Religion...one more excuse of many man uses to inflict pain, misery and death upon his fellows.

Religion is just another word for hate.

Religion = Rationalized bigotry.

Is it me or does Christiane Amonpour look like Bill Wyman...?

For more on the theocratic warriors here in the U.S., see:
"American Taliban."

Chris from Canada @ 7:

Is it me or does Christiane Amonpour look like Bill Wyman...?

I think she loks like Chrissie Hynde!

Chris from Canada @ 7:

Is it me or does Christiane Amonpour look like Bill Wyman...?

I thought the very same thing.

Chris from Canada @ 7:

Is it me or does Christiane Amonpour look like Bill Wyman...?

Maybe she should been in the video for The Smithereen's "Behind The Wall Of Sleep"

"She held the bass guitar and she was playing in a band. She stood just like Bill Wyman now I am her biggest fan"

I'm interested in seeing this documentary

"Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call
So many people have died in the name of Christ that I can't believe it all"

Graham Nash - "Cathedral"

Religion: making people believe in make-believe. Or else.

Someone needs to ask the Jerry Falwells and thier ilk, when has America ever been moral?

Was it during the slaughter of the indians and theft of thier land?

Was it during the slavery and dehuminization of the African?

Was it during the time women had no rights?

etc etc etc??

Thanks for the heads up, though I can't seem to find it on the TiVo list...

(maybe I'll just have to search for "CNN Presents" first?)

Well, let's not forget the Dominionists! They're really fun!

I mean -- it's the medievalism, stupid!!

Taliban? Talibangelicals?

They ALL want to hurl us, kicking and screaming, waaay back into the Dark Ages.

So -- watch out.

Thank god (pun intended). Religion is the leading cause of pain and strife in our world and this is just one small step in raising awareness of how cruel and sick it is. Atheists are gaining in strength and we need to step up and shout proudly who we are and let the world know how sick religion is.

Falwell's orphans just need to read some Richard Dawkins and start over with a fresh slate.

Let's get to the heart of the issue. 9/11...........a self inflicted wound.

I would venture to say that jerry did more to foment hate and dissension than he ever die to exhibit the love and tolerance that should be the cornerstone of all faiths.

"his disgusting claim that 9/11 was caused by America’s tolerance of homosexuals"

if you think about it, this belief is consistent with what is in the bible. (noah's flood, sodom and gemorrah, etc.)

I think God is kinda pissed about the title. Maybe He should sue for defamation.

As for Christiane, she was a hottie 20 years ago, but she not only looks older, she's definitely looking more masculine. She looks like a regular at Les Bos.

I attribute it to the Doughy Pantload/Chickenhawk Caucus inside the Beltway. They would make any woman give up on men.

Jeff @ 37:

"his disgusting claim that 9/11 was caused by America’s tolerance of homosexuals"

if you think about it, this belief is consistent with what is in the bible. (noah's flood, sodom and gemorrah, etc.)

The Bible says a lot of nonsense about a lot of things, which can be applied to that person's specific prejudice.

Ryan @ 29:

Thank god (pun intended). Religion is the leading cause of pain and strife in our world and this is just one small step in raising awareness of how cruel and sick it is. Atheists are gaining in strength and we need to step up and shout proudly who we are and let the world know how sick religion is.

I agree, because religious moderates won't defend their faith against these radicals.

Jeff @ 37:

"his disgusting claim that 9/11 was caused by America’s tolerance of homosexuals"

if you think about it, this belief is consistent with what is in the bible. (noah's flood, sodom and gemorrah, etc.)

Is this what passes for trolls these days?

Too bad Amanpour missed Paul Hill Days. It was a blast.

"It also looks at other christian zealots who have bombed abortion clinics and murder doctors who perform them in the name of religion."

Can't we call them Christian terrorists?

The trouble with the left is that we are so hell bent on freedom of speech that we let these monsters proselytize to our own eventual demise.

They have to be stopped, but in the end I think that attacking religion would be counter-productive.

I argue that a better approach is to fight all irrational beliefs equally with the only prejudice being verifiable truth. Holocaust deniers, astrologists, flat-earthers, creationists...people should not be allowed to run around telling lies. Truth is not relative. The burden is on them to prove it.

Jeff @ 37:

"his disgusting claim that 9/11 was caused by America’s tolerance of homosexuals"

if you think about it, this belief is consistent with what is in the bible. (noah's flood, sodom and gemorrah, etc.)

But was it Christian? Jesus was a reformer and he either refuted or at least modified much of what was in the old testament. One problem when Christians dip back into the old testament for precedent is that they often come up with something that is exactly the opposite of what Jesus would have taught.

Also, there is no evidence that either the story of Noah's Ark or Sodom and Gomorrah were ever more than parables or teaching devices borrowed from earlier cultures to make a particular religious point.

john @ 32:

Blaed @ 28:

SHE'S NOT A CHRISTIAAAAAAAAAAANNNA!!!

Well put.

Get the hell out of my house, in Jesus name I pray!!!

You Might be a Christian if:.................

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Carmikl @ 53:

Also, there is no evidence that either the story of Noah's Ark or Sodom and Gomorrah were ever more than parables or teaching devices borrowed from earlier cultures to make a particular religious point.

I read an archaeological account of what was possibly Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently, it was a Babylonian city, where the citizens were mostly in law and politics... and the funny this is, the city mostly worshiped the "darker" side (falsehood and disorder) of Zoroastrianism. Unearthed writings state that the city's water supply was often plagued with a black, briny sludge, which we now know today to be crude oil leeching up through the ground. It's very likely that an open flame somewhere caught the oil on fire and burned the city to the ground.

As for Noah's Ark... totally ripped off from Sumerian mythology.

TDoff @ 56:

The Christianity portion is subtitled 'Kill for Jaysus!', the Islamic section, 'Slaughter for Mohammed!', and the Judaic chapter, 'Let the Crusades Continue!'

Are religions just S&M clubs for the demented?

If you wanted a precise title it would be "Fundamentalist Religious Killers" because the it is the fundamentalist wing of all of those traditions that are doing the killing, whether its the Islamic Wahabis Jihadist or the "anti-abortionist Christian killers... they are all fundamentalists.

In all three religious groups that this documentary looks at it is always the "literalist" who take ancient texts and take a literal view that this is how we should live and want to cram it down the throats of others by force.

It must be noted that they are not the mainstream of any of those religions in numbers and it is easy to show that they violate many of the basic teachings of their "saints" who are the object of their religious devotion.

Are religions just S&M clubs for the demented?

Our founding fathers created the "separation of church and state" doctrine because they had seen proof positive in the religious wars of the 1700s in Europe the evil that occurs when politics and religion mix... it always leaves a trail of blood.

Having said that though, a quick review of human history shows that there are just as many "secular" movements that have been responsible for mass killing on scale that is hard to believe as well... Stalinist Russia, the purges of Mao, Hitler's holocaust, Cambodia's Pol Pot and the killing fields... to name a few.

So while religious ideology can leave a bloody trail... so too can political ideology leave a trail of corpses and blood soaked ground!

This is just my opinion, but these programs that CNN are doing are propaganda. Like last weeks "Know your enemy". It is as if CNN is grooming people to act a certain way if we were "attacked" again or if we went to war in Iran and it spread. They are planting a seed in people to behave a certain way if the puppet masters pull the strings and bring out and blame their boogie man. We are being molded to think a certain way.

jojo @ 62:

"Christiane Amanpour, James Rubin and Madeleine Albright. What a troika! "
All Cs & Ls. By the way Amanpoor was not that poor living in Iran at age 11--had to escape Iran and came to USa--with million$--on her Iran father's airplane salary--B.S.

Washington Times
Sunday, March 14, 1999
FORUM

Odd alliance at State, CNN?
by Stella Jatras

How nice JoJo... you attack Amanpour's lack of objectivity in her documentary on murderous religious fanatics by an Opinion piece from a right wing rag that was created, is owned, and controlled by... a religious fanatic... Reverend Moon!

The Times is the flagship publication of News World Communications, Inc. (NWC). NWC was founded by Sun Myung Moon, and some of its officials are members of the Unification Church which he leads, a fact that has drawn some criticism and controversy.

NWC published Insight Magazine and The World & I. Insight ceased hardcopy publication in 2004, moving to the web; and The World & I became The World & I Online, an educational magazine with four corresponding websites. NWC continues to publish the The Washington Times National Weekly Edition (a tabloid compilation, designed for subscribers outside the metropolitan area, of the previous week's published Washington Times stories). NWC also owns United Press International.

NWC is described by the Columbia Journalism Review as "the media arm of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church".[13] The Unification Church calls Moon the "founder" of the Times. In 1997, on the 15th anniversary of the founding of the paper, Rev. Moon gave an address to staff members that began:

Fifteen years ago, when the world was adrift on the stormy waves of the Cold War, I established The Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save this world. Since that time, I have devoted myself to raising up The Washington Times, hoping that this blessed land of America would fulfill its world-wide mission to build a Heavenly nation. Meanwhile, I waged a lonely struggle, facing enormous obstacles and scorn as I dedicated my whole heart and energy to enable The Washington Times to grow as a righteous and responsible journalistic institution.[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Times

So tell the truth jojo...

Do you think that Rev. Moon is right and Churches should take down the crucifix and put up the crown as their symbol as he suggests? Do you get excited seeing him in his crown that he wears in ceremonies? Have you bought guns from the munitions plants that he own?

Wired @ 36:

maddy @ 34:

Chris from Canada @ 7:

Is it me or does Christiane Amonpour look like Bill Wyman...?

Kinda sorta eh hoser

I want to know why the moderates in all religions are caught in the middle of this poop flinging fest between radical Christianity, radical Islam and radical Judaism.

Because when these radical assholes from all of these religions can't get people to buy into their shit en mass, they resort to violence as a way of getting the press to pay attention to them!

The press is only to happy to oblige... "if it bleeds, it leads" and then they go on to compound the error by giving them lots of air time. While the violent types aren't given interviews, lots of apologists are like Falwell, Robertson and the like.

Mean while, as you point out, the mainstream religious types who don't buy into their crap have to sit back in frustration and watch the press make people like Falwell, Robertson and Donohue become the face put on their religion.

Oops, let me try again:
Rasputin @ 61:

Having said that though, a quick review of human history shows that there are just as many "secular" movements that have been responsible for mass killing on scale that is hard to believe as well... Stalinist Russia, the purges of Mao, Hitler's holocaust, Cambodia's Pol Pot and the killing fields... to name a few.

So while religious ideology can leave a bloody trail... so too can political ideology leave a trail of corpses and blood soaked ground!

Yes, but those atrocities were not done in the name of a god. The tool of religion wasn't used in those cases to rouse the masses in to blind loyalty.

Many people of faith point to these atrocities as proof of what amoral non-believers do when in power. These people used nationalism and the cult of personality as tools to achieve their ends.

Hmmm, sound familiar?

Doubting_Terrance @ 68:

Rasputin @ 61:

TDoff @ 56:

Having said that though, a quick review of human history shows that there are just as many "secular" movements that have been responsible for mass killing on scale that is hard to believe as well... Stalinist Russia, the purges of Mao, Hitler's holocaust, Cambodia's Pol Pot and the killing fields... to name a few.

So while religious ideology can leave a bloody trail... so too can political ideology leave a trail of corpses and blood soaked ground!

Yes, but those atrocities were not done in the name of a god. The tool of religion wasn't used in those cases to rouse the masses in to blind loyalty.

Many people of faith point to these atrocities as proof of what amoral non-believers do when in power. These people used nationalism and the cult of personality as tools to achieve their ends.

Hmmm, sound familiar?

Yup! I have heard some religious idiots try to say that those atrocities were the result of secular humanism and its underlying lack of any "divinely inspired" moral underpinnings.

I have also heard secular humanist idiots assert that all murderous violence comes from religion too because of its adherence to an irrational belief... some even on this thread!

Both positions are reductionistic to the extreme and equally ludicrous! The use of force and violence to achieve ones ends is wrong and humans, I believe, innately know this because they spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to find theological, political, or ideological justifications for such actions.

You might say that man is the ultimate “moral cake decorator”, always looking for some way to dress up his abominable acts with a sickly patina of “justification icing.”

Does it really make a difference if the icing is religious or secular in flavor? How about… we’re going to go into Iraq to spread democracy and freedom? Or a doctrine of preemptive strike flavored icing… “we’re going to go to war on them because they might go to war with us.”

Rasputin @ 71:

Yup! I have heard some religious idiots try to say that those atrocities were the result of secular humanism and its underlying lack of any "divinely inspired" moral underpinnings.

I have also heard secular humanist idiots assert that all murderous violence comes from religion too because of its adherence to an irrational belief... some even on this thread!

Both positions are reductionistic to the extreme and equally ludicrous! The use of force and violence to achieve ones ends is wrong and humans, I believe, innately know this because they spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to find theological, political, or ideological justifications for such actions.

You might say that man is the ultimate “moral cake decorator”, always looking for some way to dress up his abominable acts with a sickly patina of “justification icing.”

Does it really make a difference if the icing is religious or secular in flavor? How about… we’re going to go into Iraq to spread democracy and freedom? Or a doctrine of preemptive strike flavored icing… “we’re going to go to war on them because they might go to war with us.”

I agree. It all comes down to power corrupts and religion, or nationalism, or whatever, are just tools of manipulation by unscrupulous men.

richard @ 72:

My God is better than your God. He told me so.

How dare you doubt the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster!

May he smite you with his noodly appendage!

Doubting_Terrance @ 75:

richard @ 72:

My God is better than your God. He told me so.

How dare you doubt the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster!

May he smite you with his noodly appendage!

I don't care if someone believes that God is an avocado... just so long as they don't show up at my door with a bomb because I ate Guacamole!

Having said that though, a quick review of human history shows that there are just as many “secular” movements that have been responsible for mass killing on scale that is hard to believe as well… Stalinist Russia, the purges of Mao, Hitler’s holocaust, Cambodia’s Pol Pot and the killing fields… to name a few.

Oh, for pete's sake, I thought that people around here were too intelligent to trot out that tired out canard.

Hitler burned Darwin's books, touted Martin Luther in "Mein Kampf" as an example of an upstanding German, and sent the German armies out with "Gott Mit Uns" ("God is with us") belt-buckles, having successfully co-opted the church. (Cue the Rev. Niemoller...) Hardly a "secular" movement.

And as for the Communist atrocities, I am so effin' sick of the equation of atheists to Communist. Not one atheist/agnostic/secularist I know would advocate killing in the name of ideology. Lenin, Mao, et. al. invoked the nebulous concept of Communism being "pre-ordained" by the demise of capitalism and struggle and anointed themselves the prophets of the coming of this promised land. In short, Marxism had the trappings of religion minus a named God. And as we know, the trappings are nearly everything. But as Bertrand Russell (rightly, I believe) pointed out, none of these efforts would have succeeded, had it not been for the infrastructure built (repression upon repression) by the autocratic regimes that they replaced. Autocratic regimes propped up in many cases by the Church, I might add. So be very, VERY careful how you play the blame-game for the bloodiness of the 20th and 21st centuries. That sword has at least two edges.

Blue Buddha @ 59:

Carmikl @ 53:

Also, there is no evidence that either the story of Noah's Ark or Sodom and Gomorrah were ever more than parables or teaching devices borrowed from earlier cultures to make a particular religious point.

I read an archaeological account of what was possibly Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently, it was a Babylonian city, where the citizens were mostly in law and politics... and the funny this is, the city mostly worshiped the "darker" side (falsehood and disorder) of Zoroastrianism. Unearthed writings state that the city's water supply was often plagued with a black, briny sludge, which we now know today to be crude oil leeching up through the ground. It's very likely that an open flame somewhere caught the oil on fire and burned the city to the ground.

As for Noah's Ark... totally ripped off from Sumerian mythology.

That would make sense in a convoluted sorta way. Angra Mainyu was a Persian god of Darkness and the counterpoint to Ahura Mazda. The reason it makes sense that a Persian god worshiped in Babylonian city would find its way into the Christian Bible is that much of the Bible wasn't written until the Hebrews went into exile in Babylon. Of course, they were still there when the Persians and the Medians invaded Babylon.

The story of the Tower of Babel was probably synthesized from the Hebrews first exposure to a Babylonia Ziggurat (pyramid like structure made of mudbrick, and all of the languages they became exposed to in the multi-ethnic environment of Babylon.

Most of the books of Deuteronomy and Isaiah can be directly traced to the Babylonian exile, and the book of Daniel was borrowed from earlier Akkadian legend. Of course, the story of the Sumerian Prince, Sargon the Great was the probably the source of the Moses in the bulrushes story.

Christopher Hitchens was correct (this time) when he said that given an enema Falwell could have been buried in a matchbox.

"Man will not be free until the last King is strangled with the entrails of the last Priest" Diderot

I understood that Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed because the were uncharitable and abusive to strangers, hoarding wealth and luxuries to themselves; you know, average Republicans.

cubiclegrrl @ 79:

Having said that though, a quick review of human history shows that there are just as many “secular” movements that have been responsible for mass killing on scale that is hard to believe as well… Stalinist Russia, the purges of Mao, Hitler’s holocaust, Cambodia’s Pol Pot and the killing fields… to name a few.

Oh, for pete's sake, I thought that people around here were too intelligent to trot out that tired out canard.

Hitler burned Darwin's books, touted Martin Luther in "Mein Kampf" as an example of an upstanding German, and sent the German armies out with "Gott Mit Uns" ("God is with us") belt-buckles, having successfully co-opted the church. (Cue the Rev. Niemoller...) Hardly a "secular" movement. blockquote>

Check your history cubiclegrrl…

Hitler actually in the early days did appeal to the religious inclinations of the German when he was trying to get into power and build support, not unlike Karl Rove who it recently turned out is a self declared agnostic… but he uses religion to manipulate people. Hitler touted his Catholic upbringing in public speeches.

Later, however, he was to break entirely with the churches:

In 1941, Martin Bormann, a close associate of Hitler said publicly "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable" In 1942 he also declared in a confidential memo to Gauleiters that the Christian Churches 'must absolutely and finally be broken.' Since he understood that Nazism, based as it was on a 'scientific' world-view, was completely incompatible with Christianity[2].

“When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest”

Struck a nerve… eh?

“And as for the Communist atrocities, I am so effin' sick of the equation of atheists to Communist. Not one atheist/agnostic/secularist I know would advocate killing in the name of ideology. Lenin, Mao, et. al. invoked the nebulous concept of Communism being "pre-ordained" by the demise of capitalism and struggle and anointed themselves the prophets of the coming of this promised land. In short, Marxism had the trappings of religion minus a named God. And as we know, the trappings are nearly everything. But as Bertrand Russell (rightly, I believe) pointed out, none of these efforts would have succeeded, had it not been for the infrastructure built (repression upon repression) by the autocratic regimes that they replaced. Autocratic regimes propped up in many cases by the Church, I might add. So be very, VERY careful how you play the blame-game for the bloodiness of the 20th and 21st centuries. That sword has at least two edges.”

Squirm as you may… Communism was very much a secular movement and an opportunistic one like the NAZIs at first they tried to wipe out the church, then they saw a way to use it as a political tool and allowed a resurgence with hand picked prelates who had strong ties to their secret police.

Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937-38.[35][36] During World War II, however, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, after the NKVD had recruited the new metropolitan, the first after the revolution, as a secret agent. Thousands of parishes were reactivated, until a further round of suppression in Khrushchev's time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

This tactic is currently in use by the Communist Chinese with Tibetan Buddhism. Last month they made it illegal for any Tibetan to claim that they were a reincarnation of one of their “saints” unless they applied for it to the government and they have been “hand picking” divine incarnations for them like the Panchen Lama:

Tibet's Stolen Child, the 11th Panchen Lama

In May 1995, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the six year-old boy, identified by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, disappeared. Suspicions that he had been kidnapped were confirmed in May 1996, when the Chinese leadership admitted to holding him and his family in "protective custody." After repeated attempts to gain access to the boy, no international agencies or human rights organizations - including the United Nations -- has been allowed to visit Gedhun Choekyi Nyima or his family, and their condition remains uncertain.

In an attempt to establish their authority over all "internal affairs" of China - political or otherwise -- the Chinese leadership nominated and selected their own 11th Panchen Lama in November 1995. Their selection, a six year-old boy named Gyaltsen Norbu, is another young victim in China's plan to undermine and control the Tibetan people, their religion, and their nation.

http://www.savetibet.org/news/positionpapers/panchenlama.php

Communism, like Germany’s National Socialist, found religion a useful tool to manipulate the population, but their underpinnings were as Herr Borman pointed out based on a “scientific world view.”

As to your Bertrand Russell reference, he also turns to a “scientific world view”

“In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

As I said before…I have heard some religious idiots try to say that those atrocities were the result of secular humanism and its underlying lack of any “divinely inspired” moral underpinnings.

I have also heard secular humanist idiots assert that all murderous violence comes from religion too because of its adherence to an irrational belief… some even on this thread!

Both positions are reductionistic to the extreme and equally ludicrous! The use of force and violence to achieve ones ends is wrong and humans, I believe, innately know this because they spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to find theological, political, or ideological justifications for such actions.

You might say that man is the ultimate “moral cake decorator”, always looking for some way to dress up his abominable acts with a sickly patina of “justification icing.”

Does it really make a difference if the icing is religious or secular in flavor? How about… we’re going to go into Iraq to spread democracy and freedom? Or a doctrine of preemptive strike flavored icing… “we’re going to go to war on them because they might go to war with us.”

Interestingly, Europe is more secular than the US but have lower divorce rates, unwanted pregnancy and violence.

Is it because their all gay and staying home crocheting?

ysbaddaden @ 89:

Actually I thought Christiane Amonpour looked like Lily Tomlin.

The truth... Amanpour is the "love child" of Bill Wyman and Lily Tomlin!

Rasputin @ 91:

Arroyo @ 82:

God is a Buddhist.

Actually... Buddha never claimed to be a God and insisted that he was just a man. He was asked which God was the true God and he refused to answer the question saying that it was "unsettling to the mind."

... which is why God has become a Buddhist, who needs the headaches?

Arroyo @ 94:

Rasputin @ 91:

Arroyo @ 82:

God is a Buddhist.

Actually... Buddha never claimed to be a God and insisted that he was just a man. He was asked which God was the true God and he refused to answer the question saying that it was "unsettling to the mind."

... which is why God has become a Buddhist, who needs the headaches?

Somewhere... out on the Bardo plane... Buddha quietly shakes his head!

ysbaddaden @ 97:

Doubting_Terrance @ 93:

ysbaddaden @ 87:

Doubting_Terrance @ 75:

Praise Bob!

He'd kick the Flying Spaghetti Monster right in his meatballs.

That pipe smoking weenie? Bring him on!

You remember who said your last line the last time.

I believe "Bring 'em on" was his exact quote... and look what it wrought.
See what happens when the bullies are in charge.

Rasputin @ 99:

Doubting_Terrance @ 95:

Rasputin @ 88:

Does it really make a difference if the icing is religious or secular in flavor? How about… we’re going to go into Iraq to spread democracy and freedom? Or a doctrine of preemptive strike flavored icing… “we’re going to go to war on them because they might go to war with us.”

I agree. Again, it's all just methods and tools used by unscrupulous leaders to manipulate the masses.

Is this any different than what Rove and Bush have done to the US?

(6) Gustave Gilbert, an intelligence officer, interviewed Hermann Goering at Nuremberg on 18th April, 1946.

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWnuremberg.htm

This administration has used the "terrorist" and the faux patriotism cards to the nth degree and the religion card as well. During the 2004 election the RNC had a pamphlet printed up and distributed to the fundamentalist congregations in Arkansas and West Virginia saying that the democrats were going to make the Bible illegal.

People can be manipulated, whether by religious or secular means, into doing some really destructive stuff.

Great quotes from Goering that needs to be repeated to the 28%'ers.

Fear is a great motivator. Notice all the recent "threats" this summer (i.e., Chertoff's gut) just to beat down the Dem's enough to pass the updated FISA law and now after it's passing all's quite on the Homeland front.

Rasputin, you did not strike a nerve, though I do find your suggestion that I check my history condescending. In case it matters, I hold a B.A. in History. Your cutting and pasting merely "prove" that a demagogue will use ANY "tool" that comes to hand. If the Church can be subverted to the interests of the state, it will be. If its influence subverts the interests of the state, it will be repressed or destroyed accordingly. Unlike the demagogues who went before, the Nazi and the Communist revolutionaries did not have to work within the same structure as, say, Savonarola. That "luxury", to my mind, is what separates the murderous rabble-rousers of the 20th Century apart from their predecessors.

What you have neglected to address in attempting to lay the crimes of the 20th and 21st century at the feet of a "scientific worldview" is that neither the Nazis nor the Communists were much interested in "science" except as another tool. Just like the Church. As I noted, the Nazis had Darwin's books burned. Hardly appropriate for someone motivated by "science". And it should come as no surprise that, under the Soviets, science (and scientists) were subjected to "purity tests" of dogmatic compliance. Ironically, our mutual friend Bertrand Russell drives this point home by quoting Soviet pravda about how the astronomy (I think it was astronomy, anyway--the book in question is on the shelf at home) had been subverted under the Tsars, and will be reclaimed by the application of Marxist principles blahblahblah yadayadayada. In other words, the document had squat to do with science per se; it was just pure dogmatic bull$#!+. Rather chillingly on par with the Discovery Institute's infamous "Wedge Document" and its screeds against "materialism" and its promise to redeem science with a theistic world-view. In both cases, science (with its restless curiosity, its discipline of method and, the fundamental humility it requires to revise its postulations upon new and contradictory data) has clearly taken a back seat to politics. By that measure, such a world-view can no longer be considered "scientific" any more than I consider Pat Robertson's world-view to be "Christian". If the Nazis chose to pervert the meaning of "scientific", that is not science's fault, any more than Christ was responsible for their perversion of the Church.

As you pasted Russell's quote, you did (I sincerely hope) note that Russell also placed his optimism for progress in "our hearts," meaning the fundamental humanity that finds its kin in its fellow travelers between cradle and grave, which transcends the "Us and Them" divides that demagogues exploit and widen for their own gain. I think that, from your previous remarks, we can agree that repressing and killing people in the name of ideology is monstrous. But you are not furthering the cause of coexistence by repeating the lies of the anti-science theocons and neocons.

[Deleted. Make your points without insult or namecalling. Also, try to lay off on the bold face. A little bit goes a long way]

Rasputin @ 104:

[Deleted. Make your points without insult or namecalling. Also, try to lay off on the bold face. A little bit goes a long way]

Sorry... I take exception to someone calling me a liar when I've just provided documented facts to refute their claims and provided links for verification. My sarcasm was a long way from the usual ad hominem attacks that warrant monitor intervention, but forgive me if I have offended.

Darryl Douglass @ 107:

I'll make this simple for you Left Bed-wetters out there... by the way, it's 2007 and not 1300 years ago... but whenever knuckleheads kill in the name of Christianity, i.e., abortion clinics, the REAL Christians and OUR leaders stand up and denounce their actions... though when the Islamic fascist YOU lLve so much do such atrocities, they dance in the streets. I see a huge fundamental difference don't you?
Oh, feel free to point me out, I love to destroy your rhetoric with truth and logic... and I'll pray for you too.

I'm a Political Scientist and I also hold a minor in journalism.

Your self-congratulatory remarks aside, did it ever occur to you that moderate Muslims DO denounce said actions, but that the American media intentionally ignores them? Where do you get your information from anyway? Just because you didn't see something, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Your argument could have had more weight had you displayed an ability to think objectively.

Fact: The 9/11 attacks, in the US media, are constantly referred to as "terrorist attacks". Whereas what took place in Oklahoma City is referred to as, "bombing".

Fact: White Christians are always referred to as "bombers" (e.g. abortion clinic "bombers", the "unabomber"....etc.). Conversely, Muslims and non-whites are described as "terrorists".

Did you ever pause to think why that is?

I think every religion has its proponents that whatever you or anybody elect to say or believe, is just a figment of imagination which neither holds water. I am convinced that your sole aim is to engage the world in a discourse that may be fatal at the end of the day.

I hope you have done your research properly so as not to portray one religion as evil.