANTI-CHRIST PERSUASION.  To name a few Hitler, Bush

Thought provoking posts, I cannot speak for the other posters, but ego explains actions of why the experiment was just an experiment?  So no answers are forthcoming, nor were discussions intended to be.  If only an experiment self congratulation posts are in order, as thought provoking is the menu of the day.  Seems pomposity among other things are suggested.

Demanding respect was an experiment, of self proclaimed thought provoking magnitude. So the world is not flat and the sun does not revolve around the moon, everyone can believe in what they want, and I would suggest they keep it to themselves. Except we can not have the satisfaction of ever knowing this to be. We are living in a fantasy world of thoughtless provoking magnitudes.

ITW, Russian Paul and Leefeller,

Thank you for reacting to my early thought-provoking post! The more I see reaction, the more I measure the success of my posts in creating situations for critical thinking. As a college professor for 25 years now, this is one practical way I use to teach my students critical thinking! 

Though I know that the word “reactionaries” is not conventionally used as a complement, I will allow myself the freedom of using it in reference to the three of you for the sake of “classification.”

With a good help from NEMESIS, the goddess of retribution, who punishes human transgression of the natural, right order of things and the arrogance that causes it, the three of you have the potential for intellectual and spiritual maturity and awakening! Keep up the good work!

I would like to disagree with the following deduction in this article:

“Five of the Ten Commandments delivered from Mount Sinai are lifted directly from the Egyptian “Book of the Dead.” No human being, no nation, no religion, has been chosen to be the sole interpreter of mystery.”

What if the Egyptians themselves had “lifted directly” from the Ten Commandments to incorporate these directives into their “Book of the Dead”?  I believe that the Commandments had existed long before the creation of the Universe, since they originated from the Creator Himself.  Many pagan worshipers probably gained knowledge of these Commandments through word of mouth, or through their travels to other regions outside of Egypt.  I strongly disagree with those theories and belief systems which discredit the fact that a Supreme Being really does exist…since the beginning of time, the Creator deliberately had reaveled His Laws and Commandments to various cultures all over the world…who’s to say the Egyptians were not on His list?  I cannot convince others to believe that a Higher Being does exist, if they are not willing to look beyond the invisible, and see that our Universe is both what we can and cannot see!  Just because we cannot see it does not mean that it does not exist!  Scriptures say that the Creator has made Himself invisible to mortal man for very specific reasons.  The Egyptians did have knowledge of our Heavenly Father for many thousands of years.  Remember the Book of Exodus, which chronicles the life of Moses?

And by the way, I have classified myself as a moderate-to-somewhat liberal believer, for many years!  But I do believe the Scriptures as they are written, from cover to cover.  ‘Nuff said.

Fadel Abdallah stated:

“Though I respect your right to disbelieve and reject faith, for my formal religion says, “There should be no compulsion in matters of religion,” I also demand that you respect my right to believe, have faith, worship in a certain way, and defend what I believe is right”.

When saying some “have a right to disbelieve and reject faith, for the formal religion says so? How about “the person, you” would “you” allow the same reason without being told by the religion saying so?  Then it is demand that people respect your right to believe, have faith worship in a certain way and defend what is right”.

Followed by a challenge similar to rubbing two sticks together followed by a song and dance routine. If one believes or is told to believe in the right, why the challenge?

May I suggest these contradictions are worthy of little respect for they offer none. As far as the right to believe, has anyone said others should not believe or have faith of worship and to have the right to do it while holding their faces a certain way?  Respect is earned not demanded, though some would disagree.

So if a person believes in demanding respect and defending what is right, how would one go about this and define what is right?

Mr. Hedges latest essay, ‘The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism’ is, of course, impeccably written and argued. One can almost imagine this latter day Endicott Peabody delivering his sermon, for this is most assuredly a sermon, to the assembled student body at Groton, circa 1929.The well connected Brahman on the evils of the worship of Mammon,over the one true God and his Ten Commandments. Bolstered by quotes, befitting a man of wide and deep learning,Christian belief, yet scholarly temperament. Partaking liberally of both the Puritan and Manichean traditions, to add to this exercise in Literary/Theological brio. Straight out of ‘The Rector of Justin’ by Louis Auchincloss, you might ask? Perhaps, I reply.

Thebeerdoctor, I think you’ll find that the Muslims acquired this nasty habit of stoning to death women who ‘strayed’ from the Jews. Mohammed accepted Jesus as a fellow prophet and was influenced by Jesus’ teachings, but not on this. Jesus was a Jew and was living under Jewish religious law and the woman who was about to be stoned was also a Jew living under Jewish religious law (and Roman occupation). The point is that Jesus largely rejected Jewish religious law and was a member of a radical sect that had its own ideas on how things should be done. He was executed as a heretic and for preaching sedition. The irony is that so much of what he preached has now become law in the west via humanism and socialdemocratic governments while the patriarchy and conservatism of the Old Testament hangs around trying to undo it and discredit it. This battle is particularly ferocious in America and used to be in Britain but I think the person who said ‘Britain is a social democratic country’ was right. No one there would dare suggest adultery should be a capital offence. In the American Bible belt, I’m not so sure.

Why do some people feel the constant need for others to agree with them and believe as they do? Is it because they really have some doubt, so they feel the need for agreement, like a mob mentality?

So important to explain why the world is flat, the sun goes around the earth and why pissing on the electric fence only works for believers, because god gave them an instant permeate wave. 

Believe what you want, this is the freedom of belief, when pious spewing s occur, the problem starts.  I do not feel the need to have everyone believe as I do, nor do I care.  Is that so hard?

As I mentioned before, Hedeges could have combinde moral integrity from many sources, but chose the one I believe, which he feels offers some solace to his convictions.  My dispute is not in the 10 commandments but in their limitations and short sightedness, plus the intonation that others who do not accept his convictions, cannot be moral or have integrity, sponser compassion and live a life worthy of living. This is the pompous attitudes so prevalent from some people.  Forsaking reason for fantiscy stories. 

If I do not accept your god, why is that a bad thing, nor do I care if you accept my belief, why is that a bad thing?

•  “What we go by here is actual behavior, and its actual observable effects on the Whole Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.”
Sometimes I call this (the above)  reality.  Tao explains it far more patiently. I’m still taking lessons Tao.

•  “It looks from here like our domesticated Sisters and Brothers, whatever their “path,” would do a lot less harm to the rest of us if they had fewer “beliefs” and a lot longer attention spans….”
THIS part I figured out a long while back though. I sure do hope for the same…fewer ‘beliefs’ and longer attention spans…

Shift here evidently takes issue with what he seems to’ve read as a challenge, in this old Indian’s earlier comment, to the validity of various “paths” people are on, in-search of their origins in eternal infinity.  Perhaps he took a mention of things people’ve had “....crammed down their throats” as a critical reference to particular belief systems.

Here in The Wilderness we see that beliefs inevitably turn-out to be pretty-much nothing but ‘window dressing’....those abstract CONstructs people resort-to when they’ve lost what Lao Tsu calls “The plain truth of NATURE.”  What we go by here is actual behavior, and its actual observable effects on the Whole Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.

Certainly almost any ‘search pattern,’ if pursued to its ultimate conclusion, will eventually get its practioners to some grasp or another of what they ‘seek.’  Meantime, us surviving free wild Human Beings remain more engaged in responsiveness to what requires our respectful attention, according to our given organic function in our Mother’s Way. We’re ‘all good’ BEING what we DO.  Having not departed from our Original Nature, we don’t have to spend our (several) lives looking everywhere for it but where it is. 

It looks from here like our domesticated Sisters and Brothers, whatever their “path,” would do a lot less harm to the rest of us if they had fewer “beliefs” and a lot longer attention spans….

HokaHey!

Fadel - for someone who “demands that you respect my right to believe” you are being rather condescending and preachy to the rest of us.

1. Accident is your word. We are fascinating creatures sculpted by nature - who knows for what reason? Maybe there is none. You know only as much as the rest of us.

2. Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, etc obviously are historically significant and one should study all aspects of history, this doesn’t mean we need accept them as the prophets they claimed to be.

3. We’ve felt and seen the effects of electricity and that is enough to prove its existence as an occurance in nature.

4. Completely wrong. Art comes not from nothingness, but from raw HUMAN emotions. And all art is an amalgamation of what has come before. Space gods shouldn’t get to take the credit for the hard work of all our great artists.

5. The constitution was written by men in an attempt to limit power, bibles are used to keep the population subservient and unqeustioning of authority (read Folktruther’s comment below, he gives a more eloquent explanation)

We don’t need books filled with ancient desert prejudices and space gods to have strong morals. In fact, these books could possibly damage one’s morals. I’ll use you Fadel as an example - I have seen some of your posts on this site. When the story of Australia’s wild fires broke out, you said that God was performing an act of retribution. Because of what the government of Australia has done, you condone your God murdering hundreds of innocent men, women and children. This shows a true deterioration of your morals - the belief that some innocent civilians are more deserving of living than others.

[iFolktruther, March 18 at 1:56 pm #

Truthdig usually censors my comments on Hetdges; I don’t know why, I usually like his pieces.  So I’ll comment instead on his dreadful book that I just scanned I DON’T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS.

Hedeges has inherited from his dad, a minister, the Chrisitan notion that people are BAD. We are gentically sinful, depraaved and identify with evil.

A concomtant attribute is that we can’t change this by bettering our institutions and ideology hsitorically.  Sin will out.  Identifying with progress is a source of evil.

This is the usual crap of old time Christians and other religions, whose function is to get people to identify with Divine and earthly power.  When we are taught from childhood that power is Good, we are taught that the people ruled by power, the overwealming majority of people, are Bad.

What is important about this belief in Hedges is that he is a Progressive.  A Prgressive who is trying to get us to indentify with an anti-people ideology.  this is why the Amercian people are so clueless and ideologically backward.  They are taught a progressive ideology by people that in crucial respects are ideological reactionaries.]
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OK, now I’m convinced you have sabotaged FolkTruther’s computer and are using his handle against his will!  Release him!

The only thing I disagree with in this post, and is a consistent failing of FT is his rotten spelling.

Meanwhile Fadel has just exposed to us that he is the MOST dangerous kind of religious fanatic, a convert from THE OTHER SIDE (as in “Godless Communism”).  He then proceeds to use typical, old, tired arguments to present his world view: “Intelligent Design”—I’m amazed he didn’t use the “pocket watch in the field” analogy that is 200 years old.

Fadel, if you don’t think electricity is real just because it can’t be seen, try sticking your finger in a live light socket—youch!!! Visibility is only one of your senses—you have 5 others (including balance).

The difference is that I have no FAITH that electricity exists because I can measure it, repeatedly. It is totally predictable, and, if it SEEMS to be unpredictable, then a concrete cause can be found after which it is again, predictable and measurable. 

Your God is not predictable. 

MY God is predictable: I predict he will have NO interaction or intervention in the known universe any later than the moment of the Big Bang—and with the new Membrane Theory, maybe only much earlier than that!  He won’t kill me or save my life, or yours, either.

Truthdig usually censors my comments on Hetdges; I don’t know why, I usually like his pieces.  So I’ll comment instead on his dreadful book that I just scanned I DON’T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS.

Hedeges has inherited from his dad, a minister, the Chrisitan notion that people are BAD. We are gentically sinful, depraaved and identify with evil.

A concomtant attribute is that we can’t change this by bettering our institutions and ideology hsitorically.  Sin will out.  Identifying with progress is a source of evil.

This is the usual crap of old time Christians and other religions, whose function is to get people to identify with Divine and earthly power.  When we are taught from childhood that power is Good, we are taught that the people ruled by power, the overwealming majority of people, are Bad.

What is important about this belief in Hedges is that he is a Progressive.  A Prgressive who is trying to get us to indentify with an anti-people ideology.  this is why the Amercian people are so clueless and ideologically backward.  They are taught a progressive ideology by people that in crucial respects are ideological reactionaries.

When I look in the mirror, the mutt that I am, was really an accident, for I believe in the Wizard of OZ and my parents were munchkins.

One of the commands also reads, Thou shalt have no God besides Me, me, me, me, me, me.

As a believer, I find a great affinity between myself and Chris Hedges. The difference between him and me is that he discovered God and the positive aspects of faith through formal studies in a seminary, whereas I discovered God through my personal efforts, reflections and experiences.

When I was young, I was a typical nonbeliever, questioning many aspects of formal religion and doubting the existence of a God I’ve never seen, and Prophets/Messengers who were not my contemporaries. For two years of my high school years, I even flirted with Communism and became an official member of the Communist Party (in Palestine/Jordan). As I matured and became more reflective, my faith grew and I reached a point where I became convinced that a man without the standards of faith is not much different from animals. 

As a believer in the One Transcendent God, Creator, Supreme Being, or Intelligent Designer- no matter what you like to call that Entity- it saddens me to see many faithless people, attacking not only the messenger, but also the message! Though I respect your right to disbelieve and reject faith, for my formal religion says, “There should be no compulsion in matters of religion,” I also demand that you respect my right to believe, have faith, worship in a certain way, and defend what I believe is right.
For all those who deny a “Supreme Being,” “One Transcendent God,” “Creator,” “Supreme Being,” or “Intelligent Designer” I pose few questions:

1. As you take a deeper and reflective look at yourself in the mirror, can you honestly say that what you see is the result of an accident; an accident that has no purpose in life but to eat, drink, have sex, grow older and then die, despite your desire to live forever?!

2. If you, as a non-believer, can accept or believe in Alexander the Great, Aristotle or Plato, for example, as historical figures you’re willing to quote and learn from, despite of the fact that you’ve never seen them with your bare eyes, yet at the same time you are willing to reject Abraham, Moses, Jesus or Muhammad and the teachings they brought, simply because you have not seen them! Isn’t this a logical contradiction?!

3. Let me challenge you further! Take electricity, for example, can you deny its existence and effect because you cannot see it with your bare eyes?! You only see the manifestation of electricity in forms of light and power. Such is the Work of God; we see the Manifestation of His Work and Power in our own bodies and the beautiful nature around us.

4. Let me pose another challenging question through a beautiful piece of art! The first natural thing that comes to mind when you see such piece of art is that there must be an “Artist” who created such piece, in time and place, from nothingness. Why, then, it’s difficult for you with all the beautiful art you see in yourself and nature around you to deny a First Supreme Cause (or God)as the Designer of so many pieces of art?! 

5. Finally, if people are willing to accept, defend and die for upholding a man-made document, called the Constitution, written by slave-owners, why do you deny others the right to accept, defend and die for a “Constitution/Book” they believe has come from a non-partial Higher Authority?!

Basic Rules of Human Engagement, which have been repeatedly dismissed by the Very religions who CLAIM to revere them.
What Commandment hasn’t the major Religious sects broken. What long held virtues have they not disregarded.
One and Only One Lord God- yet they war over which fleshy vessel to worship. Since the ‘Almighty’ created heaven and Earth by creating something out of nothing- what makes these mere ‘bottles’ the object of devotion? He was like a Genie- the power did not come from the bottle, it merely contained the entity. Isn’t Jesus or Mohammad bascially only a Contianer and worshipping them like that of the ‘scared Cow’ idolatry?
The Religions have been slaughter each other- and many who had no allegeince to either- for millenia. That not only breaks another ‘Thou shall not kill’ but is compounded by the fact it was done because it ‘coveted’ its memebers adherence- they were out to convert, so they were coveting their followers.If not their numbers, thenthe resources in that region- gold,salt,whatever.worse yet they condemned each other for worshipping a false ‘god’ whether pagan who revered nature or even those who were Monotheologies- thus ‘bearing false witness’. Hell they don’t even keep sunday a Sacred day of Rest- You got to get up, Don you ‘sunday Go ta meetin’ clothes and Go worship then drop some coin in the Preachers pocket (isn’t that a form of money changing- blessing for cash). These Religious Fanatics, esp of the Big 3 don’t only commit Blasphemy everytime they open their mouths, but are heretical in nearly every action they perform against others. Intersting how they have seized the Right of Judgment in regards to others Immortal Souls- Isn’t that the Sole Right of that which Created everything. Are they claiming to understand God’s Design (how Arrognat), or are they just usurping his authority for their own gains. More Coveting.

Religion and hypocrisy in the same breath, would make more sense, they go together like bread and butter.

And, I don’t think I’m any more ‘biased’ than the next person. It’s just the way it is.

The only thing I don’t get is why we have all of these people talking religion and morality in the same breath. That just pisses me off.
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Especially if the next person is xxxxxx, or, yyyyy, or zzzzzz! (lol)

If find the next statement even funnier in its truthful irony.  Religion and morality in the same breath or sentence? Heaven forbid! (I needed a chuckle this am, Cy. Thanks)

Capitalism didn’t begin with the Northern European Vikings’ raids.  Two ideas: First in the Odyssey, composed about 800 BCE and telling a tale that took place 500 years earlier, Odysseus talks about raiding and sacking totally inoffensive towns and cities as a given, a normal thing to do, just like cheating on his ever-faithful wife is a perfectly normal thing to do.  This was normal in the Bronze Age in Greece, and the Philistines may well actually have originally been these Greek sea raiders.
Second, mercantilism and competition were well under way at the same time as Odysseus. Trade was a normal part of life and the pottery sherds from excavations at Troy, Mycenae, Knossos, Santorini and Boghaz Koy show this, as they all have sherds from other cultures.
Trade is the alternative to piracy—if you don’t produce something, you either steal it or you buy it.  Of the two, buying is the moral route.

By VillageElder, March 16 at 8:20 pm

Thanks for this info VillageElder. I appreciate the efforts and results of your hobby.

•  “As a cultus, Capitalism could probably trace its core mythical creeds back to the Northern European area beyond Gaul.  These folks pillaged and plundered, the individual was the important feature in making decisions and hunting.  Capitalism is often described in terms of war or hunting.  This is a cult of greed.  A cult which takes from others, at any cost, for the aggrandizement of the few.”

That says it better than I ever could, though this is obviously an ongoing discussion, one lasting a cazillion years. I was just talking to a younger colleague earlier this evening, about who’s philosophy seemed to be holding sway here in the 21st Century…Locke (who thinks humans are for the most part cooperative beings) and Hobbs, who was pretty convinced that we’d just all beat the shit out of each other in an undomesticated version of the Flintstones.

Hobbs is currently holding sway it would appear.
Meantime, Leefeller gives me something to consider here, in terms of pieces from Chris Hedges, including this one…

•  “Actually I enjoy Hedges writing, but seldom agree with him, maybe this means I a biased.”

I dunno Leefeller, but I guess it’s worth considering…I don’t think it means that you’re biased though.

It’s odd because I was thinking that I rarely if ever enjoy Hedges’ writing. I think he is about as depressing as they get, and all too often, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about because of the neurotic bubble he’s in. HOWEVER, I generally am forced to agree with him about many issues, since they are reality, even though he always presents everything from the doomsday perspective of a neurotic in never ending recovery.

And, I don’t think I’m any more ‘biased’ than the next person. It’s just the way it is.

The only thing I don’t get is why we have all of these people talking religion and morality in the same breath. That just pisses me off.

This piece is not a sermon, it’s not a defense of religion…. it strikes me as a reasoned response, which refers to earlier codes of moral behavior, to the turmoil and pain we see in the world today. 
His life experiences qualify him to speak as a voice of moral leadership.
I feel better, more hopeful, when I read Hedges. I like that.
Thanks…......

You got it dead-on this time Chris Hedges, bravo to you, beautiful piece.

For all the skeptics out there, umm… greed really HAS wrecked our country.

There really IS a moral code we must follow, or face annihilation (Martin Luther King said this also).

Get that? there really is, an we have not been following it.

Arrogant America, always knows best.

wrong.

tp,

I relate to your story.

Several years back one of the most uncomfortable experiences in my lifetime was experienced at a local Methodist Church, but not sponsored from the pastor, but the membership. 

Consolidated pettiness and simplistic power and control by individuals, stifled reason.  In the end the best thing was for me to begone shuck the excessive baggage and not look back.

Grieving experiences are not exclusive, though on public forum or soap box,it seems preaching to me.  My dispute is not the preaching or the right to, it is to deny what it is, preaching.

I am sympathetic to Chris Hedges’ heartfelt call to return to the innate wisdom of community values, and the need to collectively repent from the rampant culture of individualism.  Any attempt to publicize the need for personal reflection, personal knowledge, humility and forbearance has to be a good thing.  I think it’s largely circumstantial that he invokes the Ten Commandments - having been personally nourished by a movie on the subject - except that it exemplifies the way the basic tenets of our “Christian” nation have been trampled by the very ones who trumpet them.

Having been through so much himself, I defer to Chris’s right to share his grieving message to a traumatized world.  We all grieve with him.

hello. this was an eloquent but wrong article. capitalism is not idolised in place of God. agreed the religious decline precluded the economic downturn. failing to make religion culpable today, as mentioned early on; was perhaps a cause: the nature of mankind and the quest for spiritual harmony in modern economics: renders to caesar what is caesar’s: and unto God what is God’s; unchanging throughout time. the money handlers are only another aspect of being human, and living in societies. i participate in an existing system because i cannot envision a better one, while i pray God will show me a more humanitarian way of social intermingling.

“If you think it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence:

DO NOT INJURE, ABUSE, OPPRESS, ENSLAVE, INSULT, TORMENT, TORTURE, OR KILL ANY CREATURE OR LIVING BEING.

Imagine how different our world might be if the bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. It is impossible to behave this way by adhering to the principles of Jainism. How, then, can you argue that the Bible provides the clearest statement of morality the world has ever seen?”            -Sam Harris in “Letter To A Christian Nation”

Anticipation is nice for prophets, but why just the first stone, whey not the seventh or the last one?  Guess they do not keep count?  How about cutting off the first hand left or right, or the first head even other body part?s Maybe, swing the first lash or the last lash for the 75 year old lady. .  Really anticipating things a prophet could mention the burning at the stake of heretics. Speeding up history. a worthy prophet would whip out the plans for making tools of torture used by the inquisition, could have gotten things moving along much sooner? .

Bush was a sort of a hands on prophet, he was told to attack Iraq and it happened.

re: Diamond

Your comment about Jesus and the woman at the well, reminds me of what I said to a Muslim. Jesus, by all the historical record, was a radical Rabbi who announced that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. This was taken to be heretical. So when he said: “you who is without sin cast the first stone”... was this not anticipating the abuses of Sharia Law, centuries before that religion existed? My Muslim friend, acknowledging that Jesus, like Moses before him, were prophets of God, recognized that this could indeed be the case.

Skypilots UNITE!

(and never use paragraphs)

Maybe it’s only coincidence but it seems rather curious that the classified ad immediately above this discursive disquisition reads:
      The 10 Commandments
      God’s guide to a life full of blessings.
      Order free book now.
And when you click on the ad it takes you to a web page for The Good News, a free ‘Magazine of Understanding’ published by the United Church of God. This full page ad offers a free booklet on The Ten Commandments which it describes as: “Those who take the time to study them find they’re not a list of ‘Do nots’ but are in fact God’s guide to the good life—a life full of blessings.” The United Church of God derives from the Worldwide Church of God originally founded in the 1940’s by radio evangelist, the late Herbert Armstrong. This Church is a quasi-Christian band with some rather strange twists. Like the Mormons, they fancy themselves to be descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel from Biblical times. Their beliefs intertwine nationalism and millennialism.  A publication on their website explains some of these beliefs in more detail: “Throughout the long history of the lost 10 tribes of Israel, God has always known who and where they were. Just as He promised to their ancient forefathers, He has given the modern descendants of Joseph—primarily Britain and the United States—the family birthright and many of the earth’s choicest blessings. These nations have received a singular opportunity to provide leadership in the world at large”...“United States…soon became recognized as the leading Christian nation in the world. But in recent times a large portion of the nation has likewise ignored the teachings of the Bible. Paradoxically, the United States is one of the most prosperous nations of the world and one of the most immoral.” Which somewhat echoes some of the sentiments in Hedges’ article, albeit from a different perspective. The Church of God tract continues: “God does not change (Malachi 3:6).... The modern descendants of Israel should not ignore His timeless warnings .... the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God”. And it warns: “Leviticus 26:14-39 describes similar consequences, while also noting that God will ‘break the pride of your power’ such that ‘you will flee when no one pursues you’ (verses 17, 19). We seem already to be witnessing the fulfillment of this prophecy in our time… Even though the United States remains the world’s most powerful military power by a large margin, its advantage is greatly undermined by lack of political will and the commitment to decisively win its wars.” But there is a happy ending for these lost tribes that keep the commandments: “As end-time prophecies about Israel unfold…The descendants of the lost 10 tribes of the northern kingdom will discover they are not gentiles, as so many mistakenly believe. As humbled people, they will turn from their evil ways and seek the true knowledge of God. The house of Israel and the house of Judah will unite again as one nation under Christ”  ...“Those of the so-called lost tribes of the northern kingdom, including the British and American people, will have repented of breaking the laws of the covenant, including God’s Sabbath and Holy Days. The Jews of the southern kingdom will have acknowledged Jesus as the true Messiah. Finally, modern descendants of both kingdoms, for the first time in almost 3,000 years, will reunite as one nation.” and….“Israel will at last really be the world’s model nation, exemplifying the blessings and way of life other nations will strive to emulate” So, as Hedges contends, maybe in some instances the comandments “keep us from honoring the false covenants of greed, celebrity and power that destroy us” - but they can also be used to justify some pretty weird beliefs, too.