The Republican Party loves to wrap itself in a cloak of right wing Christian righteousness. They talk about God and the bible and the teachings of their supposed Master Jesus Christ. Yet under inspection it becomes clear that their wrapping of moral superiority is transparent and their very foundation a hypocritical deceit that is so obvious as to be the very thing their own book warns them against; the false prophets, the liars, the greedy and the hypocrites.
Nothing is more blatant as to their sham as to their adherence that we must pursue victory in Iraq to honor the dead soldiers and their families. True honoring of the sacrifice of our soldiers would be to immediately pull them out of a National Mortal Sin caused by the willful and knowingly deceitful lies that were spewed as obvious false witness against a country that did not attack us, had nothing to do with 911 or Al Qaeda.
That's right, False Witness, a mortal sin that according to their teachings forever condemns one to hell. In addition the Iraq invasion has now been shown by the Oil Law they salivate over to be about the coveting of Iraqis resources...again, another National Mortal Sin. Do they care that they support actions that their God made quite clear could never be redeemed by contrition, confession, or God's grace? I guess eternal damnation is not a big deal
The sinful nature of their hypocrisy continues with of course the ultimate violation of Jesus's most sacred teachings which is to love thy neighbor. Had the US responded after 911 with a deep soul searching and a willingness to move forward without violence the so called Christian Nation they love to claim we are would have advanced the teachings of their Master in ways that would have shown the power of love and provided an example that would have won more hearts and minds in the world than could be imagined. Instead they spit in Jesus's face by seeking revenge and killing innocent civilians with urban cluster bombs and the insane justification of acceptable murder in the guise of 'collateral damage'.
Many of our politicians that are the most rabid right wing righteous hypocrites are in love with tax cuts for the richest among us and the dehumanization of the poor. How do they reconcile Peter's and Matthew’s teachings of Jesus where it is clear that the "it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God'.
Jesus teaches, ""If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Oh but the abolishment of the estate tax is high on their agendas of important issues so their families can stay rich forever and further defecate on their Masters teachings for eternity.
The conservaive GOP Christian right lie, they deceive, and they live for Mammon/Money above all else. TheChristian right loves to tell us the bible is the literal word of God, yet they wipe themselves with its teachings with barely a thought. Jesus clarifies things even more fully for them in Matthew 19 "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness." Yet their leaders cheat on their wives (ala Mcain), attempt to steal (ala Iraq Oil Law and Corruption), kill innocent with nary a thought, and bear false witness against an entire Nation that they are currently destroying and poisoning.
The legions of self-righteous Christian hypocrites and Republicans also like to glorify the death of Jesus and his sacrifice yet fail to realize the event that spurred his crucifixion, which was the turning over of the tables of the merchants and money changers and their defiling of the sacred space by their commercialism and profit centered motives. They fail to understand that their Master condemned and died for this one simple lesson that they step on daily with their adherence to capitalism and profit that exists only through the exploitation of people and resources for their own selfish gain.
When Christians who follow the Republican right wake up and open their eyes to the false prophets of their murdering, money grubbing hypocritical leaders they will see that they have been deceived and led astray. But unfortunately they are to concerned about judging others and removing the speck from their eye rather than the importance of looking inward and removing the log in their own eye that blinds them from the truth of their own hypocritical being.
The very same intolerance that various rght-wing religious charlatans get charged with (and, yes, are sometimes guilty of) is in full view here. People who sincerely believe that taking the fight to the terrorists (all terrorists, not just Al Qaeda) and that keeping taxes low is the best way to keep the American economy strong are not spitting in the face of Jesus, as you try to spout. And acting in a purely pacifistic way was not the response called for after 9/11, no way. It can certainly be argued whether or not the Iraq war was justified, but Afghanistan?? Condemning somebody's commitment to Jesus on the basis of politics is disgraceful.
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Scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 417 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 12:17:53 PM
Christians are notoriously intolerant and historically famous all around the world for their murderous intolerance. They are simultaneously thin skinned when anyone criticises them for their intolerance and their murderous tendencies...
Somewhere in the Xtian Holy Book there is an admonition to remove the timber from your own eye before trying to correct anyone else's sight... Of course YOU probably know EXACTLY where that passage is found... If not, look it up.
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mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 296 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 1:15:55 PM
<> This essay is not intolerance. It is swords of truth. If it hurts that is because truth hurts those that live in their own deceptions.
Tax cuts for the richest among us is not tax cuts for the sake of economy as you state since the middle and lower classes carry a larger burden than the richest among us. Trickle down economic theory has no validity and it has proven a flawed premise time and time again. You obviously have no clue as to the failure of Bush to keep the economy strong since the dollar is tanking and the GOP and their lust for deregulation is the culprit. I might add that I am surprised you didn't blame Clinton for something.
<> 60% of US corporations pay no taxes, as evidenced by Halliburton moving to Dubai. The corporation has been elevated to personhood by the GOP and it is an inhuman entity that cares nothing for the poor, the land, or the people. It only cares as is mandated by law to achieve profit for the shareholders.
<> We will never know what a peaceful response to 911 might have yielded, but we do know that our war like response has spurned terrorist recruitment world wide and turned the world against us. We have zippo moral authority, and rightly so. Peace through strength is a joke as history teaches us that peace is achieved through the reconcilation of men and not depleted uranium munitions or urban bombing. Ever hear of Blessed are the Peacemakers? Islamic peoples have never been subdued by occupiers and this will be the case in this fiasco as well.
Our spiritual paths must flow through everything we do if we are to be whole and genuine. We cannot claim one foot in purity in church and then act like disgusting pigs in our family or business life and tromp on all things sacred. Our politics and spirituality must coexist in harmony.
<> Perhaps you should realize that willfully manipulating the psyche of the American public through fear mongering and lies is in itself an act of domestic terrorism as defined by the Patriot Act.
<> Wake up and look in the mirror.
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The Fifth Horseman (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 23 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 1:26:57 PM
You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about Jesus. Where do you get that stuff? What do you know about Jesus? Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem everybody liked to have this Jesus around because he never made any fake passes and everything he said went and he helped the sick and gave the people hope.
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I know how much you know about Jesus. He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running.
I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men now lined up with you paying your way.
This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands wherever he passed along. You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who lived a clean life in Galilee.
When are you going to quit making the carpenters build emergency hospitals for women and girls driven crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get that stuff; what do you know about Jesus?
Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare the women and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors. I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great original performance, but you--you're only a bug- house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in the skies after they're dead and the worms have eaten 'em. You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross and he'll be all right. You tell poor people they don't need any more money on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job, Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say. I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you're handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with the big thieves.
I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion. I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar.
I ask you to come through and show me where you're pouring out the blood of your life.
I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is straight it was real blood ran from His hands and the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.
--Carl Sandberg, from "Chicago Poems" 1916
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mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 296 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 1:09:44 PM
The day 9/11 happened some of my employees ran up to tell me what had happened and the first thing I said was that our foreign interventionism had come home to roost. So, anyone can see that I was against the war, but also against our foreign policy dating long before that.
But this piece displays a superficial understanding of Christianity. Jesus was not crucified because he had turned over the money changers tables. Regardless of the motive on the part of the Jewish leaders of the day, He was nonetheless crucified in accordance with the determinate foreknowledge of God. In order to harmonize both God's justice and mercy He had to pay the price of our redemption Himself since there was no way for us to pay it. And, He did.
This piece also reeks of envy. I seem to remember that if you take everything the rich make, leaving them nothing it will run the Federal Government exactly 14 days. And, that figure is pretty old. Probably would only be a few minutes now. And, the rich pay a significantly higher proportion of the taxes now under the progressive income tax that was a plank in the communist manifesto. Leave a dollar in the economy and it will produce a job. Give it to the government and it will produce a regulation. And, by the way, corporations have never paid taxes, they just simply pass the tax on to their customers. Only people pay taxes.
I make no excuses for those claiming to be Christians and behaving contrary to Christian principles. But to indict all Christianity based on someone's conduct is just dumb.
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Bill Fangio (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 4:42:08 PM
There is one stone, one tree, one fingerprint, one snowflake, one earth, one universe and one God in our dimension.. This is the way it is for those that can read the words of nature (Gods Book of Reality For All To See). The books and teachings of men compare nothing to the truth written in God's works....Nature, and written within our own Spirit.
We can view Jesus's last days by actual events or some sort of interpretation of deep meaning. The fact is he got pissed because the sacred church had been defiled and turned into a Wal-Mart. He went in and trashed the place. He confrontd the corrupt power structure of unsacredness. He was crucified for this action. If he had stayed home and stayed peaceful he may not have been nailed to cross,no metter what we read into some ultimate Perhaps his getting angry was part of the covenant he broke with God, and he had to be punished for breaking his commitment? When God says I will grant you great powers, you have to promise something in return. Nothing is given for free without sacrifice. This was the one example where the great Peacemaker lost his cool, and he paid for it dearly. But, sometimes when you see great unjustice and crapping on the sacred you just can't take it anymore. Can you rise above it and seek peace above all or get pissed and follow the wrong road? All the other interpretations are that, interpretations because we still have to accept his recorded actions of that day. We can cling to blood and the dying Jesus on the cross or we can see his real actions and life as a teaching and lesson. This was a lesson of action by Jesus we should all learn from. And it is up to us to interpet it ourselves not be told how to intrepret it by some man. Regardless, of the deep meaning he did trash the merchants and money changers and set the sacred doves free.
You are misinformed on corporate taxation. Corporations used to pay a lot of taxes. Your statement that they have never paid taxes is complete and utter bull. Without regulation the vast majority of unholy inhuman corporations would never do anything environmentally sound on their own accord. This is a fact jack.
Much good is done by the government for the people. Just ask folks who rely on home heating help, or health care or medi-care or you my friend when you retire and need your social security checks. It is the RIGHT thing to do to take care of our children, our poor, our sick and our Elders. Jesus would approve.
My essay in no way attacks Christianity or the teachings of Christ. In fact it seeks to raise it up and glorify his teachings and his actions with simple realizations based on his actions and his own words.
The true believers of loving thy neighbors, caring for the poor and the power of peace have nothing to fear. Christ like all messengers of God laid down a path through him for us to follow. We can follow that path of Love and move forward as Spirit or we can worry about the shallow, and the words, and get stuck in a rut of judgement and semantics.
We can learn about the oldest records of his vegetarian teachings (The Essene Gospel of Peace) where the Earthly Mother is honored equally with the Heavenly Father or we can adhere to the re-writing of his teachings where the Earthly Mother is abandoned for the sake of justified envirnomental destruction and greed. The choice is ours. We can try and spin away the comandment that thou shalt not kill or follow it. What part of these words can we not understand?
God never condemend a man because he used the wrong word or Name for God. The Great Spirit is too big to fit inside one religion and too loving and sacred to care about names or words, the Sacred One only cares about what's in your heart.
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The Fifth Horseman (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 23 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 9:54:17 AM
While some of your interpretations of scripture may be slightly off, you couldn't be more dead on with your definition of hypocrisy as it applies to these self-righteous Christofascists. I love how you throw back the Commandments in their face since these people just get off on telling everybody else how much they should have personal responsibility and follow Christ's teachings but when it comes to their own actions, it's damn hard to see how they could justify them in light of their self-professed beliefs. Oh but you forgot a big one--"Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain." W alone has violated that one probably a thousand times over the past eight years!
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chimpevil (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 9:33:01 AM
If you can't catch the drift concering corporations and taxes then let me try again. When you go to Walmart and buy a product the taxes Walmart pays is embedded in the price of the product that you pay. So YOU pay the tax! Got it?
It is just a shell game to get folks like you to blame everyone except the government. And, don't worry about me. I was not foolish enough to think that the ponzi scheme of Social Security would work long term.
A friend of mine was going down with her uncle to slop the hogs when her uncle asked her if she saw those hogs. She replied that she did. Then her uncle told her that those hogs think that I am their friend, but all I am doing is fattening them up for market, and that is exactly what Roosevelt is doing to us.
Better get a grip. Government is the problem.
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Bill Fangio (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 10:46:04 AM
<> Is there one country that is a success and functions without government? Where's this govermentless utopia you crave? It don't exist and it never will. Your my neighbor, and I want to poop in your headwaters, because it's my right, afterall I can put my outhouse wherever I want. Too bad buddy in your no government no regulation world you gotta drink my do do, and like it, because in your bogus, ridiculous world there is no law, no goverment and no regulation.
<>No government, no laws and selfish me me will make you suffer for my greedy selfish lust for freedom. Fools like you are the same ones who espouse the freedom to do as we please but absolutley miss the point of what it means to be a responsible person who cares about others.
<>Laws and regulations serve a purpose to stop greedy a-holes from totally messin with my right to be healthy. I'm sure if a corporation wanted to buy the lot next to yours and put in a chemical dump that would be ok with you because, hey they gotta right to what they want on their land. Wrong dummy. We all have to be concerned and care about how our actions impact another and sometimes this means you just can't do whatever you want to do. Of course corporations have no heart, they cannot love so you think they care one bit...Nada.
<> I await for your example of a Nation that is healthy that exists with no government.
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The Fifth Horseman (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 23 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 8:29:54 PM
I think this article can be boiled down to the colloquialism "What Would Jesus Do?"
This, we need to figure out for ourselves.
We all know the story, Jesus was a pacifist and would "turn the other cheek" rather then strike someone back. The main thrust of the entire crucifixion legend is that Jesus Christ died passively on a cross to point out the sin of those who would kill or torture.
But for thousands of years, generations of "Christians" have been killing and plundering, even in Christ's name. To see that some still did not get this message is obvious, it cannot be any clearer then THOU SHALT NOT KILL, can it?
So we see, with Christianity, it is with America. Really, we have a brilliant Constitution, the laws are all written. The problem is they're not being followed.
There are those among us that love the pacifist Jesus so much, they're willing to kill anyone. Ironically, according to their own scripture, they'll face judgment for their sins, and burn in hell for disobeying God's commandments. So the message is just keep your nose clean. Jesus provided an example and you can choose to follow it or not.
This is, after all, a free country.
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Gustav Wynn (51 articles, 34 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 238 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 1:34:07 PM
"What would Jesus do?" He is on record saying, "If My kingdom was of this world, then would My soldiers fight". Hardly pacifist.
The crucifixtion is historical, not legendary. And, if disobeying God's commandments means we burn in hell, then we all will. No one of us has lived the perfect life. And THAT is the reason that Christ paid the price of our redemption, so that those of us who meet Him on His terms might receive the inheritance of eternal life. The offer is made freely to all who will accept it.
Because someone or some groups claim to be Christian does not make it so, whether Republican, Democrat, or polecat.
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Bill Fangio (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 5:29:37 PM
The Big-a-Tree of the MEDIA-RIGHT STORM has been clear to me for about the last 14 years. I have paid a heavy price from their stone throwing which crept into a great pool playing Club/Bar in 1994. (The stone throwing wasn't there in the 80's.)
After 9-11 when I heard 1 of them on the right/wrong! say, "that we can longer turn the other cheek;" I asked myself, "What cheek has America ever turned?"
Most of them on the right from Haggie to Pobertson, Van Impie to the Pope, are the scribes and Pharesess of our time.
If I had a billion people behind me like I hear the Pope does? There would be a billion people out in the street demanding the guns and bombs come apart. For all of US here in US, are enslaved to the Giant Military Industrial Complex.
What is it going to take to tell D.C. we want to change from bombs and things to electric cars we can plug into our solar roofs...
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Michael Dewey (3 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 170 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 7:25:57 PM
The crucifixtion is historical, not legendary. And, if disobeying God's commandments means we burn in hell, then we all will. No one of us has lived the perfect life. And THAT is the reason that Christ paid the price of our redemption, so that those of us who meet Him on His terms might receive the inheritance of eternal life.
Who says that is why Christ was Crucified... King George? Who TF was he but some fat rich white man spinning the story to meet his own selfish ends. What if Jesus had never gone to the temple that day?Or any day? Oh, well you'll say he was destined to die on the cross. Who says? And why do you believe everything you read?
<> I doubt you have ever taken the time to research all you could about all the many scrolls and teachings that way pre-date the Greek versions of Christs life. Why would you do that? It might shatter your narrow minded and confined world. Excuse me for getting personal but I am fed up with the narrow minded, know-it-all, judgemental, murderous creeps that will use any manner of lies to further the greed and hate. Study your Master deeply in every text and writing you can find, isn't that what a true disciple would do?
Love is it...Period. Learn this lesson or suffer...But tough love is needed to cut through the crap and find the truth. If you don't see or learn the lesson than the universe has one way to teach it to you, and that is kick you hiney, and that my friend is what is coming our way, and it is all good, because a good ass whipping is the only thing some people understand. We can either live in harmony with the land and each other and try to make it more beautiful and loving and give more than we take or be a bunch of take take takers, for me me me my Freedom..
Don't come crying when everything falls apart, it's God's way of teaching lessons to those with their heads in the sand. I'm kinda lookin forward to wearing feathers again, and being alive no matter how tenous.
It's like a story to be told someday...'You know one day long ago the corporations failed and money became worthless, and you know, alot of bad things happened too.
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The Fifth Horseman (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 23 comments)
on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 8:59:50 PM
Good grief, I don't sit around contemplating my navel and expecting information from the ether!
How do I know that is why Christ was crucified? Because He said so!
The Bible was recorded by some 42 writers consisting of 66 books (KJV) of history, prophecies, songs, psalms, and letters covering a period of approximately 1600 years, and it was completed with the Last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ nearly 2000 years ago. It has all the sure marks of authenticity and contains no myth that was prevalent during the days of its authorship. Nothing extant compares with it.
I will rely on the written record of the ages. You can rely on your navel. Good luck.
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Bill Fangio (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 11:40:57 AM
And Jesus himself sat down in their midst and said: "I tell you truly, none can be happy, except he do the Law."
And the others answered: "We all do the laws of Moses, our lawgiver, even as they are written in the holy scriptures."
And Jesus answered: "Seek not the law in your scriptures, for the law is life, whereas the scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living word. The law is living word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everything that is life is the law written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves. For I tell you truly, all living things are nearer to God than the scripture which is without life. God so made life and all living things that they might by the everlasting word teach the laws of the true God to man. God wrote not the laws in the pages of books, but in your heart and in your spirit. They are in your breath, your blood, your bone; in your flesh, your bowels, your eyes, your ears, and in every little part of your body. They are present in the air, in the water, in the earth, in the plants, in th e sunbeams, in the depths and in the heights. They all speak to you that you may understand the tongue and the will of the living God. But you shut your eyes that you may not see, and you shut your ears that you may not hear. I tell you truly, that the scripture is the work of man, but life and all its hosts are the work of our God. Wherefore do you not listen to the words of God which are written in His works? And wherefore do you study the dead scriptures which are the work of the hands of men?"
"How may we read the laws of God elsewhere than in the scriptures? Where are they written? Read them to us from there where you see them, for we know nothing else but the scriptures which we have inherited from our forefathers. Tell us the laws of which you speak, that hearing them we may be healed and justified."
Jesus said: "You do not understand the words of life, because you are in death. Darkness darkens your eyes and your ears are stopped with deafness. For I tell you, it profits you not at all that you pore over dead scriptures if by your deeds you deny him who has given you the scriptures."
From the Esenne Gospel of Peace the oldest known records of the teachings of Christ. Folks can cling to King George's version or understand the truth contained in these words.
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The Fifth Horseman (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 23 comments)
on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 3:37:02 PM
It's probably too late to participate in this conversation, but if there's any doubt that the author is right on target, just check out my http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/ where you'll find 200+ articles to support his points.
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Ray Dubuque (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 8:37:18 PM
