God save Us From True believers

More and more lately we are hearing the far right, ranting about how they are never going to sit still for the coming invasion of Sharia law.

Really? Who asked them to? I mean does anyone really think that Sharia law is a threat to this country?  Come on, get serious. This is a country that took a couple of hundred years to get around to recognizing the fact that Jews actually have holidays too, and these guys think that Sharia law has a chance? Yeah, so do the Mets

I mean, despite our founding fathers every attempt to enforce the separation of church and state, this is a de-facto Christian country. It shouldn’t be because having it be a de-facto country of any religion stands squarely in the way of it being a truly democratic country but the God mongers just don’t see it that way.

Every Christmas some clown gets bent out of shape because some mayor, who believes in the constitution won’t let him put up a kresh on the front steps of town hall. This, despite the fact that there are five flavors of Christian church within a block of where he wants the kresh to go. Still, there are many members of the citizenry who take this moron seriously and rail against the Godless forces that are stealing our freedom to do any dumb thing we want.

But to get back to religious movements, and their threat to the constitutional structure of this country. The first thing we have to realize is that they’re just not coming from the Muslims. For the first time in memory and I’m pretty old, there are two candidates running for President who claim that God told them to run. This is pretty scary.

Look, there is nothing wrong with a belief in God. It’s the predominant philosophical position in the world. People have believed in a God ever since they started wanting things they couldn’t produce themselves. But when you run into candidates for president of the greatest country in the world who claim that God speaks to them and told them to run, that’s where I sign off.

What’s really scary about the situation is that both Perry and Bachmann are intimately associated with a strain of Christian fundamentalism that that makes Sharia law look like something that’s practiced in a strip joint.

I have never put much credence in conspiracy theories. I don’t think that Bush let 911 happen just so we would have an excuse to invade Iraq. He proved that he didn’t need one, and I don’t think JFK was killed by the FBI, the Mafia, Fidel Castro, The KBG, the Knights of Columbus or the DAR but there is a very bold menace afoot in this country today and it is called Dominionism.

Dominionism is a religious philosophy that proclaims that Christians have a God supported right to rule the earth. It is the product of some of our most radical theocrats. It has long had a strong influence on most far right Christian policies. Ross Douthat, the NY Times’ nod to the fanatical right once called the fear of theocracy the defining panic of the Bush era. Well, maybe it was only a phony threat then but Perry and Bachmann, the most theocratic Republican field in American history are making it a real threat now. At least they will if they can figure out a way to advance a serious candidacy.

In a recent Texas newspaper story Perry admitted his relationship with the New Apostolic Reformation, a Dominionist variant of Pentecostalism. The New Apostolic Reformation is a problem because of its growing interest in infiltrating politics and government, as well as the media, the arts and the entertainment worlds.

Dominionism is exactly the same kind of program as political Islamism, which seeks to shape the activism of all Islamic fundamentalist movements and focus them on one goal; world political & religious domination. They are the same beast.

Dominionism flows from a small Calvinist sect, founded in the ‘60s by a guy named R.J. Rushdoony, which openly advocates replacing American law with the Old Testament much the same way the radical Islamists propose replacing political law with Sharia law. Rushdoony was a prolific writer and his work has had a serious influence on the milieu that spawned Bachmann and Perry.

Rushdoony claimed the US to be a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. He believed in slavery while contrasting it with the greater evils of socialism. Now there’s an enlightened point of view. At least we can now see where Bachmann and Perry get their ideas. Dominionists have a belief that Christians have a holy mandate to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ. This, of course, has been a universal theme of Christian religionists throughout history even though it is a most un-Christ-like position imaginable and the last thing that Jesus would ask of his followers. But why should we bring Jesus’ teachings into a discussion of Christianity?

I was brought up a Roman Catholic. You know what that is, the original Christianity that existed before the various Protestant Christianities decided they wanted to remarry or didn’t like their pastor and went out and started their own watered down version of the real thing.

I left my religion because the people who taught my religion and the people who led my religion, didn’t live my religion. And watching the actions of all religions in the world tells me that they are all pretty much the same. For those of you who haven’t figured it out; it’s not about God, or good works, or pure thoughts, it’s about power. If you don’t believe that just read the statements of the men and women who seek to lead the Dominionist movement.

The Dominionist theologians, as they are called, use Genesis 1:26-7 as the cornerstone of their power philosophy. It’s when God tells Adam to assume dominion over the world. “When man fell, his control over creation was forfeited; but the saved, who are restored by baptism, can claim again the rights given to Adam.”

What they are saying here is that if you are born again you will rule. Why? What has this religious experience got to do with ruling the world? Power, the same thing that all religions have as their goal. Religions don’t want free thinkers among their flock. They want those who will believe and follow, those who will drink the cool-aide. Only in this case, we’re not speaking about the pastor having power over his worshipers, we’re talking about the pastor having power over his country and that is more frightening, more dangerous, more undemocratic than any possibility of Sharia Law taking a foothold in this country. It’s the same thing, it’s just more frightening.

Why would I consider the concept of a Christian country to be scary? It’s not the Christianity of it; it’s the religiosity of it. Religion is a faith based, not a logic based, experience. As sentient human beings we should be making our decisions based on logic, one of those things that makes us different than the apes.

Even as I write this, The Tea Party, the bedrock of Perry & Bachmann’s popularity, is moving into banning books in public schools. The American Literary Association has reported that this year U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and fought off challenges on more than 50 others. These religious fanatics are not banning books for their believers, but for all students of public education. This is why religion that moves into the political sector is so dangerous. Like all faith-based notions, the believers think that, “what’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA.” Northing could be further from reality but that’s, if they are to be believed, the problem with the candidacies of Perry and Bachman. Like all religious nuts, they think they have the answer, whether it has been whispered, as in Bachman’s case by God, or in Perry’s case by a coalition of Texas billionaires.

These are two scary candidates. Forget that Bachmann yammers on like she’s been vaccinated by a phonograph needle, making unbelievably irrational statements and then sticking to them like the were true, or that Perry is dumber than Bush and twice as dishonest. They are true believers, the most dangerous species known to man. In the words of Senator Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind, “I do not think about what I do not think about.” In the case of Bachman, Perry and the Dominionists that’s everything.