They are demonizing us now.

[OctOct1]

Any history buffs in the house???

The religious right has control and we are becoming the demons.
When in history has this happen and how can we learn from history to turn this back on them???
All that comes to my mind is witch hangings.
Here you had total control in the hands of the religious zealots.
Blindly believing anything said, even the most incredible.
Killing Innocent people in the name of God.
Then it stopped. Why did they wake up???
What can we learn? How can we use it??
Do we have to wait until they go completely over the deep end?

[Hamlette]

1. I'm a history buff

it's always been my theory that religious buffs exist to support political leaders. The political leaders rile them up to go fight their wars. the wars are always about money (oil/gold/land).

I was freaking about this yesterday. Maybe the whole reach out to the religious right was so they could fight a war in the middle east to insure an oil supply?

[The Doctor.]

11. You are not familiar with the PNAC?

There is no 'maybe'.

This Administration thinks it's going to saveus from our debt by gaining control of world oil markets.

Make no mistake, you already know this had nothing to do with WsMD, but what the fundies want is blood for righteous pain.

(The pain of their own insecurities)

They believe in 'cleansing' the world of 'unbelievers' and don't understand that their enemies are them.

God Damn Fuckheads In my well-informed opinion.

[Robert Oak]

14. of course it is, has nothing to do w/ jesus, all about power n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Go back to 100 - 400 AD, to the early christians

Look at Nero. He fiddled while Rome burned and then blamed it on the Christians. There was a massive witchhunt soon after.

Then Christianity became the state religion around 400 and the christians turned on their own. Anyone who did not follow the Pauline version of Christianity, the version we still follow, was deemed a heretic. They just about wiped out the gnostics. Too bad, the gnostics had it figured out.

[WCGreen]

4. Constantine was the first to invoke Jesus as his

inspiration for violence. He claims, on the day he was about to engage in battle with his co-emperor, can't remember the name, he saw a vision in the sky that he claims was Jesus telling him to vanquish his opponents in his name Hence, he rallied the growing number of Christians in the Roman Army to his side......

And he was never even a Christian until, it is rumored, his deathbed some forty years or so later....

He was the emperor, after locating the seat of roman power in Constantinople, who pulled all the feuding Bishops together and told them to pull all the writings together into one universal book, the Bible.

So here we have a Pagan using the power of the Christian faith to attain and then consolidate power. Sound familiar?

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Don't you just hate it

when history repeats itself.

Has a gnostic christian, this is getting old.

[WCGreen]

10. Just picked up the The Gnostic Gospels

by Elaine Pagels and started to read them. Will finish now that all the pre election readings are shoved under the bed....

[KharmaTrain]

3. Separate The Charlatans From The Rest...

When a religious "leader" like a Fatass Falwell calls for the killing of a group of people; such as Moslems, this is not a "man of god", but a Charlatan. When Pat Robertson begs for millions of dollars to live a great life and build a media empire while giving nothing back to his supporters and asking for more money...that is a Charlatan. Then there's the politicians like the manchild who uses Christianity as a weapon and uses these charlatans to legitimize it.

Honestly, I don't see this much different than the powers the Catholic Church had over many European empires or the Anglican Church during the years of the British Empire. "Men of God" want the power the politicians enjoy while the politicians want that "godly" blessing only the Charlatans can give.

We now live in a semi-theocracy where all issues are now judged on if they are "Christian" and the goal of a Christian nation advocated by many on the right is moving along with all due haste.

[Must_B_Free]

6. I can believe that so many can be so deeply involved in Christianity

and not even have a grasp of the basic tenets.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. That's because most of them have never studied

the real teachings of Jesus and the early Christians. They only read the Cliff Notes version.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Why Bother, The Believe What They Told

It doesn't matter if it's Jesus or Fred Flintstone, it's not the word that is taught, it's the blind obedience...to submit to authority without question in return for some "eternal reward".

[smirkymonkey]

15. Reminds me of a great George Santayana quote:

"The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it."

[seabeyond]

9. completely over the deep end?

yes and we know it is going ot come. we are prepared. so watch your back, take care of you. the other side, they dont have a clue

[LSK]

12. forget all this religiious crap, its propaganda, election stolen

Look at Nazi Germany. The rise of Hitler.

Reichstag fire = 9/11

Iraq invasion = taking of Austria, Czechoslovakia.

History is there, look in the right place.

[Cleita]

13. Well, the last time someone accused me of being in

league with the devil, I accommodated that person with what would have been a funny halloween haunted house scenario. You know the dry ice display with red lights and little bubbling volcano displays.

Oh this was all in my dorm room in college.:-)