The Communist Origin of the Modern Conservative Movement VI

I do not know a lot about the Druids, but I do know what the Romans were doing in England. It was about expanding the Roman Empire. There was not a mission launched from Rome to eradicate some obscure religious cult in England.

The Christian Nationalists would have you believe that the Government of the United States is based on Christianity, but Christianity is a dictatorship where if you are told to kill your son you best do it. The founding principal of America is freedom, no imaginary god is going to tell you to kill your son. It would be like saying that America was founded on the same principals as North Korea which like Christianity is a dictator ship. America is a polar opposite of Christianity.

The Christian philosophy keeps alive the violence that was acceptable in a world 2,000 years ago. This was the time of the Barbarians it was a world so different we would not recognize it. God has no trouble destroying whole cities because they displeased him. He destroys every man woman in child because the sins of a few. God has no trouble killing the innocent like the Christians would have no problem burning innocent people at the stake. When was the last time America decided to destroy a whole city because the crimes of a few? Christianity has little in common with the founding principles that America was based on.

A candidate for governor in NC thinks the reason for school shooting is not enough Christianity in the schools. The original holocaust was not done by Hitler it was done by the Christians burning people at the stake and the estimated number of people killed by the Christians is 10 million far more than the 6 million killed in the Holocaust ovens. The Christians always made sure to get green wood to prolong the suffering. Hitler had ovens but Christians were able to roast their victims anyway.

Do you think that a religion that would kill hundreds of people and hang their bodies in trees with signs, that they would not convert is going to stop school shootings? Christianity has justified killing more people than any religion in history. The bible is a book about killing people. It is a book about killing others and taking their land, a book about killing people for picking up firewood on the sabbath. The only thing school children will learn from the bible is all of the many reasons you can kill others for religious reasons.

You could say the same about the Conquistadors.

You should try avoiding making sweeping statements about things you're not completely sure of.

Well yeah. And you should, as they killed and tortured people in the name of Christ. That's common knowledge.

How is that any different from the Romans wiping out the Druids in the name of their gods?

In both cases it was about territory, religion was a useful means to an end.

It's not religion that's the problem, it's greed.

And while we're at it, the Roman Catholic Church was just a means to influence Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

So overall you agree, the Conqistadors were mainly about expanding the Spanish Empire, torturing/ murdering in the name of religion was just a means to that particular end.

It's a pity the extermination of the Druids by the Romans isn't common knowledge, that way people might not make so many assumptions/false/sweeping statements.

I don't disagree.

The glaring fact is that, through the ages, religion (and not just Christianity), is conveniently transformed into a cultural battle plan when greed, ethnic hatred, and lust for domination overpower the sentiments of universal peace, love, and brotherhood. One could argue that the problem is not one of religious faith but something seated deep in the human psyche. Okay. I'm willing to say that religion isn't "evil", nor is it the source of evil. I'm just saying that it is ineffective at performing its stated mission of delivering us from evil.

I'm not criticizing the Archbishop of Canterbury or the elderly parishioners in the Congregational Church down the road from me. Sometimes it improves the lives of individuals and sometimes it positively affects the quality of communities. But it also inspires groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Islamic State. It is used to justify the subjugation of women and the oppression of sexual minorities. The threat that it represents is well illustrated by the candidate for governor Zardoz referred to:

The fact that religion is so often used to cloak these sorts of sentiments with the air of a righteous and murderous pursuit of "justice" demonstrates its ineffectiveness and its shortcomings.

Trump isn't even a Christian, he's admitted as much.

The wealthy fossil fuel lobby and superpacs supporting the NRA are not motivated by a "moral crusade," a need to rechristianise* American Society, or any other religious duty.

It's all about power and money, and I'd suggest that Evangelical preachers can be included in the above.

In the same way capitalist robber barons used the Temperance movement to attack organised labour by blaming poverty on indolence and drunkenness instead of exploitation by the ruling classes, the capitalists use evangelism to smear Socialism as anti Christian, anti American.

It's a means to an end.

The ruling classes are ambivalent about a theocratic pseudo democracy, it won't stop them carrying on as before, if not more so with even more money and less restriction.

The Borgias hardly led a life of saintly abstinence after all.

If you really want to know how it's done, read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, (if it's not already been banned in America, home of free speech and banned books.)

*I may have made that word up.

That was never its intention, it was all about control and reenforcing existing power structures.

Paul remade Christianity in his own image from the off, using techniques later refined by Cult leaders.

The Council of Nicea decided what was Christian, and what wasn't, choosing just four out of the many different gospels because those didn't fit with what the rulers wanted.

The Catholic Church maintained its hold on Christendom right up to the reformation, and even then the puritanical response was even more extreme.

Mankind has long had a need to believe in spititual matters and the supernatural. ( I mave marked a ton of essays on how the Victorian ghost story was a response to scientific progress, so it's something I'm very much aware of.)

That need will not disappear with ridicule and telling people it's just a fairy tale, because some people want to believe regardless.

What needs to be done is ensuring that this need is not manipulated by the rich and powerful.

And when the Archbishop of Canterbury is saying the far right is unchristian while American pastors are telling people to vote Trump I'd suggest we are closer to getting it right than you.

It's available on Project Gutenberg – and is now on my reading list.


For many religious people it is just a fairy tale. They prattle on about their "faith" but are easily misled by false prophets.

That's not surprising.

The statement came from a practicing attorney who has argued a number of cases in the supreme court having to do with Christianity.

It is amazing to me how the right tries to make the left a bad word. What has the right ever done for the American people? Social Security? No that was Franklin Roosevelt and the left. The right did everything in their power for 20 years to repeal it. Medicare? No, the right would destroy it today given the chance. Baby Bush tried to convince the American people that social security trust fund was nothing but “worthless paper.” The social security trust fund is held US Treasury bonds. One of the safest investments in the world

What has the right done for the American people? Reagan cut taxes for the ungodly greedy by 75% and tripled the national debt. He also raised the retirement age and raised social security 5 times while in office. The National debt was on track to be paid off in a few years before Reagan tripled the National Debt. The huge tax cuts given to ultra wealthy by the right have all been paid for with money borrowed from our social security trust fund. You should not be able to give tax cuts without a balanced budget. None of this rosy scenario that when taxes are cut tax income will go up not down. The only thing the right has done for America is to give enormous taxes to ultra wealthy.

I am proud to be part of the political left. The conservatives believed the colonies should remain part of England. When the Revolutionary War ended, the Conservatives (the right) houses were burned down, and they were sent back to England.

That doesn't mean they know anything about the Roman Empire.

It's not a recent phenomenon.

Sinister is the Latin word for left.

When augurs were taken, birds flying to the right meant good luck, but if they flew left it was unlucky.

The birds that fly to the right over here do so to take of the greedy few while the birds that fly to the left are really concerned with general population and strive to make life better for everyone. The right has come up with a number of tricks to distract the general public like joining forces with the religious right to legislate religious cult rules.

Did you wonder where the idea to burn people at the stake came from? I always thought that it was a product of a bunch of Christians in the dark ages main lining Christianity. No, it is actually prescribed by the bible for certain crimes. Here is a religion thought to be for love and peace but in actuality it more like Marquis De Sade. One of the crimes that the bible mandates burning at the stake is for someone who picks up for firewood on the Sabath. How convenient the guy has just picked up firewood and now they are going to use it to burn him at the stake.
It reminds me of the people who buy a gun for protection and then the gun is used to kill them.

“When the daughter of a priest profanes herself through prostitution, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death.”

Leviticus 21:9

(The Lord said to Joshua) “And the one who taken as having the devoted thing shall be burned with fire, together with all he has for having transgressed the covenant of the Lord thing, and for having done an outrageous thing in Israe……. And all of Israel

stoned him to death, they burned with fire, cast with stones on them

Joshua 7:10 7:15 7:25

It is a good thing America has a secular government that stops the Christians from enforcing the bible.

I think that's a metaphor too far.

The Marquis de Sade was quite forward thinking.

During the Revolution his cell overlooked the execution block and he witnessed countless of deaths, not to mention the smell.

Unlike most aristocrats he survived the Revolution.