DWIGHT—please stop this.You are making it very difficult for those of us with arthritis of the hands to scroll past you to read something interesting.

Some people have to be born again because there was a serious brain defect when they were born the first time. And there is no way that anyone else can “get it” unless they obey them and do exactly as they say. Because there is no god but god and Mohammed is his prophet, or Christ is his only son, or his name is unknowable, or some other patriarchal warmongering twaddle. I hope all you religious zealots lay down your lives to kill each other off as soon as possible, for there may be no other way to rid the earth of your infestation.

I apologize for feeding the troll.

Dwight Baker, the highly credentialed, wrote:

“For it has been known since mankind came on the scene no greater love could be shown—-THAN ONE TO LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR A BROTHER…..that is just who you are——a convoluted cynical coward.  Not a real man at all.”

And now writes, “That is what brings us joy in knowing we have been chosen to WORK HIS WORK.  Beating the tools of war into plowshares.”

How could somebody be totally unaware that calling others cowards and belittling their manhood because they don’t want to “lay down their lives,” is NOT “Beating the tools of war into plowshares,” but fanning the flames of war?

Believers are not sane people. Once having trained themselves to, as Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen put it, “believe six impossible things before breakfast,” they are ready to believe anything—that war is peace, that the bureaucracy we call government, which was instituted by rich, slaveholding, founders of this country to ensure that the rich would always rule and the people would never have a voice, might count their votes or heed their petitions, even that credentials can substitute for common sense.

Isn’t there something in the patriarchal religions that says that a camel can sooner pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the gates of heaven? Everyone in Congress is rich. None of them are going to any patriarchal heaven (even if they believe that they are forgiven), and yet fools continue to vote for them, petition them, and in many cases lay down their lives for them and for their big corporate donors.

General Smedley Butler said that war is a racket. Millions and millions of people have died in wars during my lifetime, and the world has not improved at all. The wars continue, fools continue to kill the innocent and to lay down their own lives for corporate profits, and evangelicals egg them on, mocking their manhood and calling them cowards if they don’t.

Those who cannot think logically and who constantly contradict themselves, really should refrain from making ad hominem attacks on others. But in their confusion and desperation, they may not be aware of what they’re doing, and therefore cannot apologize.

I am indeed a dissident and a rebel, Dwight. Those who think that voting or petitioning Congress will get them anywhere, haven’t been paying attention.

What I wrote was, “Patriarchal religions are basically a breeding and recruiting tool for patriarchal militaries. Patriarchal militaries are at the service of governments, which are at the service of multi-national corporations. Have you ever read General Smedley Butler’s, ‘War is a Racket’?

All evangelical religions preach peace, but once they hook a sucker, what they offer is ‘not peace but a sword.’ There is no religion that preaches permaculture and turns swords into plowshares.”

And as soon as you started yammering about people laying down their lives, you proved my case.

Challenging their manhood to get them to kill strangers and risk dying themselves to make the Rockefellers of this world richer, works pretty well on teenyboppers, but it doesn’t work on people my generation who remember WWII. If you’re such a big man, why haven’t you laid down your own life yet, Dwight?

Somehow, I rather doubt than you could bully Scheer into laying down his life for Christ or Rockefeller either. Don’t your missionaries in the Congo try to evangelicize the youngsters so you can sell them to the militaries as child soldiers? That’s what other evangelicals and NGOs do in the Congo. Older people are a lot harder to persuade, often having seen enough people lay down their lives, with no perceptible improvement in the world to show for it, over and over and over and over. But if you think that a few million more unnecessary deaths will make Christ or Rockefeller happy, be my guest.

I’d say, “peace,” but I understand that’s against your religion, so I won’t insult you. Insults are another thing I leave to the young ‘uns. 

Yeah, KDelphi. And he’s totally unaware that he just proved me right.

Well, the sooner he lays down his life, the less trolling we’ll have here. But I don’t think that’s his intention. The game is to get others to lay down THEIR lives. If I had my way, all evangelicals should have to wear a sign and ring a bell, warning people that a military recruiter was nearby.

good gawd..

Mark—Saw the preacher. Religion is part of the reason the US is so conservative. Other “free” countries have outpeaced us so fast in recent years, when you visit there, you feel like an American Idiot. I did.

You do not see ministers and other religious figures at the inaugurations of prime ministers and other figureheads in other ‘free” countries. Americans talk about religious “fanatacism” is Islama and then fail to see the “log in their own eye”

KDelphi, what we in America usually call neo-conservatives, are called neo-liberals by most of the rest of the world. Different terms but the same animal. By their expansionist, militarist, and predatory capitalist actions shall ye know them.

Dwight Baker, I suppose it has never occurred to you that some people do not wish to be bondservants, neither of Christ nor man, and that we have no business being in the DRCongo.

Did you look at that video of the preacher who was beaten by the Border Patrol?

Very confused guy. He doesn’t seem to understand that the purpose of patriarchal religions is to teach submission and obedience to authority, and that by defending his Constitutional rights and defying the Border Patrol, he is failing to render unto Ceasar and setting a poor example for his sheeple.

We cannot export democracy because we have none to export. We cannot export financial stability and acumen because we have none to export. We cannot export religion because none of the evangelical religions follow the Golden Rule: do not try to convert others to your beliefs unless you would wish to be converted to their beliefs.

For believers, both religious and political, when things go right it is proof that their beliefs are correct, and when things go wrong, it is a test of their faith. So no matter what happens, believers continue to believe.

I suggest you read Colby and Dennett’s book, “Thy Will Be Done the Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil,” and explore some of the writings about managed inequality in Africa by Keith Harmon Snow on his website, http://www.allthingspass.com/

I lived for almost five years in Afghanistan, and one of the most interesting things I learned was the origin of the word “guru.” It has come to mean teacher or mentor, but originally it meant “we look.” For people in different circumstances, the answers are different. This is not a “one size fits all” world. We are not the chosen people, we do not have the one truth, and unless we learn to abide by the Golden Rule, and to treat others, their customs, their religions, and their cultures, with the same respect that we would want from them, there will never be peace.

Patriarchal religions are basically a breeding and recruiting tool for patriarchal militaries. Patriarchal militaries are at the service of governments, which are at the service of multi-national corporations. Have you ever read General Smedley Butler’s, “War is a Racket”?

All evangelical religions preach peace, but once they hook a sucker, what they offer is “not peace but a sword.” There is no religion that preaches permaculture and turns swords into plowshares.

Yep. Got them teenagers…feel good time in ‘Merka.Yee-haw!! I havent heard a thing from the rich of the uS, China and the EU that we kill for, so that they can have bluefin sushi, but not for long, because we are running out. Same for shark fin and tiger penis soups and edible gold…(in that kids are running out of arms to lose…)

Mark E. Smith—Umm, yeah, that about sums it up. Except, he is not a ‘conservative”—he is a neo-liberal, who loves Pres. Obama MADLY! (He probably also likes Clinton alot) Very good points…I will go look at the link…

Wanna see the Obama doctrine at work?

Obama has ensured that nobody will be prosecuted for torturing American citizens. This is fascism and we have no more rights.

Watch this video: Baptist pastor beaten + tazed by Border patrol - 11 stitches

Look at how many comments say there’s nothing wrong with what was done.

Gee, you make it sound like killing three teenagers who were trying to help stop the illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping off their coast by developed countries, was a good thing.

Just like you tried to make Obama’s plan to give more money to insurance companies instead of having the single-payer health care system most Americans want, is a good thing.

Do you also think Obama’s bailouts are a good thing?

What about his increasing the defense budget?

Do you approve of Obama’s defense of illegal wiretapping?

I don’t really understand what a right-winger like yourself is doing on TruthDig, E.J. Dionne, but right-wing policies are not beyond criticism just because a Democrat does them.

Obama voted for the Bush/Cheney agenda as a Senator, and is continuing and expanding upon that agenda as President. Are you simply opposed to freedom of speech and believe that no matter what a President of either party does, they should not be criticized, or are you okay with criticizing Republicans, but not Democrats, for the exact same policies?