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July 30, 2008
– Talk about a topic
you can't even talk about talking about. So let's start with
the facts.
Christianity was given to us by... yes,
not Jesus, but by Constantine. It was a time of war, a time of
conquest for what had been a democratic Republic but now stood to be
a war mongering, conquering, authoritarian empire.
There were problems rallying soldiers to
fight together, various divergent groups, pagans, Jews. But
the paganism of old, taken from the Greek democracy-turned-empire
was controlling enough. Judaism had a better model of yielding
to a single central power. But Jews were not inclined to let
any particular human claim that power.
What's a poor warmongering dictator to
do, especially in a country that had its roots in democracy?
And then there they were. They
would go to their deaths willingly, because the promise of salvation
in the afterlife was enough. At the Coliseum, they didn't
fight and fret against the lions as the others did - they set
examples of accepting death as a positive thing.
These were the 'Christian Jews,' as they
were called at that point. Yes, Jews. Jews who believed
the Jewish man Jesus had been the Messiah.
With it being unrealistic to get the
Roman people to simply discard the paganism they had long followed,
Constantine made a choice that would be best for unifying pagans and
Jews under his rule, with a new twist that taught people not to
expect joy in this life, but, in fact, to accept and expect life to
be misery - because they were sinners by nature - and only hope for
something better in the afterlife - and then only if they 'behaved'
properly in life.
Pagan rituals and holidays were worked
in. The story of the old Greek God Dionysos, a direct parallel
to the Easter story, was adapted with Jesus as its central figure.
And so was created a new religion - by the Government of Rome -
which would serve for years to convince an empire in which up to
half of the people were slaves and soldier after solider was sent to
die that all the misery and servitude and suffering was not only
acceptable, but their due lot in life, as they were inescapably
sinners by nature.
And so further from being a Democracy
went Rome, until Christianity landed the world into the Dark Ages,
where religious doctrine ruled and useful thought and policy were
forbidden.
If you look at nation after nation,
government embrace of religion and survival of democracy are not
found together, right from the beginning.
The end of the first democracy back in
Ancient Athens began when the great philosopher Socrates was put to
death for teaching young people how to think critically,
intelligently, and independently. His sentence was couched under
the excuse that he, yes, was not worshipping acceptable religious
figures, and by having different thoughts, beliefs, and religious
views, and teaching the youth that they could do the same, he was
corrupting the youth, and so was put to death. Anyone who's read
his teachings today sees there was nothing corrupting about them.
He simply taught logic and independent thought at a level the war
mongers known as "The Thirty,' who were bleeding the country dry in
endless war, didn't like. Religion stood against useful thought and
policy changes that could have saved the nation.
Even in more modern times:
- England had to step back from
The Church of England to become a true democracy.
- There's many a comment on
France's current strictly secular stance and laws, which even ban
wearing of religious articles in schools - but few in America are
aware of the fact that France had a very religious, conservative
time. It is now historically know as The Terror.
Maximilliam Robspierre. The Convention. The Jesuits.
Look it up.
And where religion is central and held
high, democracy is furthest from existence. Think of the
religious nations in existence today: Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
Israel keeps its religion separate from its state, and so democracy
gets to exist.
And yes, in Italy, the Pope has been
exiled to Vatican City so that democracy, not religion, can govern.
Because the reality is the two are
opposed to each other.
In America now, as Christianity's role
and favor has ascended, and over the last 30 years, since the Reagan
days, has replaced secularism as the norm, Americans have yielded
their previous penchant for critical thinking to faith-based
acceptance of things not grounded in reality or in their best
interest.
Indeed, the Bush/Limbaugh Republicans
have worked specifically like evangelical preachers teaching a
catechism. The policy answers they teach via their countless
propaganda outlets are spewed back without being questioned or
analyzed - just as Christianity teaches to accept the unbelievable
simply on Faith.
I bring this up for a point, not just to
have a discussion about religion or Christianity.
The central problem in America today -
be it the economic disaster, the obesity epidemic, the growing
cancer epidemic - has been an abandonment of critical thinking en
masse by the American people. The idea of questioning,
analyzing - both are frowned upon. Normal people just accept.
They take on faith. They don't analyze. And they
certainly don't raise doubts or contradict.
Every problem America faces at the
moment is one that was easily foreseeable. But in fact they
only could have been foreseen by people who think Independently.
Christian culture punishes and
excommunicates independent thinkers. Christian culture
reproaches doubt or questioning. Christian culture discourages
being too educated.
A certain segment of it that is.
And that is the segment that is dominant in America at the moment.
And so there has been no limit to how
willing the American people have been to letting themselves be taken
advantage of. And most noticeably, the American people have
been subdued like eunuchs. When their employers tell them they
will now being doing the work of two people but will get no raise;
when they are given the least vacation in the developed world; when
they work more and more hours but are less and less able to make
ends meet, they accept the Christian dogma that the problem is them,
alone, as an individual. That to speak out or stand up would
be to be a "whiner," as Phil Gram recently echoed - a word that
single-handedly has subdued a nation into demise.
Talk to an American, and they altar
boy-like echo back the taught responses about why we shouldn't have
any reasonable amount of vacation; why we can't complain about how
many hours we work - in fact, why we are better for it than other
nations which restrict work hours; why we can't require better
wages; why only losers read ingredients and watch less TV and take
care of themselves; why only dorks care about fairness and exercise.
No, we are just to work without
complaint, put on a smile even as we have to turn to our credit
cards rather than our checkbooks again and again, and eat and watch
until we are virtually all unhealthily overweight, diabetes is
epidemic, weight-related cancer surging, stroke tripling...
America needs to put Christian faith
aside and get back to embracing intelligent, independent thinking.
If America does not regain its preference for critical thinking, it
will continue to sink into critical condition.
It's an obvious point. No one can
say it's not a vitally important point. And yet, once again,
it's one that is considered an untouchable third rail. Such a
commentary is simply not allowed in land of 'free speech.'
Well, actually it is. And it
exists here at The Moderate Independent.
America has a Christianity problem,
which it better start facing unless it wants to continue its path
toward becoming a Middle Eastern nation.
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