Torture Denial: U.S. Flunks the Religious Acid Test

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/torture-denial-u-s-flunks-the-religious-acid-test/

BY PETER LAARMAN DECEMBER 10, 2014

The U.S. has been publicly, globally, shamed in consequence of the gut-wrenching disclosures in the Torture Report. And, oh my, how we dreaded this day of revelation, especially coming on the heels of ample further confirmation that Black lives matter hardly at all to a majority of American whites.

A big part of the executive branch anxiety and inter-branch wrangling that delayed the release of the Torture Report for years clearly reflected what can only be called a guilty conscience: lots of people worrying that there would be retaliation against the U.S. on account of these dark deeds.

Like a child who knows that he has done wrong, behaved shamefully, we expect to get a deserved spanking. We are particularly ashamed of how we ditched our morality during a period of panic. There’s much more going on here than mere embarrassment.

But there have been no major incidents of anti-U.S. violence anywhere in the world so far. And why? Perhaps because the rest of the world already knows things about us that we steadfastly refuse to acknowledge: That we are deeply violent; that we are, in relation to our military and economic interactions with the rest of the world, remarkably aggressive and avaricious; that we are careless of human rights and human dignity—especially so in regard to our brutal oppression of African Americans for centuries; and that we believe ourselves, ludicrously, to be morally better than other nations.

more at link

[CJCRANE]

1. Christ was humiliated and tortured by the Romans.

But in the end it's the torturer who is humiliated by reducing themselves to inhuman status.

"Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me".

[cbayer]

2. The hypocrisy is so startling.

I really like the way this writer put it.

[Fumesucker]

3. It's not mere coincidence that the sin Jesus most often and strongly condemned was hypocrisy

To quote Mark Knopfler from The Iron Hand, we haven't changed since ancient times.

[cbayer]

4. Never mind.

I don't think I could say anything that you wouldn't turn personal at this point, so I'm going to walk away.

[Fumesucker]

5. What part of my post did you disagree with?

Our society is evolving in a fitful and herky-jerky two-steps-forward-one-back manner toward a more just one but take any of us at birth and put us in the medieval situation in the song and we would be just like they were then, we really haven't changed and civilization is but a thin patina only partially laid over the beast that lies within us all.

And seriously, Jesus was majorly down on hypocrites.

[cbayer]

7. None of it.

BTW, one's worth is not measured by how many people like you. Some of my biggest heroes had the most adversarial relationships possible. Some of them were even killed for taking a stand. If the historical account of Jesus is true, he was such a mighty and terrifying force to TPTB, that they took him out. You think the people in your second picture don't have enemies? Standing up is often the right thing to do.

Sometimes having a clean slate in terms of adversaries only means that one is pandering and eager to please.

So you can have your scoreboard if it makes you feel better. It makes no difference to me.

[trotsky]

6. Nice. Bad things can't be "religious" so therefore it must have been atheism, right?

Lovely bigotry.

Newsflash: the people who planned, designed, approved, and carried out the torture were likely Christians.