2006-05-17

Christianism

Orcinus: "Christianism is a theocratic form of Christianity which is anti-pluralistic, designed to impose conservative Christian beliefs on American society (and eventually the world) through the use of the political system (or sometimes outright force). Christianism is a domestic crusade designed to change the country from the inside into one in which (nominally) Christian beliefs are the guiding societal force. This is the 'culture wars' which we are engaged in. It is often presented as 'secular vs. Christian,' but that's patently false. The fundamentalists have managed to distort the public debate to the point that fundamentalist beliefs are identified in the media as 'Christian' -- ignoring entirely the fact that there are large numbers of Christians who don't believe the same way as the conservatives."

Tristero "In an analogy to Islamism, I would propose the term 'Christianism' to describe a political ideology inspired by Christianity that advocates the replacement of a secular government with one that is profoundly informed by a self-styled 'literal' interpretation of the Bible. By this definition, Rudolph is perhaps best described as a radical 'Christianist,' a man inspired by Christianity to effect social change through violence.

'Christianism' is without a doubt an ugly neologism. However, it is a mistake to describe as 'Christian' people and groups like Robertson, Falwell, Christian Identity, and those who are even more radical in their mission to transform the US into an explicitly fundamentalist 'christian' state. This confuses Christianity, a religious belief, with a purely secular agenda. Furtheremore, it is highly misleading to ignore the hijacking of Christianity and its symbols by the Rudolphs of the world simply by repressing any reference to their Christian inspirations and calling them 'anti-abortion terrorists' or some similar name."

2006-05-11

We Are Frogs in Slow-Boiling Water

To all of you who voted Republican in the last three elections: Thanks for the dictatorship. Fuck you!
Salon.com - Daou Report

Also Glenn Greenwald:
"We now learn that when Americans call their Aunt Millie, or their girlfriend, or their psychiatrist, or their drug counselor, or their priest or rabbi, or their lawyer, or anyone and everyone else, the Government is very interested. In fact, they are so interested that they make note of it and keep it forever, so that at any time, anyone in the Government can look at a record of every single person whom every single American ever called or from whom they received a call. It doesn't take a professional privacy advocate to find that creepy, invasive, dangerous and un-American."

"In the past few years, our people have lost sight of the truth. We have blinded by fear and hatred. Our President has taken advantage of this blindness, and used it for his own personal gain. Time and again he has asked for more authority, and time and again we gave it to him. Now we realize how foolish that was. We will be no safer with tyranny than with terrorism. We have replaced one problem with another. And now we pay the consequences for our collective lack of character."

2006-05-08

Truthdig - Dig Blog - Response to Reader Comments and Criticsm

Truthdig - Dig Blog - Response to Reader Comments and Criticsm: "According the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005), the most atheistic societies--countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom—are actually the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest by the U.N. in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality—belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society’s health. "

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