|
|
|
|
Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
 Posted - 01/16/2007 : 11:17:05
|
Great article in Sunday's Philly Inquirer. Northing really new, but eloquently and succinctly written:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/sunday_review/16454172.htm
Some excerpts:
"The stories believers told me of their lives before they found Christ were heartbreaking: ...terrible pain, severe financial difficulties, ...addictions, ...sexual or physical abuse, ...thoughts about suicide. ...The real world - the world of facts and dispassionate intellectual inquiry, the world in which news and information were not filtered through the comforting ideological prism of radical religion, the world where they were left out to dry, abandoned by a government hostage to corporations and willing to tolerate obscene corporate profits - betrayed them. They hated this world."
"And they willingly walked out on this world for the mythical world offered by radical preachers - a world of magic, a world where God had a divine plan for them and intervened daily to protect them and perform miracles in their lives. The rage many expressed to me toward those who challenge this belief system was a rage born of fear, the fear of being plunged back into a reality-based world where these magical props would no longer exist, where they would once again be adrift, abandoned and alone.."
"...this theology of despair is that it ...rejoices in cataclysmic destruction. It welcomes the frightening advance of global warming, the spiraling wars and violence in the Middle East, and the poverty and neglect that have blighted American urban and rural landscapes, as encouraging signs that the end of the world is close at hand. ...This obsession with apocalyptic violence is an obsession with revenge."
|
"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"
"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?" |
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2007 : 20:52:57 [Permalink]
|
Wow! That's well expressed, and most frightening. It resounds with my own feelings about the intentions of the theonazis, but adds an understanding of the motivations of their desperate followers.
In the 1970's, I worried very much after the Vietnam War, that there might be a rise in fascism, as with the rise of the Nazis in the Weimar Republic. But very little of it materialized then.
I do think/hope that the decisive battle against the theocrats was fought and won in November, but we would do well to err on the side of caution. I do feel we have (at best) narrowly been missed by the fascism bullet. If there had been just one really charismatic and political astute leader in the NeoCon movement willing to organize a mass Brownshirt movement and bust heads in the streets, our asses would already be turf.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 01/16/2007 22:06:10 |
 |
|
|
Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2007 : 21:52:38 [Permalink]
|
YO to Fripp and Halfmooner. Fascism, as Mussolini called it (but wanted to change to Corporatism), is very creepy for me since I can just barely remember it as a little kid. But the stuff Fripp links and excerpts is even creepier. Religious fanatacism is utterly uncontrollable when it really takes hold. Just the opposite occurs when such people are filled with their "religion's love": that being hate for anybody else who believes differently. The essence of our government's founding addressed this. (How smart of those old elitist dudes.) But just look at how many people who inhabit Earth today that miss the fucking point, as I say over and over again. A line from the memorable George Harrison recording, "Isn't It A Pity" goes something like this: "Their souls can't hope to see, the beauty that surrounds them. Isn't it a pity?"
From where I look at things, Earth, and Life on it, may well be the closest thing our souls will ever get to some semblance of Heaven.
But since we can't prove any of it, it seems lucid to me to do whatever we can to keep Earth livable and help those on it who are in need, just in case. Please forgive my radicalism.
OY! |
"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
| Edited by - Orwellingly Yurz on 01/16/2007 21:57:52 |
|
|
|
Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 00:40:00 [Permalink]
|
Odd coincidence - I saw Chris Hedge's (the author of that newspaper article) book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America at Chapters (Canadian mega bookstore chain) yesterday and was going to do a post on it. Has anybody read it?
The real danger is if the theocrats gain power at the bottom of an economic down cycle and get credit for the inevitable subsequent recovery. This is one of the things that helped Hitler consolidate power.
Saw a sign today at the "Truth Church" (a case of false advertising if ever I saw one) that said "Resolve to let the Lord solve you problems" - Magical Thinking for sure. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
|
|
|
Neurosis
SFN Regular
USA
675 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 00:51:02 [Permalink]
|
quote:
From Article:
The danger of this theology of despair is that it says that nothing in the world is worth saving. It rejoices in cataclysmic destruction. It welcomes the frightening advance of global warming, the spiraling wars and violence in the Middle East, and the poverty and neglect that have blighted American urban and rural landscapes, as encouraging signs that the end of the world is close at hand.
A little over dramatic but a point is still in there. The magical thinking, the god will be their to catch my fall, can very well remove the focus from how can I fix this. Replacing the hopelessness for a lack of true concern, after all heaven will right all the wrongs anyway. I have failed to see in any instance where faith can actually generate a solution but instead, it seems to always produce a lessening need for it. Even in death consolation, it does not fix death but replaces the loss with a new shiny image of the loved one in heaven looking down. A way to mask the pain with rainbows rather than supply closure.
With so many probelms mounting, it seems more and more are using their religion as an escape hatch, instead of finding motivation in their religion to perform their duty, that thing that their respective higher power would command them to do. When a belief in the supernatural is drive toward success, at least then, some good may come, even if improperly grounded, but when it is used as a bad times band-aid, then it can do more harm than actually recognizing how deep the wound really is and perhaps, supplying a proper treatment. |
Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson
[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink
Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.] |
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 01:45:02 [Permalink]
|
I'd rather be hopeless, and know it, than have false hope.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 05:56:13 [Permalink]
|
Would a false hope, if consoling, be recognized as such ?
quote:
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Helen Keller
I am just as guilty in considering the what ifs of issues that have passed. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
|
|
|
Neurosis
SFN Regular
USA
675 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 13:23:47 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by moakley
Would a false hope, if consoling, be recognized as such ?
No. That is the danger. |
Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson
[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink
Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.] |
|
|
|
tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 14:42:29 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic
Odd coincidence - I saw Chris Hedge's (the author of that newspaper article) book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America at Chapters (Canadian mega bookstore chain) yesterday and was going to do a post on it. Has anybody read it?
The real danger is if the theocrats gain power at the bottom of an economic down cycle and get credit for the inevitable subsequent recovery. This is one of the things that helped Hitler consolidate power.
Saw a sign today at the "Truth Church" (a case of false advertising if ever I saw one) that said "Resolve to let the Lord solve you problems" - Magical Thinking for sure.
Well, I don't see the christian right taking the same measures for economic recovery as Hitler did, so there might just be hope there yet. (http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch16.htm).
Now if only the democrats get the balls to actually do take some of the necessary measures for economic recovery. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
