Archive for the Fundamentalism Category

Loss of Spiritual Comprehension

Posted in belief, biblical "values", By-the-book belief systems, ego and belief, faith, Fundamentalism, life diversities on November 7, 2017 by chouck017894

The three corporate structured faith systems of western cultures are pretty much monuments that have been raised to spiritual paralysis.  Being male-founded and male dominated the three by-the-book faith systems of western cultures bristle with masculine rigidity and combative schemes for seizing possession of the keys of Heaven.  In other words, these are faith systems which counsel believers to will themselves to believe in certain attack strategies which influence the unthinking believers to perceive soul-threatening weaknesses within themselves.

This mode of operation which is used in these three western corporate style faith systems thereby deliberately and with forethought inject into the faithful seekers a subliminal lack of self-acceptance.  When “sin” and hatreds of life’s many diversities are used as the pivotal points of spiritual understanding–and everyone is deemed to be stained with sin–self acceptance is made into a scapegoat sacrifice for that particular faith system.  In any other human endeavor this would be regarded as a con-job.

Western faith systems are notorious for their rejection of spontaneity or allowance for any serious questioning of man-conceived dogmas.  Once a person gives up their self-acceptance under such pressure there is cunningly installed within a seeker a self censuring impulse, and the believer has then been rendered divided within their awareness of what they feel themselves to be and an uneasy suggestion of unworthiness or even evil within their nature.  A mind that is mesmerized by such “holy” propaganda, which asserts that their soul is contaminated with sin, has been purposely injected with negativity toward themselves.  Self-acceptance is thus effectively sabotaged and the seed of doubt that was thus implanted leaves the believer incapable of living their life with a full degree of sincerity or tolerance with themselves or with others.  Under such implied holy guidance all natural spiritual spontaneity gets smothered down.  The greater “sin” then actually rests squarely within the faith system itself for intentionally short-circuiting the very creative energy that opens a person’s soul to cosmic consciousness.

The result is fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism is more about hating the facts of material reality than it is any devotion to spiritual integrity.  So how do their interpretation of moral rules allow for such hatred of God-approved variety and diversity of life?

One characteristic of a religious fanatic is that they seem to always wax with hatred toward a hell of a lot of things.  Another characteristic is the pretense of conservatism, which they think grants them the freedom to attempt obstruction of other people’s rights.  This, in turn, opens the door for attempting to compel their narrow views upon everyone.  Racism, for example, is an ego boost for many faith system fanatics; and homophobia is another approved subject to practice spiritual injustice.  It must be a terrible burden for fundamentalists to confront all the God-approved variety and diversity which defines the radiance of Creation and have to tell the Creator that he made a vulgar mess in such an endless assortment of life activities.  That is ugly spiritual vanity, and spiritual vanity is far more soul destructive than physical vanity.

Knowledge and reason are seriously constrained when faith system representatives labor to impose preconceptions of any sort to hover over seekers interactions with others.  In tightly structured faith systems, for example, seekers are indoctrinated and continuously conditioned with claims that it is only through their particular man-concocted faith system that one can attain the favoritism of the Creative Principle which they personify as God.  But, curiously, the universe and nature do not reflect that alleged narrowly restrictive disposition in the extensive diversity and variety of life that Creative Power has formulated, made manifest and steadfastly maintains.

The creative, unifying force which is personified as “God” is too often imagined in biblical accounts to be mainly concerned with the dilemma of only one representation of the human species who dwelt in one small region on planet Earth, which just happened to be the author’s area of interest.  Biblical tales bristle with hatreds and the focus rarely strays far from the differences and the dissimilar features and characteristics that give life its radiant range of creative representation.  Such a narrow understanding of life and one’s spiritual significance in relation to the rest of the universe has resulted only in setting the stage for persistent and unnecessary conflicts.

Any man-concocted faith system which demands unquestioning obedience to its man-formulated practices is only fraudulent spirituality, for it has no sincere interest in teaching individuals how they may achieve personal spiritual ascendancy.  And rarely do these strict faith systems provide straightforward answers for solving day-to-day needs.  That is so because the objective of each system is to maintain unsupportable claims of special favor for the system’s believers and thereby manipulate as many persons as they can.  The objective of any such faith system is to keep attention upon the system itself.  Such indulgence inspires nothing higher than religious conceit, not reverence for the creative power which expresses its omnipotence through endless variety and diversity of life.

In every instance the approach of of any highly organized inflexible faith system is to always concentrate upon the system itself.  Priests, preachers, ministers, rabbis, mullahs and the like do not really serve as spiritual teachers or guides, although that is what they imply,  These corporate styled faith systems place stress upon man-invented rites, rituals, form, tradition, etc. with the implication that the Supreme Power of Creation which expresses itself through endlessly diverse ways nonetheless came to become highly prejudiced toward what it made manifest as defined life forms.  As a result these regimented faith systems are noteworthy for the spiritual void that they impose.  That is because each “faith” system has been designed and is marketed solely to gratify a seeker’s ego with a pretense of exclusivity.  All other similarly conducted faith systems are then dismissed as “godless.”  The blessings gained for mankind from such stifling orthodoxy are reflected in a world in constant chaos.

 

 

 

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Rise of Holy Agitators (in USA)

Posted in belief, Bible, corporate style faiths, faith, Fundamentalism, Government on March 2, 2017 by chouck017894

In the early 1950’s, television was a new craze.  Quick to note the craze some enterprising guys, still clutching their freshly printed Bible-mill studies diplomas, sought to serve the Lord by preaching their revealed wisdom using that promising medium.  The Lord seems to have been well pleased.  Later, for example, by May of 1985 the evangelical marketer Pat Robertson was even featured in a cable magazine called On Cable.  Filled with boundless self-righteousness and spiritual vanity Robertson declared that he sought to remake America into a “biblical based nation.”  His fiery right-wing politics was characterized by him as “conservative, religious, and a biblical point of view.”  He didn’t  mention the authors of those biblical views had written their point of view in the Bronze Age.  Blissfully unconcerned,  Robertson latched onto that view and it was so slickly packaged that by 1985 his organization efforts was siphoning in more than $70 million a year from bedazzled followers.

The long-standing Constitutional ideals and values the nation’s founders placed upon diversity, variety and plurality for the American people were regarded by Robertson as being “extreme dangers” to a secular state.  Respecting the rights of minorities was being threatened in his lofty opinion of how a “biblical based nation” was to be run.  Robertson pontificated that children in  public schools were being taught “a collective philosophy that would lead citizens away from God toward Marxism, socialism or a communistic type of ideology.”   Oh he was good at scaring the be-Jesus out of the gullible.  In his humble opinion, therefore, he found it logical to denounce the Department of Education as being “unconstitutional”!

Not shy about telling the nation what God wanted for it, Robertson asserted that the United States Supreme Court had departed from history and the Constitution.  He reasoned and worried publicly about the “encroachment” of the judiciary.  They just didn’t seem favorable to his idea of a theocracy.  Thus Robertson charted course to “engage” in what he termed “advocacy journalism,” and his Christian Broadcast Network news teams began spewing out reams of propagandist mini-documentaries with heavy “conservative” (read theocratic) messages.  Later, he must have been delighted when the Supreme Court became composed with five of the nine Justices being Republican and staunch Roman Catholics. And it was a later Republican dominated Supreme Court that would step in and tell the nation that our redeeming leader was to be the Born Again George W. Bush.  Hallelujah!

Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network news teams were headed by a man who was once editor of The Washington Times, which just happened at that time to be owned by the “Reverend” Sun Myung.  This strange bedfellow happened to be loaded down with questionable North Korean connections.  Not to fear, for the “born again” population, Robertson averred, was seriously under-represented in our national government.  Posing as a caring messenger, he declared, “The basic thing people do not understand is that evangelicals in America are not plotting to take away the rights of everyone else.”  (Trying to eliminate the Department of Education would therefore simply be a money saving move.)

Robertson worked hard at presenting himself as the modern age version of a biblical prophet.  For sure the biblical prophets had dared to mix it up with politics–which just happened to always be in regard to a very select bunch of people.  True to form, Robertson declared, “God is going to thrust his people (the fundamentalists) into positions they never dreamed they were capable of taking on.”  (George W. Bush & Company certainly did seem to fill that prediction.)  If the heavy tilt of religiously obsessed persons in governmental positions today is any indication, and if their corruption of true democratic principles is an example of a “biblical based nation,” can we truthfully say that their sly take over of the
Republican Party in 1996 was “fairly benign”?

Well, today, several decades later, Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University pulls in over $400 million a year peddling the same old far-right political propaganda and implications of heaven’s special favoritism.  But his empire is today upstaged by an old rival from the same earlier era which is now marketed as the Jerry Falwell Ministries/Liberty Counsel/Liberty University.  That deceptive use of the word “liberty” in their promotional marketing disguises the fact that the aim of their “liberty” is to sabotage the U.S. Constitutional safeguard of church-state separation–the nation’s father’s guarantee of religious freedom (liberty) for everyone.  Peddling this anti-democratic baloney the family Falwell empire today rakes in over $600 million a year.

Amazingly there are other claimers of God’s especial favoritism who wage war on every person’s freedom  to worship only as they choose.–all of which rake in multi-millions a year for being staunchly un-American and pro-theocratic.  Take the so-called Focus on the Family that has the gall to endorse Right Wing political candidates; it is lucrative and nets the Dobson family over $92 million a year.  And there’s their Family research Council (an off-shoot of Focus on the Family) that holds an annual “Value Voter Summit” which draws in over $14 million against anti-Constitutional protections.

Still another self-declared biblical representative is the American Family Association that is against about everything that grants American’s civil freedoms. The Reverend Donald Wildman who heads this “Association” boldly proclaims that separation of church and state was invented by Hitler!  Duh!  For that type of heavenly enlightenment his anti-Constitutional bias nets over $17 a year.

Other grandiose named outfits include American Center for law and Justice/Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism.  That imposing mouthful defined the purpose, which is to force–force–fundamentalist beliefs into all public schools.  Allied with the Pat Robertson empire in spirit and money-love, it pulls in over $57 million a year.  Justice is again implied with the so-called Alliance Defending Freedom, but the only Council for National Policy aimed for by them is to allow them to ax the federal law which guards tax-exempt churches from actively intervening in partisan elections.  God, it seems, favors that antidemocratic stance to the tune of over $47 million a year.

Ahh, but there are even more would-be religious oppressors out there.  It’s all strictly spiritual guidance, of  course.  Take the bewildering Concerned Women for America (affiliated with the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee) which indulges in heavy prejudices against the Creator’s intentional wide-ranged diversities and variety of life.  This anti-feminist lobby was founded by Beverly and Tim LaHaye, who (in 2015) raked in over $14 million for their discriminatory activities.  Not content with that, Tim LaHaye also headed up the Council for National Policy which presumed to evaluate prospective GOP presidential candidates.  This membership-only outfit drew only a little more than $2 million.

Still another agitator operation is Ralph Reed’s Foundation and Freedom Coalition whose primary purpose for existence is to attract more fundamentalists to vote.  Their holy reward–over $3 million per year.

Oddly, these material obsessed, self-appointed faith merchants seem to have little appreciation  for what Jesus is alleged to have preached about such conduct.  For example, in Matthew 6:5 (King James version–among the many other translations): “And when you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they pray standing–so that they may be seen of men. They (in that manner) have their reward.”  And in Matthew 7:1-3 “Judge not, that ye be judged.  For with what judgment ye judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.”

Perhaps those faith merchants of fundamentalism should get their greedy noses out of their elaborately constructed feeding troughs and actually follow the teaching they claim to epitomize.

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Spiritual Vanity, the Sin of Fundamentalism

Posted in Atheist, belief, culture, faith, Fundamentalism, humanity, random, religion, theology, thoughts on October 1, 2016 by chouck017894

It must be a terrible burden for fundamentalists of any faith system to confront all the diversity and variety and multiplicity in this life—a lavishness which typifies the radiance that is Creation.  The “conservative” outlook of hard-nosed fundamentalists obliges them to advise the Creator that “he” made a vulgar blunder by having indulged in such a prolific assortment of potentials.

One characteristic of a religious fundamentalist is that they seem to always wax with hatred toward a hell of a lot of life’s manifestations.  However, it is that astonishing diversity, variety and multiplicity that assures the awesome radiance that we refer to as Creation.  Another characteristic of the “fundies” is their unending attempts to impose their manufactured belief system upon anyone they can.  This vanity of spirit is indulged in despite the fact that genuine spiritual enlightenment always proves itself as authentic by an enfolding sense of inner serenity and compassion that is experienced.  Such an inner warmth is rendered impossible when cultivated hatreds for all the intentional differences that sustain Creation are encouraged.  And yet, like any other man-contrived faith system, the fundies claim that it is only through their hard-line approach alone that anyone can attain the Creator’s favoritism.

Reason and knowledge are seriously constrained when any faith system representative labors to advance  preconceptions of any sort to hover over seekers interactions with others.  In tightly structured faith systems, for example, seekers are routinely indoctrinated and continuously conditioned with claims that it is only through their particular man-made faith system that anyone can ever attain the favoritism of the Creative Principle which they like to personify as “God.”  But, curiously, the universe and nature do not happen to reflect that narrowly restrictive disposition toward the diversity and multiplicity of life which the Creative Principle formulated, made manifest and steadfastly maintains.

The creative and unifying force which is commonly personified as “God” is too often imagined in scriptural texts to be mainly concerned with the dilemma of only one certain representation of human species in one small region on planet Earth.  Ignored in such “holy” tales is the fact that those characters just happened to be from the author’s locale and also happened to be subscribed to his faith system.  That narrow understanding of life and spiritual significance in relation to the rest of the world population has resulted only in a setup for persistent and unnecessary conflicts.

Such old locally focused writings which are honored as “revealed word” leave us with fundamental questions.  Such as: When a person feels they must indulge in devilish scheming to impose their faith upon others can that really be assessed as one’s “higher calling?”   Why would an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) Creator find this to be the only way of making “his” intentions known among men?   In a universe that has been created with such lavish diversity and multiplicity, we are left to wonder over the Where, When or Why did the Creator of that diversity and multiplicity suddenly judge himself/herself/itself to have been too liberal and/or too excessive?  And if that hypothetical self reevaluation was the case, what caused him/her/it to decide upon picking and choosing favorites out of that multiplicity and give only to those “chosen ones ones” or “saved one” the all-clear for them to indulge in what amounts to spiritual brutality?  Would it not have been easier and wiser for him/her/it to have simply have resorted to the alleged original method of Creation and simply just say, “Let there be no more variety and diversity in Creation?”  Certainly that would have erased all the virulent spiritual egotism which all man-made faith systems demonstrate.

Regimentation and/or strictly controlled adherence to man-invented rites, rituals, ceremonies, taboos, cultivated hatreds and contriving to exert authority over others is not the means into genuine spiritual enlightenment. That means, bluntly, that no man-contrived faith system can sincerely promise or officially grant a stamped passport into what they may fantasize to be a heavily regimented and snooty Heaven.  All that the  “fundies” of any faith system can conceivably offer seekers is only a lottery ticket for an all-expense paid future flight into what is actually another dimension of creative energy.  (Energy does not cease; it simply transforms.)  Few faith system seekers, it seems, ever notice the tiny print at the bottom of their frail proffered ticket stub where it is grudgingly admitted that the voyage and destination are the same for each and every matter-life form, and that no purchase or contribution is necessary to gain that award.

 

 

 

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Black Holes of Religous Practices

Posted in Atheist, belief, biblical "values", black holes, environment, faith, Fundamentalism, religion, thoughts on September 17, 2016 by chouck017894

Around 2007 theoretical physicists discovered that gravitational waves were connected to black holes, those massive deep throat, light-swallowing areas which are scattered throughout the universe.  The “holes,” the theory goes, are the result of cores of massive stars that have imploded and collapsed in upon themselves.  The immense gravity at the core of these space objects, the theory suggests, siphon into them all the existing energy-as-matter that happens to be unlucky enough to have lolled around the former massive star.  Strangely, that hole of collapsing energy and the vast gravitational field which results may present a relatively calm appearance to the region that we see surrounding it.  Indeed, any random fluctuations against the gravitational core may be barely registered from our perspective.  And it is this deceptive tranquil appearance that can be compared to man-invented religions.

Consider: In a very real sense human contrived faith systems can be said to imitate the same process that is theorized in astrophysics as black hole activity.  The core around which human consciousness may become ill-fatedly propelled is but the canonized speculations which have collapsed in upon themselves to become active as the identity crushing whirl of religious fundamentalism.  The gravitational pull of these imploding belief cores upon human consciousness then becomes so relentless and so crushingly magnetic that the mass, spin and other essentials necessary for life-sustaining rationalism are obliterated.  Muslim jihads of today are a prime example.  Any random fluctuations of rationality that might survive in the fringe of spiritual implosion then become barely perceptible.

The greatest error in all man-made organized religions is the allegiance given by them to an interpretation of warring opposites.  Building spiritual understanding by using that as its foundation guarantees only the life experiences of physical, emotional and spiritual un-fulfillment and senseless conflicts.  The reason for this is that by adoring one polar energy point of Creation’s generative force while berating the other necessary polar aspect as evil is to practice spiritual schizophrenia.  The whole imagined god/devil, heaven/hell, chosen/rejected, saved/lost, etc. is rendered meaningless simply because neither interactive pole can possibly create without the other generative pole to project effects.  All of man’s by-the-book faith systems exploit the emotions of love/hate but fail to realize that these are not true opposites, for those emotions arise from the same energy center but are projected differently much like light passing through a prism.  The only thing truly opposite to either love or hate would be indifference.  By personifying the generative polar fields within the creative Source as two individual human-like beings, as faith systems habitually do, the practice that is thus erroneously sanctified is the denial of One Absolute Source.

The concept that is promoted by theological musings is that a rivalry exists within the primordial conditions of Source, with one generative polar aspect personified as “God” and the other necessary polar aspect personified as the “devil” or “Satan.”  To do so is to misunderstand Creation’s singularity.  By this alleged “revealed” wisdom the scheming human authors declared these interactive dual components of Creation’s power were separate, incompatible and not connected in creative purpose.  By such counseling man-invented faith systems then led the masses not into enlightenment but deeper into the illusion of Creation’s energies as matter–the very condition the faith systems rail against.  When this was accepted by human imagination to be holy truth, these symbols then became adopted for use in Satanism, magic, witchcraft and similar rebellious rites by those who instinctively distrusted the tyranny of man-invented faith systems.  But their attempt to seek higher power by reversing religious rites and rituals inadvertently implied the credibility of those symbols, rites and tenets that the faith systems honored.

Man-made faith systems have, through their doctrines of either/or, lost sight of how Creation creates and thus carelessly muddied the purpose of life to benefit their corporate style faith system.  Their claims of monotheism thus rest precariously upon a theology of dualism.  In these faith systems everything is portrayed and defined as good or evil,  light or dark, saved or lost, angelic or devil-like.  But Creation does not create anything as some purposeless lump with no flexibility; all energy-forms are necessarily a blend of both polar charges. As contrary as this may seem, this makes for unity through contrast, for there can be no light without dark, no up without down, no front without back, for example.  Each energy illusion (matter form) is but a transitory aspect of Creation’s unity.  This means that the Source out of which all Creation expresses itself cannot be some good only “God” that is rhapsodized in man-fashioned faith systems, for darkness or negative events which they term evil cannot have issued from a different Source.  Therefore to pray to this amoral (meaning neither moral or immoral) turbulent seat of Creation as some benevolent deity-being is but a practice of frustration, for Creation’s turbulent potentiality is not the evolutionary pinnacle of wisdom.

Oddly, these same self-serving faith systems tell us not to be deceived by material appearances, yet they are all busy gathering unto themselves as much material baggage and power advantages as possible.  And inexplicably the feminine gender (through which life becomes manifest) is evaluated by male dominated faith systems as not being worthy to represent their imagined macho God.  How do these men then account for the feminine aspects that are submerged with their own physical being?  Science has revealed that each person carries within their physical being the hormones of the opposite sex.  Therefore no man can ever be 100% male, and no woman can be 100% female.  And since this is true how can these man-contrived faith systems teach that “God abhors” same gender attraction?

With man-contrived faith systems devoted mainly to pretense and theatrics as guidance, the lure of human adherents to the faith amounts to little more than that faith system’s fiscal assets.  In this manner the “sheep” are kept benumbed and focused on materiality.  Feeling righteous with such holy guidance is it any wonder that the devotees feel no sin in mercilessly plundering and despoiling planet Earth for their material pleasures?  The faithful fail to see that they drift in the currents around a black hole.

 

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Rise of Holy Agitators (in USA)

Posted in Atheist, belief, biblical "values", Christianity, Fundamentalism, politics, religion, Social, theology on September 1, 2016 by chouck017894

In the early 1950’s in the USA television was a new craze.  Quick to note the craze some enterprising guys still clutching their freshly printed Bible studies diplomas sought to serve the Lord by preaching their revealed word using that promising medium.  The Lord seems to have been well pleased.  For example, by May of 1985 the evangelical marketer Pat Robertson was even being featured in a cable magazine called On Cable.  Filled with boundless self-righteousness and vanity Robertson declared that he sought to remake America into a “biblically based Nation”  .His fiery right-wing politics was characterized by him as “conservative, religious, and a biblical point of view.”  He did’t mention that the authors of those biblical views had written their point of view in the Bronze Age.  Blissfully unconcerned, Robertson latched onto their point of view and it was so slickly packaged that by 1985 his organizational effort was siphoning in more that $70 million a year from bedazzled followers.

The long-standing Constitutional ideals and values placed upon diversity, variety and plurality by the American people were regarded by Robertson as being “extreme dangers” to a secular state.  Respecting the rights of minorities was being threatened in his lofty view of how a “biblically based nation” was supposed to be run.  Robertson pontificated that children in public schools were being taught “a collective philosophy that would lead citizens away from God toward Marxism, socialism, or a communistic type of ideology.”  Oh he was talented at scaring  the be-Jesus out of the gullible.  In his humble opinion, therefore, he found it logical to denounce the Department of Education as being “unconstitutional.

Not shy about telling the nation what God wanted for it, Robertson asserted that the United States Supreme Court had departed from history and the constitution.  He reasoned and worried publicly about the “encroachment” of the judiciary.  they just didn’t seem favorable to the idea of a  theocracy.  Thus Robertson charted course to “engage” in what he termed “advocacy journalism,” and his Christian Broadcast Network news teams began spewing out reams of propagandist mini-documentaries with heavy “conservative” (read theocratic) messages.  (He must have been delighted some years later when the Supreme Court became composed with five of the nine Justices being Republican and staunch Catholics. And it was a Republican dominated Supreme Court that would later tell the nation that our redeeming leader was to be the Born Again George W. Bush.  Hallelujah!)

Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network news teams were headed by a man who was once editor of The Washington Times, which just happened at that time to be owned by the “Reverend” Sun Myung.  This strange bedfellow happened to be loaded down with questionable North Korean connections.  Not to fear.  The “born again” population, Robertson averred, was seriously under-represented in our national government.  Posing as a caring messenger, he declared, “The basic thing people do not understand is that evangelicals in America are not plotting to take away the rights of everyone else.”  (Trying to eliminate the Department  of Education would therfore simply be a god-inspired money saving move.)

Robertson worked hard at presenting himself as the modern age version of a biblical prophet.  For sure the biblical prophets had dared to mix it up with politics–which was always in regard to a very select group of people.  True to form, Robertson declared, “God is going to thrust his people (meaning fundamentalists) into positions they never dreamed they were capable of taking on.”  (George W. Bush & Company certainly did seem to fulfill that prediction.)  If the heavy tilt of religiously obsessed persons in governmental positions today is any indication, and if their corruption of true democratic principles is an example of a “biblical based nation”, can we  truthfully say that their sly take over of the Republican Party in 1996 was “fairly benign”?

Well, today, several decades later, Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network and Regent University is pulling in over $400 million a year peddling the same old far-right political propaganda and implications of heaven’s special favoritism.  But his empire is upstaged now by an old rival from the same earlier era which is now marketed as the Jerry Falwell Ministries/Liberty Counsel/Liberty University.  That deceptive use of the word “liberty” is to sabotage the US Constitutional safeguard of church-state separation–the guarantee of religious freedom (liberty) for everyone.  Peddling this anti-democratic baloney the Falwell empire today rakes in over $600 million a year.

Amazingly there are other claimers of God’s especial favors who wage war on every person’s freedom to worship as they choose–all of which rakes in multimillions a year for being staunchly un-American and pro theocratic.  Take the so-called Focus on the Family that has the gall to endorse.Right Wing political candidates; it is lucrative and nets the Dobson “family” over $92 million a year.  And there is the so-called Family Research Council (an off-shoot of Focus on the Family) that holds an annual “Value Voter Summit” and draws in over $14 million for their un-American stance.  And there is the American Family Association that is against about everything that grants civil freedoms.  The Reverend Donald Wildman who heads this “Association” boldly proclaims that separation of church and state was invented by Hitler, no less.  Duh!  For that heavenly enlightenment his anti-Constitution bias nets over $17 million.

Other grandiose named outfits include American Center of Law and Justice/Christian Advocated Serving Evangelism.  That imposing mouthful defines the purpose, which is to force–force–fundamentalist beliefs into all public schools.  Allied with the Pat Robertson empire in spirit and money-love it pulls in over $57 million a year.  Justice is again implied with the so-called Alliance Defending Freedom, but the only Council for National Policy aimed for is to allow them to axe the federal law which bars tax-exempt churches from actively intervening in partisan elections.  God, it seems favors that antidemocratic stance to the tune of over $47 million a year.

Ahh, but there are even more would-be religious oppressors out there.  It is all strictly spiritual guidance, of course.  Take the bewildering Concerned Women for America (affiliated with the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee) which indulges in heavy prejudices against the Creator’s intentionally wide-ranged diversities of life.  This anti-feminist lobby was founded by Beverly (!) and Tim LaHaye, who (in 2015) raked in over $14 million for their discriminatory activities.  Not content with that, Tim LaHaye also headed up the Council for National Policy which presumes to evaluate prospective GOP candidates.  This membership-only outfit drew only a little more than $2 million.  Still another agitator operation is Ralph Reed’s Foundation and Freedom Coalition whose primary purpose for existence is to attract more fundamentalists to vote.  Their holy reward—over $3 million per year.

Oddly, these material obsessed, self-appointed faith merchants seem to have little appreciation for what Jesus is alleged to have preached.  .For example, in Matthew 6;5 (King James version–among the many translations): “And when you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they pray standing…so that they may be seen of men.  They (in that manner) have their reward.”   And in Matthew 7:1-3 (KJ): “Judge not, that ye be judged.  For with what judgment ye judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.”

Perhaps those faith merchants of fundamentalism should get their greedy noses out of their elaborately constructed feeding troughs and actually follow the teachings they claim to epitomize.

 

 

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