In this nation, which group of people seems most concerned about the specter of terrorism? It is those who describe themselves as Christian fundamentalists. They are the ones who most supported former President George Bush's incarnation of the axis of evil. They are the ones who continue to sound the alarm and try to whip up hysteria. They are the ones who favor curtailing everybody's civil rights to protect us from the people THEY say are bent on destroying those very same rights. They are the ones who advocate a super strong military and have proposed nuking Iraq, Iran or anyone else who harbors terrorists.
Why has this become their bread and butter issue? I think I stumbled across one answer last night while finishing up Don Cupitt's After God: The Future of Religion
. Fundamentalists are overly concerned with terrorism because they know it all too well! It's the overarching premise of their very lives.
Here's what Cupitt has to say:
I would submit that, because the fundamentalist believes their spiritual side is always under threat of a terrorist attack from the almighty, the last thing they desire is to complete the circle by allowing their physical side to be under the same kind of threat. Since, according to their narrow beliefs, they can't genuinely do a thing to protect themselves from the potential wrath of God (i.e., a person is saved ONLY due to God's grace), they're going to do whatever possible to protect themselves from the wrath of anyone else.
In other words, since they can't nuke their god, let's nuke the Arabs instead.
Why has this become their bread and butter issue? I think I stumbled across one answer last night while finishing up Don Cupitt's After God: The Future of Religion
. Fundamentalists are overly concerned with terrorism because they know it all too well! It's the overarching premise of their very lives.Here's what Cupitt has to say:
Realistic theism has classically pictured God as an infinite spirit, all-powerful, all-seeing, recording everything and intensely, really intensely, judgmental. Before God and by God's standard of absolute perfection, every single one of us is always in the wrong, at all times and everywhere. So for a large part of humanity, all of life has been clouded by fear and anxiety for thousands of years.When you believe that we're all miserable wretches unworthy of God's grace and God could strike us all dead at any given moment, God becomes the ultimate terrorist! His modus operandi becomes fear and retribution. His main weapons become celestial coercion and intimidation. In essence, his so-called relationship with humanity is based on the potential to inflict terror.
The aftereffects of all this cosmological terrorism are still with us today. For example, the largest and most powerful religious organizations today, whether Christian or Islamic, seem to attract people precisely because they are authoritarian.
I would submit that, because the fundamentalist believes their spiritual side is always under threat of a terrorist attack from the almighty, the last thing they desire is to complete the circle by allowing their physical side to be under the same kind of threat. Since, according to their narrow beliefs, they can't genuinely do a thing to protect themselves from the potential wrath of God (i.e., a person is saved ONLY due to God's grace), they're going to do whatever possible to protect themselves from the wrath of anyone else.
In other words, since they can't nuke their god, let's nuke the Arabs instead.
Certainly the USA, the Catholic Church, with it's very wide grip, Queen Victoria's Cross depicting a globe under the control of a cross and so England and its commonwealth are all under this mafia control system of fear and intimidation.
ReplyDeletePeople are under the fear and control of money and god and will be manipulative, manipulated, support killing and do killing due to the power of these powerful spells.
They still have an almighty grip but just to be sure no one escapes the same system pins people down with fear of being caught on camera, fear to travel over borders, fear to communicate over cultural lines - yet more false walls in an invisible prison.
But people can escape this just by waking up to the simple truth of the matter.
Free people require no leader,
and Tao has nothing to lose,
Leaders make fear to interfere with here,
People you know what to choose.
It is telling that the fundamentalists -- theirs and ours-- are both coming from Abrahamic, middle-Eastern mystery religious backgrounds. No Taoists or Buddhists there!
ReplyDeleteYes, about the most "violent" thing I've ever heard of a Buddhist doing is setting oneself on fire and this, of course, is not done in the name of violence but self sacrifice as a form of protest.
ReplyDelete