Confronted with increasing recognition in MSM of what we always knew, namely that Bush and his fellow idiots are incompetent, and confronted with a book that exposes what Bush and his fellow idiots really thought about their lunatic religious right base, the Republicans will resort to one of their best election tactics……go after gay people.
This time, however, they will sacrifice on the altar of their own greed for power gay Republican staffers who they will claim are the real culprits in the cover up of Foley’s sexual predation. And they will find lots of willing wing nuts like the Reverend Wildmon to do their bidding.
http://www.alternet.org/story/42972/
This is how the party of family values will speak to their base: by destroying careers and lives all in the name of keeping the actual criminals in power. What is so horrendously ironic is that the very idiots the Republican power brokers call idiots will buy into this buy-off. (Can something be horrendous and ironic? Well, this crap can.)
I’m working on a diary with a working title of “People of the Book” which is a term Muslims have used to describe Christians and Jews as people with a common bond to a bible. The problem in all three desert religions is that The Book has become the god. The Koran the The Bible are worshipped more than the god they supposedly reveal. When people create a god in their own image and then worship that image, it’s called idolatry. That’s what all fundamentalism is; and this self-idolatry is then supported by mis-reading The Book.
All the passages quoted by our current stock of “good” “religious” hate-filled right wingers (Christian, Jew or Muslim) are cultural artifacts of people who wandered around in the desert some centuries ago whose ruminations gave us the Tanakh and the Koran and then The Bible. Their culture bound admonitions about everything have absolutely nothing to do with us or with how God wants us to act in the world. But they can be used to support any current political whim like gay-bashing, women-hating, or end-of-the-world-yearning. Because fundamentalists of all stripes fixate on “literal” words and worship passages rather than the spiritual truth God was trying to impart.
So hate-filled people can destroy fellow human beings and delude themselves that they are doing it for good and honest reasons. I really fucking hate Republicans, and but for the grace of God I will go to fucking hell because of this hate, where I will meet all those fucking piece of shit right wing little bastard so-called Christian fuckers again and have to listen to their fucking crap for eternity. Now that is really damnation. My only thanks to God for this will be that they will have to listen to me.
I look forward to your diary on The People of the Book.
Two books that have been important to me on this topic are “Chalice and the Blade” by Rianne Eisler and “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image” by Leonard Shlain(recommended to me by Alice here at the pond – THANKS Alice!!). They both provide a context for the development of the people of the book.
This:
I really fucking hate Republicans, and but for the grace of God I will go to fucking hell because of this hate, where I will meet all those fucking piece of shit right wing little bastard so-called Christian fuckers again and have to listen to their fucking crap for eternity. Now that is really damnation. My only thanks to God for this will be that they will have to listen to me.
is a pretty good description of horrendous irony or ironic horror! It also gave me a good laugh.
I also look forward to your diary.
Thanks for getting it. It helps keep me sane.
Bible Idolaters, they are. They have raised the Bible itself onto an altar of worship.
There are not many things that I am sure of in this life, but of this one thing I am completely and totally convinced: If there is a Judeo-Christian God, anyone who trolls the Bible looking for material with which to sow hatred and and fear will have a very special place in hell.
Even among very conservative Christians, there is a thing much spoken of as evil: proof-texting. That is, using a clip, a snippet here and there from scripture, to prove a point, where a reading of the whole or larger part would not support that same point.
That is much of what is being done by the “Christian Gestapo” (I’m quoting an old friend here) – taking what is convenient and ignoring the larger principles. I don’t think any of the holy books were intended to be used that way.
The trick is making sure that there is enough reason for all of those who have had enough of the regal government to get out and vote. That should be enough. It is unfortunate that it has to rely on a negative like vote against the loons. At some point the Dems need to start thinking about standing for issues or having policies again. There will not alwys be a hatred of the repubs, but as a factor that should be enough for now.
I know it’s completely cheesy to add a comment to one’s own diary, BUT hey, I’m cheese.
Last night on 60 Minutes I listened to the earnest Mr. Kuo, the author of the book that is shining the light of truth on how the Bush Administration has used and manipulated the Christian Right (with, I think, the Chrsitian Right’s enthusiastic consent) and I was impressed by his call for a “fast” from politics by those who would use religion for political gain (namely himself and others in the Faith Based Office, Dobson, Perkins, Robertson, Falwell et. al.). His dirty fingers in all this makes his call for this fast an all the more honest one to me. I especially liked his comment that the religious Right was making Jesus into a Precinct Captain. I can only imagine that for those who consider Jesus the Son of God, this is an incredibly unseemly demotion.
And as Socrates once was reported to have said, “When the gods become unseemly” maybe it’s time for a New One by which he meant that we humans had better rediscover our relationship with The Divine. And this is precisely why the Athenians killed him.
I saw that interview on the crooks and liars website, I believe. It was a very good interview. Did you see the look on Kuo’s former boss’ face when they interviewed him? Positively guilty as charged, if I’m any judge of character and body language at all, and I am. A precise rendition of the ‘dubya smirk’ if I’ve ever seen it.
I hope they don’t make Kuo “drink hemlock”.
“My” Jehovah’s Witnesses visited me, but I was not home. The single page booklet they for me was titled: THE END OF FALSE RELIGION IS NEAR!
The inside leads with the question: What is a false religion?
And continues with the following:
I guess if I had been home, we would have discussed this and some other questions related to recognizing false religions.
Struck me as an interesting choice of topic by the Jehovah’s Witnesses for the month of October. Not sure how many JW’s there are nationally, nor if they participate in voting. If they do vote, this sure seemed critical of “leaders manipulating people’s religious sentiments for their own needs.”