Dark Christianity
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dogemperor [userpic]
Question for the knowledgeble.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]chron_job)

Hi, I'm new to the community.

Information at the following link:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/64336/

(Concerning: Russian-speaking Christian fundamentalists, mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, have formed a ferocious anti-gay movement in the western U.S.)

Had me wondering some things...

Does anyone have any information on the group mentioned, "The Watchmen on the walls"? Do they have any economic links with groups of interest to this community, here in the U.S.?

Is there any reason to think that 'Protestant Christian' denominations get asymmetrical treatment by the U.S. State Department, as per allowing immigration, when they are the victims of religious persecution in their countries of origin?

dogemperor [userpic]
Halo 3 as a teen recruiting tool for churches?!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]lihan161051)

I had heard hints of this about a week ago but at the time I thought it was a rather liberal church trying to counter the more dominionist-based Left Behind: Eternal Forces using a game that wasn't in the LB franchise.

Now I'm not so sure about that, because after reading the article more thoroughly and also after seeing sponsors of the group Dare2Share, which is promoting this, on Fox News' The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet with a few of their (clueless but well coached) kids, I'm thinking maybe at least some of the dominionists have given up on trying to leverage the Left Behind game and gone for one that's considerably more popular. D2S has sanitized their website pretty thoroughly, but I still see hints that there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. (It was also pretty sobering to see the guy representing D2S speaking what sounded like dominionist code language and then hearing the host of the show pick up the words at face value and riff on them without a *clue* as to what the D2S guy was really saying.) And this business of carefully avoiding the better known code words and red flags may actually be a sign that people in this movement are paying closer attention to what *we* are looking at.

Any thoughts?

Current Mood: contemplative
dogemperor [userpic]
"Paul Hill Days" Call To Action

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]nebris)

On July 29th, 1994, Paul Hill boldly defended 31 babies from unspeakable violence by killing a paid assassin and his bodyguard. He was arrested, given a sham trial, and executed as a martyr. On the 13th anniversary of Paul Hill’s act of love and mercy, memorial events will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to honor him as God’s man and our hero.



Dear Mr. Biskupic,

This is a public celebration of domestic terrorism. As a concerned American citizen, I demand that the US Government enforce the provisions of the PATRIOT Act that make the support of terrorism a prosecutable offensive.

Yours,
Michael Varian Daly




United States Attorney Steve Biskupic is the chief federal law enforcement officer within the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

Office of the United States Attorney
Eastern District of Wisconsin
517 E Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 530
Milwaukee, WI 53202-4580

Phone: (414) 297-1700
Fax (414) 297-1738

Toll-Free (800) 680-8949
TTD (414) 297-1088
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/wie/jurisdiction.html

Current Mood: Militant
dogemperor [userpic]
Poster Case for Anti-Hate Legislation

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]jim_ghote)

I'm linking this over from somebody else's post in my F-List, as it needs to be spread around.

Killing a guy because they thought he was "gay"? Even if he was, doesn't give these morons any right at all to commit the crime.

Just as bad is the lack of press over this (details in article).

X-posted to: My own journal and [info]dark_christian

Current Mood: outraged
dogemperor [userpic]
Religious Extremists from THREE MAJOR RELIGIONS Threaten the World

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]catvincent)

Via Signs of Witness; a report states what is obvious to us here but seems to elude so many others - that religious fanaticism is the problem, not the particular religion espoused. Hopefully this might get the point across to a few more folk, especially those who feel the True Evils of the world are the *other* fanatics, not the ones who use their preferred symbol-set.

'Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of “good” and “evil” and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism, according to a report obtained by Reuters.

Continued under cut. )

Like we Discordians are fond of saying... Death to all Fanatics!

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM]
dogemperor [userpic]
The Future of Fundamentalism: A Scenario

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]catvincent)

Sara at Orcinus has another excellent post this week, where she looks at a plausible future scenario of Dominionist action post-2008-Democratic-victory (assuming, of course, there is one). It's not a very pretty picture...

An excerpt:

' The widespread public disaffection with the religious right is real and growing. The first-generation leaders are dying off; and they're losing unusual numbers of their hand-picked successors (Ralph Reed, Ted Haggard) in corruption and sex scandals. Unless the Democrats really screw it up (always a possibility), they are going to lose the 2008 election -- and with it, most of their power to work their political will on the rest of us. Past history suggests that the religous right won't return as a political force for another 20-40 years; and that the actual length of that exile will depend almost entirely on how thoroughly we manage to discredit them and their ideas. They're falling all on their own; but once they're down, it'll be up to us to make sure they stay there.

However, being out of politics doesn't mean they'll be completely gone from our midst. Those institutions they've built now constitute an entire separate subculture. They've got their own media, schools, arts, resorts, hospitals, nursing homes, malls, and community gathering places. It's entirely possible to live from cradle to grave without ever having to step outside of this carefully-created Christianist reality sphere. Even if this alternate universe loses it worldly power, it doesn't mean its residents will need to ever step outside that bubble if they don't want to. In some form -- the same, or slightly diminished -- this culture will probably continue to carry on along its own separate path. We should not imagine that just because we no longer see them goofing on the air, they no longer exist. FDR-era liberals made that mistake; we should take pains not to repeat it.

Furthermore, they’ve built shadow organizations within our most powerful national institutions -- most notably, Congress, the military, and the legal system. Losing political power will reduce the resources available to this network, hurt recruitment, and weaken its clout; but we can't afford to assume that the whole thing will just vanish on its own. How much of it remains, again, is up to us -- in this case, how effectively we can root out these religious cabals and disentangle them from our public and private institutions. On this front, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy will last precisely as long as we allow it to.

Also, as noted in the post below, they've already raised several million kids in this cultural hothouse, and carefully indoctrinated them to carry on God's work in spite of Satan's (er, our) efforts. So we need to ask: Where will these kids be in another ten or 20 years? '

The previous post she refers to in the text is the one I posted here. The following article at Orcinus on the right wing and domestic terrorism, which mentions Dominionism as a major player, is here.

Current Mood: numb
Current Music: Drone Zone:[SomaFM]
dogemperor [userpic]
This is an interesting article

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

This article from ThudFactor talks about how fundementalism isn't just for religious people:

Many atheists view religion through the prism of fundamentalism, and faced with a religious person with a radically different vision of deity find themselves at a loss. At this point, some atheists themselves become fundamentalist, insisting that the religious person they are talking to is either intentionally misrepresenting their beliefs or does not really qualify as religious.

But fundamentalism is a disease of community, not a hallmark of religion. The fundamentalist impulse—the pursuit of dogmatic purity for the sake of dogmatic purity—can be seen in almost any group, political or religious, vital or trival. Just as there are Christians who seek to prove they are more “Christian” than everyone else, there are atheists, political partisans, and Star Trek aficionados who do the same.

Religious fundamentalism leverages the language of religion and takes advantage of personal religious experience for authoritarian, earthly political gain. Many religious folks (including, arguably, Christ) consider the fundamentalist disease a corruption of and obstruction to genuine religious practice and experience. As such, we find religious fundamentalism particularly awful and far more of a threat to us than secular society or atheists; we are certainly not just moderate versions of fundamentalists.


Quite an interesting article.

dogemperor [userpic]
Darla Wynne

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]vanar_en_daeor)

Bluemoontide's posting of the article about the Christians moving to South Carolina mentions Darla Wynne. It reminded me of the atrocities and discrimination Darla's been through by these guys in the Bible Belt. I found the original article I had read a while back and thought it would be informative to post the link to it here.

Warning though, some of the stuff, especially what was done to her pets because she doesn't follow these people's (and I use that term very loosely) view of God and the Bible, is quite graphic.

http://www.exploringthecauldron.com/October05/DarlaWynne.htm

Current Mood: indescribable
dogemperor [userpic]
Hostile Takeover of the United Church of Christ

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]bluemoontide)

Apparently being a Protestant Christian isn't good enough these days. One must subscribe to Dominionism, or die!

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/2/6/233823/5430
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/2/13/232452/901

Current Mood: annoyed
dogemperor [userpic]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]gairid)

This is just insane. In reading this community I understand what the dominionists are doing and I know that their bleating about being persecuted is all part and parcel of the way they gather people to their cause, but Jesus Christ! Advocating murder is okay? It's sickening, it really is.



The American Family Association opened its airwaves to advocate for executing gays, adulterers, abortion doctors

Summary: Far-right Christian author and American Vision president Gary DeMar was the guest on the February 2 edition of American Family Radio's Today's Issues. In the past, DeMar has advocated the installation of a theocratic government in the United States in which homosexuals, adulterers, and abortion doctors would be executed.

Here's an excerpt of the interview:

DeMAR: The definition of Christian Reconstruction is simply this: The Bible applies to every facet of life. That means not just the judicial aspects of life, such as civil government, church government, but business, economics -- every facet of society. The Bible has something to say about each area. For example, on homosexuals: We do not believe that homosexuals ought to be executed. The Bible doesn't say that homosexuals ought to be executed. What it says is this: If two men lie together like man and woman, they are to be put to death.

PORTEOUS: What the hell do you think that is?

DeMAR: Well, wait a minute. If a guy comes up to me and he says, "I'm a homosexual," that doesn't mean he's to be executed. If you understand the Scriptures, it says very clearly: If a man comes up to you and says, "I've murdered somebody," that doesn't mean that person ought to be executed.

GONZALES: Oh, so what you are saying, Gary, is, if you catch homosexuals in the act, then the Bible says to execute them.

DeMAR: The Bible lays forth the severest penalty, which would be capital punishment for two men who publicly engage in sodomy.



http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140005

Current Mood: angry
dogemperor [userpic]
Dominionist Watch

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]nebris)

~I was wondering if any one here had heard anything about this American nun getting killed in Brazil on any of the Dominionist news outlets?

dogemperor [userpic]
Dr. Paul Mirecki Hospitalized After Beating

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]ns_kumiho)

Dr. Paul Mirecki hospitalized after beating

Douglas County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported beating of a Kansas University professor who gained recent notoriety for his Internet tirades against Christian fundamentalists.

Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki reported he was beaten by two men about 6:40 a.m. today on a roadside in rural Douglas County. In a series of interviews late this afternoon, Mirecki said the men who beat him were making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks.

Read more... )

---

Thanks [info]oktoberain!

Edit:

[info]vendaz originally reported this on LJ, his post here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/vendaz/74095.html

dogemperor [userpic]
The Paintballin' Evangelist

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]ns_kumiho)

Controversial Christian evangelist and pro-gun campaigner Peter Hammond confirmed he has been charged with assault after what he said was an anti-Hallowe'en spree with a paintball gun.

Hammond, director of the Cape Town-based Frontline Fellowship, an organisation dedicated to "missionary outreach", said he would appear in the Goodwood Magistrate's Court on December 20.

He said last night that he had not touched the gun that day, and that it was accidentally discharged by his 10-year-old son.

"It was not intentional and not malicious," said Hammond, who is a vociferous opponent of South Africa's gun control laws.

He said his family - a wife and four children - did not approve of Hallowe'en, which they saw as an "occult holiday celebrating human sacrifice, witches and goblins".

His children had wanted to do a "counter Hallowe'en", and he had agreed to drive two of them around to "do paintballing" on trick or treating youngsters on October 31.


http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=49&fArticleId=3018665

dogemperor [userpic]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]bennu_)

Cartoon I think you'll appreciate. Read more... )

dogemperor [userpic]
Alternet: Better off without Him?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]iniswitryn)

(Poster's comment: I found this article thought-provoking, a look at the pros and cons of religious inspiration's intersection with the sociopolitical sphere, without gratuitous attack on religious belief.)

Better Off Without Him?

By George Monbiot, AlterNet. Posted October 13, 2005.

"Christian fundamentalists claim religion is associated with lower rates of violence, teen pregnancy and divorce. A new study says they couldn't be more wrong."

Are religious societies better than secular ones? It should be an easy question for athiests to answer.

Most of those now seeking to blow people up -- whether with tanks and missiles or rucksacks and passenger planes -- do so in the name of God. In India, we see men whose religion forbids them to harm insects setting fire to human beings. A 14th-century Pope with a 21st-century communications network sustains his church's mission of persecuting gays and denying women ownership of their bodies. Bishops and rabbis in Britain have just united in the cause of prolonging human suffering, by opposing the legalization of assisted suicide. We know that the most dangerous human trait is an absence of self-doubt, and that self-doubt is more likely to be absent from the mind of the believer than the non-religious infidel.

But we also know that few religious governments have committed atrocities on the scale of Hitler's, Mao's or Stalin's (though, given their more limited means, the Spanish and British in the Americas, the British, Germans and Belgians in Africa, and the British in Australia and India could be said to have done their best). It is hard to dismiss Dostoyevsky's suspicion that "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible."

Nor can we wholly disagree with the new Pope when he warns that "we are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which ... has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." (We must trust, of course, that a man who has spent his life campaigning to become God's go-between, and who now believes he is infallible, is immune to such impulses).

The creationists in the United States might be as mad as a box of ferrets, but what they claim to fear is the question which troubles almost everyone who has stopped to think about it: if our lives have no purpose, why should we care about other people's?

for the full article see http://www.alternet.org/story/26721

dogemperor [userpic]
Boston Globe Editorial: "All God, All the Time"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]britzkrieg)

From the Boston Globe:

When they told us in Sunday School that God is everywhere, they could have been talking about the recent news cycle. With Harriet Miers, we see that God lives in the politics of the US Supreme Court nomination process. In a culture defined by the separation of church and state, President Bush and his allies have mastered the use of religious affirmation as a deflection not only of criticism, but of critical thought. God is thus a trump card, a free pass. If the president, senators, and members of Congress can justify their decisions by appeals to God, why not judges?

...In the argument between creationists and scientists, those aiming to defend God make absolute claims about mysteries of the deep past as if they themselves were there. Air Force flyers have thought of God as their co-pilot in the past, but in today's Air Force, God sits atop the chain-of-command. At the US Air Force Academy, which was rocked by sex scandals not long ago, God is now the designated dean of discipline, but this jeopardizes infidel careers. Unit cohesion requires conversion. Indeed, displays of faith can be a prerequisite for promotion throughout a government where the White House itself is a House of God. In Iraq, meanwhile, someone will turn his body into a bomb today, killing others by blowing himself up while saying, "God is great!"

Full Editorial

dogemperor [userpic]
A Rogue Choir...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]ns_kumiho)

CHARLOTTE HARBOR — The pastor of a Charlotte Harbor church had 16 church members booted from a service after they allegedly refused to stop singing and let the clergyman preach.

Deputies were called at 10 a.m. Saturday by Pastor David Noel of the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Harborview Road.

Noel told a deputy he was instructed by regional church superiors to involve law enforcement to remove the rogue choir.

The deputy issued trespass warnings to the group, and all 16 left the church without incident.

The sheriff's office got another call from the church shortly before noon when a parishioner wanted to file assault charges against Noel.

Edourd Pierrelus, 57, of Port Charlotte, said Noel got mad at him, hit him in the chest and twisted his earlobe during a church service a week earlier.

The man told the deputy the entire congregation of 25 witnessed the attack. Pierrelus said that because of the way the singing dispute was resolved, he now wanted to pursue charges of simple battery.

Deputies say the dispute is rooted in concerns about the handling of church funds. The members of the rogue choir told deputies they'd handle those concerns within the church.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9653226/

Anyone know the story behind all this?

dogemperor [userpic]
[UPDATE} Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' - Report available

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]cheap_laugh)

here

have fun.

Current Mood: artistic
dogemperor [userpic]
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]ccroft)

The Times, England: "RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality. read more... )

URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html

dogemperor [userpic]
With the god on Our side?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]cheap_laugh)

For your edification:
Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’

Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.


(emphasis mine)

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