The Communist Origin of the Modern Conservative Movement VI

Izzy believes that religion is more or less harmless and it may be over in England but over here it is another matter. In America the founding fathers wanted to make sure that there was a separation between church and state and to ensure that it was they added it to our constitution. You can have all the laws you want but if they are not enforced you don’t have a law. Most politicians don’t want to take on Christianity this has allowed the churches to thumb their noses at the law. Some of Trump’s political rallies are held in Mega churches. Donating the use of building is a direct political donation but nobody wants to take the tax-exempt status from these politically active churches. Why? Because they are afraid that they would lose political donations.

This should have been nipped in the bud when first started. When the Moral Majority started flexing its political muscle in the 80s it should have been stopped but republicans saw it as a political asset that could be exploited, and they have done so ever since. Now the religious cults have infiltrated every level of government. It has created a monster. No longer satisfied with keeping their children ignorant they now want to make laws that all children should be as ignorant as their children. So now we have state laws mandating ignorance.

Just as the supreme court overturned the abortion decision, Tennessee is going to revisit the Scopes Monkey trial. A law in Tennessee requires teachers to present “the scientific strengths and scientific weakness of existing scientific theories.” The theory of evolution is an enemy they must eliminate. If evolution is true the bible can’t be.

Laws in Oklahoma and North Dakoda require teacher to explore scientific theories in class and to help students “analyze certain scientific strengths and weaknesses.”

A new law in West Viriginia allows teachers to discuss or answer, “questions from students about scientific theories.”

This is a way to bring the bible into the classroom through programed children of cult members. Cout cases ruled that Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and cannot be taught in schools. This is another court decision the supreme court will overturn. As long as the republicans rule government ignorance will spread across America like plague.

I never said it was harmless, I said it was a tool used by the rich and powerful.

It also fulfils a deep psychological need.

Zardoz has focussed on the symptoms, not the cause, and such any approach to eradicate religion will be as successful as the Soviet Union's attempts.

I have no doubt that religion was used as a shadow government and used to control the masses. When you make fantasy reality it is bound to turn out badly.

You can't fill a deep psychological need with lies. At some point people must face reality. Burying bodies was an effort to hide from reality. If they sat and decomposed in front of people, it would be harder to delude yourself with fantasy that there is eternal life.

I have no doubt that there will always be people that prefer fantasy to reality the best we can hope for is to have a clear majority that accepts reality.

We have always had these end of the world cults that believe that they know the exact time the world and when doesn’t happen they become just another religious sect. You always see these nut cases with their signs “The End is Near.” Jesus was very specific in saying the world would end in his apsosel’s lifetime so Jesus captained first end of the world cult.

The virgin Mary, not on your life, the term was mistranslated from the Greek. That cleared that mystery up.

Exodus 11:4-6 11:29 -30—God kills all firstborn babies unless there is Lam’s blood on the family’s door frame. Morality innocence, and the age of irrelevance.

If that had been an episode of Star Trek and Captain Kirk had run across “a supposed God” killing babies. Kirk would have found a way to eliminate him not worship him. That is putting in today’s context.

You continue to speak with the certainty of a zealot.

Nobody knows the reality of the hereafter.

You won't convince people that way.

It's better to use theology.

The slave owners forced Christianity on their slaves in the belief it would keep them submissive.

It had the oppisite effect.

That's how to deal with right wing evangelical Christians, use their words against them.

The early abolitionists were mostly motivated by faith.

Your method has always failed, just look at the Soviet Union, but my method has had success.

But that's not what the right-wing Christians (and plenty of moderate religionists) say. They claim certainty based not on empirical evidence, but on their faith in culturally-derived fables and stories.

Maybe not, but that's not the point. Why should non-believers be expected to remain silent and docile about a creed which seeks to impose sectarian laws which restrict personal and intellectual freedom in the name of a 2,000 year old cult?

And the practice was defended by people equally motivated by faith.

I don't doubt that people will continue to worship their magical sky-god long after I'm gone but while I'm here I will continue to question their grounds for certainty. I may use their words against them, I may provide alternative explanations or skeptical analysis of their claims, or I may show how their beliefs simply reflect culturally specific social values made sacred through long descent. But I'm not giving them a free pass because their stories are comforting to believers.

As does Zardoz, and you're not much different.

What do you want, a more equitable, just society, or one ideologically opposed to any form of spituality?

I suspect the latter, and despite your protestations your more interested in theology than politics.

You also talk with the certainty of the zealot.


The language you use, where you infantalise spirituality as fairy tales, is similar to that used by eminent scientists in the 19th Century when they dismissed tales of burning rocks falling from the sky as childish superstition.

Who knew meteorites were the work of fantasy?

This is what puzzles me about your defense of religion – I'm not seeking a society which is "ideologically opposed to any form of spituality?" I'm not calling for the suppression of religious belief. In reality, it's the other way around – conservative Christians seek a society which is ideologically opposed to a non-Christian viewpoint.

In which case you are wrong.

Not surprising, as I was a theology major in college.

Here again I find your vehemence puzzling. I'm not pushing my own doctrine or that of anyone else. I question the certainty of religious beliefs as I question my own. I'm not supplying a ready-made system which explains the origins of life or affirms the existence on an afterlife. I'm more than willing to agree that such questions are unanswerable. I don't consider that to be zealotry.

I don't go around confronting religious believers. I don't advocate that houses of worship should be closed. Just because Zardoz finds right-wing Christianism repellent and shares this opinion on his blog, or just because I have an online argument with u/bulmabriefs144 or u/the_anointed doesn't mean that our lives are consumed by some sort of hateful and dangerous anti-religious bias. I think the only times I've discussed religion in the past two dozen years have been online – in real life I have better things to do. Peace.

For many self-professed, self-infantalised believers, "spirituality" doesn't even come into play – the fairy tales are sufficient.


The "work of fantasy" was ascribing gravitational attraction and atmospheric friction sufficient to burn space material to divine forces – and burning doubters at the stake.

The last person burnt at the stake in England was for counterfeiting not heresy, or anything remotely religious.

It's the powers that be who perpetrate such punishments, and they decide whether or not to slap a religious label on it.

The scientific establishment dismissed meteorites as fantasy. You have not addressed that in any way, instead going off on a tangent about punishments that you incorrectly depict as being wholly religious in nature.

And by banging on and on about God, which is what about 80% of this thread is, you're circling round the real issue which is unbridled capitalism: the concentration of wealth into an increasingly smaller percentage of the population, the use of money by the wealthy to control government, fund elections etc. far right, completely subjective, media drowning out decent journalism, 21st century neo colonial financial imperialism in the developing world, vulture capitalism etc.

I could go on, these are issues that are significantly more important than whether people believe in God or not.

You're more likely to get people to think action should be taken on tax havens than to throw away a lifetime of belief in the supernatural. And the former is more important.

Either you want progressive forward looking politics, or an evangelical atheist crusade. You can't have both, and you can't pretend to do one while doing the other.

This thread is not at all progressive, it's a bloody cul-de-sac.

Meteorites didn't suddenly appear in the 19th century; the "scientific establishment" did. Meteorites were used as a source of iron by the Inuit and other people thousands of years ago. And I'm sure there were naturalists who were aware of flaming materials which landed on earth. They may not have known exactly what they were but they had the intellectual rigor to reject the idea that they were being hurled by angry gods. And as they found out more about celestial objects they refined their hypotheses. And fortunately, by that time, the churches no longer forced scientists to recant their theories under penalty of death.


Giordano Bruno was burned alive for questioning Catholic doctrines. Galileo was put under house arrest for daring to propose theories which contradicted the bible. Countless innocent people were tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. Non-Christians around the world were faced with the choice to accept Jesus or die. You can't separate these practices from religious belief by pointing to a case where a secular crime received the same punishment.


Did you perused the entire thread to arrive at this conclusion? Case in point: have you read Zardoz's discussions with Baldimo, Glennn, and Oralloy?


All excellent points and if this were a thread dedicated exclusively to exposing the ills of late-stage capitalism I'm sure we could have a good discussion about them.


I don't know why you keep assuming that anyone here is on an "evangelical atheist crusade". I haven't read anything here about converting believers to a non-theistic world view. The criticism of religion has been centered on conservative evangelism and Christian nationalism. Zardoz has brought these issues to our attention because they are powerful social forces where he lives.


What makes you think that this thread is dedicated to conducting some politically progressive mission? I don't create the topics here; Zardoz comments about various issues which concern him. I've been content to read them without comment for quite some time. Since you started regularly showing up to participate there has been more discussion of religion than there might be otherwise. If you don't think the thread has anything to offer why bother posting here at all?

You've still not addressed the point re meteorites, just gone off on other tangents.

I get it, you'd rather give the rich and powerful a free pass while heaping all the blame on the church.

Although certain posts may have been specific, the criticism has been broad and the infantalism general.

What you're saying re Oralloy et al is that without a right winger to argue against Zardoz goes round in circles attacking religion.

For the life of me I really don't see why you want to turn the class struggle into some theological debate where the left can be portayed as godless and even satanic.

Talk about shooting yourself in the bloody foot.

I've never heard that 19th century scientists thought meteorites were fictional. Can you give an example? Was this a widely shared assessment or just an instance where insufficient observation resulted in a faulty conclusion. (That happens in science – the thing is, mistakes like that eventually get corrected.) I don't think a comparison with religious dogma is apt in this case.


I've posted many comments attacking the rich and powerful and innumerable articles condemning late-stage capitalism. I just haven't posted them here lately because you keep bringing up religion.


No, that's not what I'm saying.


Frankly, I don't consider discussions between a handful of people on social media to have much of an impact on political developments in the real world.

I had kept quiet until Zardoz' opening comment in the first post on this page about me saying religion is harmless.

Everything cannot be in doubt. If everything was in doubt, there would be no space travel. Logical arguments can be supported, fantasy cannot. Either there are laws of universe or there are not. Wishful thinking can only get you so far.

The reason nobody knows reality of the hereafter, is that there is no hereafter.

The truth works like a virus that spreads slow at first, but it soon begins to spread faster. In the long run truth will replace fantasy.

It is the old garbage in garbage out problem, spreading the garbage will just create more garbage.

When you hold the power of life or death over someone you can convince them of anything. This is how Christianity was spread by death and torture.

If the bible is really read there is enough information in it to debunk it.

They could not have been inspired by the bible because slavery is an accepted practice. The southern also used the bible to justify slavery and they were right the bible is pro slavery.

In America today Christianity is declining rapidly, and it is projected that Christianity will be a minority religion in the next few years.

There is no doubt that if you actually read the bible instead of just reading cherry picked section that it would impeach itself. God may be the first known serial killer according to the bible. He is also the most prolific serial killer with victims numbering in the millions. Here is a serial killer who wiped out all life on earth except for Noah’s family.

We are all familiar with the movie the 10 Commandments, but it seems that was only part of the story. It seems that after Mosses returned from the mountain and found his followers worshiping a golden calf, he destroyed one of the stone tablets. Mosses was not through he ordered thousands of his followers killed. Their crime worshiping another God. I wonder if anyone has ever counted the number of people God ordered killed in the bible. Mafia Dons would be envious.

I really don't see any point in continuing to participate on this thread.

I don't think there's any more to be said.

Zardoz and Hightor can continue barking up the wrong tree without any help from me.

Arguments require proof and, in this case, faith does not amount to proof. Anyone can come up with a beautiful fantasy that is enticing, and many have. You can go to the Happy Hunting Ground or to Valhalla or and place in-between. You can even be punished by being required to live numerous lives until you get it right. By year 2025 there will be 1.000 more versions of the afterlife. In a fantasy wishful thinking rules.

Zealots are so zealous because they really don't believe what they are trying to convince others of and hope to shake their doubts by convincing others.

You may have to fight fire with fire, but fighting facts with fantasy won't work.

You act like a four-year-old who just found out there won't be a Christmas this year. You have believed the fantasy all your life and just when it comes time to collect the rug gets pulled out from under you.

This is an argument that will never end as long as men are ruled by their imagination.

Facts are on my side fantasy is on yours.

I have had many psychopaths in court and one thing about psychopaths is that they don’t stick to their story as they are confronted with new facts’ they customize their story to account for the new facts. Organized religion has the same problem with facts changing. Religion has to change to conform to the new facts. I believe we have reached the point where we will have to create a new religion that can account for the facts. We have reached the point that the old religions are no longer relevant in today’s world.

Since imagination is not limited there is no shortage of material. Somewhere in the world today someone is spinning a tale that will capture the imaginations of millions. By starting from scratch, he can account for all the known facts. Old God’s don’t die they just go out of style. The new God will no longer be a destroyer of worlds, or command human sacrifice. The reach of man’s imagination is unlimited, and mankind will always fear personal responsibility. It is easier to believe that your life was determined by a God who decides your fate. The new religion will learn from the mistakes of the past religions and take us into the 21st century kicking and screaming.

You just won't let it go will you?

Here's a fact for you, your conservative media has turned you into someone who considers socialism a dirty word.

You're so blind to reality that you can't even see that.

You wouldn't know a fact if it bit you on the arse.

That's the problem with religious zealots like yourself, the need to proseletyse overrides overy other consideration.