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Nothing like religion to get gov't off your back by PW Berge
Have you read all original "Ten" Commandments lately? Check out Wikipedia for true revelation, namely notions that didn't make it. Why do religious extremists want to post outmoded Mosaic Law on every courthouse and abortion clinic? As law now embodies what matters -- nix on murder, theft, and bearing false witness (perjury), Moses' defunct inscriptions barely suit fringe manias any better than what remains of our secular culture.
What sort of "commandment" is "I am the Lord thy God"? Can belief be commanded? How relevant are defanged prohibitions against taking the Lord's name in vain? Or worshipping idols (American or otherwise), forgetting the Sabbath, or coveting "your neighbor's ox, donkey, male or female slave." That last one works for me. Doesn't honoring parental units (what, for procreating?) go along with positive parenting?
Why not throw in punishing abortion with hanging? Or gay marriage with stoning? More noteworthy by omission are compelling Judaic-Christian wisdom: Jesus' "Love thy enemy," or "Love thy neighbor as thyself" or "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Those compassionate values puncture the heart-deficient evangelicals who mouth distinctively unfeeling, unchristian meanness -- withhold charity, punish the sick, leave hungry outcasts to starve.
Commandments for a Theocratic Age
Time for philosopher-kings to "modernize" the Good Book, especially before wingnuts take over, plastering bad dogma over every door. My task today, however, isn't religious but political -- to detail working fringe dictums that drive extremism today -- presaging a theocratic, fundamentalist government.
1) Thou shalt exalt the Christian God above all pretend deities, for Jesus sacrificed to start the conveyer belt for faithful souls.
My Commentary : Doubters and dissenters of the True Faith, even nice pagans, won't make the chosen cut; as per W., "if you're not with us, you're against us," and presumably in league with the devil. The Rapture rap specifies the next cosmic war depends on Jews (what, again!) driving out infidels from the Holy Land. And non-converters will be crushed by all-powerful Rapture, certainly playing favorites. Think of the cable news coverage.
2) Thou shalt honor the True Faith -- fundamentalist, charismatic, Reconstuctionist Protestantism -- perfectly articulated, praise the Lord, in American English 2000 years A.D.
Commentary: Mystery upon mystery for obsessed fundamentalism has an infinitude of faces and nomenclature: Dominionism, Dominion Theology, conservative Pentecostal (assorted), Charismatic-Foursquare Gospel, Neo-Calvinism, Christian Reconstruction, Christian Patriotism, Theocratic Dominionism, Kingdom Now theology, Christian Nationalism and Theonomy (install Old Testament rules), among others. Through a glass darkly, for sure.
3) Thou shalt exalt like-minded evangelicals as superior, chosen beings. For the elect know original sin and their own -- rewarded with both eternal life in heaven and divine authority to impose their belief system on earth.
Commentary: Circular logic is key to literalist faith -- the missionary exalts depravity in order to transcend it, thus born-again to salvation. Certainly, no doubt about their personal election proves them and their creed universally correct. Not only are the self-anointed saved superior to the unsaved, hence God's favorites, doubters must serve the thrall of the netherworld. White, after all, is obviously not black, thus circular logic rules our most unified voting block.
4) Thou shall exalt America as the most exceptional nation on earth, especially after Christian Europeans took their destined place. Thus, God put Anglos in charge, just like He placed man above plants, animals, and underground oil reserves.
Commentary: Perhaps all races are equal, in theory, but damned if some aren't more equal than others. Doesn't history testify to white ascendancy, especially over the important countries with the most valued resources? Proof's in the pudding -- all those white, rural, small-down, socially conservative enclaves full of Sunday churchgoers. Look, if non-believers could understand the mystery of why elites are perpetually blessed, what would set apart the faithful? Or their denominations' fundraising?
5) Thou shalt exalt free market capitalism, and let no socialist assert anything incompatible between the purity of Christianity and scope of corporate triumphalism.
Commentary: Two sides, same coin, self-evident truth. Rightwing scholars brag how Christianity answers precisely to immutable economics of Milton Friedman (what, another Jewish prophet?). Which says a great deal methinks about both paradigms. The Bible stands foursquare alongside powerful CEOs, endorsing profitability and private property, deregulation and low taxes, trickle down economics, and domination of the earth by Christians. Q.E.D.
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