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  • American Fascism is Alive and Well

    In a previous post entitled “Resisting Fascism in your home town” It was illustrated how the CEF, the Child Evangelism Fellowship has infiltrated the schools as a result of an intentional ruling by the Supreme Court in 2001, allowing access under the cloak of the First Amendment. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas presented a judgment in a case where a church was suing for access to a school after hours. In Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools the Supreme Court ruled that the public schools may not discriminate against speech that takes place within that forum on the basis of the viewpoint it expresses—in this case, against religious speech engaged in by an evangelical Christian club for children.

    The Child Evangelism Fellowship was not the only fundamentalist cult waiting in the wings for such a crack in the Wall of Separation between Church and State. Baptist fundamentalists as well as a variety of “roaming” evangelists are rushing into the schools to take advantage of this new “harvest field”. In effect, this ruling that gives churches access to public schools, during after hours, at little to no cost, amounts to a subsidy of religious activities by taxpayer dollars. An absolute violation of the Separation of the Church and State.

    Fundamentalist religious organizations under the guise of providing informational instruction are instead proselytizing to students, gaining converts, which are then prompted by the instructors to approach and proselytize their fellow students, whose parents decided not to allow their child to get involved with the after hours religious instruction. The goal is complete conversion of the 4 to 14 age group children.

    These are not the middle of the road religious organizations teaching Bobby or Suzy moral concepts, and moderate religious views. These are hell-fire, end-of-the-world fundamentalist evangelizers. That is precisely what they teach the children to say to their friends. What you, as a parent have to decide is: do you want your little boy or girl walking up to their friends and point blank telling them that they are going to hell? Is it really something desirable that at an age where a child should be playing that they should instead be speaking to the other children about religion, asserting that they are sinners, that salvation by way of Jesus is the only thing that will save them from hell, and that they had better hurry up because the world could end tomorrow?

    Should a church that has been given access to the schools after hours by way of deceptive rulings concerning free speech be permitted to strike fear into the hearts and minds of small children for the purposes of motivating them to proselytize to fellow students who for whatever reason were excluded from the attendance of these religious predators?

    One definition of fascism states: 2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any ideology, movement, program, tendency, etc., that may be characterized as right-wing, chauvinist, authoritarian, etc.. This movement of religious organizations into schools certainly is far right, definitely authoritarian, and fundamentalism is most often very chauvinistic.

    Children are very trusting of adult figures at the ages for which these programs are aimed. They do not have the wherewithal to ascertain whether they are being lied to or not. Just as they are obedient to their teacher, this intruder into the public schools is seen as a teacher. Having been enrolled by their parents, in which they have complete trust, what would cause them to doubt? Parents who think that they are enrolling their little pride and joy in a class for the purpose of a little moral instruction are being deceived.

    If the CEF and others are successful in their mission to proselytize and convert the generation coming up then we can expect to see a continuing devolvement of intellectual reasoning as well as technological achievement. Why should a student be expected to excel in achievement, after all, the world is ending tomorrow, isn’t it?

    ( Please read the book “The Good News Club” by Katherine Stewart, for more information)

  • Resisting Fascism in Your Home Town

    Adolph Hitler founded a youth group movement in 1923 which he called the Hitler youth. He realized that to gain control of the people he would have to start with it’s youth. He ingrained within the youth members the idea that Nazi beliefs were the only true ideas and that embracing these ideas would make Germany the greatest country in the world. He created nationalists within the ranks of the Hitler Youth, nationalists who grew to despise the rest of the world, considering all other nations inferior. Hatred was fanned for all other races, and for those who rejected the idea of such hatred. The Hitler Youth were directed to report everyone who rejected the ideas of Nazism, even their own parents.

    Now let us turn to present day, to a school, possibly near you. Let’s talk about “The Good News Club”, also known as “Child Evangelism Fellowship” (CEF). The Child Evangelism Fellowship was formed by Jesse Overholtzer in 1937, presently headquartered in Warrenton, Missouri. There are currently “Good News Clubs” in over 3000 elementary schools in the United States. On June 11, 2001 the USA Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing CEF’s Good News Clubs to meet in public elementary schools after school hours, based on equal access and protection from viewpoint discrimination. There is more Christianity in today’s schools than in the last 100 years.

    Parents in school districts across the nation by consenting to allowing their child to attend these after school activities of the CEF are providing the church in Missouri thousands of new adherents. The children are urged by their CEF handlers to witness to their parents as well as other children in the schools they attend.

    The methods used by these elementary school evangelists to attract the tots whom they wish to convert include the distribution of candy and cookies.

    Children are instructed that they are born sinners in need of salvation. The classes include methods children can use for personal growth, including prayer, studying the Bible, and sharing their beliefs with other children. These classes, it is plainly stated, are “for the purposes of converting the children to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the word of God, and establish them in a Bible-believing church for Christian living”.

    When the CEF approaches a school for the purposes of installing a “Good News Club”, they describe the club as a form of “moral instruction” from a “religious perspective”. Truthfully so, but they leave out the rest, the part about the teaching of religious doctrine, in which the club also engages. 

    The CEF, in their own literature, describes public schools as “mission fields”, and the evangelization process in the schools as “harvest work”.  Children of other faiths are considered unsaved and in need of salvation.

    In short, the CEF program became a source of disruption and division in many schools as people of other faiths began to feel alienated. Many parents had mistakenly assumed that since it was allowed to operate within a school building that the CEF program would be a kind of neutral harmless Bible club. However, the CEF is a fundamentalist type of Christianity. It is intentionally exclusive of Muslims or Jews, nor even liberal Methodists or Catholics, which for the CEF are simply people who must be converted.

    Whereas parents can understand that such groups, holding session after hours on school property, are not endorsed by schools, children do not have this same luxury and look upon the CEF teachers as having every bit as much authority as the regular public school teachers. Schools, after all, are compelled legally, by our Judicial system,  to allow entities like the CEF, which are not part of the school system, into the public schools. Just as children at elementary school age are ripe for proselytizing because of their pliable and trusting nature they are just as incapable of reasoning that just because a club is in a school does not mean it is endorsed by the school. However, this is the way the CEF wants to be perceived… as part of the school. When offered space in a nearby church, the CEF consistently refuses to move.

    I would suggest any parent read :

    The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children by Katherine Stewart,

    Read it before you commit little Bobby or Suzy to The Good News Club.

  • Republican Right’s Hostile Assault on America’s Schools

    “Keep ‘em Ignorant.” This has become the technique which the conservative right within the Republican party has chosen to instill their ideas and beliefs within the minds of the gullible. One of the obstacles standing in their way of controlling the minds of it’s targeted audience is the schools. As a result the conservative right has made a concerted organized effort to infiltrate public school boards for the purpose of disrupting, neutralizing, and eventually destroying the public school system from within.

    “Conservative Christian parents have aligned themselves with religious-right political organizations to take control of local school boards–more than 2,000 of them, a leader of one religious-right group claims.”

    The Religious right has a plan to make this nation into the “Christian Nation” which they wrongly assert is what it was intended to be. As long as the nation’s schools teach the truth about history this plan is stymied. In an effort to force public schools out of existence by whatever means and establish church run local schools in their stead, they have adopted various means: If the history as presented isn’t to your liking, rewrite it, and that is precisely what is going on in the State of Texas. Taking over local public school boards and creating conflict by trying to establish Christian concepts into the schools, a literal dumbing down of our education system. Advocating voucher systems in an attempt to drain funds and thereby starve the public school system.

    The Republican political right has adopted a new means to help their corporate buddies. They have for several years now promoted “Sound Science” whenever there is some scientific data that restricts or warns business that what they are doing is bad for the planet. “Sound Science”? Who couldn’t be for “Sound Science”. Unfortunately it is a term adopted by the right to denigrate, dismiss legitimate science on the grounds that said science is not totally absolutely assured in their conclusions. From climate warming, second-hand smoke, to the poisoning of the environment by various industrial chemicals, science has faced attacks by this new insistence on “sound science” by the Republican right, an insistence whose sole purpose is to delay, dismiss, or obscure the truth about each specific issue. The Republicans appear willing to allow the environment of this planet to be destroyed all for the sake of a fast buck.

    And now, we have Mitt Romney, a Mormon, racing for the presidency. Mormons have railed against the government consistently, infiltrating not only public schools, but government institutions in general. The objective: starve the beast (the U.S. government), how easy this will become with one of their own in the highest office of the land.

  • Born in Sin, Come on In….

    The central defining point of Christianity is that everyone from birth is born in sin. This is credited to the original sin of Eve eating of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong, and then getting Adam to do the same. The tiny innocent baby is considered sinful from birth. This child, knowing nothing, is then subjected over time to a doctrine which creates a self-loathing perspective and a basis for presenting a scenario for which the child needs redemption. That redemption, through blood, is provided by the story of Jesus’ crucifixion.

    How barbaric! It’s the same old story, somewhat, but not entirely detached, from the ancient ritual of sacrificing a pure and innocent virgin to a volcano for the appeasement of an angry god.

    The Judaic religion, early on, was all about human sacrifice to the gods.(Correction, animal sacrifice was the enduring feature of Judaism, not human sacrifice, I have found no evidence of human sacrifice references as of this correction. However, there are many references in the Bible indicating that such was the case.Ezekiel 20:25-26. There is the cruel command god gave to Abram(Honored Father.  ) to sacrifice his favored child Isaac. In several passages God appears to have a great propensity for killing his people. Circumcision was seen as a substitute for human sacrifice, which seems to indicate there had been sacrifices in the deep past) As time went on this was seen as barbaric and a lamb was substituted. This practice, which to my knowledge, has been abandoned also due to changing social moral standards.

    The Christians, however, though also abandoning such practices, still needed a way to procure atonement for imagined sins(and to keep the faithful, faithful), and so the story of Jesus’ self-less act was fabricated.

    1 Corinthians 11:24…and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.”

    Even cannibalism is symbolized in the above scripture. Jesus is described as the Lamb of God, a pure innocent for the altar of sacrifice.

    Everything in Christianity rides on the original sin committed by two individuals who are presented as the beginnings of humankind. If they did not exist then the whole house of cards collapses. Science has determined the impossibility of a scenario that the human race began with one sole couple. It does not end there, as science reveals the truth, Christianity concedes ever more, and now the whole of Adam and Eve is viewed as an allegory by many. A symbolic story. A fabrication.

    How they can continue is a mystery, without Adam and Eve there is no original sin, no need for atonement. The whole house of cards is in shambles.

    How so much like a virus this mind worm behaves. It adapts to every intrusion into it’s realm and creates a basis for continuing the faith despite it’s absurdity. There is no evidence that can be offered, no logical reasoning that can be presented, for which some abstract and twisted reasoning cannot be conceived which will keep the faithful intact.

    Even without the foundation, Adam and Eve, without the original sin, people continue to loath themselves as sinful, and imagine humanity doomed unless the premise presented by a book written thousands of years into humanity’s infancy, is accepted. A book, recopied so many times, from copies, as the originals no longer exist. The Bible is so flawed, rearranged, deleted books, inserted books, the end product is so badly written that my father, while drunk, could have written a better one. I suspect that much of what was written in the Bible was written while the author was inebriated or otherwise high on some contemporary drug present at the time.

    Fear is the basis of religious faith. Fear of death, desire for an afterlife, a fear of the unknown, drives people to seek a remedy. Their lives were much shorter than today’s people. They were self-aware, experienced life much in the same way as people today and were horrified at the prospect of it’s finiteness. The experience of consciousness, the ability of the brain to present the illusion of self-awareness, made them reject the idea that it all came to an end with death. It didn’t matter that there was no evidence of anything continuing after death, no soul, they imagined themselves carrying on in some distant location which they imagined as heaven where they would see once again the relatives which long ago perished. Seeing evil in the world, they also could not imagine that some individuals would show up in that ideal world, hell was invented. There had to be some discerning mechanism to determine who went to heaven, there had to be a test, a measure of each individual, for entry into the heavenly realm. The first tests were no doubt extremely hard to pass and so it came to be that simple faith, belief, would be sufficient. Perhaps a rebirth is in order.

    The need for proof was bypassed by claiming that God, and heaven, simply are not knowable or seeable by human beings. In this way it could be offered without proof, playing on fear, and be invulnerable to scientific scrutiny. Present day Christians are a product of two thousand years plus of refinement of text. Once it inhabits an individuals psyche it is very difficult to dislodge, and though tempered, the fear often remains long after leaving one of the many cults which comprise Christianity.

    To conclude: It is obvious that religions, worldwide, were born of fear of death, peoples’ fear of ceasing to exist. It is obvious that original sin was invented to capture and retain a group of adherents within a closed society. Religion as it is today, refined in form, is a method of controlling subjects, making them quiescent and obedient. With the nature of the beast of religion, comes self-loathing, self-deprecation, and a slave type mentality. In this way these subjects passively accept and support efforts of those in charge even when those efforts are not in the best interests of themselves. They will support wars generated by their rulers, although it is they who will do all the dying. They will support policies which will leave them in poverty, disease, and perpetual misery; for who are they, the lowest of the lowly, to object?

  • Terminology

    Tolerance: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own.

    This is the Merriam-Webster definition.

    Indulgence: allowance.

    To be tolerant of another’s beliefs is to acknowledge that they have a right to hold those beliefs. It does not mean that you must respect those beliefs, nor is it a sign of intolerance to belittle or denigrate those beliefs which are without foundation, held without evidence.

    An individual can be shown respect as an individual, even if that individuals belief system is baseless, and without foundation.

    Open minded: to be receptive to arguments or ideas. It does not mean acceptance of those ideas or arguments without facts or evidence to back them up. It is not Close-minded to be critical of unfounded baseless arguments, ideas, or beliefs.

    Most requests for open-mindedness from those proffering unfounded claims lacking evidence are really requests for gullibility. If a request for open-mindedness is not quickly followed by information backed by evidence then the request is in truth merely a plea for you to accept the idea , claim, or argument, on faith alone.

    no respect for religion

  • Republican lies

    Republican lies, read… Conservative lies. Conservatives tend to support the Republican party. Conservatives tend to be religious, and having learned how to deceive from the experts in the pulpits, are masters of deception. From a perspective skewed by belief, nothing said by such people is exactly as it appears.

    Some of the major players are prominently displayed on a daily basis, spewing hatred, bigotry, and deceit, courtesy of radio and TV. They speak from what they say is a moral pillar, but is in truth, just the opposite. We get half-truths, and outright lies daily from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the darling of conservatives, and that maniac, near lunatic, Glenn Beck. Fox News, a central collector of decrepit sewage, twists, obfuscates, and generally distorts truth and morality to suit it’s own bought and paid for opinions. Like parrots, chirping in unison, the general conservative public at large, takes up the chant. They actually believe the lies, like tax breaks for the rich brings jobs. They watch the jobs go overseas and down south across the border, and observe the rich getting richer, and still vote for the conservative ticket, wholesale.

    Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly accused Obama of desiring the destruction of this country, denigrated Obamas efforts at every opportunity, and cheered on those who worked tirelessly to undermine every effort Obama has made to remedy the economy bequeathed him by Bush. It is my opinion that Rush and Glenn have the same problem. They are both racists, as are many conservatives. Never have I seen such lies told about any Democrat by those on the other side of the aisle, until now.

    That, and the imminent approaching need for the possible appointment of new Supreme court justices has left the Republican Party in such frantic need to make sure a second term for Obama never sees the light of day, that all stops have been pulled, and no matter how underhanded the act; full speed ahead.

    Obama, meanwhile, not anyone’s darling candidate, remains the best hope for America. While not a strong figure, in fact one that holds finger to the wind, he is heads above Mitt Romney, whose only concern, is for himself. I want Obama to have a second term, unfettered, to see if he is capable of more, as I think he is. Perhaps without the pressure of another election he will take those hard steps which the nation needs. Those steps will no doubt lead to a republican president thereafter, elected by a dense and ignorant base, but maybe at least one step can be taken in the right direction before then.

    Any working man that votes Republican is an self-deprecating self-loathing, ignorant idiot.

  • Public Image

    In the pursuit of equality in civil rights struggles it does not further the cause to adopt concepts and language which the public at large finds offensive. I am not talking of criticism of many of the publics faults, belief systems, but of common manners.

    Feminism seems to think that to have equality with men they must adopt the behavior of men. There are many men who are crude in expressing themselves, and seem expected to be so. The general public, seeing many feminists adopting male crudeness, react negatively, and rightly so. Equality does not mean equal crudeness.

    Atheists seem to have found a fascination with the “F” word of late. Whatever it is they are trying to change by profuse use of the word is not working. Instead, the public at large sees vindication for their preconceived notions about atheists. Most of the atheists I know are intellectual in persuasion, and certainly have no need of the use of such a word in expressing themselves plainly and convincingly.

    Desensitization may be the goal of these efforts. Perhaps it is hoped that by such actions barriers to all sorts of behavior, held in the minds of the public as chicanery, will be broken. Is civilized behavior to be thrown out the window? Should there be couples coupling on the street corner? Should drug use be free to proliferate? Should all the monsters of the ID, be released? Chaos is not a desirable state of being.

    I am an atheist, yet for me, common morality includes moral decency. Decency is defined by the society you are living in. Some change is undesirable. Despite the need to be equally recognized, demonized groups need to exercise common decency, otherwise they risk living up to the preconceived convictions held by the public in general. This impedes the cause.

    To exercise common moral decency does not mean that valid and strong arguments have to be sanitized. A few insults sometimes leaves a seed for people to think about. However, insult ideas, concepts, not people, and present the information clearly enough so even the most dense stoop knows what direction you are going. Use reason and knowledge, and make sure your opponent in an argument knows that when you say the world ignorant, that ignorant does not mean stupid. Know your audience… and know what is commonly decent among them.

    If the audience thinks you are a sewer rat, you won’t change their mind by spewing sewage.

  • Balloon Flowers

    The balloon flower, or Chinese bellflower (platycodon grandiflorus), is a late-blooming perennial admired for its color and shape. The flower is blue, and as the bud opens, it inflates into the shape of a balloon until it reveals bell-shaped flowers upon opening. It blooms in July and August.

    Well, that’s the way the website describes them. And yet… here it is mid-June, and ours are already blooming.

    100_1819The 12th

    100_183214th

    100_183615th

  • A Population Out of Control

    Last year another milestone was reached by human beings: Population reached 7 billion mark. In a world already struggling, and failing, to meet the nutritional needs of it’s inhabitants this was not one of our shining moments. In impoverished and uneducated parts of the world the population continues to expand.

    Human population growth is proceeding at levels which are outstripping the means to maintain them. If we were only a small number such growth rates would be necessary, yet, as vast as we are in number, the growth proceeds at rates as if we were recovering from near extinction.

    The reasons for such growth are myriad. In the past many children were necessary as many of them did not make it past childhood. Medicine has improved and now death in childhood is major news. Due to such improvements in medical care people are living longer than ever before. Diseases which were death sentences at one time in history are no longer a controlling factor on population. Even the many wars which humans engage in are no longer a limiting factor to population growth, and as population continues to grow unabated such wars will become more frequent as struggles for dwindling resources will increase.

    Food production has improved as well, making food cheap and plentiful in progressive nations even allowing for distribution to far points of the world. This growth of food production has it’s limits and is governed by weather and by availability of suitable agricultural area. One horrendous weather related calamity and food prices will soar out of reach and a vast segment of humanity will starve. Starvation is not a desirable mode for controlling population growth.

    Human beings realize that population is an important consideration in the animal world. Since humankind has eliminated many of the predators it is necessary to limit the growth of animal populations of those remaining. Deer, left to themselves will proliferate beyond the capacities of the land to support them. So we cull the herds, sometimes sending out groups of individuals to take “game” which is then provided to agencies for distribution. Our domestic animals, pets, are also controlled through neutering or spaying as well as euthanasia.

    With our population growth out of control we are expanding into every nook and cranny of this planet. As a result habitats available for the varieties of other creatures on the planet are decreasing. Many species have gone completely extinct and many others are headed in that direction. The diversity of this planet is being eliminated.

    Taboos against contraception and abortion of unwanted pregnancies continue to hamper the curtailment of this unprecedented growth of the human population. The consideration of the preciousness of human life, though commendable and necessary, has led to unceasing growth, and eventually life as we know it will not be worth living. We are headed towards a disaster predicted by Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek series of the 60’s. The “Mark of Gideon”, where a people had eliminated all disease, where death became a desirable element. People were living a nightmare where population had grown to such proportions that they were crammed shoulder to shoulder. To return their planet to a manageable population these people were determined to reintroduce disease.

    Religious groups and others they have persuaded to join them continue to villanize  contraception and abortion. Family planning agencies are frequently protested along with abortion clinics. Abortion clinics have been bombed by fanatics.

    Where is the value of life when life is undesirable? Life is precious and can only be kept so when life is enjoyable. Continued population growth will make life less precious by making it miserable. Progress in stemming the tide of growth will never occur as long as a majority of people guided by belief in an ancient tome 3400 years old, that promotes procreation with abandonment, continues to oppose it. As long as a majority continues to believe it will be rescued from such a fate by imagined deities returning to Earth there will be no efforts toward managing this growth of population, nor will there be any efforts at preserving the Earth for future generations.

    A question was put to Yahoo Answers:

    “Mankind is slowly, but surely, destroying the Earth, is that also part of “god’s plan”?

    The best answer chosen:

    “Yes, the quality of the earth means nothing to those who await their entrance into heaven.”

  • An Outrage

    Imagine the public outrage at the following possible, fictitious headline:

    MUSLIM LANDOWNER FORCES REMOVAL OF CHRISTIAN BILLBOARD!

    There would be no end to complaints of violation of free speech.

    Or:

    ATHEIST LANDOWNER FORCES REMOVAL OF CHRISTIAN BILLBOARD!

    Both cases would be a violation of free speech. Why is it that the following headline would be accepted as justice by 70% of Americans?

    CHRISTIAN LANDOWNER FORCES REMOVAL OF ATHEIST BILLBOARD!

    or:

    MUSLIM LANDOWNER FORCES REMOVAL OF ATHEIST BILLBOARD!

    The plain truth is that religion must stifle free speech for in the face of actual truth, the pseudo-truth of religion withers. This is why Christianity, despite claims to the contrary, is waging war on the Constitution of the United States, and has waged war upon it, since it’s inception. Without the ability to control the government and the courts Christianity is powerless to enforce it’s dogma upon the public at large. Life under a Christian concept of God’s Law would be no more tolerable than life under Sharia Law, or for that matter under anyone’s rigid religious dictates.

    Stifling of free speech, be it Atheist, Christian, or Muslim is a diminishment of guaranteed Constitutional rights. It is an admission by the oppressor that the ideas he/she proposes cannot withstand a debate and can prevail only if other ideas are suppressed or eliminated.

    There are those who would accept the negative publicity generated by the stifling of free speech in such an oppression of Constitutional rights as promoting the cause of the oppressed. There are others, like myself, who see it as a perpetuation of the stigma generated by the religious against anyone who detracts from, or opposes, their tyranny.

    For the story behind this blog go here.