Sunday, April 17, 2005

Cult of the Taliban

There are millions of Christians in the world, and the vast majority of them pattern their lives according to the teachings of Jesus. These are not the Christians I’m talking about. There is a cult that has formed on the fringes of this religion. And this cult has gained power and influence far out of proportion to their numbers.

The american taliban is about one step away from completing their takeover of the US government. The policies of these ‘christians’ would condemn all, believers and non-believers alike, to a life of fear and distrust. How else would a person react, while waiting for the denunciation that will be coming from someone who has a grudge against them. That is the end result whenever any religion gains the ascendancy in the political arena. We’ve had the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Stalin show trials, the Taliban in Afghanistan. Throughout history, we see the religious wars that have caused so much death and destruction.

Basing their social contract on their interpretation of selected phrases from the bible, we see the oppression and debasement of women, the oppression of dissenting viewpoints, the elevation of money over people, and the debasement of the unfortunate, they attempt to narrow the thought patterns of people to conform to their narrow old-testament viewpoint. All of it being contrary to the teachings of the Jesus that they say they follow.

These american taliban need an external enemy, be it the devil, communists, Muslims, or liberals, to justify the limits to freedom that they impose on people, believers, and non-believers alike. All fundamentalist religions have this trait. We seem to be able to recognize it in other cultures, but remain blind to it in our own. And so, we allow the takeover of our government.

And now, the ‘enemy’ is the judiciary. Or at least those parts of it that won’t do their bidding. Making a political issue a religious issue, and a religious issue political, is exactly what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they thoughtfully kept the two separated. Well, that separation has collapsed. We have a fundamentalist ‘christian’ government.

You are how you live and act.

Using this definition, and it’s corollary, it’s not too hard to see that the president bush is not a Christian, no matter what he says, neither is any member of his administration. Not one of their policies or actions has been based on Christian principles. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Not that it makes a difference to me what anybody’s religion/non-religion is, as long as they leave me alone about my beliefs.

The president bush and his ‘christian’ allies and apologists have perverted Christianity. They’ve turned it into an obscene parody of itself. If they want to do that in their private lives and congregations, that’s fine with me. I don’t care.

What DOES bother me is that they’ve brought that obscenity into the public arena, and are using it to drag the country along with them, one way or the other, no matter what. The result is all that matters, not what gets destroyed on the way, and the goal is actually quite anti-Christian.

The treasury has been looted, and the proceeds given to the already rich. The working class has had an inordinate burden placed upon them to support the lifestyles of the corporatista classes, and the political elite. Social safety nets are being destroyed to pay for those lifestyles. Nothing Jesus says condones, those sort of actions.

And Jesus would be ok with that obscene war in Iraq? Yeah, right.

When it comes down to it, the president bush, and his allies, actually hate Jesus. By the time someone finishes reading the New Testament, it’s pretty obvious that Jesus was, well…, socialist. And worse, a liberal. We can look at their speeches and commentary to see how they feel about those kinds of people.

Let’s face it folks. The president bush is a Jesus-hating, anti-Christian.

And what we have with the president bush is a combination of neo-conservatives, fundamentalist taliban, and end-timers. That combination is wreaking destruction and death on the environment, on the constitution, on the social safety nets, anything that doesn’t fit their old-testament/Calvinist mold.

These are seriously dangerous people. They think nothing of dropping bombs on innocent people. The destruction of the environment is of no concern, since the ‘Rapture’ is nigh. And they see nothing immoral in the looting of the treasury, after all, they are the enlightened ones, the chosen by god. Besides being dangerous, they are also insane and delusional.

But there is a darker side. The damage they have done will last for generations.



A small reading list

Who is a Real Christian?
Entry by: Crystal
December 24, 2004
C and R Writing Center

How Christian Is George Bush?
by Robert Kenji FlowersApril 11, 2005
buzzflash.com

In The Name Of The Lord
By David Podvin
April 17, 2005
makethemaccountable.com

Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue
by David D. Kirkpatrick
April 15, 2005 by
The New York Times

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