Come All Ye Faithfull Godwhacks

[darkbeaver]

USA: Come All Ye Faithful: Vote for Me! The Presidential Candidates and Religion By Shane Jones in the USA Wednesday, 13 February 2008 "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” – The Bible (Matthew 19:24)
“Free market principles are really the salvation.” - Rudy Giuliani
In the run up to any election it is not at all uncommon to hear anything and everything promised by candidates hoping to win votes. For those following U.S. electoral politics right now, it is clear that the big business candidates are presenting their respective religiosities as credentials of a sort to prospective voters. The open pandering to the ‘faith vote” displays the cynical depths the representatives of the ruling class are willing to go to win votes. This is not simply a harmless phenomenon but a noxious indication of the rottenness of the system.

It is not our intention here to cast doubt on the personal beliefs of any of the candidates, because that is not the point. The point is that since there are only negligible distinctions between the candidates, they cynically appeal to people’s religious sentiments in order to stand in the spotlight a moment or two longer to try to win more votes. They also use it as an opportunity to try to convince workers that the system they defend is not only just, but even “holy.”

Even a cursory look at at what is being said on the campaign trail shows the manipulation of “faith” to appeal to voters. Take for example Barack Obama who, speaking to an audience of 4,000 people, said he hopes to be an “Instrument of God” and asked for prayers for his candidacy. He went on to say: “I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”
Then there’s the more subtle dodging by John Edwards of a question asked about the separation of church and state: “My faith informs everything I think and do. It’s part of my value system. And to suggest that I can somehow separate and divorce that from the rest of me is not possible.”

Even candidates who would prefer to keep their religious backgrounds less prominent have entered the race with faith in hand. Rudy Giuliani had this to say: “Where do our rights come from? Most Americans believe they come from God.” Mitt Romney, in attempting to cast himself as a “person of faith” in general, instead of being exclusively associated with Mormonism, made a similar statement: “We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from the ‘God who gave us liberty’ … Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God not an indulgence of government.”

Going beyond a simple appeal to faith, John McCain went so far as to say he would prefer a Christia
http://www.marxist.com/usa/presidential-candidates-religion.htm

 

[Walter]

I'd rather have a Christian leader than a Marxist leader.

 

[lone wolf]

I'd rather have a Christian leader than a Marxist leader.

I there a reason Walt? Whatever happened to the division between Church and State? You can't have a Christian leader anyhow. He might upset a Moslem.

Woof!

 

[Walter]

I Whatever happened to the division between Church and State?

That division was originally set up to protect the church.

 

[Kreskin]

That's true, to protect religion. All religions. I don't know how you can protect all religions if the state as any one specific religious leaning. That's why it should stay out of government and remain where it should be.

 

[lone wolf]

That division was originally set up to protect the church.

With extremists and apologists running the show, the division needs to be there to protect the people.

Woof!

 

[darkbeaver]

Interesting what Walter said though, it seems we're in one of those religious periods of history, thirty years war and all that. You know while that war was going on we also had some comet activity. The sky was falling.

 

[gopher]

Correction: disestablishment was created in order to preserve the state from the corrupting influences on the churches.

 

[MikeyDB]

Human evolution has been at a standstill. 34000 years ago human evolution stopped.

The mechanism of "faith" is the oldest vestige of the question that heralded the end of human "progress". As mechanism or instrument if you prefer, "belief" was and remains a tool to be used to sculpt thought process. It functions on the basis of fear and while believers will frequently challenge the secular view of existence by suggesting that "faith" and "belief" offers something that no other worldview or social/personal constuct can....
solace and hope to those suffering under the yoke of their "imperfection".

You can't argue with the tooth-fairy and what better way to influence perception than to accord infallibility and moral thesis to an agent that can be neither questioned nor provide any objective substance? From tribes that practiced human sacrifice to various 'gods' to justification for mass slaughter and the practice of torture, "belief" has been wielded by the wealthy and the powerful as social yardstick and conditioning lash.

Slowly people are realizing that ideologies predicated on power, imbalance and elitism, gender and sexual bigotry and religious prejudice are the forms, like concrete forming walls that define social structures. There will be no escape from the cycles of war suffering and inhumanity that is generated from these constructs so long as their "power" their facility to influence thought is permitted to channel confine and direct the way human social and moral and ethical structures are erected. Anyone who offers mysticism and non-reality as the "strength" of their position or the guiding principle behind their platform or worldview must be understood for what they are, a con-man, a snake-oil salesman and a fraud.

There is far more history available supporting the conclusion that "belief" has been used as the whip to engender fear and distrust than there is to support the contention that faith and belief have served as vehicles of peace and prosperity. Regardless of the particular faith construct, these structures bring legitimacy to hatred and prejudice, serve to divide and segment social structures and use to convince the human being that his judgment his purpose and his being are inherently flawed and fundamentally weak.

It seems appropriate that the ideology of the most powerful most corrupt people on earth has identified itself through its currency and its oaths of office to this charade and misdirection. While millions suffer at the manipulation of the few who care more for their personal wealth and power than they do for any other human being or human institution on earth, it should be no surprise that "faith" becomes the focus. People who embrace this lunacy eschew reality in favor of the insubstantial the speculative and the fantastic, the rationale for hatred that can and will start wars of financial speculation and racial and religious prejudice.

We as a species can no longer afford this nonsense. As long as the church pews are filled and TV evangelists can command enormous arenas to contribute to their coffers, the sign of the cross the sign of the messiah the sign of the prophet and the sign of "divine truth" will remain the sign of the mass surrender of reason and humanity to the mystical and the insubstantial, and who to better rule and manage the people who make this choice than the same liars thieves and con-men who've amassed fortunes on the backs of slaves and do not hesitate to destroy the very planet that we all live on in the name of "profit"....

Looks good on the morons who sit idly by and watch as cars neighborhoods and futures are burned by Moslems and "believers"....by the pathalogically stupid who send in their money to limosine riding drug using womanizing televangelists....who writhe in mental angst as women and children are sexually molsested and abused by the most trusted of a religion that compels adherents to believe cannibalism is a normal and godly practice....

There will be no progress and there will be no evolution as long as this madness exists.

 

[darkbeaver]

Heritic, blasphemous heritic, the church of the Emaculate Bleeding Rodent upholds the finest asperations of mankind through the holiest offices of dog. Join our tuesday services at a drivethrough lodge near you today. Hear the good word of emancipation and salvation. Donations are tax deductable.

 

[gopher]

prophetic gopher:

 

[Walter]

Human evolution has been at a standstill. 34000 years ago human evolution stopped.

How do you know?

 

[MikeyDB]

Walter

Do you mean how do I know how long ago or how do I know that human evolution has stopped?

As far as the time period involved, I've studied the anthropological record looking at the stages of human evolution in terms of tool use, facility and expression of abstract thinking and of course the model of the human genome and physiology. When a clearly functional and executable modification of the 'current' level of physical development would yield benefit to the organism in this case, human beings, and any evidence of this evolutionary development is missing, it can only be because the process has either paused for a significant period of time or no further evolution would yield an improvement....

Differentiated consciousness and ability to form and express abstract concepts is one benchmark of sentient evolution. There haven't been any more....