Comments on: Religion as a Tool of Repression

By: Liberte

Liberte — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:36:13 +0000

I love these marxist christ interpretations via of statist advocates. I have strong doubts that, were christ here today, he would crave for rome, the roman empire, or any replacement state, to manage that redistribution.

This is the conundrum of the socialist ideology. You cannot have it without the state, and you cannot have it with.

Of course this is the conundrum of the capitalist ideology as well. For without the state wielded gun behind each FRN we would all have fled to cleaner money by now.

But to offer socialism as the cure to capitalism is to offer coke to a child who drank too much pepsi. What they need is some clean water.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:12:37 +0000

On our present path here in the States what form of government do we have now and where are we going and the reason is? A clue freedom work’s a play on words.

By: Luis-Cayetano

Luis-Cayetano — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:03:37 +0000

”I suppose Charles would have us adopt the beautiful, tolerant, and peace loving atheistic government that was the Soviet Union…….. ”

That sounds uncannily like a baseless slander. Charles said absolutely nothing that could even be construed as supporting that. Perhaps you’d like to point it out though. Or perhaps you believe that rejection of religion and a call for reason is equivalent to support for the Soviet government, in which case your rationality is perhaps to be questioned.

”2) You imply a fallacious difference between “secularism” and “atheism”.”

Explanation in place of mere assertion is appreciated.

Thanks.

By: jay08701

jay08701 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 20:46:58 +0000

“No. Probably a peaceful secular society like in North Europe. The Soviet Union was not secular. They adopted state enforced atheism.”

1) So you agree with my point. Oppression is not married to religion.

2) You imply a fallacious difference between “secularism” and “atheism”.

By: hayate

hayate — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:28:02 +0000

From the article:

“We behold the ethnic cleansing not only in present day Gaza, but also the broader usurpation of historic Palestine by radical Zionists financed by our tax dollars, using munitions bearing the insignia “made in the USA.”

“Radical” zionists? How about typical, ordinary,every day zionists. The genocidal freaks are mainstream, look at you own media, for bloody sake.

“AIPAC is among the most powerful lobbying forces influencing the U.S. government”

“Among”? That’s like saying hitler was among Germany’s fascists. This lot realises that to maintain their credibility now, they need to criticise the ziofascists, but the way they limit their criticism is a dead ringer of what they are actually up to.

By: hayate

hayate — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:19:19 +0000

“The profession of preacher has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other people. But it is difficult to see how someone who has been given a mandate from on “High” to spread tidings of joy to all humankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay their salary; it causes one to think that the preacher is on the same level as any other con man. But it is lovely work if one can stomach it.”

That’s from heinlein, basically your typical ami corpporate bumplug…er, libertarian, but his views on religion had some merit. ;D

By: David Silver

David Silver — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:39:28 +0000

In response to two entries. Yes the Soviet Union atheistic yeas and peaeful while many workers and peasants believed in god and practiced
their faith.
No Sullivan was not saying believe in Christ he was describing great
Holocausts thast organizeed religion produced mental and pysical

By: Rehmat

Rehmat — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:44:30 +0000

However, it is the pro-Israeli Judeo-Christian ‘intellectuals’ and ‘holymen’ who blame Islam and Muslims for world terrorism (read resistance to One World Government under Jewish rule).

Is Islam ‘religion of peace’?
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/is-islam-religion-of-peace/

By: ajohnstone

ajohnstone — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:28:18 +0000

“I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World.” – Eugene V. Debs

By: Angie Tibbs

Angie Tibbs — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:09:41 +0000

Michael Kenny writes: “Similarly, whatever may have been the reasons for fiascos in ex-Yugoslavia Iraq and Afghanistan” …

“Fiascos”, Mr. Kenny?

By: catguy00

catguy00 — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:58:46 +0000

“I suppose Charles would have us adopt the beautiful, tolerant, and peace loving atheistic government that was the Soviet Union…….”

No. Probably a peaceful secular society like in North Europe. The Soviet Union was not secular. They adopted state enforced atheism.

By: kalidas

kalidas — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:18:25 +0000

“Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is mental speculation.”
-A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

By: jay08701

jay08701 — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:56:45 +0000

The article ends with an extremely distrubing comment: “And no doubt, cheered by a mob of reputable corporatists, the money changers would crucify him again.”
The clear implication is that money changers crucified Jesus the first time. Who were these money changers?

By: jay08701

jay08701 — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:53:53 +0000

@khsarosd, I understand the suggestion. The point is that the article ignores the fact that man’s oppression of man has no real connection to religion. The only difference between Religious-oriented oppression and Irreligious-oriented oppression is the excuse presented.

By: diane

diane — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:26:43 +0000

When Eugene Debs delivered his Canton anti-war speech in 1918, he went to prison.
When i was a young girl my mother was a member of the new left book club (australia) and by the time I was twenty I had read most of the great left american writers and sometimes, I feel i know more about american history than most americans, which is a shame really.
R? Stone (I think was the author) wrote a biography on Debs titled Adversary in the House, and 50 years later I remember this book clearly. One of the things I learned about american society, was how diverse and non homogenetic it was despite its public demonstrations of uniformity.
Debs had a difficult marriage, his wife was of german extraction and strongly supported the german side in the 1st world war, as did many americans, something that modern ,there is no point to history, types seem to want to forget
Tom Hayden’s Irish on the Inside, also explores these themes.
Institutional religion has been the handmaiden of the State for a eons now, and Charles is quite right when he points out that faith exists despite institutional religion not because of it.

By: bozh

bozh — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 19:48:03 +0000

there is no proof that sullivan or even i in early life had not been manipulated and led astray.
in my case, yes! everything i evaluated as true what priestly and ‘noble’ classes were teaching us and not just by words but also by deeds, i now fully reject.
i cldn’t have done it all by self only; i had, what i deem, teachers to help me see.
including the teacher who said: look, bozhidar, just look and shut ur mind and mouth! remember u’l never have no other intelligence–oops, god, before me!
if one wants to first believe and then look, i can’t prevent it! tnx

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:41:54 +0000

I suppose Charles would have us adopt the beautiful, tolerant, and peace loving atheistic government that was the Soviet Union…….. Jay

Oh Jay probably need to think outside the box a new way of thinking as just on the off chance survival comes to mind. A pay freeze on Federal employees will that do the trick no holding on to old myth’s will that do the trick no believing in a self fulfilling prophecy no.

By: bozh

bozh — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:33:58 +0000

sacerdotal class [mafia] had always sided with ‘nobles’ [mafia]. i deem neonobles and oldnobles and clergy as one big happy mafioso family.

as for jesus, he either spoke with both corners of his mouth or smbuddy [mafioso] ensured that he spoke with forked tongue.
priests ensured that all bases were secured. contradictions in what they said was kept away from paesanos, kmeti, slaves, serfs by simply using aramaic, hebrew, greek, or latin.

sacerdotal lowlife, whether in muslim, christian, hindi, or torahic regions had all the answers for all the ills, warfare, slavery, etc., a human mind cld invent.

that had not changed. recall that, according to judean priests, later known as christians, jesus hadn’t had a woman among his disciples!

in this piece i do not see any blame for the victims. had lawrence read our complaints about his previous piece?
i am satisfied with this piece! tnx

By: khsarosd

khsarosd — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:31:29 +0000

@jay: I think he’s suggesting that Christians “adopt the beautiful, tolerant, and peace loving” actual teachings of Christ.

By: MichaelKenny

MichaelKenny — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:20:11 +0000

The problem with this is that it falls into the end of history delusion. That is to say, the idea that the world has always been as it is now and past events merely “replicate” themselves over and over. Thus, the author seems to believe that a play written in 1882 by a playright born in 1828 in a country that didn’t even exist until 1905 proves that, in 2010, “the majority of the people are easily deceived, their emotions manipulated by profiteers and special interests”. That’s hardly the case today and the proof of the pudding is that Mr Sullivan himself manifestly has not been deceived or manipulated! Equally, Mr Sullivan attributes the decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan to a “quest for global dominance”. That quest came after the war, not during it, and was the reaction of the American elite to a perceived quest for global dominance on the part of the Soviet Union. None of that was clear in August 1945. Similarly, whatever may have been the reasons for fiascos in ex-Yugoslavia Iraq and Afghanistan, “the endless pursuit of exploitable markets, cheap labor and hegemony” don’t seem to have been among them. I don’ see how the US could have got any of those three things from any of those places and in practice, they didn’ get them. What Mr Sullivan has done, essentially, is the classic pre-1960 logical error of first edifying an intellectual construct, with its conclusion pre-determined, and then straightjacketing empirical reality into it. You could say that, he sees Jesus as having been killed by the Palestine Capitalist Party because he was about to run for President of Palestine on the Palestine Socialist Party ticket!