Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children to Death

[Serafina]

According to who, you? Once again dude, this is all empirical fact here. Europe OBJECTIVELY has a bigger problem with sex slavery than the US because of its relaxed prostitution laws. Studies have confirmed this, and politicians in these nations acknowledge it as fact.

I challenge you to post these studies.

So far, you have ignored all other possible causes for this fact - such as the higher availability due to close proximity to "suppliers" or genereally opener borders.

[PkbonupePeter_Kcos8]

I challenge you to post these studies.

So far, you have ignored all other possible causes for this fact - such as the higher availability due to close proximity to "suppliers" or genereally opener borders.

I already did. Look further back in the thread.

The "Europe Reconsiders Prostitution Laws" article was especially useful for these purposes.

[Simon_Jester]

The sad part is that, in many parts of the Third World, it actually is. I've heard plenty of stories about medical clinics in dire need of supplies being packed to the roof with boxes of condoms and contraceptives instead.
I will try and find a source for this claim.

Good luck.

Specifically, this is the part of the "Zero Population Growth" argument which I have a problem with as there is little to no empirical evidence in either historical industrialization or current efforts to suggest that this is actually the case. Everyone simply seems to assume that it is and try to silence any opinion which tries to state otherwise.

They try to silence opinions only when those opinions appear foolish, such as when some random person pops up and repeatedly ignores the argument that there is not enough food to feed infinity people.

If you attempt to ask why, the answer you will inevitably recieve is some red herring along the lines of "global warming...*mumble, mumble*...poverty...*mumble, mumble*" ...

On the contrary. Most of them are quite above-board about the argument that there is not enough food to feed infinity people.

Question: which is cheaper, birth control for one couple or feeding one person?

Which is not only cheaper, but better for a man in the longrun; giving him a fish, or teaching him to fish?

That is not an answer to the question, as you are surely wise enough to know.
__________

A government is busily running around trying to increase agricultural production, after the disastrous damage done by a previous administration of incompetent morons. They are already trying to produce food for roughly 20% of the human race on roughly 7 to 8% of the world's cropland. By longstanding custom, rural families have roughly four children apiece. The government has recently introduced semimodern medical care to the country, so that infant mortality has dropped down into the single digits- of those four children, all will probably survive to adulthood, instead of two or three.

You are inadvertently offering a false analogy by ommitting one major fact; China never would have had such problems with famine if Mao hadn't wrecked Chinese agriculture in the interests of forcing breakneck pace industrialization to begin with. In this case, population control was a direct measure intended to cover up for the general incompetence of the Chinese government.

A government is busily running around trying to increase agricultural production, after the disastrous damage done by a previous administration of incompetent morons.

I must ask how and why you overlooked the part I just underlined? Mao was the incompetent moron. Also, Mao died in 1976, the year before the One Child policy was enacted.

So yes, the One Child policy was an attempt to control damage caused by incompetent government policy. However, we cannot reach backwards in time and undo damage done by idiots in the past; we can only stop being idiots and hope that the damage does not carry on into the future.

Imagine that we made the Chinese government go bye-bye in 1977 and replaced them with you. What would you have done differently? What option could you pursue that would be less wrong than forced birth control?

3) The government can attempt to find more land within its own borders to farm.

Theoretically, this would be a great solution if there were any to be had. Unfortunately, as is true in most of the world, practically all the land the government controls that can be farmed is being farmed, as intensively as local infrastructure allows. Expanding farming within the government's borders would require extensive land reclamation projects, at a very high cost in labor and resources per acre. To make matters worse, the reclaimed land would often not be viable in the long term, because it would only be farmable at the expense of draining non-renewable resources like water and oil-based fertilizers. Eventually, this newly claimed land would become desert once again, the farms on it would fail, and the food supplied by those farms would be gone. At which point we're back to option (1), mass death on a scale that makes the Holocaust look petty.

Would this be right?

If at all possible, I would go with this option. If handled properly, there is no reason why it could not work.

Thank you for answering my question.

There is no reason this could not work... except, well, science. Look, Pete, consider the following:

1)As I said, China had roughly 20% of the world population at the time. In 1975, their population was roughly 900 million. The world population was just over four billion (same source). Thus... somewhere around 23 to 25%. Today, it's more like 20%.

2)China does NOT have 23 to 25% of the world's arable land. As of 2001, it had roughly 1.4 million square kilometers (half a million square miles, give or take). The world's total arable land is [https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/xx.html]about 10% of the total[/url], which adds up to 15 million square kilometers (about five to six million square miles, give or take).

3)Therefore, China is ALREADY trying to maintain 20% of the world's population on 10% of the world's farmland. This is after over three decades of land reclamation efforts since 1977 and after decades of the One Child policy.

Now, rewind to 1977. You can predict roughly how much more land you will be able to cultivate. Remember that there are limits: areas where the soil is too thin to support anything more than low-intensity cattle ranching, the sides of mountains, the middle of the Gobi Desert, and so on. These areas cannot be farmed. Areas near them might be farmed, but only for a few years, so they do not count for purposes of avoiding long term famines caused by a permanent shortage of food compared to the number of mouths to feed.

But allowing for those limits, and given how much labor and capital your government has, you can predict how much land you will be able to make arable in the next thirty years, ending in 2007. You can also predict how much existing farmland will be lost to things like the growth of cities and to salinization caused by over-irrigation of dry soil.
____________

Now, suppose that the Chinese equivalent of the Department of Agriculture comes to you and says "Look, boss, we can only increase the total area under cultivation by maybe another 10 or 20% in the next thirty years, and even that's pushing it."

And that's a pretty likely estimate, because China has been farmed for five thousand years. In China, if there is a patch of land where a peasant farmer can raise a crop reliably, you can bet that there is a peasant farmer raising a crop there. The only areas that can still be brought under cultivation are the ones that cannot be farmed at all without modern technology. Like really huge irrigation projects, so huge that even millenia of Chinese emperors commanded forced labor battalions of many thousands could not build them. But projects like that are expensive. China can only afford so many of them, and most of them will only add relatively marginal land that is less fertile than the areas already being cultivated.

Again, assume that you can't increase the available supply of arable land by more than 10% or 20% in the next thirty years. Your country is ALREADY suffering famines, because Mao reduced agricultural productivity while trying to increase the population at the same time. You're trying to undo the harm he did in agriculture, but will that be enough? Remember, at four children per family, the population will triple in thirty years' time. And that was the average back in 1977.

So, when 2007 rolls around, can you bet on being able to feed 2.7 billion people on a maximum of six hundred thousand square miles of farmland? Which is, again, more than the Chinese actually have today; we're assuming that they do more to bring in new farmland than the large amount they actually did.

Or heck, let's be ridiculously generous. Assume that for every two square miles of land China is actually farming, there's another one they could have farmed if they really wanted to. That brings us up to 750000 square miles. So I ask you, Oh Great Leader: can you do it? Can you support 2.7 billion people on three quarters of a million square miles of farm land?

[Liberty]

Could a mod please split this thread, making this entire adult entertainment industry/sex trade/condoms for Africa tangent it's own thread? It really has nothing to do with the original news story or fundamentalist views on child training.

[Serafina]

I challenge you to post these studies.

So far, you have ignored all other possible causes for this fact - such as the higher availability due to close proximity to "suppliers" or genereally opener borders.

I already did. Look further back in the thread.

The "Europe Reconsiders Prostitution Laws" article was especially useful for these purposes.

I do not want an article.
You claimed there were (scientific) studies. Post (link) them. Multiple of them, since you claimed just that.

Could a mod please split this thread, making this entire adult entertainment industry/sex trade/condoms for Africa tangent it's own thread? It really has nothing to do with the original news story or fundamentalist views on child training.

Yes, i think this is more than appropriate - especially since this discussion seems to approach HoS-levels anyway.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Could a mod please split this thread, making this entire adult entertainment industry/sex trade/condoms for Africa tangent it's own thread? It really has nothing to do with the original news story or fundamentalist views on child training.

Or, I'll transliterate my spontaneous utterance upon seeing this... caca de toro en fuego still spewing into this thread:

"Oh my fucking god, will someone stop the fucking bleeding!"

[PkbonupePeter_Kcos8]

They try to silence opinions only when those opinions appear foolish

Which is entirely subjective, and susceptable to the biases of the individuals involved.

Additionally, preposterous strawman arguments like this...

repeatedly ignores the argument that there is not enough food to feed infinity people.

...hardly help your argument. My entire point here has been that there aren't going to be "infinity people" to begin with. Population growth tends to trend downwards in correlation to industrialization and social development.

You are trying to force a "false dilemma" which need not exist.

That is not an answer to the question, as you are surely wise enough to know.

Simply saying "we need less people" and enhancing the productivity of a nation in order to gradually bring about not only less people, but a much more developed nation, are hardly equal solutions.

Imagine that we made the Chinese government go bye-bye in 1977 and replaced them with you. What would you have done differently? What option could you pursue that would be less wrong than forced birth control?

Ideally, China never would have fallen under the influence of a radical Stalinist fruit-bat to begin with. Failing that, however; I would have done much the same as Deng (though with more emphasis on expanding agriculture and free markets in China).

Whether the one child policy was ultimately necessary or not is debatable. Education and birth control programs ( in addition to reform of China's deplorably inefficient "communal farms") could have conceivably had many of the same effects, without resorting to the Orwellian horrors the Chinese government ultimately ended up imposing on their rural population.

2)China does NOT have 23 to 25% of the world's arable land. As of 2001, it had roughly 1.4 million square kilometers (half a million square miles, give or take). The world's total arable land is [https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/xx.html]about 10% of the total[/url], which adds up to 15 million square kilometers (about five to six million square miles, give or take).

3)Therefore, China is ALREADY trying to maintain 20% of the world's population on 10% of the world's farmland. This is after over three decades of land reclamation efforts since 1977 and after decades of the One Child policy.

Once again, I'm not denying that China had a tough decision to make. However, whether or not China ever would have had a problem feeding these people to begin with if it hadn't been for Mao's meddling is debatable.

I refuse to accept the notion that what basically amounted to widespread infanticide was the only possible solution.

[PkbonupePeter_Kcos8]

I do not want an article.
You claimed there were (scientific) studies. Post (link) them. Multiple of them, since you claimed just that.

Get them yourself then. The article in question links a few studies anyway.

[Serafina]

I do not want an article.
You claimed there were (scientific) studies. Post (link) them. Multiple of them, since you claimed just that.

Get them yourself then. The article in question links a few studies anyway.

Your claim, your job. I'm not going to do your homework for you.
You are expected to back up your claims. So far, i have seen zilch.

[PkbonupePeter_Kcos8]

Your claim, your job. I'm not going to do your homework for you.
You are expected to back up your claims. So far, i have seen zilch.

I'm not bending over backwards to help someone who has adopted a posture of willful ignorance. I've posted several links so far, check them out or shut up.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm sort of busy at the moment.

[Samuel]

Perhaps the fact that you have provided no evidence to support this assumption whatsoever? Besides, I still fail to see how slavery in the Middle East is at all comparable to the Adult Entertainment Industry in the West.

You want me to provide evidence that men will have sex with attractive women if they have the opportunity? Really?

Who's moving goal posts? The simple fact of the matter is that the religious right was overruled on the matter, as they have been in the majority of all cases involving this subject.

I'd hardly chalk that up as a victory for "religious ignorance."

After 30 years of sabotaging the country they were overruled. That is a bit like claiming that Lamarkian genetics didn't hold the USSR back because they tossed it in 1965.

I could bring up gay rights and how religious organizations are major opponents of that, but I doubt you'd consider that because causing people harm is subjective. Which is a bit like claiming what the Stazi did was okay because they thought it was for the victims own good.

Only 3 have the death penalty for homosexuality. They are undoubtedly the extreme fringe. However, in order to exist, every fringe ultimately must have a more moderate base which carries more wateredown versions of its views.

Except 15 African states don't have any penalty at all.

And do you think that the average hooker is going to risk crossing the Russian Mafia just to turn in her competition? C'mon man, no one is this naive.

Since the alternative is to be run out of the business, yes. Slaves can work for lower pay so legal operations have to oppose them, less they be driven under.

According to who, you? Once again dude, this is all empirical fact here. Europe OBJECTIVELY has a bigger problem with sex slavery than the US because of its relaxed prostitution laws. Studies have confirmed this, and politicians in these nations acknowledge it as fact.

This is completely unrelated to the fact that Europe shares a land border with desperately poor areas and has poor border security with them. Also, how do you know the US doesn't have a sex slave problem?

Bull shit. Would you pay 300 dollars for some skanky street walker? How about a nice and clean girl from a brothel run by the Russian Mob?

I wouldn't pay anything. It is a matter of supply and demand. As the risks get higher pay has to increase to compensate individuals. If there is a high chance of disease and death you have to pay the individuals more.

Actually, the Chinese were almost completely successful in removing the opium problem. Of course, they had to not only shoot drug addicts, but make examples out of their entire familes to do so...

How do you know they got rid of the problem? If you kill people who have it, addicts are going to hide from the government.

Studies have shown that most people use condoms improperly, and that they are not as effective when exposed to above room temperature heat.

I said special training and refridgeration. You have to be told how to use them but it doesn't require special trainging, just instructions and "drop in effectiveness" differs from "useless".

Besides, are you honestly trying to say that it is okay to have Third World medical clinics stocked almost exclusively with condoms and contraceptives when people are dying of preventable diseases?

Actually alot of our priorities are messed up- we allocate too much resource to AIDs in comparison to malaria for example.

That is your opinion on the matter. Besides, even you do take that view of abortion, forced sterilization is still a ghastly practice.

No, it isn't. If potential people have equal value to actual people mastrubation would be a form of murder, refusing to have sex would be a form of murder and refusing abortions when there is a good enough chance the next pregnancy would be twins would also be murder. It isn't an opinion- it is logic, taking premises and drawing a conclusion.

[The Yosemite Bear]

fuck Cuba this thread has been hijacked and granted sanctuary in UGANDA back when Amin was still incharge.

[Liberty]

I said I emailed my mother a news article about this issue with the Pearls. While, she finally responded to my email.

Another loose end...the article re the Pearls. That made me so sad! I will be the first to admit that I am not a perfect parent, and have yelled at or disciplined my children in anger more than once. I'm sure you know that. But punishing the Pearls for their very good, practical and sound advice in their books and articles when a sinful parent lashes out in anger and harms or kills his child is so like punishing gun makers for deaths "caused by" their guns. Or punishing shoe manufacturers of high heels for causing damage to women's feet. Crazy. Let's put the punishment where it's due, and use this situation as a renewed call to prayer in our dependence on God for His help in raising and training up these precious children. Yikes. I'm in fear and trembling here. I feel for the Pearls, too, and am praying for them. They have given their all and are being so attacked right now. That's the destiny for people who are willing to stand up and take risks.

Dang. I was hoping to get more introspection from her, I really was. She's coming by to visit next week with my seven youngest siblings, and now she'll probably ask me what my thoughts are on the issue with the Pearls, just to make sure that I'm still following their methods. Which I'm not. I won't lie to her, but if I tell her I'm not, I wonder where that conversation will lead. She still thinks I'm devoutly religious, remember.

[K. A. Pital]

*shakes head in shock* sometimes I forget that, while for me Christian fundamentalism is a freak occurence that only slightly touched my life in Russia, spreading from a faraway nation and not being significant here, elsewhere it remains a real cultural practice.

Man, man...

I constantly forget it. A usual circle of fellowship of a Russian like me is 99% atheist and I continously accept it as norm. This stuff always shocks me.

Kinda like when Pezook told me about the Poland and Jews situation... man. It's like a separate bizzare reality about which I read on SDN, until I remember that people in the USA have to deal with it daily.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Stas:
Some Americans have to deal with it daily. Others can ignore it for months or years at a time, because it's a rather introspective sub-culture, and it's regionally concentrated to some extent. For example, if news articles like this hadn't come up, I could probably have lived my entire life without ever hearing of the Pearls' books.

Dang. I was hoping to get more introspection from her, I really was. She's coming by to visit next week with my seven youngest siblings, and now she'll probably ask me what my thoughts are on the issue with the Pearls, just to make sure that I'm still following their methods. Which I'm not. I won't lie to her, but if I tell her I'm not, I wonder where that conversation will lead. She still thinks I'm devoutly religious, remember.

Good luck; I hope it doesn't blow up too badly.

Though I don't think you can go too far wrong, from a personal ethics standpoint, by coming flat out and saying "Any advice that people who claim to be faithful can interpret as telling them to beat their children to death with a rubber hose... is advice I don't want to follow."

But that's just me talking, and I do not have experience on how to deal with beloved fundamentalists in the family who can shrug off direct hits from armor-piercing clues like they were raindrops.

[loomer]

Your claim, your job. I'm not going to do your homework for you.
You are expected to back up your claims. So far, i have seen zilch.

I'm not bending over backwards to help someone who has adopted a posture of willful ignorance. I've posted several links so far, check them out or shut up.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm sort of busy at the moment.

You made a specific statement regarding scientific evidence. Supply this evidence, shitcock, if you want your arguments to be given any validity. Do not pull 'oh poor me, I'm so so busy, I already posted an article...' bullshit. Supply the evidence or withdraw your statement. As the person who made this statement, burden of proof falls on YOU.

[Broomstick]

Kinda like when Pezook told me about the Poland and Jews situation... man. It's like a separate bizzare reality about which I read on SDN, until I remember that people in the USA have to deal with it daily.

I just want to underline what Simon said - this is not something that is universal for all Americans, far from it. If you aren't in a family that adheres to this sort of fundamentalist thinking it largely isn't part of your world. I live in a fairly conservative/religious area and this just doesn't come up in my day to day life at all. Most of my family is either atheist or non-christians that are also pretty secular. It looks as bizarre to me as it does to you, and if there's a difference it's that I do run into a bit more frequently but, as I said, certainly not every day.

[The Yosemite Bear]

SEVEN!! Yongest siblings??? ok¸ Liberty you just broke my California rednck brain for bit...

[Liberty]

SEVEN!! Yongest siblings??? ok¸ Liberty you just broke my California rednck brain for bit...

I have eleven siblings total, which makes twelve children altogether, and I'm the oldest. The seven youngest are my siblings ages 4 through 14. Yeah, it's a heck of a lot, but it felt pretty normal growing up. I mean, I grew up knowing only other fundamentalist homeschool families, and five to nine children was pretty much the normal range. If you had only two kids, people looked at you funny.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I grew up in farm country where 3-5 was the norm

[General Brock]

Re: Stas:
Some Americans have to deal with it daily. Others can ignore it for months or years at a time, because it's a rather introspective sub-culture, and it's regionally concentrated to some extent. For example, if news articles like this hadn't come up, I could probably have lived my entire life without ever hearing of the Pearls' books.

To contribute to the general thread-jacking, I would have to say Americans are in a state of denial as to the extent to which Christian fundamentalist thinking dominates public life and its inevitable influence on private life. America is in the middle of a new Crusade in the Middle East, albeit cast in secular terms of securing oil and logistical base [Edit: and stopping terrorism]. The notions of applying increasing levels of violence to resolve non-compliance issues with benighted immature medieval Islamic heathens has echoes of Pearl.

They even have the Jesus Guns to do the job. Of course, the only problem with the Jesus guns is not the oxymoronic association of guns and the supposed 'Prince of Peace', but that it will disrupt the secular appearance of the crusade.

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes
Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has 'Always' Added New Testament References
By JOSEPH RHEE, TAHMAN BRADLEY and BRIAN ROSS

Jan. 18, 2010 —

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

'It violates the Constitution'
The company's vision is described on its Web site: "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom."

"We believe that America is great when its people are good," says the Web site. "This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals."

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both said their services were unaware of the biblical markings. They said officials were discussing what steps, if any, to take in the wake of the ABCNews.com report. It is not known how many Trijicon sights are currently in use by the U.S. military.

The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company's Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

'Firearms of Jesus Christ'
"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

According to a government contracting watchdog group, fedspending.org, Trijicon had more than $100 million in government contracts in fiscal year 2008. The Michigan company won a $33 million Pentagon contract in July, 2009 for a new machine gun optic, according to Defense Industry Daily. The company's earnings from the U.S. military jumped significantly after 2005, when it won a $660 million long-term contract to supply the Marine Corps with sights.

"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. We're emboldening an enemy."

Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

[Simon_Jester]

To contribute to the general thread-jacking, I would have to say Americans are in a state of denial as to the extent to which Christian fundamentalist thinking dominates public life and its inevitable influence on private life. America is in the middle of a new Crusade in the Middle East, albeit cast in secular terms of securing oil and logistical base [Edit: and stopping terrorism]. The notions of applying increasing levels of violence to resolve non-compliance issues with benighted immature medieval Islamic heathens has echoes of Pearl.

The problem here is that the war makes sense in secular terms. Stupid terms, but still not religious terms. Many of the war's chief proponents are not fundamentalists, paying at most lip service to the fundamentalist movement and in some cases not even doing that.

So calling it a "crusade" shows ignorance of just how entangled religion is in a real crusade. The historic crusades had an actual Pope standing up and calling for all loyal Christians to march to war, with the chant "God's Will!" on their lips. Muslim analogues to this war (such as the wars fought in Arabia by the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab back in the 1700s) were similarly fervent.

In a real crusade, entire armies charge into battle calling out scripture, deliberate defacement of heretical artifacts because they are heresy is commonplace, and the connection between the war and the religious beliefs underlying it will be made very, very explicit. The US's wars in the Middle East do not come even remotely close to that level of religious fervor.

Certain specific individuals involved in the wars may be motivated heavily by religion, but you could probably find religious zealots in the armies of every nation that has ever lived. The presence of fundamentalists in the ranks, even in the high ranks, is not enough to make a war into a crusade- or if it is, then all wars are crusades and the term is meaningless.

Therefore, the fact that a manufacturer of low-light rifle scopes happens to stamp Bible passages referencing light and darkness onto the scopes is not evidence of a crusade. Or evidence that the war in question would not be fought in much the same way without the effects of religious fanatics in the US. The rifle scopes would still be there, after all, even if Trijicon weren't engraving bits of Corinthians into them.

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

This is very true. I'd like the stamping of religious passages to stop, but I don't think it shows anywhere near the level of religious fervor to justify calling the war a crusade in and of itself.

"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. We're emboldening an enemy."

Though I must say that if this is the best example of church-state separation being violated in the US... we're doing pretty well. This is incredibly obnoxious behavior on Trijicon's part, and on the part of officers who play along, but it's kind of small potatoes.

Now, if we had a policy of demolishing mosques whenever we found them or something like that, that would be a sign that the US had really been taken over by religious fanatics. Because that's the kind of thing they'd do if they were in charge. They're not, though they're definitely an influential fringe movement with enough leverage to cause far more trouble than I'd like.

[wolveraptor]

Man, you'd think they'd at least use more appropriate Bible passages. Something along the lines of "And God said, 'Eat shit,' and massacred the Jebusites..." would be a lot better suited to being inscribed on an instrument of death than some lame shit about the glory of Jesus's face or whatever. And it's not like there's a dearth of such passages. There's really no excuse. Trijicon is clearly headed by a bunch of pansies.

[General Brock]

Trijicon did in fact relent on January 21, and agreed to remedy the 'Jesus gun' problem. Behind the scenes, it was apparently quite intense, with the MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation) receiving qyuite a bit of serious hate mail.

Trijicon agreed to:

- Remove the inscription reference on all U.S. military products that are in the company's factory that have already been produced, but have yet to be shipped.

- Provide 100 modification kits to forces in the field to remove the reference on the already forward deployed optical sights.

- Ensure all future procurements from the Department of Defense are produced without scripture references.

The 'official' line on the war on Iraq and what individual proponents and participants read into it may vary, but the fundamentalist Christian perspective is without doubt dominant. It wouldn't surprise me if everything from Tolkien to Battlestar Galacitica is invoked at some level to place the experience in some kind of perspective.

As already mentioned, the investigation into Trijicon's rifle scopes was prompted by complaints received by MRFF from active duty service members. Here is an email received by MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein from one of those service members. Clearly, according to the account of this soldier, a very senior NCO not only knew about the Bible reference, but promoted it as making an ordinary rifle "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ." Worse yet, this brilliant NCO was yelling this out within earshot of Afghan civilians and military personnel.

To: Mikey Wenstein [sic] and MRFF:

I am a U.S. Army infantry soldier with the rank of (rank withheld). I am married with children. I am stationed at Fort (installation name withheld). I have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times. I have been awarded medals for direct combat engagement as well as for injuries and wounds received in hand-to-hand combat. I am a Muslim American. My family converted when I was very young. I am caucasian and have a last name that does not sound ethnic. Therefore, few of my fellow soldiers know that I am a Muslim. My wife comes from a Christian tradition but rarely practices or attends church. I have witnessed terrible religious persecution in the my (number withheld) years in the Army. Most of it comes from "angry" conservative Christians in my unit chains of command and occasionally from my fellow infantry soldiers. I am very familiar with the Trijicon ACOG gunsights and have often had them as part of my personal weapons; both my M-4 and my M-16. In my first 2 deployments I saw and experienced no incidents regarding the New Testament bible quotes that are written on the metal casing of the gun sights. Many soldiers know of them and are very confused as to why they are there and what it is supposed to mean. Everyone is worried that if they were captured in combat that the enemy would use the bible quotes against them in captivity or some other form of propaganda. As an American soldier I am ashamed that those bible quotes are on our primary weapons. As a Muslim American I am horrified. As one who swore his oath to the Constitution, I am driven to fight this Christian insanity but I know if I try to do so in a visible way that I will suffer at the hands of my military superiors. I am of low enlisted rank and can be crushed easily. I am prepared to suffer, but I am not prepared for my wife and children to suffer. So I have reached out to MRFF because there is nowhere else safe to go to try to fight this thing of disgrace. There are many other soldiers who feel as I do. Many are Protestant and Catholic and they fear reprisal just as much as I do for trying to stand up to the Christian bullies in uniform who outrank us. But if you try to fight back, you are not "asking" for trouble, YOU ARE IN TROUBLE from the start. And if you are a Muslim American, the hatred is always just below the surface and ready to explode at a moment's notice. After the Fort Hood shootings, it was so bad, even for a low profile Muslim like me, that I had to ask MRFF for help.

Nothing in my first 2 deployments prepared me for what happened with the Trijicon ACOG gun sights during my 3rd deployment to Afghanistan. I will never forget the day it occurred. It was morning and there was a mandatory formation of several companies. A very senior NCO was yelling at us which is not that unusual. He asked a private what it was that he (the private) was holding in his hand and the private said it was his "weapon" several times to which the senior NCO replied "and what ELSE is it"? FInally, the senior NCO said that the private's rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ" and that we would be expected to kill every "haji" we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the "spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ" and that we should "bust open the head of every haji we find with it." He said that Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a "pussy 'Jewzzi' (combination of the word 'Jew' and Israeli made weapon 'Uzi') but the "fire arm of Jesus Christ" and made specific mention of the biblical quotes on our gun sights. He said that the enemy no doubt had quotes from the Koran on their guns but that "our Lord is bigger than theirs because theirs is a fraud and an idol". As a Muslim and an American soldier I was fit to be tied but I kept it in. There were many Afghans, both civilian and military, on base within earshot of what was being yelled at us and I can only wonder in shock what they must have thought. This senior NCO was apparently also the head person of a conservative, crazy Christian group called the "Christian Military Fellowship" and made a big deal about the importance of joining to everyone. He told us all that we MUST read a book called "Under Orders" in order to make it through this combat deployment and said he had many copies for everyone. Some of my friends went and got their copies. I refused. Finally, this senior NCO ended his yelling by warning us that if we did not "get right with Jesus" then our rifles would not provide spiritual strength despite the bible quotes on our ACOG gunsights and that we would be considered "spiritual cripples" to our fellow units and soldiers. He didn't say it in so many words, but the message was clear; if anything bad happened in a combat situation, it would be the fault of anyone who had not accepted Jesus Chris in the "right way". I have never felt so ashamed and scared in my life. I have never hated myself so much for not speaking out. So I thought of my wife and children and endured. Every time I looked at my rifle with that Trijicon ACOG gunsight/scope with the biblical quote from the book of John (8:12), it would make me sick. If I had tried to protest, it would have made me dead. And if I'm dead I'm of no use to my wife and children.

I agree the present wars cannot be officially be called Crusades, if only because Pope Benedict XVI won't sanction it. However, it is unlikely that the secular motivations for war, especially in Iraq, would alone have been sufficient to bring them about without the religious component. It was a happy confluence of neoconservative religious and material reasoning, no better characterized in the ideologue born-again Bush Jr. and pragmatic, corporatist Cheney.

To ignore that American actions are strongly influenced by fundamentalist Christianity and not just secular materialism would mislead anyone trying to make sense of American foreign policy. The psychological touchpoints of the Bible resonate throughout the popular American perspective. Seculars don't seem to want to realize, they aren't really in charge of anything but holding the nasty end of the stick. Like as not, the lack of material sense behind the policies of war in Afghanistan and Iraq are very likely due to the religious sentiment of crusade; a moral duty to wage just war in the name of god, even if in these dark times it cannot be openly stated as such and secular morals are used instead.

For another example, the excesses of the neocon era came to be strongly associated and personalized in President George Bush Jr. You can't fix stupid. So like the biblical scapegoat, scapegoat Bush carried away with him the focus and ire of the antiwar movement, allowing neoconservatism to be redeemed and its policies perpetuated by 'Uncle Tom' Obama in the popular media. (If you are familiar with the history of Uncle Tom, his original incarnation was that of a Christ-like martyr.) How much of this is deliberately biblically inspired media spin strategy and how much of this was 'coincidental' could probably fill a book or two without proving anything either way.

So to say Christian fundamentalism can be escaped in secular American life is to deny reality. Rational secularism appears to exist more to exculpate irrational religious excesses, even as religion exculpates irrational material excesses. A fundie might be your neighbor, boss, or banker and Christian themes are reinterpreted in games and movies, and most people go along without comment, criticism or even awareness. To say so is like those intellectual hipsters who say advertising doesn't affect them but spout commercial punch lines in all seriousness like 'Where's the beef' (Burger King commercial) or 'Drop the chalupa' (Taco Bell commercial) in conversation, when those commercials were in vogue. Yeah, consumerism didn't affect them none at all.

[Simon_Jester]

Man, you'd think they'd at least use more appropriate Bible passages. Something along the lines of "And God said, 'Eat shit,' and massacred the Jebusites..." would be a lot better suited to being inscribed on an instrument of death than some lame shit about the glory of Jesus's face or whatever. And it's not like there's a dearth of such passages. There's really no excuse. Trijicon is clearly headed by a bunch of pansies.

There's a catch. The passages they use are about light and darkness: "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness..." "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

And they manufacture rifle sights that you can use at night, because the targeting dot glows in the dark.

It's still stupid, but it's thematically appropriate if you take a peek past the enormous mountain of stupidity.

I agree the present wars cannot be officially be called Crusades, if only because Pope Benedict XVI won't sanction it. However, it is unlikely that the secular motivations for war, especially in Iraq, would alone have been sufficient to bring them about without the religious component.

I'm still not at all sure I believe you.

For another example, the excesses of the neocon era came to be strongly associated and personalized in President George Bush Jr. You can't fix stupid. So like the biblical scapegoat, scapegoat Bush carried away with him the focus and ire of the antiwar movement, allowing neoconservatism to be redeemed and its policies perpetuated by 'Uncle Tom' Obama in the popular media. (If you are familiar with the history of Uncle Tom, his original incarnation was that of a Christ-like martyr.) How much of this is deliberately biblically inspired media spin strategy and how much of this was 'coincidental' could probably fill a book or two without proving anything either way.

OK... I'm not sure how to address this. Your choice of description for Obama seems, shall we say, interesting. You're moving well over into what I consider tinfoil hat territory, to tell the truth, what with the obvious implication that Obama and Bush are both part of a coordinated political strategy to further the interests of evangelical Protestantism in the US.

If you want to go hunting for evidence of the Fundamentalist Conspiracy, you'll find it, just as you'll find evidence of the Freemason Conspiracy, the Men From Mars Conspiracy, and the Illuminati Conspiracy if you go looking for those.

Now, I'll concede that the Fundamentalist Conspiracy actually exists to some extent- there are active figures in American politics who are so dominated by fundamentalism that it sets their entire agenda. But to go on and attempt to analyze the entirety of American politics in those terms is... questionable. Using the fact that a biblical analogy (such as 'scapegoat') can be drawn to current events is even more questionable, because the Bible is a large book full of myths. Like any other large book full of myths, you can find analogies for almost anything in it somewhere; look how much mileage people can get out of classical Greco-Roman mythology if you don't believe me.

So to say Christian fundamentalism can be escaped in secular American life is to deny reality. Rational secularism appears to exist more to exculpate irrational religious excesses, even as religion exculpates irrational material excesses. A fundie might be your neighbor, boss, or banker and Christian themes are reinterpreted in games and movies, and most people go along without comment, criticism or even awareness.

Three points:

1) The existence of Christian themes in the culture (such as an emphasis on themes like sacrifice and redemption, which Christianity plays for all they're worth) is not evidence for a fundamentalist conspiracy. It is no more proof of conspiracy than the prominence of classical references in Victorian society was proof that a secret cult of Zeus-worshippers was manipulating events behind the scenes.

2)Not every Christian is a fundamentalist of the sort who reads the works of the Pearls or believes in an apocalyptic war between Christian and Muslim (the context in which Bible-engraved rifle sights make sense). This is one of the reasons for (1): Christian themes that appeal both to fundies and non-fundies are not automatically "fundamentalist themes."

3)The places where fundamentalist influence is overt and large enough to be a sign of something wrong happening are outnumbered greatly by the places where no such evidence exists, unless one is a paranoid conspiracy nut who goes digging for it. Note that while the rifle sights had bible verses stamped into them, the rifles themselves did not. Nor did other parts of the soldier's kit. Nor, by and large, do bombs, warships, or other US military impedimenta. This isn't the Fundie Conspiracy Waging a Crusade; this is the CEO of Trijicon waging a crusade, and a few overzealous people within the military falling for it (like that sergeant referenced in the e-mail from the Muslim soldier).

It is important to emphasize that these people are breaking the rules accepted by the majority of people in their society when they do such things.