The So-Called War on Christmas
by Joel Tscherne | 12/14/2009 07:00:00 AM


Every year around this time, certain media outlets (particularly those named after a certain animal) complain about how some people are trying to do away with Christmas. It's also the time of the year when I re-read one of my favorite books.



Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry, published The Trouble With Christmas in 1993. The book deals with the problem of a religious holiday in a supposedly secular society. Flynn reviews the history of Christmas, showing how its current "traditions" have little to do with how it was celebrated in the past (ask yourself, for example, why anyone was working on Christmas in The Christmas Carol). He also reviews many Christmas symbols and shows their actual origins. Flynn also presents a list of what those who are unhappy with its celebration should do.

While he clearly has a point of view, Flynn presents a great deal of great information that can be used to counteract any argument from those who want us to believe that they have a right to celebrate the holiday as an American and world-wide tradition.

There are also a number of good audio interviews of Flynn available from various podcasts. My favorite is from Skepticality, the podcast of Skeptic magazine. Have a listen if you have time, and maybe feel a little better if you are one of those who don't celebrate the holiday.

Labels: , , ,

 
Permalink | 3 comments
The "Founders'" Religion
by AndrewMc | 8/19/2009 07:00:00 AM
My university has an internal e-mail list for general discussion. Populated by a subset of the faculty and staff, it is in no way reflective of the general opinion of the university at large. But it's an interesting place, and it has some value. It is a forum for generalized discussion, criticism of the university administration, and a place where faculty and staff occasionally generate some good ideas for university initiatives.

The "forum for criticism" function is especially useful to the administration. Not because they get feedback that they can act on. No, I think that the mailing list serves as a kind of safety valve, where the activist faculty raise issues and speak out. A few others join in (never the staff, who are afraid of retaliation) and some issue gets hot for a few days, and then it dies down. So the mailing list is a place where faculty blow off steam without ever taking concrete action, which is safe for the administration.

I should say that anyone who thinks that college campuses are bastions of liberal thought should come to my school. Outside of the humanities the faculty are mostly conservative; the staff more so. And right now our internal mailing list is seeing a repeat of a fairly regular discussion—"The Founders were Christians."




This discussion comes up once or twice a year, usually at the behest of one of the conservative faculty or staff upset that, according to them, the United States "was founded as a Christian nation," or that "the Founders were Christians."

The complaint is a kind of jeremiad—we've strayed from the original intent, and now look at the mess we're in. It carries with it, of course, a subtext that goes beyond the claim that the United States no longer acts in a Christian manner (assuming it ever had). The subtext is that we've let all these weird foreigners and their weird religions into the United States, and "those people" have screwed the place up. If we could just cleanse America of Muslim and Buddhists, and send the Jews back to Israel to help bring on the Millenium, things would be OK again.

Little addendum follows the moaning, and any attempts by people to offer contrary evidence is met with either silence, or "you don't know what you're talking about" or "of course liberals say that," or, best of all, a barrage of quotes from the Founders that make it look as if their original point is correct.

History's kind of interesting that way. People believe that it's not like math or chemistry, where there is usually a concrete answer, and where a deep understanding of the subject requires years and years of specialized training. As we all know from talking to Civil War buffs, amateur historians can be well-versed in their subject. But more importantly, the general public thinks that specialized study in history isn't necessary. And public figures encourage this. It's just names and dates, right? All you need to do is read a book about the American Revolution, and you'll know everything you need to. Or, best of all, "it's just your opinion, your interpretation."

The last point isn't too far off the mark. History is interpretive. We all have scholars with whom we disagree, and yet for the most part we're all looking at the same evidence (except in cases where new evidence is discovered, of course). But the "America was founded as a Christian nation" kind of analytical narrowness is a hallmark of the far-right and its public discourse. And each time the point gets raised on our internal discussion list—and in public for that matter—people engage the right wingers in an attempt to prove that the Founders weren't Christian, that the U.S. wasn't founded as a Christian nation, or some other fine point of history.

And there's the problem. Just engaging in the debate concedes victory to conservatives on an important point: That the religion of the Founders matters. Even slightly. Except as an object of study that might help us understand what went into the creation of the Republic.

Within that context, here are my main issues with the claim that the "Founders" were Christian."

1. The "Founders" were every man, woman, and child—black, white, red, yellow—who helped contribute to independence. To argue anything else is to take a narrow, elitist view of the United States and the struggle for independence. It's pretty un-American, in my opinion, to suggest that the Founders were only the people who wrote the Constitution.

2. The religion of the people who wrote the Constitution is similarly irrelevant. Despite what some conservatives would like to see or believe, the America of 2009 is not the America of 1787—and we should be glad it isn't. To buy into the debate over the religion of the Founders is to implicitly buy into the concept of originalism. No thanks.

3. Most importantly, the United States is a continuously evolving nation, which is as the people who wrote the Constitution intended. They planned for it to evolve. And it has. So irregardless of their religion, it is our religion&mdashor lack of it&mdashthat matters.


The debate over this comes and goes, and to a large extent is only a concern of the base. But since the Republican party is evolving into a party "of the base," we can expect to hear a lot more in the future about why this matters.

Labels: , , , ,

 
Permalink | 8 comments
Normalizing Fascism Inch by Inch
by Winter Rabbit | 8/13/2009 08:59:00 PM

To start, let's put Apocalyptic Christianity into a historical perspective.



Native American Holocaust - Sex, Race and Holy War. Excerpts from the book: American Holocaust by David Stannard Oxford University Press, 1992


From the moment of its birth Christianity had envisioned the end of the world. Saints and theologians differed on many details about the end, but few disagreements were as intense as those concerned with the nature and timing of the events involved. There were those who believed that as the end drew near conditions on earth would grow progressively dire, evil would increase, love would diminish, the final tribulations would be unleashed-and then suddenly the Son of Man would appear: he would overcome Satan, judge mankind, and bring an end to history. Others had what is generally thought to be a more optimistic view: before reaching the final grand conclusion, they claimed, there would be a long reign of peace, justice, abundance, and bliss; the Jews would be converted, while the heathens would be either converted or annihilated; and, in certain versions of the prophecy, this Messianic Age of Gold would be ushered in by a Last World Emperor-a human saviour-who would prepare the way for the final cataclysmic but glorious struggle between Good and Evil, whereupon history would end with the triumphant Second Coming.



Trail Of Tears: Moving Beyond The Myth Of America



Are there generalized demonizations of liberals within the genre of fundamentalist Christianity?

The liberal media is not only the devil's best device for corrupting human society; it's his most diabolical device.


I believe Satan is behind all liberal movements.


Liberals Must Die.com


Liberal Democrat's Satanic Overlord

These liberals, from Nancy Pelosi's home, consider morality and religion dangerous. They openly protest and fight against efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and suicide.
 

-snip-

Who but Satan could run a city and a political party that fights against morality, and specifically considers efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and suicide "fascist" and dangerous?





Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons


"A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralize the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get."
She squints at the sun and smiles. "Then things'll change."




'The Surge Won't Work, But Concentration Camps Might Do The Trick'


Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war â?" to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals.



Read these two excerpts and draw your own conclusions, remembering thatNazi War Criminals came to the U.S. after WWII.Temporarily, substitute the word "Liberal" for the word "Jew" in an effort to draw correlations from past to present. To accentuate, I mean temporarily. These are amongst the most evil words ever spoken. They are from the time of the Jewish Holocaust. Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism" is included afterwards. If the rhetoric of now weren't so comparable to the rhetoric of then and even glorifying it, then I wouldn't think it would be appropriate. It is appropriate to today on American soil in a comparison of the rhetoric, yet some say we are inching closer and closer.
There are instances, such as the Rwandan Genocide, in which it is completely comparable. I can't accentuate enough the spirit of respect and appropriate context in which it must be compared.

Continuing, Hagee has stated indirectly that it is not "Jews" (who are "The apple of God's eye," he said) who are "poisoned," it is "liberals" who are "poisoned." Hagee and those like him are against the ideas of liberalism, and have demonized people with liberal philosophies. Brace yourself as you read "The Decent Jew" by the Nazi Hanns Oberlindober from the year 1937 and the "Doctrine of Fascism" by Mussolini himself from the year 1932 (bold and underline mine).




Kingdom Coming:

The Rise of Christian Nationalism. Michelle Goldberg. p. 73


"The Decent Jew." By the Nazi Hanns Oberlindober. 1937.

To the following source:

The "Decent" Jew A Letter to an Englishman, 1937


Despite the sensitivity of the democrats to the world's moaning and groaning, the warmongering incitement of the so-called world press and the agonized howls of those of your nature and religion, the National Socialist people's and state leadership has only done its simple duty to the German people, namely to investigate and determine the results and consequences that the "good Germans" and "decent Jews" have left behind for the German people, and to ensure that there will never again be a time of unlimited or concealed Jewish domination.


I say Jewish domination intentionally, for there is no more dreadful tyranny than when world Jews enslave their host people through their willing, bribed, and obedient democratic lackeys.



Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and the economic sphere.




Thomas Jefferson:

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.



There's a fire to put out.


(Bold mine)



The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism

Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

- snip -

He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of religion, rise to dismantle the open society.
He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil nor the cold reality of how the world worked...



Labels: , , , , ,

 
Permalink | 4 comments
The Age Of The President-Pontificate Of The U.S.A.
by Real_PHV_Mentarch | 8/24/2008 11:09:00 AM
Last week's Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency, quite appropriately dubbed "The Faith Forum", heralded a new age for the Presidency of the U.S.A. - that of the President-Pontificate.




For decades now, especially since the late 70's-early 80's, it has become a ritual of sorts for candidates seeking the Office of the Presidency of the U.S.A. (POTUS) to make profuse declarations of faith while seeking the public support of pastors, preachers and priests.

Pious demonstrations of belief in God (the Christian one, of course), humble statements of abundant praying for guidance from the Divine Will, public displays of church attendance, etc. - all such things have become nothing more than par for the course in the (democratic) process of choosing the next POTUS.

Through it all, the political/governing functions of a POTUS have likewise become intimately intertwined with all matters of faith - whether it is the expected utterance of the incantation of "God Bless America", frequent references to God on any and all subject matter (policies, decisions, etc.), the White House prayer breakfasts, the lighting of the White House's Christmas Tree, attending Christmas mass, yet more public displays of piety and praying/church attending, and so on and so forth.

In short - the POTUS has come to acquire an increasingly preeminent function of "Christian faith representative" in the eyes of Americans throughout the years.

Why else would Americans have elected three openly-declared Born Again Christian Presidents (Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush) out of the last five who have held office since the 1976 elections?

No wonder then that so-called "moral values" and "moral issues" have come to dominate the American political landscape in the last three decades or so - especially with regards to school praying vs. no praying at school, a woman's right to choose vs. criminalizing abortion, same-sex marriage allowance vs. interdiction, teaching safe/protected sex vs. promoting abstinence, teaching evolution vs. also teaching creationism/intelligent design, etc., etc., etc.

And I will spare you the all-too-known details of the (waning) George W. Bush administration's embrace of fundamentalist Christian "values" and consequent attitudes/actions with regards to all things secular and scientific (see also this recent post of yours truly).

(I remember cringing at that little piece of news when I first read about it some three years ago - that one as well)

Then came 9/11 - and since that tragic day a majority of Americans have apparently locked themselves in a mentality of "Christianity vs. Islam" - what some like to call the "Clash of Civilizations" - a mindset which appears to stubbornly persist to this day, overriding all rational considerations (one more recent example here).

Indeed, 9/11 was in good part responsible for the re-election of George W. Bush, the "War President" fighting the evil islamofascists ...

Which brings us to this year's primaries and the current contest between John McCain and Barack Obama for the Presidency of the U.S.A.

Never before have I witnessed such profusion of declarations of faith from candidates left and right, being asked questions on all matters of Christian faith, morals and values, including whether they believe in evolution or not.

Never before have I witnessed a democratic party presumptive nominee speak more like a pastor as Barack Obama has been speaking throughout this election year - even more so than the born again Christian Jimmy Carter (and I remember a good part of Carter's campaign and his Presidency, because I had "come of age" enough as a teenager to start paying attention to such things already then).

Never before have I witnessed such lingering (ill-informed, uninformed, or deliberately mendacious) questions concerning the "purity" of the Christian faith of candidates - especially regarding Barack Obama ("Is he Muslim or Christian?", "Is he Christian enough?").

Then came last week's Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency, whereby McCain and Obama got to be vetted on matters of Christian faith, morals and values by an "influential" evangelical pastor, Rev. Rick Warren, in a live broadcast to millions of Americans to see, hear and judge.

Since then, many have parsed through the questions posed by Warren in this so-called Faith Forum and the answers given by McCain and Obama - however, it appears that the sheer precedent enormity of such an exercise has been lost entirely.

Think about it - before McCain and Obama got to face each other for a first time to debate their political ideas, ideologies, visions and solutions, they got to be quizzed/tested by a pastor first about their Christian faith, morals, values and visions.

In other words: they had to demonstrate first and foremost their Christian credentials to the American people above all other (political) considerations.

Talk about separation of church and state, no?

Since 9/11, the American people, through their Congress and Senate, have granted monarchical powers to the Office of the President of the U.S.A. - the Military Commissions Act and the Patriot Act quickly come to mind as but two examples.

In short, the POTUS can spy indiscriminately, detain indefinitely and torture - the pretense being that all of this is necessary in the name of temporal security of the Homeland.

Not unlike the British Monarchs of old.

And now, thanks to the precedent of last week's Faith Forum, the POTUS has become the de facto Spiritual Leader and Keeper of the American Christian Faith.

Again - not unlike British Monarchs who still retain to this day (since Henry VIII) the title and function of Head of the Church of England.

So after some 230+ years after the Declaration of Independance, the Americans managed to give themselves a bona fides British-like Monarch in all ways, shapes and forms.

Makes me wonder what the hell the American Revolution was for, then.

Yet, the conclusion nevertheless remains: thanks to the fear, ignorance and, yes, hate of Americans regarding things non-christian, all still driven by 9/11, the Age of the President-Pontificate of the U.S.A. has officially arrived.

God Bless America indeed.

(and whenever I hear born again Christian Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, throw "God Bless Canada" whenever and wherever he can, I keep wondering whether my country is slowly but surely going the same way as our neighbors to the south ... but I digress)

In the meantime, all I can do is wish - and hope - that enough people out there will never forget the necessity of keeping church and faith fully and completely separate from state.

But in this new Age of the President-Pontificate, I shan't be holding my breath ...


(Aftermath: go read this and that as well - both are definitely worth the click).


(Cross-posted from APOV)

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

 
Permalink | 0 comments