Lies About Commitment to Faith Will Cost Republicans, Report says
President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it.
Read the entire thing here.
NB: Part of this backlash is the result of Tempting Faith by David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As his expose makes the rounds and is more widely read by conservative and/or evangelical Christians who believed (or made themselves believe) they were doing right by becoming a functioning arm of a political party, they may be shocked to discover what many of the rest of us discerned some time ago: they were being manipulated and used by a political party for political benefit. What is perhaps worse since it is damaging to the Good News and the institutions of the Church universal, is how easily and willingly, many evangelical and conservative Christians have been to become part of a right wing political machine utterly divorced from the imperatives and dictates of the actual words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Read the entire thing here.
NB: Part of this backlash is the result of Tempting Faith by David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As his expose makes the rounds and is more widely read by conservative and/or evangelical Christians who believed (or made themselves believe) they were doing right by becoming a functioning arm of a political party, they may be shocked to discover what many of the rest of us discerned some time ago: they were being manipulated and used by a political party for political benefit. What is perhaps worse since it is damaging to the Good News and the institutions of the Church universal, is how easily and willingly, many evangelical and conservative Christians have been to become part of a right wing political machine utterly divorced from the imperatives and dictates of the actual words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
posted by The AoM at 10/24/2006 12:00:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hello Admiral and readers,
Here's a little insight into this whole situation and what it really means. Remember, scoffing causes blindness.
The time has arrived for those blinded by religion to open their eyes, see the light, and help me vanquish the sword they have been deceived into supporting and wielding.
David Kuo's book, Tempting Faith, does nothing to dispel claims of an American theocracy as some are asserting. In fact, he has inadvertently provided stunning insights into their true nature and purpose. No leader of an empire ever truly believes the religions used to manipulate subjects. That would be like a drug dealer hooked on his product; its bad for business...
Understanding why religion is strong delusion
Christians often quote things like "know them by their fruits," yet after millennia of being duped into abetting blatantly evil scoundrels, many still don't understand the meaning or import of much of what they read. The same canon paradoxically propounds "faith," which means the complete opposite of "know them by their fruits," i.e., to discern the truth by analyzing deeds and results (works) and to weigh actions instead of merely believing what is said.
The deceptive circular logic of posing a fantasy messiah who urges both discernment of the truth and faith (belief without proof) clearly represents a skillful and purposeful effort to impose ignorance and confusion through "strong delusion." Any sage worth his salt could understand the folly of this contradictory so-called wisdom. This and mountains of evidence demonstrate that faith and religion are the opposite of truth and wisdom. It is no wonder charlatans like Rove, Bush, and others have marked Christians as dupes to be milked as long and as hard as possible. Any accomplished con artist easily recognizes religion as the ultimate scam and fervent followers as ready-made marks and dupes.
We now live in an era where science has proven so much about the vastness, rationality, mathematical preciseness, and structural orderliness throughout every level of our 11-dimension universe. Nonetheless, large percentages of people still conclude that these flawed and contradictory religious canons are the unmodified and infallible "word of God." People who can't (or won't) discern the difference between truth and belief are easily misled about the differences between good and evil, wisdom and folly, perfection and error, reason and irrationality, and right and wrong.
The fact that political leaders have always had close relationships with religious leaders while cooperating to manipulate followers to gain wealth and power is overwhelming evidence that the true purpose of religion is deception and delusion. People who are unable to effectively discern basic moral choices or to reason accurately are easily indoctrinated to follow the dictates of national and imperial leaders who wrap themselves in religious pretense. Truth and wisdom are direct threats to the existence and power of empires. That is why imperial leaders always strive to hide so-called secret knowledge and impose deception and ignorance upon their subjects.
What then is the purpose of "faith" but to prevent otherwise good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom?
Read More...
Peace...
Seven star,
Your post tends to throw out the baby with the bath water. It conflates abuse of religion, the subject of the article, with the ueslessness of religion, and then turns this, into the foolishness of faith itself.
A comparable analogy might be to note how automobiles might be misused; then to note that it is foolish to ever have created the automobile in the first place; then to state, that it is foolish to invent anything at all.
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