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Even atheists acted upset and put off by remarks by writers such as
Dawkins, Hitchens and Harrison against religion in general. Dawkins calls
it “the elephant in the room” that nobody wants to talk about. Hitchens
and Harrison set out to demonstrate why. Religionists in general stand
about pointing fingers at certain shrilly militant groups in their midst.
“We are not like them, you can’t say that about us.” Oblivious atheists,
comfortable in their ivory towers with their books all around, support
that view of them.
A rose is not a rose just because it’s called a rose? Madalyn o’Hair would
have treated such attitudes with a dousing of expletives, all synonyms to
“bullshit!” and followed that up with the hot, gusty kind of reasoning
that turned atheists as well as religious zealots against her. Religion is
an emotion-inducing topic, and she would have displayed plenty of emotion,
eliciting the same in all her audiences. She had our ears: between her
fingers while she took us to task about all sorts of things. Madalyn
treated atheism as a religion, even while denying that to be so. Doing so,
she gave a very forceful demonstration of how all religion is bad, and (in
the end) dangerous.
As we know it in the west, religion has been a
 vessel
of good works, in which good people do good deeds to satisfy their
altruistic urges. Religion puffs up its chest and points to that, as it
has done for ages, and too many of us never go beyond that to realize that
good people would do good deeds when no religion gets involved. Without
religion, good people quietly find their own causes, and such causes may
likely prove more worthy, and productive for humankind in the long run,
were religious organizations removed from the scene. Rather than simply
argue about it, why not put it to the test, gather up relevant data, and
prove one side to be truthful or the other to be liars?
Why should we agree with the authors who have named all religion bad and
dangerous? We should do so if that is the most correct assessment that can
be made about it, not because we are scared to speak up or offend the
guilty, who may then turn to attack ourselves. We should do so because we
inherently know that it is true irrespective of our awareness that most
religious individuals actually are good people in spite of being
religious. We should do so because we are aware of one mitigating truth:
that they all share a certain view of the world that is not correct (or it
would not be religion), nor is it correctible. Whatever their beliefs,
whatever their name for their god, their religious edifice, their level of
involvement and commitment, their scriptural texts, their world view
arises in such a way that enables manipulation of their thoughts and
actions by the craziest fanatics among them, while they have nothing
tangible with which to counter that.
The few who escape that will be in the minority overall. Even they will,
in many ways, be “for” actions they would never condone without their own
extremists’ pictures of evil painted where none exists. At best, most will
“go along” with extremist pogroms to keep the peace in their own camps, or
because the alternative to doing so has also been painted over with the
brush of evil and so they cannot support that without violating their own
dogma.
The intangibleness of religion enables its manipulation so that, if
asserted within a literary context that appeals more to emotional than to
objective responses, and too often only to wishful thinking, entirely
erroneous declarations made by the manipulators seem right to the
religious audience. Set within a religious context, the worst kinds of
evils can be made to appear pure and virtuous to religion-trained eyes,
and innocence decreed evil with the force of law behind it. They have
learned how to trap people into being "on their side" by presenting the
picture so that it appears the only alternative is to go against their own
beliefs, or give face to themselves as traitorous liars. History gives us
many examples that serve as patterns for those in the present, so that
they only need to study their predecessors to devise their own plans and
put them into operation.
Machiavelli wrote The Prince to save them from much of their
effort. They can find examples in Hitler, Mussolini, the rise of such
organizations as the Taliban and other terrorist groups, or the
reconstructionists and dominionists in America. Leaders and originators of
all of these groups have learned how to hook their agenda onto some aspect
of religious thought and turn good people into evildoers while painting
for them pictures of desirable aims with evil standing in the way. "Are
you with me, or against me?"
This is not just about a particular religion, but any religion in which a
fundamentalist dogma can develop. Whatever the religion, fundamentalism
gets used as a basis for the development and advancement of fascism. That
has been true all over the world, all throughout history, and
(regrettably) can be seen in operation in today’s United States of
America. Fundamentalists, working through all kinds of puppet
organizations created for one specific purpose, can be seen hard at work
in all areas of life, gathering piles of power-buying cash or weaponry,
wheedling their ways into positions of influence for advancing their own
version of fascistic theocracy.
So, how do they go about gaining all their power? An article by Jamie
Doward in the Sunday December 16, 2007 issue of The Observer describes how
creationists are planning a theme park in Lancashire, England. The
purpose: Ostensibly to demonstrate how evolution is wrong through the use
of multimedia demonstrations of how God created the world in seven days. A
charity set up in 2006 by a group of businessmen will provide funds
gleaned from "a number of rich backers who are keen to invest in the
project, which will boast two interactive cinemas, a cafeteria, six shops
and a television recording studio, allowing it to produce its own
Christian-themed films and documentaries for a capacity of 5000 in a park
that will be the first of its kind in Britain, but not in the world. In
Orlando, Florida, hundreds of thousands of visitors make pilgrimages to
the Holy Land Experience, where they can see a bloodied Jesus forced to
carry his cross by snarling Roman soldiers.
"It declined to say who the backers were, but admitted talking to a number
of businessmen who have invested in city academies, leading to speculation
that it may have approached Sir Peter Vardy, who has given millions of
pounds to advance the claims of creationism … the trust has big
ambitions. A business plan available to prospective investors suggests the
park could bring in £4.8m a year - apparently 10 times its estimated
overhead costs. The trust also says it plans to apply for government
grants…."
Typical of the approach fundamentalists use to gain their advantage in any
society with only small numbers on their side, is to find ways their
religions can help them profit while spreading the particular message
their religion represents. It appears, on the surface, to be right and
proper, but leads to fascism and theocracy in an oligarchical government
wherein a few control the lives of the many through enforced religious
codes. Carefully planned spreading of their fundamentalist agenda
piecemeal using weasel tactics and words lulls less zealous members of
their cults to support them while oblivious to, or in denial of, their
overall agenda. Yet, even in the United States, that agenda gets often
expressed in plain words of obvious meaning: "We must return our country
to its Christian roots." "We will reconstruct America into a Christian
nation." "We will once again be 'One nation under God' or we will be
damned!"
What the fence sitters, whose complicity has enabled fundamentalists in
western societies to use their tax-free status to work toward the
destruction of the very governments who granted that status as a
'hands-off' maintenance tool to widen the gap of separation between
religion and government, do not seem to realize is that when people begin
to catch on to how that has been used as a loophole to dupe the political
process, all religious organizations will be threatened by potential loss
of that status. The fundamentalists' actions against governmental sanctity
have begun stirring up sentiments that have been brewing for decades, and
provided fuel to those whose gripes are that religions should not go
tax-free anywhere because they do so at everybody else's expense.
Rather than retch up the vomit induced by your own reaction to that, study
the advancement of Nazi fascism in Hitler’s Germany, and see it modeled in
the United States. People of honorable aspirations, who actually believe
their actions serve a moral purpose abetted by a god they serve with all
the best kinds of intent, have been duped into service of an evil message
from greedy, power-hungry interests that have learned how to grab their
heart strings and make them into the puppets of disaster.
Hitler built his brand of fascism upon Catholic fundamentalism. America’s
fascist leader has not yet emerged, nor will he until time has arrived to
begin purging the country of Jews (or, possibly, Muslims, since that seems
to be where the current sense of danger is growing). Hitler aimed at
restoring German purity by removing the foreign contaminants; the current
crop of fascists seeking power in America have turned to “restoring the
United States to its Christian roots” as their slogan of opportunity, with
which they will turn the country into something that has never existed. To
do so (in their own words: “at any cost”), they lie, manipulate facts out
of context, invent stories to exaggerate, create or diminish historical
events as needed. Religion, which appeals strictly to emotions, enables
them to do so, because factuality has never been a part of the religious
process.
The claim that the USA was founded upon Christian principles comes from
the Pilgrims’ signing of a document on Nov. 11, 1620, called “the
Mayflower Compact” wherein they ostensibly agreed to form a Christian
nation in the Americas. These people were a minority group as passengers
on the vessel that brought them here, escaping iron fisted rule to indulge
themselves in their own form of tyranny after their arrival, the story of
which we all have knowledge. Their story demonstrates how religion grows
rancid with the passing of time, without external controls, and regresses
into fundamentalism as adherents vie for positioning within any society
they occupy.
Here is the truth: They were not the founding group that developed the
American experiment. They were not the original English settlers upon
American shores (those were in Virginia for almost a decade previous to
the Pilgrim’s arrival). They were not the only passengers to occupy that
vessel with an aim to seek a better life away from English religious
dominance (the majority were business people with business on their
minds). None of those were this country’s original inhabitants, nor was
their religion the first to develop here; those were the native Americans
given the name ‘Indians’, whose nature-based religions were fully
developed and in practice centuries before any white settlers arrived,
probably for millenniums before Christianity ever existed. Those folks,
regarded to be ‘savages’, had the territory organized according to their
own needs, with treaties and other forms of agreement already in place,
also according to their own needs (which the white man disrespected and,
accustomed to having his own way among foreigners, disregarded).
The first six presidents voted into office by the citizens of this country
in its fledgling days, were deists (who believe in a god that created the
Earth and then turned its back to let it develop on its own). Less than
10% of the population proclaimed Christianity to be their religion; the
level of Christian population did not exceed 50% until 1942, mainly in
response to the World Wars in which America had been engaged. With the
pogroms initiated by Senator McCarthy against communism, fundamentalism
found a tap root in American society and has been growing ever since by
increasing its mimicry of McCarthy’s practices, inspired by Hitler’s
successful rise (which ended with his disappearance at the end of the
Second World War) and instructed by Machiavelli’s The Prince.
Am I expecting you to indulge me in a slick kind of name calling here? I
will let you answer that by describing for you how fascism develops, and
the kinds of ploys it makes in order to do so. I will leave it up to you
to understand it, verify it, find examples in our own country and in
history, or let your own emotions work against that.
1Patriotism
will be the first requirement upon all citizens, with those opposing
whatever national ventures happening right then accused of being
unpatriotic, which advances to accusations or innuendos about treason with
the passage of time. People not accustomed to doing so will be putting up
flags and national mottos, especially emblazoned with religious or
patriotic slogans, and will also wear them on their clothing.
Human rights get short shrift in emergencies real or fancied, so the
government can deal with human or natural enemies with the utmost of
efficiency. Big Brotherism develops as cameras get mounted on city streets
to deal with increases in crime (probably inspired by increasing numbers
of religion-based laws) or to enhance public safety. Police power in
general increases.
Scapegoats become targets for rhetorical attacks from pulpits and by
political players using the fundamentalist values to make or develop their
points. Take note of about whom the fundamentalist politicians and
preachers are directing their barbs toward as they work their ways up the
scale from common streetwalkers and sexual offenders to foreigners in
their midst and homosexuals, and (having polished their methods on such
weak and easy opponents) turn their attentions to competing religions and
political views, at the peak of which they will begin taking prisoners and
imposing death sentences. See how Hitler did it using Catholic
fundamentalism, and see for yourself to what point in the game fascism has
developed in the United States.
Military might gives the fascists their power. A powerful police
presence and funding for the war machines serve to ward off interference
against their agenda from within and without.
Sexism enforces male dominance and puts to the question of women’s
ability to deal with the world’s problems. Homophobia rises as male
presences increase at the upper levels of society, and women become
well-controlled tokens. Abortion rights are under increasing attack until
the fundamentalists have succeeded at their removal. Sexual offenses are
harshly penalized and the numbers of their kinds increased, each time
after winning public sentiments in support of some new point of law.
Controlled news flow happens in many ways: by censorship, by
fundamentalist control of the media through ownership, through
governmental actions, or through hiring practices.
National Security becomes a prime concern, whether it is about other
countries threatening attack (real or imagined), terrorism from within, or
competing religions seeking dominance in the playing field.
Religious influences in government increase as the dominant
religion’s fundamentalists begin salting prominent positions with their
own people. This will increase to the point of full fledged oligarchical
theocracy, after which democracy gets disbanded and pogroms begin the
elimination of competing influences.
Corporate and business power plays a huge role in this development, as
conservative business owners see their vested interests gaining value as
the game progresses, and their own political power becoming enhanced as a
result of cooperation with the fundamentalists. This becomes the
oligarchical portion of the process as the wealthiest of these players
gain rewards for their financial and political support.
Labor power decreases from suppression, from ineffectiveness against
the financial and political might now wielded by the few truly powerful
individuals left in the country, because unions have been forced to
disband, or the workers suffer such elevated poverty their interests have
turned more toward meager survival, their causes forgotten.
Hostility toward intellectuals, artists, and higher education as
formerly honored professionals and accomplished individuals are censored
or eventually arrested for voicing their opinions in conflict with the
fundamentalist agenda. Funding dwindles and is eventually removed.
Scientific research slows to a stop, scientific accomplishments and
theories are openly questioned and ridiculed.
Cronyism becomes the “way things work”. Corruption increases as
politicians and other public figures lose their fear of reprisal.
Election fraud makes a feigned process of democracy as opponents to
fundamentalism get smeared, machines or ballots get rigged, legitimate
voters get disqualified too late to take up their cases in time to vote,
precincts get rezoned to favor fundamentalist agendas, and elections end
up being decided in a courthouse rather than by the numbers.
The development of fascism, according to these headings from a list
developed by Laurence W. Britt, former Xerox executive, always follows the
same process worldwide. Fundamentalism is not just a Christian phenomenon,
it just happens to be that way in the United States. Fascism develops all
over the world, and it matters little whether the dominating religion is
Catholicism (Hitler), Islam (Taliban),
2Communism
(USSR or North Korea), or Protestantism (United States). For fascism to
develop, fundamentalists coax the middle-roaders, using any wiles they
find effective, to see things their way in the world. Given time, middle-roader
emotions are goaded by fundamentalist slogans, kinship, sense of community
(“We don’t agree with them, but would rather have them on our side than
against us”), by a simplistic world view that, without much examination,
seems right because it becomes too appealing. Even when disagreeable, the
shared religious views make fundamentalism seem more appealing than any of
the groups or practitioners getting demonized.
Because its appeal goes directly to emotionally held and inculcated values
and ideas, religion does not undergo the rigorous and methodical process
in which science engages before advancing new ideas to any stage of
acceptability. It is the absence of that process that renders religion so
dangerous, and so malleable by those with secret agendas they would not
share openly with anybody. All it requires for a religious idea to take
hold, is endless repetition using the most effective selections of words
and phrases. Religious people have no way to verify what they are being
told, except by the appeal to their guts, or to words written by others
who are more than likely supporters of those whose ideas are being
expressed and repeated, which serve mainly to enhance the original gut
appeal by reinforcement. In practice, it proves true that religious
scriptures can be used for proving anything.
Irreligious people typically remain in that state because, being skeptics,
they inherently doubt their own gut responses, for they know that is the
handle by which the bearers of error-laden ideas grab hold of human minds.
By inducing emotions such as fear, guilt, shame to quell the reasonable
mind, proselytizers attempt to induce a gut response of acceptance. The
skeptical gut has been trained to respond with revulsion to such attempts
to indoctrinate by emotional prodding. Skeptics will accept new ideas only
after they have proven themselves in practice, not because they ‘feel’
right or because they have become popular. Those serve, actually, only to
increase their level of doubt, which their reason demands to be assuaged.
The religious believe they are using their powers of reason and evidence,
but they fail to realize the literature from which they derive their
“reason” and their “evidence” has not, itself, been proven by testing and
verification processes. Evidence that arises from emotional inputs is, at
best, “evidence” in name only for so long as that is all that is true
about it, and the "reason" that leads the religious to accept on faith
their creeds is too often they have been fooled.
Religion is dangerous because of that. It interferes with factual reason
and logical inferences, gives rise to “yeah, but” as emotional juices
start flowing, and prevents religious persons from recognizing the harmful
influences sheltered under their own wings, whose agendas are supported by
their own financial donations, and work against
 their
own interests while demanding full cooperation and backing.
For such reasons, discussions with the religious end up being futile
efforts. They avoid our warnings to them because we fail to make an
emotional appeal. We see them as having no ground to stand on because they
have no tested data or logical inferences for us to work out. To us, they
use that questionable condition to their own advantage; it enables them to
shift positions, definitions, and even their own beliefs to whatever suits
their need of the moment. Since they have no tangible evidence, they seem
to manufacture it from thin air, use literary evidence (in or out of
context) or attribution to some arcane authority (who may not actually
exist) we do not recognize. By "reason" they appear to mean their ability
to twist from left to right hand threads on whatever they want to conform
to their position, which may be the exact opposite of their position of a
few minutes before.
Their fundamentalists have no tangible standards to meet, and so can make
up on the fly what they need to put down or demonize their opponents. They
see us as angry and take for granted it is against a god in which we have
no belief, and never themselves for being such aggressive liars and cheats
who have even learned to con their fellow believers. They point to the
holes in human knowledge, and cannot recognize the holes in their own
logic. To them, "facts" are from the inerrant scriptures from which their
religion was derived, "proof" is whatever two or more of them agree upon,
"love" is slitting someone’s throat because they would not confess their
sins, "truth" is whatever it takes to win an argument, and "tolerance"
requires us to refrain from acting toward them like they do to us. We
prove our anger to them by speaking up with any opinion with which they do
not agree.
Because the only reason such people can influence honorable others is
because of shared religious beliefs (even if in name only), religion poses
grave dangers for humankind. Most religious people are honorable,
trustworthy and decent citizens anybody should be proud to know and claim
as friends, and would be so with or without their religion. It is their
own failure to immediately recognize and act against those who make dogma
of their doctrines, who use that dogma to make innocent human beings and
activities appear as evil, who pursue agendas while doing so that will end
up converting democratic societies into fascist regimes that makes their
religions dangerous and, ultimately, the most immoral condition of human
mind to exist on our planet.
We must see that it is time, if not already too late, to present our own
case to those people setting about to bring our own downfall, to show them
in the most picturesque way possible why they will be the ones responsible
for our impending doom and destruction in spite of fundamentalist words to
the contrary, and that Armageddon will not be advancement of any return of
Jesus to our planet, but will be of the inferno their actions will render
upon us all as humans turn our own planet into a barren rock like what
typically occupies the space around us.
In the United States at this time, it is too early to
predict whether hell will describe life under fascism, or an inferno of
human origination we will make of the planet, Earth. Whichever, we will
rush toward it with the most of us singing praises of glory to a being
that, existent or not, will be innocent of any involvement except for
attribution. |
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