Links With Your Coffee - Monday
Porter Goss the director of the Central Intelligence Agency says he has an excellent idea where bin Laden is. So why not go get him? Porter points to the problem of sanctuaries in sovereign states, and fair play. Funny that Afghanistan, a sovereign state, was not a problem, nor was the fact that Iraq was a sovereign state a hinderance to an invasion to "accomplish our goals.", and as onegoodmove reader Max points out not even Italy's sovereignty presents a problem. I think Chuck Hagel has it right when he says, "It's like they're just making it up as they go along," indeed.
OB at Notes and Comments suggest there are limits to respectful tolerance. It should come as know surprise to those who read onegoodmove that I share that view. No free passes even if you do hallucinate on a regular basis. You'll get my sympathy, but not my respect.
So religion makes people good, does it. Christianity makes people more kind and compassionate does it. Well, maybe sometimes it does, but all too often it (at least the extreme, narrow version of it that is so popular in the US) makes people - not just not better, but horrifying. Disgusting. So appalling it's hard to take it in.
Patrick Henry is a Christian university where the students all (shades of Oxbridge and the Thirty Nine Articles) sign a ten-part statement of faith -agreeing that, among other things, Hell is a place where “all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.”
Okay, I know we're supposed to be all tolerant and respectful, we're supposed to shut up about people's pious 'devout' beliefs, we're supposed to refrain from telling them that they're lost in the fog. But - but there's a limit. There's a limit, and with the drooling sadism of the Rapture novels and with 'statements of faith' like the above, I reach my limit. That sentence is disgusting! It's disgusting, disgusting, disgusting, and people who sign up to it and then go cheerily about their business, ironing their hair and not drinking alcohol and interning for Karl Rove - people like that are an abomination. I'm serious. If they sign up to that and seriously literally believe it's true - what the fuck is the matter with them? Why aren't they all curled up in little balls sobbing and screaming? Why doesn't that thought blight their lives? Why doesn't it give them nightmares? Why doesn't it torture them so much that they look for a way out and realize it's all a pack of lies? Why are they happy with the set-up? What is wrong with them? They seriously think that the vast majority of humans alive now and also formerly alive are now or will soon be 'confined in conscious torment for eternity'? And they don't mind? They in fact 'love' the 'God' that arranges this? The God that first creates us and then confines us in conscious torment for eternity?
Comments
During the Crusades they used that tenet to slaughter non-Christians in order to save their souls from eternal torment. Being slaughtered by a Crusader was like a blessing that would save your soul from hell. How long until that notion makes a comeback? For now, they're happy just running things. From the Academic summary page of their website, referring to Patrick Henry College graduates:
'You could find yourself .... working alongside experts in and around our nation's capital, putting your knowledge to work in congressional offices, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, think tanks, newspapers, publishing houses, private and home schools - even the White House.'
Thanks, I think you are right.
Why isn't criticism as sacred as catechism?
"So religion makes people good, does it. Christianity makes people more kind and compassionate does it. Well, maybe sometimes it does, but all too often it (at least the extreme, narrow version of it that is so popular in the US) makes people - not just not better, but horrifying. Disgusting. So appalling it's hard to take it in."
It sort of reminds me of the hand gun arguement in a way...
Religion doesn't turn people into self righteous murdering bigots... people do!
Its no wonder that the Christian doctrine holds that only 144,000 will actually be saved because its pretty clear that the majority don't seem to have gotten the real message of what Christ was saying.
It has never ceased to amaze me how people could take a doctrine that has love, kindness, tolerance, love thy neighbor as they self, and show compassion and mercy for the poor... into bloody crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, and the rest of its sordid past and present for that matter.
Christian doctrine doesn't hold this. The 144,000 reference is from a passage in Revelation about Jewish converts to Christianity. I think Jehovah's Witnesses have a thing about that number too.
The 144,000 reference also says...
"These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins." ~King James Version
So, is the Bible saying that women are not aloud? Only virgin men or gay men?
Just curious?
Simple question for the crowd here:
Are you all more or less anxious to see Muslims killed than Sam Harris?
That question is ridiculous and a linguistical trap. It should not be honored with an answer.
God is for pussies.
There. I said it.
Anon,
WTF?! Out of some morbid curiousity; why do you ask?
I'm all for pussies too. Does that make me God?!
=]
Oh no Rickey Bones... you mean that Jeff Gannon is part of the elect?
Geeeze... that's gonna stand a lot of Jehova's witnesses on their head.
Wonder whats gonna happen to the Hare Krishnas?
If you watch the video of an interview of Sam Harris on the PAX TV channel that was posted on this site not so long ago, he makes a not-so-subtle suggestion that the only way the civilized world can deal with Muslims is to kill all of them. And he made it to the near applause of most everyone on this site.
Now, you guys probably come from a Christian background. What you say about the Christians and their political aspirations in the United States is between you and them, as far as I'm concerned. However, you guys often veer into saying similar things about Muslims as well, such as how stupid we all are for looking down on shaking hands with the opposite sex. It so happens that there are quite a few bombs being dropped on Muslims these days by the countries you all live in on account of such things. Or at least that's how the rhetoric goes, such as Laura Bush droning on and on about the burka leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan. Women in Afghanistan still wear the burka, to the apparent total lack of concern on the part of Mrs. Bush. Also, preventing the institution of shari`ah is one of the justifications given for America's continued presence in Iraq.
Do you all agree with this? Do you support dropping bombs anywhere theives' hands are cut off, etc.? Or killing anyone willing to die for his religion, a la Sam Harris?
"Are you all more or less anxious to see Muslims killed than Sam Harris?"
I looked at Harris' book and its naive. If you want to assert that religion is the ultimate cause of warfare... you over look the ever humanly popular greed for starts.
One historian aptly defined war as "organized theivery" and I think we're are more likely to do ourselves in the coming resource wars than some idiot religion. Oil is a hell of a motivator.
"Do you all agree with this? Do you support dropping bombs anywhere theives' hands are cut off, etc.? Or killing anyone willing to die for his religion, a la Sam Harris?"
I really hate to dissillusion you but you really came to the wrong website to try this kind of stupid baiting since the host contiunially puts up anti-christian posts here.
Try http://www.redstate.org/ that's where the fundamentalist Christians loonies hang out and you can have fun calling eachother names and all kind of stupid epithets until your keyboards melt!
fuckin right
What we really need is to excise religion as a whole from people's minds, and then sterilize a random 99% of the people on the planet. That should serve to fix most of the problems we have. ;)
Norm there is the possibility that Bin Laden is in China, just over the border from Pakistan, where there are some fairly "autonomous" (read the gov't leaves them alone) Muslim tribes. It was speculated in the past that he was there and if that's the case then the diplomatic problem would be huge. I don't believe this is the case but it is still a possibilty and would make Gross' comment more reasonable. or as I put it on the 20th
No one seems to be talking much about the question of extraordinary rendition (outsourcing torture) and the recent italian kidnapping case. In this entry, I've got some links to interesting pieces about rendition, especially a very good one from the New Yorker last February.
Doug...
Why would Bush want to kill Bin Laden? He is his pet "boogeyman" and far too useful as a symbolic tool to wave in the face of the American people to create fear. That's how he has manipulated the population so far so what incentive does he have to kill him really?
The Italian case is new and it is just starting to raise interest. It has been a bit over shadowed by the GITMO furor taking place.
The administration has lost a number of key cases lately where they were trying to use extraordinary rendition with prisoners. In one the Federal Judge actually laughed at the Governments attorney's argument he was using and blocked the transfer.
The USAPATRIOT Act has also over shadowed some of it but surfaced in the Hamdhi case before the Supreme Court. The court maintianed that Constitutional protections do extend to prisoners in US custody outside of our teritorial boundaries. This says nothing for those not in US custody however, but they have begun blocking transfers when cases have been filed. Its tough to fight because it is done in secret.
In the Hamdhi case the big surprise to me was Justice Scalia's opinion. I snagged part of it from dKos and the remarks at the end are the poster's and an interesting observation:
One entry at Kos posted his opinion in the Hamdhi case that sort of blew my mind, be sure to read the closing comment by the poster:
Anthony Scalia Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive. Blackstone stated this principle clearly: "Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty: for if once it were left in the power of any, the highest, magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper ... there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. ... To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government. ... "To make imprisonment lawful, it must either be, by process from the courts of judicature, or by warrant from some legal officer, having authority to commit to prison; which warrant must be in writing, under the hand and seal of the magistrate, and express the causes of the commitment, in order to be examined into (if necessary) upon a habeas corpus. If there be no cause expressed, the gaoler is not bound to detain the prisoner. For the law judges in this respect, ... that it is unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not to signify withal the crimes alleged against him." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 132-133 (1765) (hereinafter Blackstone).
If you didn't get what he is saying Justice Scalia is calling the Bush administration a despotic regime!
Look for Bin Laden to make an appearance (in US custody) in early 2008, just in time for the election. :)
Here is my problem - According to news sources, Pakistan is "in the way" of the U.S. getting Bin Laden. Porter Goss was quoted as saying "The very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states."
Now, if Pakistan is our friend (which they claim to be) then they help us, if not, then as President Bush claims "You are either with us or against us." Last I checked, harboring a terrorist is a no-no in international ettiquette.
Why aren't we playing hardball with Pakistan?
Why doesn't that thought blight their lives? Why doesn't it give them nightmares? Why doesn't it torture them so much that they look for a way out and realize it's all a pack of lies? Why are they happy with the set-up?
b/c they like not thinking for themselves. Religion keeps people from having to contemplate the realities around them. When any problem can be chalked up to "God's doing," the world becomes a very simple place. And when "God" says it's okay to kill people (i.e. holy war, infidels, etc.) then the killers do not have to feel guilty about it, because they are "doing God's work."
bullshit. If God exists it does not want us killing each other for any reason.
Where the whole religion thing went wrong, in my small opinion, is when people felt the need to spread their ideology to others and attempt to make others subscribe to it.
Religion is a deeply personal conviction that should be kept that way and not misused as a way to govern society.
Be religious - I don't care, whatever gives you comfort. Just don't expect me to buy your brand and becoming an indignant, judgmental ass when I don't buy in.
For what it's worth
Why would Bush want to kill Bin Laden? He is his pet "boogeyman" and far too useful as a symbolic tool to wave in the face of the American people to create fear. That's how he has manipulated the population so far so what incentive does he have to kill him really?
Posted by Flint at June 28, 2005 05:11 AM
Bin Laden is the supreme Bogeyman-in-Chief. He has done more for the Bush administration than any other Republican could have dreamed. Considering that the Reagan-Bush CIA created Bin Laden in the early 1980s, for all we know Bin Laden could still be working for the CIA as a rouge agent. He's shaved his bears, wears a suit and lives just outside of Langley.
Taking on Bin Laden and the extremists that are helping him would have huge consequences for Musharraf, who has already survived several assassination attempts. The US keeps pretty quiet about this lack of cooperation because it needs Pakistan's help. The for/against us threat only applies to nations the US can do without or can invade easily.
Bush talks in simple black & white terms because it plays well among voters who don't like to think. When it comes time to act, he has to deal with the all the shades of grey that exist in the world.
Ray,
I see your point. But as far as "shades of grey" it really doesn't appear to be that way to me and my knowledge of our "foreign policy"
Last I checked, diplomacy was a shade and I haven't seen much of that.
I love this blog! The videos and links and commentary are the best.
I think the reason the people you're talking about are so sure that when they die they won't go to H-e-double-hockey-sticks is because they think they've got themselves a one way ticket to Heaven, and that's the J-ticket.
Me, I think it's just as silly to believe Jesus was the son of God as it is to believe Hercules was the son of Zeus. If there is a God, I don't think he goes around knocking up mortal women.
Well, there's Pakistan. Nothing going on but diplomacy there. ;)
I am a Christian. For the most part I actually agree with what has been said here. The only thing I would like to add is that not all christians think this way. Some like myself consider themselves universalists and don't believe this eternal torment nonesense at all (more about universalism at www.tentmaker.org). I just ask that you would not paint us all with the same brush. There is actually a christianity out there for people that think!
If Bin Laden didn't exist... Bush would have to create him!
As to Pakistan... its a tightrope. The Pakistanis funded the Mujahadin in Afghanistan with CIA and Chinese funds. So Bin Laden is our creation through them and many of their security forces are very proislamic fundamentalists.
Musharrif had numerous assination attempts againdt him that had "inside" help. If he goes down and a fundementalist faction should seize control, you now would have a terrorist state with multiple nuclear war heads and delivery systems.
By guess is the US treads lightly because they don't want to fire up Pakistan fundies against Musharrif. If he appears to be too cooperative with the US it could trigger a revolution and then its worst case scenario.
"I love this blog! The videos and links and commentary are the best.
I think the reason the people you're talking about are so sure that when they die they won't go to H-e-double-hockey-sticks is because they think they've got themselves a one way ticket to Heaven, and that's the J-ticket.
Me, I think it's just as silly to believe Jesus was the son of God as it is to believe Hercules was the son of Zeus. If there is a God, I don't think he goes around knocking up mortal women.
Posted by anon at June 28, 2005 08:19 AM"
LOL^
Hi..I'm Steve Grossman, still saved and saving, and proud to be part of the thousand GROSS MENCHEN and still not a virgin.
Porter Goss was probably Porta Grossman prior to membrane specific antigens being regenerated in vitro.
The roots of nearly every liberating moment in the U.S. (women's suffrage, abolition of slavery, civil rights) come from the Church. There are two types of Christianity in the U.S. One is the progressive, barrier smashing Christianity that takes seriously the phrase "love thy enemy", the Christianity that equates one's faith with how you treat the poor, the orphan, the alien. The other is the Christianity which is nothing but selective plattitudes, picked for their support of whatever heirarchy is in place. As a holder to the former, I feel that my "Christianity" has been co-opted by the religious right wing nutcases in power.
But the answer to these asshoes is not to excise religion from society. The answer is to take hold of the reigns that they have stolen. Not less religion, but more. More true, life giving, society changing, liberating religion. Poison water you say? Perhaps. Perhaps I am delusional. But I don't think that I and those who share with me the idea that the corporate rape of this country and the world needs to end need to be enemies. We are doing ourselves and the world a disservice by refusing to work with each other. Jesus was a reactionary who took on the religious right of his day. If you read the bible outside the rose colored glasses of the republican party you will see that. It was those in power that viewed him as a threat to the stability of the system that kept them where they were, and that, quite frankly, is why he was killed. There's no need for us to be enemies. We have an enemy. We need to be friends.