John H. Burgess
More Ecclesiastical Detriment to Our National Welfare
JOHN H. BURGESS
Perhaps organized religion and its dogma will always be with us while some of us even look for, and insist, that it is inherently hard-wired in our brains. We know for a fact, however, that religion breeds violence and segments of fanaticism that can bring about extremely hurtful social events such as the 9-11 tragedy.
Islamic and Judeo-Christian absolutes in the Koran and Bible are used to justify the most detrimental of religious practices and actions. Yet every religion is without a factual basis. There is virtually no evidence to support their claims of authenticity. Without an iota of objective evidence to support their claims, they proceed to dictate and control the lives of their constituents or parishioners; their mythological superstitious premises create great measures of grief and unhappiness, promoting ignorance and blocking social progress.
There appears to be no insight, on the part of believers, into any aspect of reality nor validity of the religion that may primarily control their lives. They seem to have no notion of how their religion developed and the basis for the social control that it espouses. Meanwhile, the religious appeal to their parishioners is often overwhelming, as the militant aspects of the religion continue to advance on a course leading more and more to a detestable theocracy, while no one seems concerned that such a progression is without a factual basis upon which to proceed.
The Dangerous Aspects of Religion
In the 21st century, we seem to be a nation saturated with a religion that continues to advance despite its detrimental effects. Indeed, the religious right has begun to take over control of the political dialogue. They have, it seems, never to have believed in religious freedom. They believe in a right to ram their fundamentalist brand of fire and brimstone down the throats of others who believe in freedom of and from religion. They lament what they perceive as persecutions they have endured, while engaging in persecutions themselves as justifications. They would use their religious premises as justification. They would use their religion to claim anything they want in the name of God, while producing some bible verse to justify any action they might take.
Their premises are without foundation. how can we describe groups of people who deny the facts about everything from evolution to global warming, and, indeed, why do we have to question a candidate’s religion in the 2008 election. Indeed, it was the religious right antagonists who got us into the Bush mess we’re in now.
Now the religious right continues on the course of indoctrinating everybody, without logic nor objective rationale in their deluded ideas about Christian righteousness. Students at the U.S. Air Force Academy, for example, are being indoctrinated to become what is essentially government-paid Christian missionaries when they leave. The Military Religious freedom Foundation (MRFF) president Mike Weinstein, says that such Christian propaganda is plainly unconstitutional and an outrage to behold. He contends that this is absolutely out of control. You cannot engage the U.S. government to propel your religion. Campus-Crusade-for Christ director, Scott Blom, has even acknowledged that Academy graduates become paid Christian missionaries when they leave their base. A lawsuit has been filed against the Department of Defense for violating service members’ right to religious freedom. A spokesperson for the Campus Crusade for Christ said, “We are careful to comply with all government and Department of Defense policies and regulations which may apply to our ministry with government agencies and employees, and we continue to review the program to ensure continued compliance.”
The Military Ministry fundamentalist group is highly influential. It is a national organization and a subsidiary of the of the Campus Crusade for Christ. It boasts of successfully targeting basic training installations and converting thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity. The military ministry says its staffers are responsible for bringing lost soldiers closer to Christ, building their faith, and sending them out into the world as government paid missionaries. The Christian recruiters say that the young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military for training. The demands of drill sergeants push recruits to the edge. We target specific locations, the recruiters say, like Lackland Air Force Base, Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country which are excellent locations to pursue indoctrination goals. Mike Weinstein’s groups has been closely watching the Military Ministry’s activities, and has said that using the machinery of the state to promote any form of religion is not only unconstitutional and un-American, but creates a national security threat. In an extreme case, for example, consider the intensively indoctrinated soldier who has been elevated to a top decision-making position. What could keep him, in his fundamentalist beliefs, from using nuclear weapons to achieve the final rapture promised in their dogma.
An investigation by MRFF has found the military ministry’s staff to have successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with approval of the bases top commanders.
Weinstein has said that we are creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban, and something has to be done about it. The Pentagon’s inspector (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by the MRFF accusing the Pentagon of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. One high ranking military officer said he believed his participation was acceptable since Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon’s operations that he saw the Christian program as a quasi federal entity. Blom, the Campus Crusade director, said the program has always gone after the leaders and future leaders to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. The purpose, according to Blom, is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the air force academy and around the world. A promotional video, for example, shows soldiers holding a bible in one hand and a rifle in the other. The program gives the impression that the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization, and underscores the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan to be more of a modern day crusade that could lead to more jihads from the Muslims. Weinstein says that the White House “thumbs its nose’ at the constitutional mandate for the separation of church and state.
The Islamic counterparts are indoctrinating their constitutes in the words of the Koran and Allah’s mandates. We must ask, indeed, where in all this is the voice of sanity. Different observers, of course, have different views. One observer, for example, asks how else are we going to fight Muslim extremists unless we create Christian extremists. Another looks at it in a more emotional manner and claims: “This is the sickest shit. Those kids look and sound like some brainwashed zombies under the dictum, ‘get ‘em while their young and mess them up for life. Religion is, has been and seems will always be the bane of mankind and these are the darkest of ages.”
What Can be Done
If, as freethinkers, we would hope to end such embedded detrimental Christian doctrine, we must forever pursue the objective aspects of religion/ for example, it behooves us to naturalize religion — take it out of the supernatural. Only then will it lose its potency and make the nation more rational. We must study and show where the supernatural claims come from — how they are merely mythological, derived from the pagan gods to become the Christian god, etc., the, and only the, with persistence, will people see religion to be unsupported by factual reality, and how detrimental it can be.
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