LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's another article that compares the Religious Right to addiction.

An excerpt:

For my purposes, the distinction between fundamentalist Christianity and Dominionism is incidental because what is most important to understand is that any religion, philosophy, or belief system can be addictive, fear-based, and terrorizing, and if it is used to justify changing the Constitution of the United States and creating a society in which the laws of that system are also fear-based and terrorizing, then regardless of the label, fundamentalist or Dominionist, that system is both terrorist and tyrannical. Whether one wishes to debate the differences between fundamentalist Christianity and Dominionism or not, both systems are about domination, power, control, right/wrong; win/lose. Moreover, as in my last article, I am reiterating that terrorism and tyranny, like the word addiction, have much broader definitions than crashing planes into buildings, establishing a superior race, or forcing women to cover their faces.

My focus here is on fundamentalist Christianity and Dominionism as religious systems which complement and support tyrannical political systems, specifically, fascism. I am well aware that not all fundamentalist Christians, and certainly not all folks who call themselves evangelicals, are of the Dominionist variety. Many are hard-working individuals who pay their bills and follow the rules and attempt to live the teachings of Jesus. I respect those individuals and consider them a mitigating force amid the onslaughts of the religious right.

For an in-depth analysis of religious right corruption and tyranny, I highly recommend the recent article “The Christian Mafia” (http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm ) by investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen.

Additionally, my intention in this article is to explore the addictive features of these systems which ultimately result not in spiritual well being but spiritual abuse.

Spiritual abuse is the manipulation, exploitation, and mistreatment-- mentally, emotionally, or physically of another individual or masses of individuals, in the name of promoting spiritual principles or values. As we have seen from the rampant sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church, spiritual abuse can open the door to every other kind of abuse. And just as a plethora of Catholic priests for two thousand years have used their position of authority and piety to abuse children, countless children in fundamentalist Christian homes have been beaten, raped, molested, shamed, and emotionally devastated in the name of “children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.” I suspect that in the not-too-distant future, we may see revelations of child abuse in fundamentalist Christian homes and churches break into the light of day that could pale by comparison the abuse scandal of the Roman Catholic Church. For the fundamentalist Christian, children too, born into “original sin”, are to be dominated and made into subservient born-again believers as soon as possible.

She has also written a prequel article to this one, "The Religious Right - An Anti-American Terrorist Movement".

And so we see the various threads intertwining here. There are people on this board who can testify to the religious abuse spoken of by this writer. And I have seen many examples of religion being an addictive behavior.

Her definition of Dominionism and separation of it from mainstream Christianity is a vital point, and one I cannot emphasize enough. Dominionists are fear-based, not faith-based, and are part of the 'Rapture Cult' who sees this world as a wasteland. If they were a tiny fringe group without power or influence, we could ignore them. But they are not. They have found their way into our government. We have to show them the way right back out.