Sowing Holy Hatred

Noted in an earlier posting here (Secularism and Intellect, Oct. 2008), "In many ways the practice of organized religions is the practice of abuse--a crafted mask of benevolence that covers a paralyzed spirit and the twisted face of emotional/spiritual insecurity."

This personal observation is extended here in acknowledgement of notification from a reader that a new television hate propaganda program has been initiated by the so-called American Family Association (AFA), formerly known as the National Federation for Decency which had been founded by "Rev." Donald Wildmon in 1977 but reinvented a AFA in 1988. By the long and obscene attack list that this "association" has chalked up, they clearly have no concept of the true meaning of decency--and certainly no understanding of the unrestricted diversity of life which proclaims the true Omniscience (all-knowingness) that serves as the Creative Force.

In the AFA's self-defined promotional blurbs it is declared they are "...a Christian organization [non-profit 501(c)(3)] promoting biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary emphasis on TV and other media." With an annual budget of roughly $14 million and ownership (at last count) of some 180 radio stations in 28 states, the business of stirring up hatred is thriving and profitable. And ethics for them also includes heavy fundamentalist lobbying against whatever happens to deny their particular interpretations of "God's" prejudices--such as pro-choice, pornography, same-sex partnering, premarital sex, etc. The AFA remains so bent out of shape by the private concerns of others that it clearlly indicates that they are tantalized with sex thoughts more than they are interested in cultivating compassion, as Jesus suggested. Regardless what tragedies truly wrack the world, AFA profits go on multiplying by smothering humane ethics and charging ahead with business as usual through their wide-flung material empire.

These AFA masters of hate-mongering have misled their naive followers for over three decades, using the lowest of tactics and outright lies. In 2005, for example, they were heavily promoting a homophobic work by a "psychologist" that was discredited by the professional psychologist organizations and the author so admired by the AFA, Paul Cameron, was thrown out of the profession. Homophobia in one the AFA's pet means of self-gratification, which brings us to the reader who alerted the "Monkeywrench guy" about the AFA's most recent self-indulgence scam. The new AFA venture is a one hour national special television program aimed at stirring up hatred for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) persons. (Forget Jesus' rebuke about casting the first stone.)

The great irony in this expensive televised attack-exercise in radical propaganda rests in the assertion that there is "a radical homosexual agenda" being imposed upon America! The hateful program declaring this absurdity is "Speechless--Silencing the Christians." Satan must be double over in laughter. His buddies at AFA use the ancient scam tactic: accuse those who oppose you with the evil techniques that the scammers themselves routinely employ.

see earlier postings: Fear of Diversity; Sex, a Holy Mystery; God Forgot to Say

Allegiance to Democracy

The United States Constitution defines the crime of treason in somewhat broad terms in Article III Section 3, the main focus being on levying war against the U.S. or adhering to enemies of the U.S. by giving the nation's enemies aid or comfort. Even these charges had to be substantiated by the testimony of two witnesses or by the accused's confession in open court. The power to declare punishment for treason was invested in Congress.

Since this original definition of treason by the nation's fathers, Congress found it crucial at different times to add to the list of offenses that contribute to undermining of the national government or in regard to actions that threatened national security. Examples of passed statutes were the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, and in 1917 the Espionage Act. Neither of these revisions requires the testimonly of two witnesses, and acts of treason are defined more explictly than in Article III of the Constitution.

Democracy--equality for all--was the founding fathers' ideal, and in that intention the Constitution does not create the offense, choosing instead a loose definition of treason and authorizing Congress the duty of establishing the offenses to be prohibited through legislation by Congress.

There have been less than forty federal prosecutions for treason in the nation's two-hundred-thirty-years-plus history, and of those brought to trial for the charge only a small number were ever convicted. Even the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr, for example, resulted in acquittal. After the Civil War, although numerous Confederate leaders such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were indicted for treason they were granted amnesty in 1869 by out-going President Andrew Johnson to strengthen the relationship within the family of states. So treason has always carried a narrow characterization with national concern focusing primarily on acts of espionage. Thus has the United States sought to avoid the abuses of treason laws that those in power in other nations (most of them church dominated) used through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Still the term "treason" suggests any serious act of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation. Within Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983), part of the definition of treason includes the intention to "...seriously injure (one's parent nation)." With this in mind, how should we interpret the movements operating for decades in the United States under the banner of religion that loudly bray that they stand for "moral values" while openly seeking to dismantle the U.S. Constitution in hopes of establishing what they term "a government based on timeless biblical values"?

In other words, their holy mission is to undermine the existing democratic form of government by indulging in inappropriate actions in an attempt to establish a theocratic regime.

Design ex nihilo

If we are to believe those who claim to be divinely inspired, everything that we know as some part of Creation has been the result of some purposeful design that is being carved out of perpetual chaos--or out of nothingness. The fundamental desire underneath this perception of design is anchored in human ego that fears the unknown and seeks to find exception to the obvious impersonal "laws" that have governed creation for multi-billions of years.

"Design," of course, implies intellect capable of abstract thought and which also possesses emotional concern for that which it seeks to create. The manner in which Creation seems to have unfolded and evolved seems to indicate that there are actions that we think of as "laws" that prevail over the creation process. Unfortunately for those who champion the "design" theory, the "laws" through which creation activity occurs have always functioned in a totally impersonal manner. To set aside any natural "law" for some specific-effect purpose, as the notion of "miracles" suggest, would instantly thrust all Creation into oblivion.

The circumstances that are interpreted as due to "design" and credited to a being addressed as God or Allah or some other title implies a being that is itself a defined entity that stands responsible for all that makes up existence. The problem with that assertion is that anything that is even vaguely definable is rendered identifiable by a condition of limitations! The extended problems that then arise with the theory of an identifiable creator are the tendencies to theologically assess all that is accepted as reality in negative probabilities or outright absurdities.

Among the many questions in regard to an intelligent designer is the problem of an obvious lack of benevolence toward any dimension of conscious life. Much of life dies in agony, too much life perishes after only a brief chance, droughts and floods destroy capriciously, the constant violence induged in by man indicates that mental deragement is widespread, diseases run rampant, enslavement, ethnic murder--the list could go on too long to suggest that there is an omniscient, benevolent "designer" of all that has manifested as energy-matter and life. Even the bulk of the so-called "good book" pivots upon wars and violence and greed and treacheries that do not exactly support a notion that a benevolent being or personal creator regards all of creation's catastrophes as a beautiful design.

If there is any benevolence or moral potential in creation it has to issue out of the evolving qualities of life, not directly out of the impersonal energy-forces that provide only the substance for intelligent life to evolve. Everyone will gain in moral quality and personal contentment only when they learn that the labyrinth known as religion is made to gratify man's ego, and man himself is not made for religion.

Secrets of Enoch

Among the many books not included as the accepted "word of God" by Christian councils that chose their self-serving Gospels, was the book known as The Secrets of Enoch. Even though the book of Enoch was passed over as being unworthy of inclusion as "gospel," it nonetheless exerted unquestionable influence upon the numerous writers of the New Testament collection. In fact, many dark passages of the N.T. are virtually inexplicable without its edifying aid.

There are peculiarities of speech in the book of Enoch that the church fathers probably could not comprehend, and that was enough to convince them that such verses would lead the curious minds away from the church fathers' concept of what constituted "true faith." One such peculiar reference that pops up is in regard to the flood account; in the book of Enoch it states that Noah was "...born a bull and became a man." Elsewhere that account goes on to say "...and one of those four went to the white bull (referring to Noah) and instructed him in secret."

The Secrets of Enoch did indeed refer to knowledge that had been "lost," or more likely it had been deliberately concealed from the masses--knowledge that had once been given freely by using astronomical configurations (constellations) as focal points on lessons regarding the developmental processes of energy into matter forms (creation, cosmology).

In the Secrets of Enoch, Noah served to represent the Life Principle (which became personified as "God) at the fourth stage or energy dimension of development. This teaching had once been given with the constellation of Taurus as its focus, and therefore it was not confusing to say that Noah, personifying the Life Principle moving into energy-matter form, was riding the flood of life toward physical form, and could be said to have been "born a bull" or that he was the "bull...(that) became a man."

The ancient lessons that had been alluded to in the Secrets of Enoch were based on startlingly accurate scientific principles, and without the scientific/astronomical knowledge referred to in Enoch which could clarify the imagery used in that book, the Christian fathers preferred to embrace the speculative upon which to fashion a business machine.

It should be noted that the ancient lessons of creation processes given with Taurus--regarding the fourth stage or dimension of energy forming into matter form--also accounts for the four rivers said to have issued out of Eden in the book of Genesis. Thus in The Secrets of Enoch which says "...one of those four instructed Noah," i.e. the energies that are carried into matter-form.

Explainations of all prehistory Zodiac lessons can be found in the books: The Shiny Herd; Ancient Secrets Hidden in the Sky, ISBN: 1-56167-164-9, and in The Celestial Scriptures; Keys to the Suppressed Wisdom of the Ancients, ISBN: 0-595-20913-0.

Faith-Based Danger in Government

Generations of religions' pie-in-the-sky approach to everyday problems began to seriously swamp over the democratic form of government in the United States with the rise of television in the early 1950s. Those holy evangelicals found the blossoming technology to be a miraculous manner of profitably merchandising their interpretation of what god wants for the material world. By the mid-1980s the institution of religion became the single largest business group in the US, and under the guise of "spirit" and "divine guidance" these institutions that shamelessly peddled other-world advice became one of the greatest land holders in the nation, not to mention the nation's largest stock and bond owners.

By the 1990s the television Bible thumpers were eagerly lusting to take over control of a major political party and in that way planned to thrust upon the vast diversity of people a single mode--their man-invented way--of honoring a higher principle. Brutally enforced theocracy to which they aspired is, apparently, dearly loved by god if the holy discriptions of his Heaven are to be believed, for certainly democratic principles are not permitted there.

Along the way to capturing earthy power by using "faith" as its most powerful psychological conditioning tool, the god-inspired group pulled off some truly awesome and sinister con jobs on the citizen's representatives who were elected with the intention of keeping a level playing field for all citizens. Over the years as the religionists wormed their way into various political positions across the nation, the US was plunged--each time--into a staggering national debt and billions of dollars in trade deficitis.

In the 1990s into the early 2000s, with the religious right in control of the once secular Republican party, the nation was treated with the fundamentalists' continuing assault on such things as public education, women's rights, personal privacy, etc. The banner of religion led the way because that happens to be where the most money is being hoarded.

Such fanaticism is always a murderous indulgence. If we pay attention to genuine history, whenever religion ran rampant over all earthly activities the result was anything but delightful. The Middle Ages in Europe are commonly referred to as the Dark Ages for under merciless Church dominance with its homicidal "Inquisition" the general populace languished in despair for centuries. More recent history saw the resurgence of fundamentalism in the Muslim nation of Iran, and the injustices and horror that engulfed that nation cannot be said to be divinely inspired.

The frightening thing about holding blind certainty of what God or Allah decrees is that such pronouncements are issued out of the ego of self-proclaimed messengers, not from any provable divinity. To base a political ideology upon such grossly anti-intellectual propaganda is to destroy all gains in human potential that have been won. There are indeed unseen powers as work throughout the universe, but those powers indulge in no favoritism for mankind's politics or for those who imagine that some super being is managing everything.

The Myth of "Race"

The social definition of "race," from a scientific standpoint, is actually little more than a reference to an optical illusion. The habit of assigning groups of persons bearing various physical features such as skin color, facial features, texture of hair, and even skeletal build into categories came into use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unfortunately this method of classification brought with it the erroneous implication that such physical differences indicated that there could be no unifying factor

Not surprisingly, categorizing the human species in this manner became the standard by which self-absorbed people could indulge themselves with concepts of purity strains which allowed them to exclude those who did not mirror their imagined superiority. This, of course, stoked the fires of hatred, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance--i.e. all the ignoble practices that diminish the innate dignity of man.

Although convenient in various forms of study--forensic anthropology for example--the category method of study of the human species does not alter the fact that there is absolutely no genetic basis for racial classification. Indeed, public interest in tracing their personal ancestry has revealed through DNA research that race as a scientific view does not compute! Through DNA analysis scores of persons who had believed themselves to be one unblemished "race" were startled to discover that they embodied considerably more than appearance seemed to present.

DNA research has shown from samples obtained from indigenous groups worldwide that all peoples are, regardless of appearances, actually interrelated. In other words, ancestry is much more than perceptible biological indicators, for biological traits are amenable and adaptive. Everyone's background includes ancestors who at one time or another had to adapt to their environment and extreme climatic changes--all of which would have influenced gene modification.

There is much to left to learn about DNA and how genetics of a biological attribute may have evolved. There is such a miniscule portion of DNA that has produced all the morphological differences that account for our species' diversity that we speak of as the "races," and yet we all share within us a common active denominator.

Is it the quantity of quantum energy that reflects itself as diverse energy manifestations which people personifiy as some humanlike personality they address as "God"? If so, isn't science "his" messenger bearing genuine revealed wisdom?

Remembering Bush

George Dubya Bush, during his illustrious career as head of the most undemocratic administration ever, managed to chalk up at least 950 days avoiding work at the office. Even Ronald Reagan didn't have the guts to indulge himself in that much slacker-time.

Even so, Bush and his cohorts made indelible scars upon democracy almost from the start of their highly questionable acquisition of high office. By January 2001 Vice President Cheney was setting the tone of the nation's energy policy with the secret input of oil executives. Then poor Bush had to cut his month-long vaction short in March to listen to the annoying briefing that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the US. He snorted that the report was unimportant. But after the September attack Bush feigned indignation at the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, saying, "This crusade, this war on terrorism..." was going to take time. By December, even though the terroists were known to be working out of Afghanistan, the White House was fully immersed in plans for invading oil-rich Iraq!

In January 2002 Bush sneered that Geneva Conventions didn't apply to any war plans that he had, and stated that he was, to quote, "not that concerned with finding bin Laden." Filled with democratic zeal the Bush crowd then asked the NSA to begin warrantless wiretaps. By August Bush's lawyers in the Justice Department had drafted the "torture memo."

In the 2003 State of the Union message, Bush falsely declared that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, which an apologist later shrugged aside with the statement that Bush "is not a fact checker." And by March Bush got his "preemptive war" going by dangling the carrot of "missles of mass destruction" in Iraq before a doubting public, and Vice President Cheney's of company, Halliburton, was made recipient of a five year $7 billion NO BID contract in Iraq. As looting quickly became rampant in Bagdad, Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld shrugged it off with "stuff happens." By May, Bush theatrically declared "Mission Accomplished."

2004: as hundreds of US soldiers died in Bush's extended "mission accomplished" farce, the White House forced the news media to withhold all photos of flag-draped coffins of fallen service men being returned home. In May it was disclosed that the White House had created fake news reports in an attempt to privatize Medicare and link it with the stock market. And in June Dick Cheney was still publicly pretending that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were in cahoots.

2005 saw administration dealings kept well concealed. Useful in this was such "humane" illusions as Bush's much publicized "pro-life" move to keep Terri Schiavo on life support system. In June the reality of global warming was edited out of all reports by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. November of 2005 found Congress being lied to about all the secret meetings that oil executives continued to have with Cheney.

In January 2006 Bush blatantly lied "I don't know him" in reference to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In February a top climate scientist was, in effect, barred from publicly explaining the dangers of climate chages. In April six retired generals publicly advised that Rumsfeld should resign. As hurricane Katrina roared toward New Orleans in August, the FEMA staff was actually ordered to stand down! Bush later tried to sidestep poor management of the disaster by saying that no one thought the levees protecting New Orleans would give way. However, videos later came to light that the Bush crowd had been warned about the possibility of levee collapse. As 2006 was closing (December), seven US Attorneys were illegally herded into resigning for not being "loyal Bushies."

In February of 2007 the public was shocked to learn that care for wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital included cockroaches, mouse droppings, and outright neglect. March saw the extent of Abramoff's dealings (whom Bush "didn't know") with with Department of Interior's number two man, J. Steven Griles, pleading guilty of related obstruction of justice tactics for Abramoff. In April, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress investigating the circumstances of the seven US Attorneys being illegally forced to resign that "I don't recall" for a total of 64 times. In June, Cheney sought to excuse himself from his covert dealing by claiming he was not part of the executive branch! In August it came to light that the CIA's secret prisons used torture methods that violated national and international law. By December all CIA waterboarding video tapes had been destroyed, and Congressional Democrats were demanding to know why.

March of 2008 found Bush whizzing through Afghanistan where he told the genuine defenders of democracy, "I'm a little envious of you." In May the Special Counsel office, the office supposedly established to protect federal whistleblowers, was raided by the FBI only to find that all files on whistleblowers had been erased. To show his great affinity with US service persons, Bush claimed that he hadn't golfed since August of 2003. He apparently forgot his October '03 golf game. June news revealed the eighty percent of "liberal" applicants considered for hire by the Department of Justice were illegally discriminated against. And in July it was disclosed by an ex-Environmental Protection Agency official that the public report on climate change had been edited by Cheney's office. Meanwhile, Karl Rove, Bush's strategist, thumbed his nose at the subpoena handed down by the House.

The last remaining days of Bush-league politics are sure to hold some more fancy footwork--especially in setting up of elaborate pardons to avoid the responsibility for the countless deceits and profiteering that this administration has spawned. Let us pray that true justice is at last served again once the Bush administration's corruption is swept out.