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The Founding Fathers Would Be Proud of the People of Egypt ... And Disgusted With the People of America
America's founding fathers stood up for their freedom, winning it from the British (with the help of the French).
The
Egyptian people have stood up for their freedom, winning it from the
Mubarak dictatorship (with the help of the army, which refused to fire a
shot at the people, and may even have helped convince Mubarak to leave.
See this and this).
The
Egyptian people found their courage even when Mubarak's thugs flew
fighter jets low over their heads, beat and murdered protesters, and
otherwise threatened violence.
But the American people today have been cowed into passivity by an irrational fear of terrorism, laziness and mindlessness.
Comparisons
But obviously, the American government is nothing like the Egyptian dictatorship, right?
Let's compare:
- There is a stunning amount of inequality in Egypt. But America is even worse
- Mubarak stole billions from his people, while the American oligarchs may have stolen trillions. See this, this, this and this
- Egypt have been living under a state of emergency for 30 years. But Americans have been living under a continuous state of emergency for 10 years straight
- Mubarak was supported by the military. But the military -industrial complex has taken over America
as well (moreover, there is a tradition in countries like Turkey for
the military to ensure that religious fanatics do not take over the
country)
- Mubarak ignored the wishes of his people. But the American government hasn't been listening to it's people either. For example, a 2010 Rasmussen poll found
that "just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government
enjoys the consent of the governed". A 2010 Gallup poll determined
that nearly half of all Americans believe "the Federal government poses
an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens".
Poll after poll shows that "both national parties are deeply unpopular with an electorate looking for something new and different". Polls reveal
that 82% of all Americans wanted Wall Street to be reined in in a
substantial and meaningful manner, and yet nothing has really changed,
and the government has let Wall Street have it's way on all the
important issues. Polls find that Americans want the big financial
players who acted with fraud to be punished, and yet the government has let all of the big fish off the hook. And the government has ignored many other desires of the American people, including investigations into torture and spying on Americans, impeaching George W. Bush if he lied about Iraqi WMDs (which he did)
- Mubarak repressed his people and stifled dissent. Bush and Obama have haven't been all that protective of liberty either
- Mubarak murdered and tortured people without following the rule of law. America hasn't been wholly saintly in this regard over the last 10 years either (and see this)
I'm not saying that America is Egypt. I am saying that America today has a lot
of problems also. (And if you think those problems started on 9/11,
remember that virtually all of the current domestic and foreign policies
were already in place or planned before 9/11.)
But unlike the Egyptian people, Americans have become scared of their own shadow. We have forgotten that courage and hope are choices
- which do not have to come from John Wayne levels of testosterone, but
can simply arise from loving something enough to want to protect it.
How Did We Turn Into the Oppressor?
England oppressed America. We were the downtrodden who broke free. But now, America has helped to repress the Egyptian people (and see this and this).
How did we get on the wrong side of history?
The Egyptian People Have Changed the World
Minister Jim Wallis writes
in an open letter to the Egyptian protesters today entitled "The
Egyptian People Have Changed the World -- It's Their Turn to Lead":
You have changed the world.
***
Remember,
the United States was not talking about democracy in Egypt, not
advocating it, not saying a transition is necessary and urgent, UNTIL
you risked your security, safety and lives for the sake of democracy.
You changed the conversation, and the conversation would be the same as
it has been for decades if you hadn't done what you did. Your
generational peers are now watching what you are doing in countries
across the Arab world, and beyond. This is the moment for you and for
us.
***
You
represent a new generation, a new leadership, and a new hope for the
possibility of real democracy. Keep leading. My government, which still
calls itself the beacon of freedom, has sacrificed democracy in your
region of the world (and many other places) for American "interests." And
our foreign policy around the globe has put our interests before our
principles. But they are not really the interests of the American
people, but of oil companies, big banks and corporations, and rich and
powerful people. Their interest in stability is very different from ours in democracy. So
don't be fooled, don't listen to the so-called "wise" voices that have
been part of the old reality and want to now thank you for your
service to democracy, but are offering to take it from here.
Don't
let them. Keep demanding democracy -- real democracy. Because, for the
rest of us, democracy is the best defense of our "interests," and the
best path to genuine "stability." And, for our part, we will do our
best to stand with you. That will likely take sacrifice from all of us,
because real change always does.
The Founding Fathers would be proud of the Egyptian people, just as they supported the French revolution. They would be disgusted at the spineless sheep that the American people have become.
Note:
I love America and have lived here all my life. I criticize my country
because I want to save her from the self-destructive, anti-American
path that Bush and Obama have put us on. Just as the Egyptian people
felt a need to speak out, so do I.
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Patriotism
means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the
president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in
which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him
insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to
oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he
fails in his duty to stand by the country."
– Teddy Roosevelt
"To
announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we
are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public."
– Teddy Roosevelt
"This
country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can
exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their
revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural
"These
economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the
institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek
to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions
requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide
behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget
what the flag and the Constitution stand for."
- Franklin Roosevelt
"Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Ben Franklin
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Yo Dickhead... speak to me... let me help you work things out.
I want to help you.
And the correlation of crappy stupid hate filled propaganda when you arrive at a thread IS caused by YOU.
And I repeat... Jesus wants you to cut your fucking balls off.
Now be a good Christian and do it.
Jesus said other dumb things, like the turn the other cheek story. Suicide by pissing off the Romans and the Jewish Hierachy of the time worked well to further Jesus goals, as we are meant to understand the Christian tradition, but I do not recommend it to friends, family, my country, or allied countries.
All religions say dumb things TBT.
They profess to having a loving God... yet let their faithful swelter in an opportunistic world of tribalistic hate.
Try and rise above it sometime will ya? You'll make new friends.
I am an atheist, but, unlike the more vocal ones, I don't pretend to have risen "above it", it being spirituality. Islam on the other hand, which is about 5% spiritual at best, well give me a fucking break. That unreformable tyrannical mess brings only burdens, only suffering, misery, oppression, ignorance. A dangerous stupid sect is still a dangerous stupid sect no matter how much you dress it up and pretend it to be equal amonst religions.
Being an atheist and all I'm certainly no fan of any theistic religion.
Are you a Christian TBT or are you of the Jewish faith? Just wondering so we can examine yuor Christian or Jewish beliefs better.
You see confused TBT... one moment you are excoriating those who practice Islam and illustrate an ignorance and hate towards these people... the next moment you appear to care for their womenfolks private parts.
So which is it?
I'm an atheist(but not the angry kind), and very fucking grateful to be living in a mostly christian, relatively very free civilisation.
Also, so far I haven't been contradicted in anything I've stated about Islam, so I'll not admit at this point being "ignorant" about it. Are you on board with the George W Bush propaganda that he personally believed Islam to be a "religion of peace"? Don't kid yourself.
Well the millions of folks in Egypt certainly demonstrated for the entire world that they could achieve something peacefully.
I think one of the most fucked up parts of our country is this whole "Christian Nation" thing. Nobody goes to church anymore. The Episcopal Church next door to me used to have 100 people in their parish less than a decade ago. Now they have 10. Why? Because the churchgoers are dying off. This is pretty much the case across the country. Very basic Christian values are universal across all faiths and what atheists consider basic morality. Don't kill, don't steal, don't hump your neighbors wife. Why does it have to be about faith? Can't people just be good people because of who they are?
To think that Christianity is based on a ridiculous book shoved in hotel room drawers full of nightmarish stories that can fuck children up for life really disturbs me. How many crazy Christian sects are there ? Don't they all think the other sects are crazy too? Line em up. They are all nutty as fruitcakes.
Don't get me wrong, I like most Christians. But I really detest the idea that there is anything superior in being one.
As to the fate of the Episcopalian Church, your anecdote is probably spot on. It is so watered down now as to no longer say anything your kids wouldn't be indoctrinated with via statist public school dreck, namby pamby dronings of the MSM, ecotard opinings, and so on. There seems to be something about humain brain that makes it seek out vigorous truths to believe in, and the Episcopalians haven't been bringing it. The imams working in our prisons and in bad neighborhoods from California to Kiev, and from Sicily to Scandinavia, preach much more vigorous stuff, which you'll hear nothing about in the MSM.
Christianity is insufficient in and of itself to make a country non-poor and non tyrannical.
Islam on the other hand seems to be sufficient to make a country poor and tyrannical.
Just sayin' and continuing to sayin' because that is what we can observe.
My encounters with those of the Islamic faith have been very positive. I find them to be an exceptionally hospitable people on the whole.
It's too bad you have not met those that I have. You would have a different take on things I'm sure.
Hmmm, more interest in on your part in who I am as opposed to what I am saying. OK, let's see. My wife was born and raised in Iran and my in-laws and two sister in laws are iranian. They have some harsh thoughts about Islam, based on direct experience from living, working, studying, and visiting various islam infested countries. We socialise with loads of iranians and not a few middle eastern folks here stateside, some of whom practice or beleive at least obliquely....BUT multiple such contacts have warned me on several occasions that they do not represent the majority in Iran. These are highly educated wildly successful folks who have succeeded in liberating themselves and setting up shop amongst and becoming themselves members of the free and the brave here in America. The reason the mullahs were able to take power and to maintain it in the aftermath of the revolution is very simply that the majority in these countries are not like the nice welcoming modern educated worldwise folks you and I meet professionally and socially. If you want to meet the majority, you have to wander off the beaten path in one of these countries. I don't recommend you announce your atheism.
On top of that I lived and worked and studied in France for TEN years. I speak French with an impeccable accent, and can chat about a wide range of subjects in that language, including technical French as used in business, psychology, biology, mountaineering and so on. During those years I worked with, studied with, partied with, dated, and so on, folks from north africa and egypt.
I meet with three different egyptians on a social basis several times a year, but again, these aren't typical ones, and if you care to ask them, you'll find out that is strictly true. Their countries of origin are shitholes, full of Islamotards, and they know it, however careful they are to be prideful of what they can be as to their origins.
TBT - you could learn a trick or two from GW. Like why don't you post a link, something, anything to back up your outrageous, paranoid propaganda?
For example - ...those rules as moral models were judeo-christian ones, not islamic ones
This may come as a shock to you, but Christianity is as much judeo-christian as Islam is judeo-christian. One followed the other.
Then there's this nonsense I've copied below because it's such amazing BS. Are you trying to say Christians or Jews don't have religious rules they're supposed to obey?
Egyptians are largely islamicm, which is to say entirely rule bound in their behavior, with conscience playing little role. Their rules define a tyranny spanning all aspects of life from the most private, to the familial, to trade, to justice, government, and the very vision and purpose of it all, submission to allah in every way, all the time. Islam means submission, i.e. tyranny. There is little to be proud of in that.
Re rule bound versus based on conscience, in matters of religious morality, the comparison between Islam, a gigantic compendium of rules on every last thing, and Christianity, which seriously lightened up from the jewish law it was based on, is stark. The parts of the Bible where Jesus is directly quoted are a thin section of the good book. He is pretty clear that wanting to commit a sinful act is itself sin: He therefore calls on the individual to police his or herself. Moral conscience. Under Islam a sin is any material breaking of the very extensive and immutable laws it sets out. These make people infected by Islam very poor.
As to America of the founders time having been Christian, that's also no contest. The differences of religion between the various colonies were about what versions of Christianity, and so they agreed to disagree, in the First Amendment, where it says "Congress shall make no law...." Congress, as in the federal body. Many of the individual states and localities continued to have established state religions for years and in some cases decades after the ratification of the federal constitution. Again, Google is your friend.
In the Bible, there is nothing to affirm such a thing. Jesus, by his own words, never came on Earth, to dilute the old covenant. He came to renew it because he thought it was losing strength. On the contrary, Jesus wanted the Old Law to apply more. He rejected his own times, that a Judaism mixed with Greek religious beliefs embodied by Herod.
I don't disagree with you.
Jesus Christ... my favorite topic.
Here's some good Jesus reads... he was a big believer in castration... check it out in your own bible!
Jesus also promoted the idea that all men should castrate themselves to go to heaven: "For there are eunuchs, that were so born from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, that were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs, that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (Matthew 19:12 ASV)
Don't forget that parents can also kill their children in the Christian bible...
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (New International Version)
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Now how's that for old time religion!
P.S. Don't forget to castrate yourself for Jesus!
"This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious...
I'd have been dead for sure. ;)
Deuteronomy = Old Testament, dude. Starting from Matthew Mark Luke and John it is the new covenant. Christianity. Can't comment on the prevalence of men castrating themselves or each other in Christian countries. In Egypt about 90% of girls undergo female genital mutilation though...which isn't a muslim practice per se, but occurs regularly in that nearly entirely muslim country, home of esteemed Muslim universities.
Evangelical Christianity did NOT EXSIST during the Founding Fathers day. It is a fairly new phenomenon in the Christian sects and subsects. The Puritans, the Quakers, and most of the other Christian groups of the time simply did not believe or think the way Evangelical Christians think. This all started with the Baptist movement. Then made its way to televanglism, the Christian Cults of the 60's , etc.
You need to provide some qualified backing for the statement on female genital mutilation in Egypt. It is not a practice widespread except in Northern Africa. The protesters you see in Egypt are educated people. Not religious fanatics. Stop thinking everyone is a religious fanatic. Most people in the world, regardless of religion, are not as fanatic as you are. Stop projecting.
And? In several occurences, in the Bible, it is mentioned by Jesus' mouth (direct report) that he did not come to repell the old laws but on the contrary, to enforce them.
The distanciation from the old testament came later, way after people (if they existed) involved in the events died.
And precisely, on the case of circumcision as 'pagans' did not want to practise it.
In the Bible, there is no ground to support argumentation like "Deuteronomy=Old Testament"
I fully agree with you (except for the line on circumcision where I don't get what you are saying, but nevermind male circumcision anyway, as it concerns a relatively insensitive flap of skin.)
Further to that, watch what people do, what ideas they act on, not what they are saying. Some long time back I was supposed to become Methodist, but possibly like you, I read outside the select few lines chosen for the lesson any particular day. I don't recall the cat's castration thing, but Jesus saying he wasn't throwing out any part of the existing law I do remember well. The important thing is the "distanciation" from the old testament did occur. Progress was possible under the framework of what Jesus and the apostles put down. In contrast to that, Islam developed in reverse, and ended up an unreformable, total system. A system that makes over a billion people on this planet miserable, and creates an existential security risk for the rest of us.
Huh, no. That is a distanciation from the Bible that happened. From the Bible. That includes of course the Old Testament but also the New Testament.
This happened through various events which brought discredit on Christianity: the Black Death (the Christian elite sold to people that good Christians would be saved whereas the reality was survivors were good Christians), the rediscovery of lost knowledge that the Christians had buried deep because opposite to their beliefs, this through Muslim populations that maintained the legacy (the so called Renaissance), the discovery of the New World and some others.
That is distanciation from Christianity as a whole. FFs, as an elite, were no longer Christian, which showed the discredit suffered by Christianity.
Those guys also demanded stuff that was clearly unchristian as the termination of the first born rights.
The FF's were not Catholic. On top of that it had been a few hundred years since the Reformation, so they even took some distance from that...indeed many of the colonies came to exist explicitly out of taking distance from continental christian hierarchies, but the American people were resolutely Christian, as were most of the signers, their representatives. Locke and Voltaire and the enlightenment were very recent, but you can't twist the enthusiasm of certain individual members of Team FF to make the general statement they were all rejecting Christianity. Au contraire, they were depending on it to make the project work. The "Congress shall make no law" establishing a religion only constrained the federal congress, and would have been a truly shocking conversation ender back in those days, had it been interpreted then as we do now. You see, the various colonies harbored various different christian branch religions, and did not want a single national religion established. After ratification for some decades several of the states kept their own established state religions, christian variants.
The FF were much more than not being Catholic. For a number of them, they were non Christian.
Black Death: 14th century
Discovery of the New World: 15th century
Renaissance: 14~15th century.
All these events that participated to distanciate Christianity were not recent in 1776. Christianity had already lost steam in 1776.
The US People participation to the elaboration of the US philosophical and legal framework was low. The Constitution was drafted by a small number of people ("we the People") and was not voted by a large infranchised population.
Oh good lord. Sure, you can argue that some, some of the FF were not Christian, but your story about Christianity writ large having been discredited by the black death or the discovery of the new world or even the rennaissance is bollocks on stilts.
If you were talking about, oh, France and their revolution gone awry, OK, the revolution in France was anti-clerical, because the hated ancien regime was an alliance between the Catholic Church and the hereditary nobility. That anti-clericalism, anti-Catholic anti-clericalism, continues rabidly on today. Remarkably, as to the application of renaissance ideas, it was Napoleon who drafted the new civil law derived from pre-christian roman law, and applied it not only to France but to every country France conquered, which was a lot of them. He also flipped the bird at the Catholic church by famously crowning himself emperor in front of the pope's envoy, and asking "the pope, how many divisions", or likewise threatening to make France...protestant.
So yeah, on the continent what you are saying about discredited Catholic Christianity works very well, as does the notion of a harking back to ancient references(the renaissance of roman law and governmental forms).
In the United States? Not just no but Hell no. They'd rejected not christianity so much as its existing forms, and they got there well before the europeans started their far more agressive rejection of religion. Today in Europe the churches that are left are pretty much empty. If the US threw off christianity, well that's news to the cracking full churches spread across this land.
Could you provide a graphic description of circumcision?
Yeah, if that turns you on, there are drawings on the very long wikipedia article about FGM. Probably you can find photos too, somewhere out there, if you are um, medically interested in that kind of thing. Of circumcised penises on the other hand, there is a lot free video on the web involving those, albeit almost always paired with non mutilated female genitalia, i.e. including a clitoris.
And as for desestible genital circumcision...
I wonder who started that trend.
Oh right... aren't they are still doing it to their boys!
(I know... TBT... it's a OK since it's a Jewish/Christian cultural thing right?)
Let's see, in circumcision they do not cut off the entire head of the dick do they? The notion had been to improve health in large part, although not only, and it doesn't elliminate sexual response in men. Au contraire, a woman making love to a circumcised young man will likely get a longer ride out of it, because circumcision reduces sensitivity slightly. I don't have strong feelings about it either way, personally, but it doesn't remove a large part of one's nervous system cutting that flap of skin off.
For more detail on the degrees of mutilation performed on girls, the relevant Wikipedia article explains in more detail what are the variations in FGM, but suffice it to say the clitoris is targeted, which renders women non orgasmic or nearly so. Which is misogynistic. No surprise there. That goes just fine with Islam. Women in islamic countries are widely illiterate and badly treated, and yet they raise the next generation for the critical first six to eight years of their lives, which helps make the next generation A) stupid and B) discriminatory toward women C) that much poorer because women's brains are not used in the economy and C) part 2) they are kept metaphorically barefoot and pregnant. You know, likes in liberals' caricatures of the deep south.
And there I thought genital mutilation was genital mutilation... how silly of me.
Clearly there is GOOD genital mutilation that religious Christians and Jews engage in and then there is bad genital mutilation that Muslims perform.
Why do you hate so much TBT? What is in you that demands you attack those for holding a religious belief other than your own?
And your concern for those women is as real as mine is obviously... however I think that is not really the intent of your hate-filled posts is it?
Thought not.
Genital mutilation is not common among Muslims now. It is mostly practiced in Africa, not the Middle East.
The "hate" thing is tiring with you guys.
I am a freedom and prosperity agenda type of dude. Islam on the other hand is an intolerant tyrannical sect which seeks submission, which, again, is what the word means, and what the sacred texts of the religion concern. The results the sect brings to people out there on the ground ought to speak for themselves, even for people who can't be bothered to study who Muhammed was and what Islam dictates to Muslims and non-muslims alike.
You, as an atheist, ought to prefer living in a pluralistic mostly christian or mostly jewish society, or come to that buddhist or whatever else, over an Islamic one, because you, like me, are not "of the book" and therefore, in a muslim society, you are good for torturing to death in the prescribed ways, with no punishment whatsoever required for your murderers.
Re male circumcision, cutting off some relatively insensitive skin that doesn't matter much either way, doesn't strike me as being quite so barbaric as cutting out the clitoris, and worse. The stats on the prevalance of the various types of FGM in Egypt add up to about 90% of all girls.
I point this out for the deluded here who see these demonstrations and get all warm in their heart just about the same we all did back in 89 or whatever when the East Germans poured through the Brandenburg Gate. THAT was about Freedom, actual liberation. No such thing is obviously going to come out of what is happening in Egypt now. These people are majoritarily infected by the awful mental virus called Islam, and no lovey dovey "free" society is going to pop out of that context the day after tomorrow. It can't basically, because the people there are pre-programmed against that.
You hate Islam TBT.
Thanks for clearing that up. How do you feel about it?
"I am a freedom and prosperity agenda type of dude."
Investment banker are we?
Goldman or Morgan?
Let's just say I'm with the Founders of the United States of America in that regard. Does that help? The model works well but won't spring up overnight from just any population. The best way for the egyptians to get there is via a forced and necessarily slow secularisation, a la Atarturk in Turkey starting around a hundred years ago. The military is the only institution that can pull this off. The egyptian military, made of egyptians. The most respected institution in that mostly very shitty country. Respected by the people of that country. In Turkey for the last hundred years or whatever the military stood ready to stop any backsliding in Turkey's secularisation, though that has halted under Erdogan thanks to modern demographic pressures. The more stumptoothed and barefoot-n-pregnant you are, the more likely you are a conservative islamic type. Those have been outbreeding the western leaning bunch up to the current tipping point where islamism comes back into government. Egypt is so far past that tipping point now the only hope to stop it is a military regime bent on secularizing against the popular will, a la Turkey under Ataturk.
I know it's old testament... it was written during the exile in Babylonia... so that's Jewish then right?
So why aren't you criticising the Jewish Torah my friend? Or do you believe in parents killing their children? How about the times of the Jewish King Mannasseh and his policies of child sacrifice and prostitution in the temples?
Is there anything Jewish or Christian you dissapprove of?
And despite your best deflections you still can't wrap your head around he fact that Jesus wants you to castrate yourself.
It's the bible which after all is God's word.
Do it.
You are crashing through open doors ZerOhead. Judaism is, like Islam, heavily rule bound with infraction being an act, actual commission, not just wanting to commit an act(conscience). I gather you have cracked open your Old Testament. It would be worth comparing the civilisational progress over time reflected in the Old Testament with the REVERSE progress in the Islamic sacred texts, for your education. The latter starts out with a fair amount of spiritual sweetness and light and gets progressively WORSE, each new bit of text overwriting what came before, in any case where there is conflict, and there is a lot. The last bits of that religion, the superior texts, are just awful in their intolerance, calls for mass murder, deception, and so on, in the name of making the whole world Islamic. The Muslim Brotherhood understands these texts and intends fully to implement them.
Before you make an even larger ass of yourself I suggest you read "The Bible" a book by an ex-nun named Karen Armstrong. It's an easy and informative read.
In it you will observe the timeline of the creation of both the Jewish and Christian religious faiths. You will find it enlightening. Did you know for the first 300 years the Christian church was a Jewish sect until it became useful for Constantine the Great to create a unified church... using Christianity to control the hearts and minds of his diverse and quarrelsome sheeples? Christians were pacifists and pacifists are easy to control.. when struck they just turn their faces so you can hit them on the other side and all!.
The same technology is used today to great effect on the controlling the worlds' Christians and Muslims.
Religion is rules...and rules yield control.
"Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's... render unto God (priests actually... the equivalent of 4th century televangelists) what is God's"
Hmmm...
The unification of the Judean and Israeli religions into a monotheistic book known as the Torah occured during the Jewish exile to Babylon. Until that time there were TWO separate myths with TWO mostly separate Gods... namely Yahweh in Judah/Jerusalem and Elohim in the northern state of Israel/Samaria. Even two separate creation myths... the one we all know from Judah and the sea monster one from Israel. The two largely oral tradition of the myths were merged and commited to paper (or papyrus perhaps) and the monotheistic religion Jews, Christians, and Muslims now know was born.
Did you ever wonder why god always wanted his people to place no other gods before him? Sounds strange doesn't it? Other God's?
There was actually a Council of God's at the time TBT... many gods in Canaan existed of which local god's were also present but the chief god was always Baal and his sister spouse Anat. The Jews supplanted Baal with Yahweh and El (Elohim pl. god's) who was the family god of Abraham and David.
Once you understand the beginnings of Judaism and Christianity you will understand that Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions are just a command and control structure of men over men. Not God over men.
So either wake up stop hating and move on or do what Jesus is telling you to do!
Welcome back Zero
Nice to hear belligerence and cogent argument rolled up in seething anger once again.
1. GW. likes to go over the top. But he is right Egypt has a chance, America's chance approaches zero (no pun).
2. There were MANY Christian sects for the first 300 years, SOME of which were attached to Judaism.
Christianity was co-opted by the PTB for control of the people and like all monotheistic religions it was successful at controlling the people.
After all, why take a chance and have the angry BIG GUY IN THE SKY pissed at you.
Christianity failed to control people in ancient Rome. The translation from roman religion to Christianity was a big failure as it delivered mainly on only one thing: allowing plunderings of non Christian temples. Later, the control over people was mainly achieved through regression.
Indeed, the Roman Empire eventually came to find it useful. An embarassing amount of pagan symbolism, architecture, art, hierarachical organisation, festivals, and so on had biblical stories glommed onto it. No question about that.
Yes, most of us know that a lot stuff happened before Jesus arrived on the scene. Then Jesus simplifies all the millenia of built up rule bound complexity, chops the gordian knot. Go ask a damned priest or pastor what is the minimum requirement to be saved by Jesus. It is a piece of cake, effing simple, not volumes of rules upon rules. Unlike in Judaism or Islam. Those two are rule bound, heavily so, but one of these a lot worse than the other in that way: The one created by the despicable monster Muhammed.
So you are a Christian? So getting into HEAVEN is a piece of cake then. Big problem for ya TBT... there are only 144,000 tickets to that show... so even if you make it your wife and kids probably won't!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/144000_(number)
It's in the Bible TBT and the Bible is the word of God isn't it?
And it's in there twice for good measure!
Your odds aren't looking good... Enjoy hell! :)
Again ZerOhead, I'm an atheist. How many times do you want to hear it?
I don't particularly care what religion you are TBT.
My guess is that you are an Evangelical Christian like Bush.
I have seen your stance change slightly away from Christianity as I continue illustrate the problems with anything biblical including your anti-Islamic tirades.
It's more your problem than mine anyway...
And if you wish to make an ass of yourself please continue...
Jesus is coming, and boy is he pissed!
Well, Islam does transmogrify Jesus into a kind of destroyer, much worse than the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, for the shiite version of the end times. He becomes a sort of caricatural apocalyptic bad ass general acting for Allah's final vengeance. Hangs with the mahdi. Unfortunately there is no need to make this stuff up.
Actually, that was a bumper sticker ot of Mad Magazine circa mid seventies...
Why do you keeping crowing about your assumption that I'm a Christian then, if you don't care about it. I'm not attacking the man here, I'm about the arguments only, though I do like your style.