Religious Right @ MindSay

            The following is an excerpt from a recent podcast by Rob Bell.  I’ve edited it a bit for clarity.

 

            “Jesus said that all authority in heaven and earth had been given to Him.

 

            Jesus’ understanding of authority was a total upside down version of the authority that you and I see around us all the time. 

 

            Over and over gain you see Jesus conflicting with the systems of His day that had their own idea of authority.  For Jesus, power and authority were not to be exercised over, but to be served under. 

 

            At the time of Jesus, all of the Roman Empire ruled the world through coercion.  Submit to the empire or die.  Be crucified.  So authority was for those who were the strongest, with the largest military who simply told you where to go and what to be.  Authority was coercion to bend people’s wills to get them to do what you wanted them to do. 

 

            Jesus is introducing His followers to a completely different kind of authority.  It is a power and authority that does not come from force that coerces people but from serving people and sacrificing.  He says it’s not about the first, it’s about the last.  He says unless you lose your life, you’ll never find it.  He doesn’t come with the sword, He comes with the towel; and He serves by washing people’s feet.  He does not come on a horse, He comes on a donkey.  He does not come triumphantly into the city at the end before His crucifixion, He comes in weeping. 

 

            Jesus had an entirely different understanding of authority.  Authority for Jesus comes from living such a life of devotion and compassion that people say about you, ‘Ok, that’s real.’  There is an authority that He is arguing for that is far more powerful than a false kind of coercion and manipulation.  

 

            There is authority when we serve others.  There is something when people surrender their agendas and put others first.  There is something that cannot be denied when, instead of kicking and scratching and kicking people off of the ladder to get to the top rung, people submit their own agendas to the wellbeing of another.  There is an authority that comes when you see that, that cannot be denied. 

 

            When Mother Teresa was in the U.S., an interviewer asked her, 'What is your opinion about abortion in the United States of America?’  Mother Teresa said, ‘If you don’t want your babies, give them to me.  I’ll take them.’  That is authority.  It transcends all of the petty debates and says, ‘This is what the love of Christ looks like in flesh and blood.’

 

            Jesus says, ‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me.  Now you go and make that authority known in the world.’  This is why the Christian religious right will continue to fail miserably and in the process turn millions of people away from Jesus.”      

I used to have a bit of admiration for John McCain. I thought he had some principles that he'd spent some time time thinking about and was willing to stand up for, even if I agreed with hardly any of them. But it appears he's decided to pander to the extreme right-wing of his party and that has apparently emptied his brain completely. Here's a transcipt from a recent news conference in Iowa...

>>>>>>>>>
Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Regardless of what ones religious beliefs about sexuality are, if you've read a newspaper or magazine in the last 10 years, you know that the use of condoms helps stop the spread of HIV. McCain has truly become an empty-headed cipher.

Morality and America’s Morality Movement

 

A substantial group of Americans are pursuing issues that they loosely term “moral,” and their claim to the use of this adjective seems to have been accepted unquestionably; yet it has never been subjected to any critical analysis. So let’s talk about morality.

 

Ethics and morality have been studied by human beings for thousands of years, so it is not something we don’t know much about. And there are some special moral maxims that are very well know.

 

One of the earliest, and one that most people are familiar with, is the Golden Rule, which in ordinary language says, “Treat others in ways that you would want them to treat you.” Although most people think this is a good rule for moral behavior, even as an adolescent, I did not. And one summer, in Catholic Bible school, I said so to the nun who was our teacher. She replied by asking me if I could propose a better one. I quickly replied with, ‘Treat others better than you would want them to treat you.” She admitted that that was a better rule but thought that people would never abide by it, and I told her, in reply, that I didn’t see many people abiding by the Golden Rule.

 

Some parts of the Ten Commandments are also cited as moral maxims: The last six Commandments—honoring one’s father and mother and censuring killing, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting can easily serve as a rudimentary ethical system. And they are not bad rules, but I don’t think that they amount to a full fledged moral system. And they, too, are not followed very closely even by those who claim to have adopted them.

 

Another well-known moral system is Utilitarianism, which can be paraphrased by saying, “Act so that the result is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.” The major problem with this system is measuring happiness. How can anyone do that?

 

And then there is, perhaps, the summum bonum of ethical maxims—Kant’s Categorical Imperative—which can be paraphrased as, “Never treat a human being as a means to an end, but always treat him as the beneficent object of your action.”

 

Now although none of these moral maxims have had wide-spread acceptance, any of them would be better than adopting no moral maxim at all. And it is this lack of a clearly stated moral maxim on the part of America’s moral right that bothers me. Just what morality are they attempting to legislate into acceptance?

 

As far as I can tell, only two issues concern them: abortion and homosexuality. But let’s play a game.

 

Suppose that abortion and acknowledged homosexuality were made illegal. How would either of these acts improve the moral climate in America?

 

Would either reduce the lying and cheating that is so prevalent in our society?

 

Would either decrease the amount of crime in our society?

 

Would either reduce the number of children being raised in poverty or in one parent homes or provide them with greater access to nutritious diets and access to medical care and even basic safety?

 

Would either reduce the number of hardships our elderly often face?

 

Would either reduce the use of controlled substances and the disastrous effects their use often has?

 

All of these and others, too, are moral issues, and the adoption of any one of the moral maxims mentioned above would have an effect on all of them, but outlawing abortion and homosexual behavior would not affect a since one.

 

So what does the claim that these proponents of a ‘moral America” amount to?

 

I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t morality. At best, it’s a morality that is relative to their own peculiar predilections. To call these people proponents of morality or to even allow them to call themselves proponents of morality is such a gross indifference to truth and such a fundamental misuse of language that it is itself grossly immoral.

 

So just as thieves often attempt to cloth their thefts in robes of virtue, so too the sinful attempt to dress themselves in suits of moral armor. But it’s all show. None of it is real.

©2005 John Kozy, Jr.

 

I'm tired of people complaining about Christmas as a commercial holiday. "LOL IM JEWISH UR DISCRIMINATING" (thread I saw on Gaia, not saying all Jewish people are like that or that nobody else who celebrates differently says that) No.

Santa =/= Religious. He has nothing to do with me, your god, his god, or her god. (Or the emo transvestite in the corner's God). He's a fat guy who lives at the north pole creating toys for all the little good boys and girls; a story to get your children to sleep before christmas day, to be good, and to not go searching for presents and accidentaly discover mommy and daddy's sex toys because the presents are at the north pole.
North Pole =/= Religious. Unless geography and imaginary factories are religious.
Gifts =/= Religious. Oh yeah, my birthday is a total religious holiday. Plenty of other religions have gift-giving holidays, so gifts can't be in.
History =/= Present. Sure, it was celebrated mainly in a Christian way in the past (and still is, don't get me wrong) but it's not a Christian-only holiday now. Now, it's commercialized and generalized into a season where you give to others, help people. It's not religious to most people anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I respect and tolerate other holidays, but Christmas isn't discrimination anymore.

Now that the federal Court has declared "Intelligent Design" to be a cover name for "Creationism", and pure religion and constitutionally prohibited from being taught in a science class, we can take a look at that from yet another perspective.

 

Notable in the 139 page decision is the fact that the "Intelligent Design" proponents testified ? under oath, and subject to the related "thou shall not bare false witness" bit ? that the "Intelligent Designer" could be a space alien or time traveler, but had nothing to do with a religious doctrine.

 

OK; what we have here are more right-wing liars trying to dumb down American children.

 

The operative word and query: WHY?

 

Before we get to that, here?s a thought: these right-wing bigoted idiots (the Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Bill O?Reilly follower types) have held that it is possible the whole archaeological and geological record is fake ? a plant by the deity to test our faith. If that is fake, why no all of life?

 

How about this. I don?t exist. Your partner, parents, children, the person you dated, the people in the supermarket and all the cars and drivers on the road ? none of them exist. Only you ? YEP ONLY YOU! ? exist; and you are the deity; everything is a figment of your imagination while you are dreaming. You?re asleep right now, and the period of sleep that you do not recall ? those are the periods when you are awake and living your "deity life". Everything is a dream ? you?ve invented it all and keep changing it with every dream.

 

OK ... now prove that hypothesis wrong.

 

I?ll bet you can?t; because the only way to prove you?re not sleeping and dreaming all this is to wake up. You can?t even do magic, or miracles, that would alter everything; it would disrupt the logic of the dream and trigger a new one in which you become the devil, or messiah, or suddenly exist in a world where the "miracles" are commonplace.

 

Maybe you wake in the dream, call it a nightmare, and continue your dream; thus bypassing the hypothetical problem without the need of providing a real proof ? while proving the point that you were in a dream.

 

Back to the "Why."

 

Why destroy the nation, and dumb down our kids? Both feed each other. Simple. Democracy and intelligence go against the whole premise of Christian scripture.

 

Christian scripture holds that there will be a universal king who rules by divine right ? their version of the Messiah. The very notion of an absolute ruler, a king who rules by divine right, and the backing of force derived from divine power, refutes democracy; the two are mutually exclusive.

 

Who ever establishes this divinely supported power structure achieves absolute power over the affairs of men. Nobody can obtain such power in a world where individuals are educated and can think for themselves in a rational manner. Only Eastern religions prize "enlightenment".

 

The United States is the antithesis of western religious belief ? it refutes the power of a divine lord.

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