Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children to Death

[General Brock]

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.

I'm not asking for belief. I'm making a conclusion based on observation. I've followed the wars closely enough to be aware of many religious linkages drawn to it by its proponents.

In shadow of ancient Ur, factions ponder new Iraq

Wednesday, April 16, 2003 12:00 a.m.

TALLIL AIRBASE, Iraq (REUTERS) — A stone’s throw from the reputed birthplace of civilization, Iraqi political and religious leaders gathered to discuss how to build a new, free Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Around 80 representatives of exiled groups, radical and mainstream Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds joined U.S. and British officials at a makeshift American air base near the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur.

After their plane touched down at the air base, one exiled Iraqi wept and another dropped to his knees to kiss the ground.

Jay Garner, the former U.S. general leading the drive to rebuild Iraq, opened the conference on his 65th birthday.

“What better birthday can a man have than to begin it not only where civilization began but where a free Iraq and a democratic Iraq will begin today?” he asked.

The meeting, according to a statement published on the website of the U.S. Central Command, agreed to work for a democratic government under a federal system after consultations across Iraq.

The 13-point statement, approved by consensus according to one group that attended, advocated the dissolution of the once-feared Baath party of Saddam, who was toppled in the U.S.-led war that began March 20.

Those attending the meeting were not empowered to take any concrete decisions at this stage, but Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister who sent a representative, said the statement represented a position advocated by all Iraqi groups.

“These 13 points, there is nothing new. It is the platform of everyone practically. Everyone has advocated this,” he told Reuters by telephone from the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi, where he moved when he left Iraq in 1969.

“These meetings are designed to prepare for a larger, broadly based meeting of Iraqi political tendencies and which will elect a transitional authority,” he added.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking later at a briefing in Washington, described the 13-point plan as “very interesting and very positive.”

He said the purpose of the meeting was “to help pave the way for a free Iraqi government that will eventually be chosen by the Iraqi people.

Consultations across Iraq

Ur was the chief city of the Sumerians and reputed to be the birthplace of Abraham, recognized as the father of prophets by Muslims, Jews and Christians.

After a day of delay and protests in the nearby town of Nassiriya, the meeting agreed a new Iraq had to be built on respect for diversity and respect for the role of women.

The meeting also discussed the role of religion.

Sheikh Ayad Jamal Al Din, a Shi’ite religious leader from Nassiriya, called for Iraq to remain a secular state under a “system of government that separates belief from politics.”

The meeting voted to reconvene in 10 days and to invite other Iraqi groups to begin talks on setting up an interim authority.

Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi, eager not to be seen as a stooge of the Americans who back him, opted to stay away and sent a representative instead.

He told Abu Dhabi television the next gathering would take place in Baghdad and only involve Iraqis.

A leading Iran-based Shi’ite Muslim group stayed away. “We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general,” a spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said.

Sethna predicted the group would attend the next meeting.

But in Nassiriya, thousands of Iraqis protested that they did not need American help now Saddam had gone.

“No to America, No to Saddam,” chanted Iraqis from the Shi’ite Muslim majority oppressed by Saddam, who is of the rival Sunni sect. Arabic TV networks said up to 20,000 people marched.

Garner is to head the Pentagon’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance until Iraqis take over, probably in six months to a year. He will report to Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the invasion of Iraq.

U.S. officials want Iraqis to form their own decision-making structure ahead of eventual elections, but they said Tuesday the various leaders would first just get acquainted.

Establishing a stable government is a daunting task. Exiles claim a say, as do those who lived for decades under Saddam’s brutal rule. Tribal, ethnic and religious leaders, particularly the majority Shi’ites, have loyal followings.

Stopping the country fragmenting into Kurdish, Shi’ite and Sunni zones will be a tough battle — but one Iraq’s neighbors, fearing a reaction among their own minorities, insist on.

Link

Sounds innocent enough, but the reference to Abraham will have much more resonance with the fundie community than the secular, unless the secular community is looking for propaganda symbols. A bone thrown to religious people here, a bone to seculars there.

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.

Greek and Roman mythology does pop up now and again. The last time was the Heracles/Xena series, and you should have seen all the neo-pagans get excited. If I recall, Xena ended up killing most of the Greek Pantheon in the name of a very Judeo-Christian like deity. It seems seems more like the dominant culture ritually dancing on the graves of the old gods to remind everyone whose version of god is tops.

The hot thing right now is to put wiccan neo-paganism in its place, with such works as Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and Jim Bucher's Dresden Files which reconcile veins of pagan myth under a populist unofficial Christian hierarchy. Most actual wiccans or pagans such as there are regard themselves as belonging to totally separate and independent mythologies. Popular entertainment may in some ways be the new religion, but its stories have old roots.

Conspiracy, or just like minds coming to a consensus on what the popular perspective should be? A tin foil hat is hardly required to look at the obvious and call it as one see it.

When a variant of a Christian religious argument can be made to back a risky but potentially materially rewarding political agenda, that will be the deciding factor, and faith will be used to overcome rational doubts and paper over shortcomings.

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.

Like minds think alike and come to a consensus. You don't need an organized conspiracy, just enough people wanting to believe something based on common experience. So the Victorians feared Zeus worshippers? What were they collectively reacting to? Was there a resurgence of interest in paganism? Was there a backlash against Victorian culture going on? What was the end result of belief in this conspiracy?

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."

Yet they are working together, and in my judgment, the religious component is the dominant one. Faith often becomes an excuse to deny reason.

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.

[/quote]

The CEO of Trijicon and everyone else who kept the ball rolling with a nudge and a wink, or out of fear, or out of willful ignorance. I don't need a tin foil hat to notice that neocon America still wants in to Iraq and Afghanistan, and is doing their damndest to stay the course with a foreign policy that can best be described and popularly understood as a 'crusade' in fundamentalist religious and conservative right-wing secular terms.

[General Brock]

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.

Coordinated? Well, sure there are think tanks whose members earn big bucks to ponder psyops, but I figure they got lucky and found the chord more by accident than design. Although, the election was a predictable event, as would have been the sense of renewal such elections bring.

The neocons were looking for it though; liberal America was hoping that Obama would be more of a savior for their vision of America than he's turning out to be.

[Simon_Jester]

Brock, I have to ask: have you ever actually spent any meaningful amount of time living among Americans? In a place like, say, Massachusetts or California?

Link

Sounds innocent enough, but the reference to Abraham will have much more resonance with the fundie community than the secular, unless the secular community is looking for propaganda symbols. A bone thrown to religious people here, a bone to seculars there.

Brock, I'm serious, you're trying too hard. You're taking petty little sparks and mistaking them for bonfires.

It's like complaining about a Zeus-ist conspiracy because someone talks about an event in the Dardanelles happening close to the ruins of Troy or something. Yes, Christians (some of them fundamentalists) exist in the US. Yes, they are familiar with Judeo-Christian mythology, and references to that mythology are likely to appear in material produced in the US.

This is not a sign of fundamentalist control over American policy, or a sign that the secularists are somehow helpless to affect that policy, or a sign that secularists are fooling themselves when they think they are relatively unaffected by Christian fundamentalism.

...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.

Greek and Roman mythology does pop up now and again. The last time was the Heracles/Xena series, and you should have seen all the neo-pagans get excited. If I recall, Xena ended up killing most of the Greek Pantheon in the name of a very Judeo-Christian like deity. It seems seems more like the dominant culture ritually dancing on the graves of the old gods to remind everyone whose version of god is tops.

Dude. Look back a hundred years or so. Back when every educated person knew the classics (the Greco-Roman classics). References to those classics were common, for a good and obvious reason: they were part of the universal reference pool, the stuff that people picked up by osmosis. It didn't mean that the Greco-Roman classics had no influence, of course. But it sure didn't mean that Zeus worshippers were running the country.

I'm serious, Brock, I don't see what you're talking about; all I see is the selection bias from Hell. You're combing articles for single references to people who even appear in the Bible as evidence for some kind of sinister plot. It's ridiculous.

Conspiracy, or just like minds coming to a consensus on what the popular perspective should be? A tin foil hat is hardly required to look at the obvious and call it as one see it.

Yeah. But to look at the obvious and see signs of a conspiracy that encompasses both major political parties, campus newspapers, the military-industrial complex, and popular novelists, even to the point where they can sink their claws into cheesy TV shows for the sake of making the largely forgotten Greek gods look bad...

If you're calling it as you see it, I think you need to get your eyes examined.

When a variant of a Christian religious argument can be made to back a risky but potentially materially rewarding political agenda, that will be the deciding factor, and faith will be used to overcome rational doubts and paper over shortcomings.

This does not come close to guaranteeing that the argument will work, though. Yes, people use religious arguments in support of their positions when they can. Why is this a surprise? Everyone uses every argument they can think of when their interests are at stake.

That is not sufficient evidence for a "fundamentalist conspiracy" of the sheer scale and power you imply.

Like minds think alike and come to a consensus. You don't need an organized conspiracy, just enough people wanting to believe something based on common experience. So the Victorians feared Zeus worshippers? What were they collectively reacting to? Was there a resurgence of interest in paganism? Was there a backlash against Victorian culture going on? What was the end result of belief in this conspiracy?

Umm... I don't think you got it. The Victorians did not fear Zeus worshippers; they just used classical allusions a lot when they were writing. You know, drawing analogies to the Iliad, making kids read Ovid in schools, building structures that looked like Greco-Roman temples, that sort of thing.

My point is that this was not evidence that the Victorians were secretly promoting the worship of Zeus, or that their society was dominated by people who were. It's just that this was part of their cultural reference pool, so it came up a lot. So what?

Yet they are working together, and in my judgment, the religious component is the dominant one.

And I question your judgement, because I think you're looking for evidence to justify your prejudices.

The CEO of Trijicon and everyone else who kept the ball rolling with a nudge and a wink, or out of fear, or out of willful ignorance. I don't need a tin foil hat to notice that neocon America still wants in to Iraq and Afghanistan, and is doing their damndest to stay the course with a foreign policy that can best be described and popularly understood as a 'crusade' in fundamentalist religious and conservative right-wing secular terms.

So... you think that the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan qualifies as a crusade, then? Didn't I already address this? If that's your idea of a crusade, I have no idea what you'd call a real crusade.

I mean, for crying out loud, the engraved Bible passages on the rifle scopes were something so subtle that no one realized it was happening back home until people started writing to complain. No international outcry or anything. Crusades are not normally famous for subtlety.

[Shroom Man 777]

Just because they're not declaring "there must be war, god wills it!" or something out of Kingdom of Heaven does not mean that there's no "crusade". It's a bunch of powerful old white Christian men who want to dick around in Muslim lands and apparently get their jollies off some great war (on terror) against an enemy that's being ethnically stereotyped as Islamic. While it's not exactly a Medieval crusade, it's still pretty much working on the same mindset. A bunch of Christian nations going into some wartorn Muslim land with some high-falooting ideals.

Yes, Bush and Co. weren't motivated by a convert-or-kill mindset, but they're still very Christian people and that's probably a big factor in how they perceive things - how they perceive the brown people, and everything. It influences their prejudices, their opinions regarding the Mohammedians and how they're coming in to bring democracy and stability to the region in some Operation Arabian Freedom. It's not some overt or explicit thing, at least I sure hope to hell it's not, but still their religiousity and their perception and worldview could be interpreted as crusade-like. Going to some Muslim place with ideals to "do the good thing" while killing the crap out of people, what's the difference?

And even if they DON'T mean it, it doesn't change the fact that a huge segment of the Muslim world is going to perceive it in such a way anyway. Hell, Ann Coulter perceives it that way too! With all the rhetoric, pretentiousness, bullshit and moral bankruptcy being thrown around - why is it not a crusade? And what is a crusade, anyway? Some war between the West and the Middle East? Sure, they might be fighting for different reasons now, but like they say the more things change the more they stay the same.

Look, it doesn't have to be a conspiracy or some deliberate religious fundamentalist holy war delusion on part of the Amerikaners. Societal trends and people and events could've just led to it (and it did), but even without some grand conspiracy it still ended up the way it ended up being - the West coming in to kill brown people to teach them a lesson, or something. And that's a crusade. Or, if not, then it's a Kill-Brown-People-sade. Just another bloody outcome of the typical self-centered conceited asshole Western view of their own superiority compared to foreign shitpieces living in desert/jungle/island primitive shitholes - a view that's been prevalent for centuries, and continues to fuck things up today. Crusades, colonialism, neocolonialism, it's the same literally bloody thing.

[thejester]

Just because they're not declaring "there must be war, god wills it!" or something out of Kingdom of Heaven does not mean that there's no "crusade". It's a bunch of powerful old white Christian men who want to dick around in Muslim lands and apparently get their jollies off some great war (on terror) against an enemy that's being ethnically stereotyped as Islamic. While it's not exactly a Medieval crusade, it's still pretty much working on the same mindset. A bunch of Christian nations going into some wartorn Muslim land with some high-falooting ideals.

Yes, Bush and Co. weren't motivated by a convert-or-kill mindset, but they're still very Christian people and that's probably a big factor in how they perceive things - how they perceive the brown people, and everything. It influences their prejudices, their opinions regarding the Mohammedians and how they're coming in to bring democracy and stability to the region in some Operation Arabian Freedom. It's not some overt or explicit thing, at least I sure hope to hell it's not, but still their religiousity and their perception and worldview could be interpreted as crusade-like. Going to some Muslim place with ideals to "do the good thing" while killing the crap out of people, what's the difference?

That's a bit daft, by that standard the Phillipines fight against the Moro extremists is a crusade.

There's certainly some Christian overtones within the Administration (IIRC the daily briefings during OIF at the White House opened with Bible verses...) but that doesn't make it a crusade. The various officials like Rumsfeld who were driving the 'let's invade Iraq' bandwagon' before 9/11 were doing so on the basis of naked national interest (energy security...and that's probably it, really) and they basically won the argument in the White House. All the evidence I've seen suggests the decision to invade Iraq came from a desire to secure 'the national interest', no matter how illegal/immoral/stupid that is.

Look, it doesn't have to be a conspiracy or some deliberate religious fundamentalist holy war delusion on part of the Amerikaners. Societal trends and people and events could've just led to it (and it did), but even without some grand conspiracy it still ended up the way it ended up being - the West coming in to kill brown people to teach them a lesson, or something. And that's a crusade. Or, if not, then it's a Kill-Brown-People-sade. Just another bloody outcome of the typical self-centered conceited asshole Western view of their own superiority compared to foreign shitpieces living in desert/jungle/island primitive shitholes - a view that's been prevalent for centuries, and continues to fuck things up today. Crusades, colonialism, neocolonialism, it's the same literally bloody thing.

No, it's countries acting in what they perceive to be their own self-interest. You can say that's horrible, and its, but the idea's it some western phenomenon is bullshit. FWIW you've actually just described OBL's world view - he sees the Muslim world under attack from the West and see acts such as the invasion of Iraq or the support (and existence) of Israel as proof of this (BTW, that's a nice illustration of the level of proof you'd need to convince him there was no crusade). The difference is that unlike you, he doesn't attach a moral value to it - he sees it as the natural way of the world, and he just wants to win, not to change the paradigm.

[K. A. Pital]

No, it's countries acting in what they perceive to be their own self-interest. You can say that's horrible, and its, but the idea's it some western phenomenon is bullshit.

Imperialism is, to a large degree, a global phenomenon, but thanks to the military power and economic power of the First World, it has made large successes in imperialism, in both it's old and new forms.

[Shroom Man 777]

That's a bit daft, by that standard the Phillipines fight against the Moro extremists is a crusade.

Maybe it is. Some Muslims in the south never had a fucking say when the Spaniards came and claimed the country as theirs, and when the Spaniards sold it to the Amerikaners, and when the Amerikaners gave it to the Philippine government. That doesn't make the Moro extremists nice people, they're a bunch of murdering-kidnapping violent assholes. But hey, it's not like the current Philippine government's ruling party didn't have a local mayor (or was it a governor) who had a deathsquad murder shitloads of political opponents and bury them in a mass grave.

Crusaders are assholes. But I didn't say that the ones they're crusading against are particularly nice people either - lots of times they're every bit as assholish as the crusaders themselves. Less like a bunch of Saladins and more like a bunch of shitheads.

There's certainly some Christian overtones within the Administration (IIRC the daily briefings during OIF at the White House opened with Bible verses...) but that doesn't make it a crusade. The various officials like Rumsfeld who were driving the 'let's invade Iraq' bandwagon' before 9/11 were doing so on the basis of naked national interest (energy security...and that's probably it, really) and they basically won the argument in the White House. All the evidence I've seen suggests the decision to invade Iraq came from a desire to secure 'the national interest', no matter how illegal/immoral/stupid that is.

And the Crusades weren't done for the 'national interests' of the various European powers? The religious trappings just makes it easier for the very Christian leaders of the Crusade and Operation Iraqi Freedom to embrace the "us versus them" worldview. Doesn't it make it easier if you see yourselves as a bunch of morally right Christians/Capitalists/Allies/whatever while marginalizing the "bad guys" as an evil empire of Muslims/Communists/Nazis/whatevers? Being very Christian makes it very easy to skew your world view, and makes it very easy to dehumanize the other side.

I mean, Jesus Christ, the basic tenet of Christianity is that if you're not a Christian - if you don't accept Christ - then you deserve to burn in Hell forever. This world view, that influences how one sees other people (especially those who are not Christians), is NOT one conducive to world peace but IS conducive to treating other (non-Christian) people like shit.

PS - having the White House daily briefings of OIF opening with Bible verses is fucking creepy. Having your daily briefings about bombing brown-people preceded by prayers and Bible verses makes it easier for the White House guys to think of themselves as morally right or in "God's side" whenever they're planning to bomb some more brown-people who aren't Christians but are just a bunch of camel-fucking Mohammedians.

If I had Donald Rumsfeld tell me to "invade Iraq" while giving me Bible verses, I too would feel pretty good and holy and righteous in dropping napalm to stick on some Vietnamese kids. Geneviticus 3:16, and Jesus wept, am I right?

No, it's countries acting in what they perceive to be their own self-interest. You can say that's horrible, and its, but the idea's it some western phenomenon is bullshit.

Fine, I concede, Genghis Khan and all sorts of assholes weren't Westerners but they were still dicks. But be that as it may, the last centuries has seen the phenomenon occur primarily from the Western world.

Countries will always act in their self-interests, yeah. But the very Christian trappings makes acting on their self-interests, and doing morally dubious things out of self-interest, more acceptable and easy to swallow. If you think yourself as a well-to-do Christian and the others as bad scary brown-skinned Muslims, then it's easier for you to justify bombing and invading nations for national interests and you can sleep at night with that comfortable bit of knowledge like a pillow tucked between your legs.

This doesn't apply to just Christianity. Aren't the most rabid assholes in history usually the ones who subscribe deeply and/or fanatically to all sorts of ideologies that they use to justify their acts, or are used to soothe whatever guilt or moral compunctions they have and allow themselves to sleep at night better?

FWIW you've actually just described OBL's world view - he sees the Muslim world under attack from the West and see acts such as the invasion of Iraq or the support (and existence) of Israel as proof of this (BTW, that's a nice illustration of the level of proof you'd need to convince him there was no crusade). The difference is that unlike you, he doesn't attach a moral value to it - he sees it as the natural way of the world, and he just wants to win, not to change the paradigm.

The West has engaged in historic interference and intervention in the Middle East in the name of their "national interests" - namely, oil. I doubt it would be any different if Osama bin Laden was a hardcore Confucianist Chinese fundamentalist instead who think that the Western gaijin are attacking the East (with copious amounts of opium) and ends up flying airplanes into England or something.

The West HAS engaged in many morally dubious activities in the ME for decades. Supporting regimes like Saddam and the Saudis. For OBL, that IS the crusade and that's what he's fighting against. Now, he is a raving religious jackass and his actions are also morally reprehensible. So the raving religious jackasses in America or wherever else likewise think that he is crusading jihading himself and likewise do their own fair share of morally reprehensible acts. The OBLs see this as an affirmation of the Western crusade and continue to do their morally reprehensible acts of terrorism. The Americans see these jihadist jackasses and go blow up a couple of cities and invade another nation in Operation Petroleum Freedom. It ends up with both sides just hurting each other BECAUSE they're hurting each other and want to make the other guy stop hurting them (by hurting them some more!).

Yes, that is a crusade. It's not some crazy religious war, but were the crusades themselves JUST wars of religion? They're always all about national interests. Often, these national interests are for shitty things like resources. Other times, these national interests involve killing the other guy because he's attacking you (for his own national interests, and maybe his national interest is to kill you because YOU are attacking him too!).

[Channel72]

While the popular motivation for the first Crusade was entirely religious, there was an element of national defense as well; the Muslim armies were encroaching on Eastern (Byzantine) Europe. So there are some interesting similarities between the current situation and then. The key difference really is that the first time around, the Church officially sanctioned the whole deal, and the Pope himself played a large part in stirring up religious fervor among the populace. This time, there was no official religious sanction; rather, all the arguments used to invade Iraq/Afghanistan were based on national security interests. (I also doubt that people like Cheney are religiously motivated - I think Cheney just basically had a hard-on for increased American military and economic dominance.)

But the question is, given the current evangelical fervor in the United States, how much does this difference even matter? Certainly, for many Christians there is no difference; we are currently engaged in a Holy War against a godless horde of infidels who want to invade our land. In fact, many Muslims certainly don't see it any other way - and ironically their fears of Western imperialism are actually more justified given the political climate of the last century with Britain and now America perceived as obvious Western aggressors. So, regardless of the extent to which the current conflict is actually religiously motivated, it's certainly perceived as such by both Americans and Muslims.

[Simon_Jester]

There are two problems with this interpretation as I see it:

The smaller one is that in spite of everything, the Christians who view the US presence in the Middle East as a crusade are still a minority.

The larger one is a bit more subtle. Back in the day, crusades (and their brown-skinned cousins, jihads) would be announced publically, openly, and above board. Everyone would be expected to sign on. Consider the Crusaders' practice of crying out "Deus Vult!" and wearing big bright red crosses into battle. Or the early (18th century) Wahhabis' practice of crying out "Repent! Repent! Repent!" to rival Muslim armies and, if they did not surrender by the third "Repent!", treating them as heathens to be slaughtered without pity. Or both the Crusaders and the Wahhabis' practice of demolishing or defacing religious icons they deeped impious (as the Taliban did recently with those giant statues of the Buddha).

To my way of thinking, that level of widespread religious fervor as a matter of open public policy is necessary if you're going to talk about a crusade. It's not enough that some of the people involved were partially influenced by religious motives to do something that they might very well have done anyway, or that one company sneakily puts religious slogans on its products.

If that's a crusade, every war ever fought was a crusade, because that kind of religious influence is present all the time, in everyone. Religion is always invoked, even against enemies that you have every secular reason to oppose. There will always be strongly religious people in the military, just as there will be in any other large institution that does not explicitly bar religious people from its ranks. There will always be strongly religious people in private industry, and often even in public office. That influence cannot be avoided. So if any war religion touches is a crusade, every war is a crusade... in which case the term "crusade" gets stretched into meaninglessness.

[Shroom Man 777]

I guess that was what I was going for, and in retrospect it's kind of a shitty argument to call everything a crusade (which is what I was doing). I wasn't really thinking about the actual Crusades, and was generally slapping the label "crusade" into any generically asshole act of aggression. Like how one calls a bunch of very bad people "Nazis" even though they don't specifically subscribe to the tenets of National Socialism, despite being deplorable people nonetheless. Like how I call, for example, those orbital bombardment wankers in Avatar a bunch of Nazis. Bleh, I'll shut up now.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the Nazis butchered their way into a unique place in history, so it's fair to call would-be genociders Nazis.

It's likewise fair to call a war driven by ideology a "crusade" in the bad sense. What's dangerous is when you then proceed to say "and this crusade, like the real crusades, is motivated by religious fanaticism."

That's like saying that the "nuke Eywa" crowd are motivated by their hatred of Space Jews.

[Channel72]

It's not enough that some of the people involved were partially influenced by religious motives to do something that they might very well have done anyway, or that one company sneakily puts religious slogans on its products.


If that's a crusade, every war ever fought was a crusade, because that kind of religious influence is present all the time, in everyone. Religion is always invoked, even against enemies that you have every secular reason to oppose.

I don't think we can apply the word crusade to just any war; I think you're overlooking an important aspect of the current political situation: Most fanatical Muslim organizations actually do think they're literally defending Islam from outright Western aggression. This draws an interesting parallel to the actual Crusades in a way you would be hard-pressed to find in other recent wars like Vietnam, the Korean War, or World War II. Obviously it's a very superficial parallel; rather than two world powers going at it with all their might, we basically have one super-power taking pot-shots at a bunch of idiots hiding in Pakistan somewhere. But I think the the parallel is notable nonetheless, if only for the similar ideological conflict involved.

On the Western side of the conflict the religious influence is much less direct, and the actual reasons for going to war were probably not religiously motivated. However, it's interesting that at this point in history the American evangelical movement is a lot stronger than it used to be, and they see the Middle East as fertile ground for proselytizing. They don't have the backing of government or a military, so again, the comparison with the actual Crusades is superficial, but again it's still a notable parallel that can't be found in just any war.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think we can apply the word crusade to just any war; I think you're overlooking an important aspect of the current political situation: Most fanatical Muslim organizations actually do think they're literally defending Islam from outright Western aggression. This draws an interesting parallel to the actual Crusades in a way you would be hard-pressed to find in other recent wars like Vietnam, the Korean War, or World War II. Obviously it's a very superficial parallel; rather than two world powers going at it with all their might, we basically have one super-power taking pot-shots at a bunch of idiots hiding in Pakistan somewhere. But I think the the parallel is notable nonetheless, if only for the similar ideological conflict involved.

To be sure it's a crusade from the Muslim-fundie side of the line. They, after all, have foot soldiers charge into battle shouting about how great God is. They have senior officers claiming religious authority, who actively go out of their way to punish unbelievers and heretics within their own faith, even to the point of death.

On the Western side of the conflict the religious influence is much less direct, and the actual reasons for going to war were probably not religiously motivated. However, it's interesting that at this point in history the American evangelical movement is a lot stronger than it used to be, and they see the Middle East as fertile ground for proselytizing. They don't have the backing of government or a military, so again, the comparison with the actual Crusades is superficial, but again it's still a notable parallel that can't be found in just any war.

All this is true, and it's kind of my point. I would argue that the American wars in the Middle East are like a normal war with a tiny little baby crusade-let riding piggyback on its shoulders. The crusaders have neither the popular support nor the assets to wage the religious war they'd like to be fighting. Happily for them, other people who are not religious (like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz) were pushing in the same direction, and unlike Christian fundies, these people had the swing to elect a president and push in the direction the fundies wanted to go.

But this is very much a marriage of convenience, though most of the Christian-fundie rank and file either never realized it or have since forgotten. The reaction against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is pretty significant, and is unlikely to go away any time soon. That effectively blocks the US from any further "crusading," no matter how motivated the Christian-fundie minority is to keep going.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, the Nazis butchered their way into a unique place in history, so it's fair to call would-be genociders Nazis.

It's likewise fair to call a war driven by ideology a "crusade" in the bad sense. What's dangerous is when you then proceed to say "and this crusade, like the real crusades, is motivated by religious fanaticism."

It might not be motivated by direct religious fanaticism, but the very Christian nature of America makes it very easy to dehumanize brown-people who have different cultures AND religious beliefs from your own. There IS some inter-cultural and inter-religious tension, and the American Christians and the Arab Muslims are not the bestest of friends, which is why the American Christians aren't really too torn up about a whole bunch of dead Arab Muslims. Religion might not be the reason they went to war, but it still helps the "us versus them" mindset that makes war easier to do.

That's like saying that the "nuke Eywa" crowd are motivated by their hatred of Space Jews.

I think I've said something in those words in the Avatar thread. It was also motivated by their hated of Spacemerican-Indians and Space Brown people.

[General Brock]

Brock, I have to ask: have you ever actually spent any meaningful amount of time living among Americans? In a place like, say, Massachusetts or California?

No, I haven't lived amongst Americans but those few I've met in person and gotten to know for any length of time are very likeable and not at all like the negative stereotypes.

Brock, I'm serious, you're trying too hard. You're taking petty little sparks and mistaking them for bonfires.

Do you have any idea how many sparks it takes to get a good bonfire going? Thank God for matches and lighters. No, wait, I meant god in the metaphysical-metaphorical sense, even though we all know there is only one true cultural brand. OMG I said the g-word and with a Capital G yet.

It's like complaining about a Zeus-ist conspiracy because someone talks about an event in the Dardanelles happening close to the ruins of Troy or something. Yes, Christians (some of them fundamentalists) exist in the US. Yes, they are familiar with Judeo-Christian mythology, and references to that mythology are likely to appear in material produced in the US.

This is not a sign of fundamentalist control over American policy, or a sign that the secularists are somehow helpless to affect that policy, or a sign that secularists are fooling themselves when they think they are relatively unaffected by Christian fundamentalism.

Yes, and how many seculars are elected to high office and allowed to determine policy? Heck, even amongst American Christians, it was a big deal to have the Catholic Kennedy elected, rather than a Protestant. Catholics have a liberal streak, apparently. It was becoming an item in Kerry's presidential campaign, until it became known he had Jewish lineage. I can't exactly prove it, but I had the distinct impression that this was supposed to be some sort of smear against him, despite Kerry being a highly qualified candidate by any rational secular standard. The fundamentalist right has some very obvious hot buttons.

Yo secula's kin git back tah work now keepin' th' laht's awn and pass the newfangled ammo. Here's a grant an' an appointment naw, good boah.

Dude. Look back a hundred years or so. Back when every educated person knew the classics (the Greco-Roman classics). References to those classics were common, for a good and obvious reason: they were part of the universal reference pool, the stuff that people picked up by osmosis. It didn't mean that the Greco-Roman classics had no influence, of course. But it sure didn't mean that Zeus worshippers were running the country.

I'm serious, Brock, I don't see what you're talking about; all I see is the selection bias from Hell. You're combing articles for single references to people who even appear in the Bible as evidence for some kind of sinister plot. It's ridiculous.

Science and what we know as the intelligentsia was all but reborn in Christian monastaries. Many of the first of what would become modern scientists were Christian monks, natural philosophers ressurrecting and applying the legacy of scientific thinking left from classical Rome and Greece. Many great thinkers had an extensive Christian-guided education in the classics; the Church had a lock on education. Monastaries were where the third sons of the wealthy were sent if there was nothing for them to inherit and nothing else for them to do but make trouble.

So if in Victorian times there were fears of a 'Zeus' conspiracy, it would have been amongst elite Christians who resented the use of pagan knowledge in any context, and a Zeus conspiracy was their version of Al Queda, an amorphous threat made more real by belief and corresponding action against it than anything actual 'Zeus' cultists could inspire.

In all fairness that trying to invalidate me as a dire conspiracy theorist isn't helping your argument, but rather is a model example of secular denial of Christian influence.

If you're calling it as you see it, I think you need to get your eyes examined.

Just as long as treatment doesn't include an attitude adjustment.

That is not sufficient evidence for a "fundamentalist conspiracy" of the sheer scale and power you imply.

One of the funniest cartoons I ever ran into was that of some caveman guy standing in the middle of a giant fossil dinosaur footprint saying he didn't see no dinos. It may have been supposed to be a fresh dino print, though...

My point is that this was not evidence that the Victorians were secretly promoting the worship of Zeus, or that their society was dominated by people who were. It's just that this was part of their cultural reference pool, so it came up a lot. So what?

You just said so yourself; it was part of their cultural reference pool, and a faction was willing to mobilize and act on a threat to Christian cultural hegemony. Christianity is part of America's cultural reference pool, deeply ingrained so as to at times be indistinguishable to participants, but not to outside observers not confined to that reference pool, but aware of it and alternative reference pools.

And I question your judgement, because I think you're looking for evidence to justify your prejudices.

In the meantime you are discounting evidence to justify your own prejudices. Prejudice is such a strong word, with such negative nuances.

I mean, for crying out loud, the engraved Bible passages on the rifle scopes were something so subtle that no one realized it was happening back home until people started writing to complain. No international outcry or anything. Crusades are not normally famous for subtlety.

Well, once the story simply could no longer be suppressed by like minded people in military and politics worldwide, there was an outcry.

Doubtless secular American soldiers used those sights without knowing what they were, and wouldn't care as long as they worked. Possibly many Christian soldiers did as well - including those who might be appalled at committing what might be to a modern Christian a kind of blasphemy. Ditto secular and religious Muslims handed those rifles.

However, those persons were made to serve the crusade with poetic, symbolic emphasis, as was their foretold place to do so, from a certain point of view. It was just to good a joke to remain an 'in' joke forever. Who's yo' daddy?

[Simon_Jester]

It might not be motivated by direct religious fanaticism, but the very Christian nature of America makes it very easy to dehumanize brown-people who have different cultures AND religious beliefs from your own. There IS some inter-cultural and inter-religious tension, and the American Christians and the Arab Muslims are not the bestest of friends, which is why the American Christians aren't really too torn up about a whole bunch of dead Arab Muslims. Religion might not be the reason they went to war, but it still helps the "us versus them" mindset that makes war easier to do.

All right, but it's not as if, for example, the Soviets got all that torn up over a bunch of dead Slavs who were just like them, and the officially accepted religious beliefs of Soviet Russia were atheism, atheism, and atheism. People do horrible things to their co-religionists, to heathens, to people of different colors, to people of the same color, whatever. Religion helps, but no more so than any number of other confounding factors.

I think I've said something in those words in the Avatar thread. It was also motivated by their hated of Spacemerican-Indians and Space Brown people.

In space, brown is blue? Something like that.

No, I haven't lived amongst Americans but those few I've met in person and gotten to know for any length of time are very likeable and not at all like the negative stereotypes.

Right. What I'm getting at is that the country isn't like the stereotype either. There are bits and pieces here that might make you think (rightly) that you're trapped in Jesusland, yes. But there are also plenty of large bits that are just like any other developed nation, only with marginally more flags and worse health care. Bits where the influence of Christian fundamentalism runs very lightly, or so deep under the surface that you have to dig like mad to find it.

Yes, and how many seculars are elected to high office and allowed to determine policy? Heck, even amongst American Christians, it was a big deal to have the Catholic Kennedy elected, rather than a Protestant.

Dude, that was fifty years ago. Anti-Catholic bias was rife at the time in the Anglosphere; the whole "equal rights" meme hadn't spread evenly through the developed world yet.

Yes, the fundies have hot buttons, but their hot buttons don't correspond to the hot buttons of the rest of the country. Most Americans don't really care all that much one way or the other.

Science and what we know as the intelligentsia was all but reborn in Christian monastaries. Many of the first of what would become modern scientists were Christian monks, natural philosophers ressurrecting and applying the legacy of scientific thinking left from classical Rome and Greece. Many great thinkers had an extensive Christian-guided education in the classics; the Church had a lock on education. Monastaries were where the third sons of the wealthy were sent if there was nothing for them to inherit and nothing else for them to do but make trouble.

And that changed how?

So if in Victorian times there were fears of a 'Zeus' conspiracy, it would have been amongst elite Christians who resented the use of pagan knowledge in any context, and a Zeus conspiracy was their version of Al Queda, an amorphous threat made more real by belief and corresponding action against it than anything actual 'Zeus' cultists could inspire.

Dammit. PLEASE, hear me out:

Educated people in Victorian times read the classics. As in, "classical literature:" Homer, Ovid, that sort of thing for mythology. They also read other works by Greek and Roman historians, philosophers, and political figures. In that era, if you were educated, you damn sure knew Latin (and some Latin literature), and you probably knew some Greek (and Greek literature). The penetration of Greco-Roman cultural imagery among the upper classes was near-100%. People designed their mansions and public buildings to look like Roman temples- go downtown and look for buildings with porticos and big marble columns; you'll find them anywhere in the West.

Likewise, you see references to the classics in the literature, decorative features like nymphs on buildings, and so on. And this was all done without comment, without approval or disapproval. It was just people trying to add a touch of culture to whatever they were doing at the moment.

If you had been living in this era, as far as I can tell, you would have used all this as evidence of a cult of malicious Zeus-worshippers manipulating society from behind the scenes. No one else would have, but the same reasoning by which a newspaper calling Ur "the birthplace of Abraham" is a sign of conspiracy, and by which the Harry Dresden novels and Xena: Warrior Princess are signs of conspiracy... marble columns with scrollwork were signs of conspiracy.

But no such conspiracy existed. It would have been purely a figment of your imagination then, and it's pretty close to a figment now.

In all fairness that trying to invalidate me as a dire conspiracy theorist isn't helping your argument, but rather is a model example of secular denial of Christian influence.

But a conspiracy theorist would say exactly that; that's the problem. I literally can not tell how your arguments, your methods of gathering evidence, your basic type of reasoning, differ from those used by someone who wants to prove that the United States Congress is in thrall to the Greys in their UFOs or something like that.

Well, once the story simply could no longer be suppressed by like minded people in military and politics worldwide, there was an outcry.

No, outcry is when Al Qaeda starts posting videos in protest, like they did about Abu Gharaib. When Al Jazeera is running the incident 24/7 because it's the biggest scandal in the region that year.

Outcry is NOT when some minor advocacy group threatens to sue, the company committing the offensive behavior mumbles a vague half-assed apology, and stops doing whatever it was.

[Shroom Man 777]

All right, but it's not as if, for example, the Soviets got all that torn up over a bunch of dead Slavs who were just like them, and the officially accepted religious beliefs of Soviet Russia were atheism, atheism, and atheism. People do horrible things to their co-religionists, to heathens, to people of different colors, to people of the same color, whatever. Religion helps, but no more so than any number of other confounding factors.

Oh, yes, that's true. In the case of co-religionists you don't stir up religious fervor you instead stir up rabid nationalistic sentiment or something like that. But, eh, religion is just another tool for people to use in fucking each other up, I guess.

[General Brock]

Right. What I'm getting at is that the country isn't like the stereotype either. There are bits and pieces here that might make you think (rightly) that you're trapped in Jesusland, yes. But there are also plenty of large bits that are just like any other developed nation, only with marginally more flags and worse health care. Bits where the influence of Christian fundamentalism runs very lightly, or so deep under the surface that you have to dig like mad to find it.

I'm pretty sure I won't have to dig very hard for very long to find a majority of senators and congressmen have nothing but good things to say about Christian fundamentalist causes. If abortion didn't hide fornicating 'sin' so well it would probably be far harder to obtain than it is now.

Yes, the fundies have hot buttons, but their hot buttons don't correspond to the hot buttons of the rest of the country. Most Americans don't really care all that much one way or the other.

Don't care or can't care or quietly agree? American democracy does not express the will of the people as well as its supposed to.

Science and what we know as the intelligentsia was all but reborn in Christian monastaries. Many of the first of what would become modern scientists were Christian monks, natural philosophers ressurrecting and applying the legacy of scientific thinking left from classical Rome and Greece. Many great thinkers had an extensive Christian-guided education in the classics; the Church had a lock on education. Monastaries were where the third sons of the wealthy were sent if there was nothing for them to inherit and nothing else for them to do but make trouble.

And that changed how?

Changed how? That's quite a bit to try an synopsize in a few sentences. Educated people were needed for positions exponentially being created as a result of cultural, economic, and military competition among nations, and secularization was the consequence of mass-education. Freedom of religion was originally the freedom to be any kind of Christian, to defuse conflicts between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant sects, not necessarily foster secularism. Many of the oldest universities retain their religious connection, and it was only in the 20th century that the state undertook the expense of mass education. Only then did secularism truly come into its own, but it has always been on a leash.

Dammit. PLEASE, hear me out:

Educated people in Victorian times read the classics. As in, "classical literature:" Homer, Ovid, that sort of thing for mythology. They also read other works by Greek and Roman historians, philosophers, and political figures. In that era, if you were educated, you damn sure knew Latin (and some Latin literature), and you probably knew some Greek (and Greek literature). The penetration of Greco-Roman cultural imagery among the upper classes was near-100%. People designed their mansions and public buildings to look like Roman temples- go downtown and look for buildings with porticos and big marble columns; you'll find them anywhere in the West.

Likewise, you see references to the classics in the literature, decorative features like nymphs on buildings, and so on. And this was all done without comment, without approval or disapproval. It was just people trying to add a touch of culture to whatever they were doing at the moment.

If you had been living in this era, as far as I can tell, you would have used all this as evidence of a cult of malicious Zeus-worshippers manipulating society from behind the scenes. No one else would have, but the same reasoning by which a newspaper calling Ur "the birthplace of Abraham" is a sign of conspiracy, and by which the Harry Dresden novels and Xena: Warrior Princess are signs of conspiracy... marble columns with scrollwork were signs of conspiracy.

But no such conspiracy existed. It would have been purely a figment of your imagination then, and it's pretty close to a figment now.

Those Jesus guns lent one hell of a punchline to some people's fundie figments, let me tell you. All the science, applied rational theory creativity and knowledge behind modern optics and construction materials notwithstanding.

Had I been living in Victorian times, I probably would have been accused of being a 'Zeus worshipper' for liking Classical shtick, having better things to do than attend Church, and being critical of then-modern imperialist practices and the dark side the Victorian Christian mores. Being branded a witch... I mean 'conspiracy theorist' would have been difficult as the term had yet to evolve.

You can say all you want that such and such conspiracy doesn't exist, but fundie imperatives expressed through such organizations as the Project for a New American Century will continue to find resonance with the majority (or at least significant minority) of the American people, grounded as they are in common sympathy towards and identification with variants on the cultural them of Judeo-Christian supremacism. This resonance will be realized in action in things like, oh, foreign policy.

But a conspiracy theorist would say exactly that; that's the problem. I literally can not tell how your arguments, your methods of gathering evidence, your basic type of reasoning, differ from those used by someone who wants to prove that the United States Congress is in thrall to the Greys in their UFOs or something like that.[/quite]

So I go around criticizing mass cultural artifacts like Xena as supporting a Christian outlook and worldview and cite them as examples of Christianity as a self-perpetuating and sometimes negative cultural force, and this is evidence I'm a witch... I mean 'conspiracy theorist'. I used to enjoy deconstructing commercials too, by the way, as it was always interesting to see how advertisers conspired to sell me something I didn't necessarily want.

No, outcry is when Al Qaeda starts posting videos in protest, like they did about Abu Gharaib. When Al Jazeera is running the incident 24/7 because it's the biggest scandal in the region that year.

Outcry is NOT when some minor advocacy group threatens to sue, the company committing the offensive behavior mumbles a vague half-assed apology, and stops doing whatever it was.

Regardless of who was outcrying, bear in mind that the reasons for removing the offending references were not due to secular or liberal Christian huffing and puffing over rules violations, but due to the crusade being called a Crusade when it can't openly be called a Crusade.

Apart from upsetting Islam, which pretty much accepts unconditionally that they are in fact facing a Crusade, westerners who would prefer not to spend blood and treasure on a Crusade whether they want to or not demand the fig leaf, the bone that they are not fighting a Crusade, thrown at them. The modern Crusade has a home front as well.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, the fundies have hot buttons, but their hot buttons don't correspond to the hot buttons of the rest of the country. Most Americans don't really care all that much one way or the other.

Don't care or can't care or quietly agree? American democracy does not express the will of the people as well as its supposed to.

The answer to your question is "don't care." See, this is what you learn from actually living among Americans. Most of them are not fundamentalists. Most do not support a fundamentalist agenda to anything like the lengths the fundies themselves want to go. Many are actively opposed to doing any such thing. And yes, these people do have clout; you can't marginalize a demographic that makes up something like half your population to the point where they have zero political impact. Not when everyone has the right to vote, even if they aren't all exercising it.

I'm not sure you realize exactly what a fundamentalist Christian government in the US would look like; it would be a hell of a lot worse than anything we've seen so far. What we've had to date is the result of a compromise between a fundamentalist movement and a majority population that isn't willing to tolerate their lunacy indefinitely, on both sides of the political aisle.

Had I been living in Victorian times, I probably would have been accused of being a 'Zeus worshipper' for liking Classical shtick, having better things to do than attend Church, and being critical of then-modern imperialist practices and the dark side the Victorian Christian mores. Being branded a witch... I mean 'conspiracy theorist' would have been difficult as the term had yet to evolve.

Dammit. You're still not listening.

1) NO ONE BELIEVED IN A CONSPIRACY OF ZEUS WORSHIPPERS! My point is not that there was such a conspiracy, or that Christians of the era claimed that such a conspiracy existed.

My point is that if one was being wrongheaded enough, one might claim that such a conspiracy existed. One's "evidence" would be things like children studying Latin in school, the influence of Greco-Roman art on the architecture of the period, military officers quoting Homer at each other, that sort of thing. One would then claim that this "evidence" somehow proved that the Victorians were secretly worshipping Zeus and letting their belief in the Greek gods control their actions, and that anyone who thought otherwise (like, say, Anglican Christians) was deluding themself.

This would, of course, be retarded. You would have to be a complete fool to believe such a thing. But what bothers me is that this is pretty much the same line of reasoning you use to assume that a vast fundamentalist Christian conspiracy totally dominates the US. You're straining examples from a sea of popular culture and mistaking them for the deep bedrock attitudes of, well, everyone. It's just wrong, and it's making you look stupid.

2)We seem to have here a major breakdown of historical literacy; the Victorian era was well after the witch-hunter movement had died of old age in the European Enlightenment. As an example of the Victorian attitude towards allegations of witchcraft, I suggest Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841, which contains an extended (and harsh) description of the practice of witch hunting. One that makes it very, very clear that the author despised the witch hunters and thought their victims were innocent. And that was at the beginning of the Victorian era.

So no, persecution complex aside, in Victorian England you would not have been accused of a witch, or of being a secret Zeus-worshipper. In fact, I doubt you'd be accused of being much of anything except an obnoxious loudmouth, and I suspect that you'd earn that by lecturing people on their perceived moral failings at great length.

You can say all you want that such and such conspiracy doesn't exist, but fundie imperatives expressed through such organizations as the Project for a New American Century will continue to find resonance with the majority (or at least significant minority) of the American people, grounded as they are in common sympathy towards and identification with variants on the cultural them of Judeo-Christian supremacism. This resonance will be realized in action in things like, oh, foreign policy.

The Project for a New American Century was not a fundamentalist movement. You're confusing different groups that formed an alliance of convenience for one group with one agenda. This is usually a mistake, among other things because it makes it harder to fight the bastards.

Apart from upsetting Islam, which pretty much accepts unconditionally that they are in fact facing a Crusade, westerners who would prefer not to spend blood and treasure on a Crusade whether they want to or not demand the fig leaf, the bone that they are not fighting a Crusade, thrown at them. The modern Crusade has a home front as well.

Here we go again.

Some, not all, Islamic fundamentalists, who are themselves fighting a crusade (a "holy war," with religion entwined with their strategy at every level, made overt and specific, openly declared to be a holy war) claim that their enemies are likewise fighting a crusade.

This does not make them correct. Many millions of Muslims do not perceive the conflict as a crusade. Indeed, even among the fundamentalists, one of their chief reasons for disliking the West is the threat posed by a secular system of values to their own traditional system... but this very system of values would make a crusade impossible. They don't think we're crusaders; they think we're godless heathens. Which is the opposite of a crusader.

Even ignoring the fundamentalists who condemn America for not being religious enough, there are many millions of Muslims who perceive the conflict as a power grab by the US (which is a secular, if foul, activity). And millions more who honestly want to work with the US to build up non-fundamentalist governments of their own without having to abandon their religion. Which is, again, not the sort of thing crusaders would cooperate with; they're in it for the converts.

So no, "Islam" does not "accept unconditionally that they are in fact facing a Crusade," because they aren't, and their threat assessment is realistic enough that most of them recognize it. Some of them, of course, are fools who mistake what they're facing for a crusade, but those are the same people who expect Allah to swoop down and crush their enemies if they shout prayers loudly enough in battle, so I don't think it's a good idea to trust their judgement.

[General Brock]

The answer to your question is "don't care." See, this is what you learn from actually living among Americans. Most of them are not fundamentalists. Most do not support a fundamentalist agenda to anything like the lengths the fundies themselves want to go. Many are actively opposed to doing any such thing. And yes, these people do have clout; you can't marginalize a demographic that makes up something like half your population to the point where they have zero political impact. Not when everyone has the right to vote, even if they aren't all exercising it.

Great job they did stopping the crusade in the Middle East and putting those Wall Street crooks in jail and stopping corruption from strangling the economy. Oh, wait, poster-Americans aren't in charge, are they? They don't seem to be capable of coherent resistance to the destruction of their nation. Who's vision of America reigns true today? Not that of the secular humanist, for sure. The fundie checklist is near full and awaiting the second coming. Hopefully their capacity for self-fulfilling prophesy will fizzle as usual because armageddon sounds very unpleasant.

I'm not sure you realize exactly what a fundamentalist Christian government in the US would look like; it would be a hell of a lot worse than anything we've seen so far. What we've had to date is the result of a compromise between a fundamentalist movement and a majority population that isn't willing to tolerate their lunacy indefinitely, on both sides of the political aisle.

The majority population was compromised, for sure. Completely pwnt in the domestic clash of cultures. Calling it a 'compromise' is a little generous.

I'd expect a fundie U.S. government to be close in appearance to the one that exists now; a bunch of stuff-shirted hypocrites who can only express high-minded anything in the breech and only coming together to play chicken on the road to hell as it vies for title of 'worst ever' in the pursuit of life, liberty, and indefinite lunacy.

Dammit. You're still not listening.

1) NO ONE BELIEVED IN A CONSPIRACY OF ZEUS WORSHIPPERS! My point is not that there was such a conspiracy, or that Christians of the era claimed that such a conspiracy existed.

You keep referring to Victorian Zeus worshippers. Why does this sound familiar. What's that my cat? Oh, right. The Ten Commandments of neocon architect Robert D. Kaplan, from the infamous article Supremacy by Stealth. Because nothing is more stealthy than an open secret.

Rule No. 10
Speak Victorian, Think Pagan

As noted, imperialism in antiquity was in many respects a strain of isolationism: the demand for absolute security at home led powers to try to dominate the world around them. That pagan-Roman model of imperialism contrasts sharply with the altruistic Victorian one, exemplified by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone in his comment about protecting "the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan." Americans are truly idealistic by nature, but even if we weren't, our historical and geographical circumstances would necessitate that U.S. foreign policy be robed in idealism, so as to garner public support and ultimately be effective. And yet security concerns necessarily make our foreign policy more pagan. The idealistic shorthand of "democracy," "economic development," and "human rights," by means of which the media make sense of events in distant parts of the world, conceals many harsh and complicated ground-level truths. Remember that even Gladstone's vision was more effectively implemented by the realpolitik of statesmen such as Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, and the Marquess of Salisbury, who kept illiberal empires like Germany and Russia at bay, sometimes through sheer deviousness, and also arranged for the retaking of Sudan from Islamic extremists.

By sustaining ourselves first, we will be able to do the world the most good. Some 200 countries, plus thousands of nongovernmental organizations, represent a chaos of interests. Without the organizing force of a great and self-interested liberal power, they are unable to advance the interests of humanity as a whole.

And there is this coda: Just as, following the explorations of Portuguese and other mariners, the oceans became a new arena for great power struggles, so will outer space. We have recognized this by creating a U.S. Space Command, which is now a part of the U.S. Strategic Command. The only question now is whether the United States will invest enough in the military technology required to dominate space. If a less liberal power such as China does so instead, then American dominance will be particularly short-lived, no matter how successful the war on terrorism.

No doubt there are some who see an American empire as the natural order of things for all time. That is not a wise outlook. The task ahead for the United States has an end point, and in all probability the end point lies not beyond the conceptual horizon but in the middle distance—a few decades from now. For a limited period the United States has the power to write the terms for international society, in hopes that when the country's imperial hour has passed, new international institutions and stable regional powers will have begun to flourish, creating a kind of civil society for the world. The historian E. H. Carr once observed that "every approach in the past to a world society has been the product of the ascendancy of a single Power." Such ascendancy allows all manner of worldwide connections—economic, cultural, institutional—to be made in a context of order and stability. There will be nothing approaching a true world government, but we may be able to nurture a loose set of global arrangements that have arisen organically among responsible and like-minded states.

If this era of reluctant imperium is to leave a lasting global mark, we must know what we are up to; we must have a sense that supremacy is bent toward a purpose and is not simply an end in itself. In many ways the few decades immediately ahead will be the trickiest ones that our policymakers have ever faced: they are charged with the job of running an empire that looks forward to its own obsolescence.

Winston Churchill saw in the United States a worthy successor to the British Empire, one that would carry on Britain's liberalizing mission. We cannot rest until something emerges that is just as estimable and concrete as what Churchill saw when he gazed across the Atlantic.

[General Brock]

Intermission.

Lets look at the neocon commandments, which by coincidence happens to number ten, because some klutz dropped the tablet with the remaining five and resemblance to biblical references are accidental and unintended:


Rule No. 1
Produce More Joppolos

Joppolos are winning hearts and minds-type soldiers.

"..."Read John Hersey's 'A Bell for Adano', it's all there."...

According to Hersey, "[Men like Joppolo are] ... our future in the world. Neither the eloquence of Churchill nor the humanness of Roosevelt, no Charter, no four freedoms or fourteen points, no dreamer's diagram so symmetrical and so faultless on paper, no plan, no hope, no treaty none of these things can guarantee anything. Only men can guarantee, only the behavior of men under pressure, only our Joppolos."

Remember that diplomats are honest men sent to lie for their country, and soldiers make lousy diplomats, especially Holy Christian Soldier types.


Rule No. 2
Stay on the Move

Essentially be everywhere militarily and put those Joppolos to work.

Rule No. 3
Emulate Second-Century Rome

Actually, this is Emulate the Dying Pagans and connected to Rule 10.

Apart from being the zenith of Roman expansion, second century Rome was notable for the death throes and final abandonment of pastoral pagan Roman values in favour of an essentially godless, goddessless Roman society given over to mercantile militarism and other forms of excess. Second century Rome produced the quisling Constantine, who as a closet Christian empowered Christianity in the spiritul vacuum of the Empire, and just prior to his death in the New Roman (third) Century, had himself baptized (for maximum forgivness of sin) to became the first Christian Roman Emperor.

Rule No. 4
Use the Military to Promote Democracy

Screw the Joppolos and leverage and exploit their trusts egregriously.

Rule No. 5
Be Light and Lethal

See rule 4.


Rule No. 6
Bring Back the Old Rules

Predator(y) assasinations. Gotta love them drones. Rule 4 may come in handy for target identification.


Rule No. 7
Remember the Philippines. Or was it East Timor?

"...Max Boot concludes in (2002) that U.S. actions in the Philippines constitute "one of the most successful counter-insurgencies waged by a Western army in modern times."" Whatever.

The most successful counter-insurgency was waged by Muslim Indonesia against East Timor. Indonesia's adventure was the first successful 'government in a box' (at gunpoint). While Indonesia was eventually voted off the island, East Timor is somewhat further along the road to peaceful liberal capitalist democracy than the Phillipines ever will be. Indonesia accomplished this by accident. Left wing liberals and liberal Catholics compelled the international community to sponsor a referendum on independence by pointing out that East Timor had offshore oil reserves. Otherwise they would still be living under a state of counter-insurgency terror.


Rule No. 8
The Mission Is Everything

See rule 4.

Rule No. 9
Fight on Every Front

Expand the Crusade into Pakistan. See Rule 4, Rule 6.


Rule No. 10
Speak Victorian, Think Pagan

Speak secular humanist. Think neocon definition of pagan. Enact Fundie with a nudge and a wink.

America today is about as secular humanist as second century Rome was pagan. America no longer reflects the fundamental belief system that gave it the strength to misuse for Empire, and no longer strives to express secular humanism except in superficial form. Any true believer in secular humanism is pretty much disempowered and no where near true levers of official power. In an economic era where who you know is becoming more important then what you know to get a job and social position, its going to stay that way. Responsible democracy and freedom was vested in the middle class, and its broke.

So goes the cycle of tragedy and farce, although there are those who don't share that sense of inevitability and continue to demand justice.

[General Brock]

My point is that if one was being wrongheaded enough, one might claim that such a conspiracy existed. One's "evidence" would be things like children studying Latin in school, the influence of Greco-Roman art on the architecture of the period, military officers quoting Homer at each other, that sort of thing. One would then claim that this "evidence" somehow proved that the Victorians were secretly worshipping Zeus and letting their belief in the Greek gods control their actions, and that anyone who thought otherwise (like, say, Anglican Christians) was deluding themself.

This would, of course, be retarded. You would have to be a complete fool to believe such a thing. But what bothers me is that this is pretty much the same line of reasoning you use to assume that a vast fundamentalist Christian conspiracy totally dominates the US. You're straining examples from a sea of popular culture and mistaking them for the deep bedrock attitudes of, well, everyone. It's just wrong, and it's making you look stupid.

The legacy of knowledge, reason, and inspiring imagery of the Olympians is now harnessed to Christian expression. Its hardly a conspiracy. It common knowledge and every deviation from servitude is rather deviant.

2)We seem to have here a major breakdown of historical literacy; the Victorian era was well after the witch-hunter movement had died of old age in the European Enlightenment. As an example of the Victorian attitude towards allegations of witchcraft, I suggest Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841, which contains an extended (and harsh) description of the practice of witch hunting. One that makes it very, very clear that the author despised the witch hunters and thought their victims were innocent. And that was at the beginning of the Victorian era.

So no, persecution complex aside, in Victorian England you would not have been accused of a witch, or of being a secret Zeus-worshipper. In fact, I doubt you'd be accused of being much of anything except an obnoxious loudmouth, and I suspect that you'd earn that by lecturing people on their perceived moral failings at great length.

How nice, I've been elevated from conspiracy theorist to historically incorrect loudmouth.

The Project for a New American Century was not a fundamentalist movement. You're confusing different groups that formed an alliance of convenience for one group with one agenda. This is usually a mistake, among other things because it makes it harder to fight the bastards.

So, being blind to America's softness on the notion of crusade is going to help the 'good fight'?

Here we go again.

Some, not all, Islamic fundamentalists, who are themselves fighting a crusade (a "holy war," with religion entwined with their strategy at every level, made overt and specific, openly declared to be a holy war) claim that their enemies are likewise fighting a crusade.

To undertake Jihad is to undertake a struggle, and the form of this struggle is not always a convenient external war, but the struggle between informed conscience and base desire. America's gung-ho crusading really made things easier for Islamics who don't want to take a good look at how messed up they are, since the luxury of introspection is obviously secondary to getting rid of the invader.

This does not make them correct. Many millions of Muslims do not perceive the conflict as a crusade. Indeed, even among the fundamentalists, one of their chief reasons for disliking the West is the threat posed by a secular system of values to their own traditional system... but this very system of values would make a crusade impossible. They don't think we're crusaders; they think we're godless heathens. Which is the opposite of a crusader.

Actually, Crusaders of any era seem pretty godless. There's a commandment against taking god's name in vain, and its really too bad there's no herafter for them to learn what a true god would think of the whole 'bullies for god' notion.

Even ignoring the fundamentalists who condemn America for not being religious enough, there are many millions of Muslims who perceive the conflict as a power grab by the US (which is a secular, if foul, activity). And millions more who honestly want to work with the US to build up non-fundamentalist governments of their own without having to abandon their religion. Which is, again, not the sort of thing crusaders would cooperate with; they're in it for the converts.

So no, "Islam" does not "accept unconditionally that they are in fact facing a Crusade," because they aren't, and their threat assessment is realistic enough that most of them recognize it. Some of them, of course, are fools who mistake what they're facing for a crusade, but those are the same people who expect Allah to swoop down and crush their enemies if they shout prayers loudly enough in battle, so I don't think it's a good idea to trust their judgement.

Islam is not so easily disarmed of that potent defense, the red-flag word 'crusader', which would incite awareness of an invader that at best would reduce them to McMuslims in servitude to Western multinationals and Judeo-Christian supremacists. Your attitude is closer to that of secular-in-denial looking for that fig-leaf and conscience-balm of best intentions.

[Simon_Jester]

Great job they did stopping the crusade in the Middle East and putting those Wall Street crooks in jail and stopping corruption from strangling the economy.

Now, see, you're conflating a lot of things here. For example: fundamentalists as a group do not have any interest in strangling the economy or promoting crook-dom on Wall Street. They are neither for nor against, because they're too disconnected from reality to have anything like an economic policy.

On the economic front, it is the secular far right wing, the corporatists who by and large don't give a toss about God one way or the other, who are pulling the fundies along for the ride... just as on social policy (abortion, teaching evolution, gay marriage) the fundies are pulling the corporatists along.

This is what you don't get: Not every Republican is a fundamentalist, and not every aspect of the Republican agenda comes from Christian fundamentalism.

The majority population was compromised, for sure. Completely pwnt in the domestic clash of cultures. Calling it a 'compromise' is a little generous.

It's a compromise between what they want (overt theocracy that pushes the curriculum now restricted to home-schooling as public policy, for instance) and what they can get. They can't get a lot of what they want.

You keep referring to Victorian Zeus worshippers. Why does this sound familiar. What's that my cat? Oh, right. The Ten Commandments of neocon architect Robert D. Kaplan, from the infamous article Supremacy by Stealth. Because nothing is more stealthy than an open secret.

...OK. Look, you're obviously not listening; you're just grabbing random words from my posts and using them as reasons to bring up random stuff as evidence of a conspiracy.

I'm going to give up trying to explain my analogy, because I don't think anyone could explain it to you.

The legacy of knowledge, reason, and inspiring imagery of the Olympians is now harnessed to Christian expression. Its hardly a conspiracy. It common knowledge and every deviation from servitude is rather deviant.

Do you honestly not get what I'm talking about here? I'm saying that you'd have to be out of your mind to take that "legacy of knowledge, reason, and inspiring imagery" (well, inspiring imagery, anyway; the Olympians weren't actually big on knowledge and reason) as evidence for a conspiracy. It isn't and wasn't evidence of a conspiracy.

But the argument you're using for a fundie Christian conspiracy controlling the US through popular culture would work just as well as proof of the existence of that (nonexistent) conspiracy. An argument that can be used to prove the existence of things that do not, in fact, exist is a bad argument.

To undertake Jihad is to undertake a struggle, and the form of this struggle is not always a convenient external war, but the struggle between informed conscience and base desire.

To normal Muslims this is true. To the Muslim fundamentalists (especially the Wahhabis)? For them, jihad is a gunpoint thing, because they see a vital need to reform Islam. At gunpoint.

Actually, Crusaders of any era seem pretty godless. There's a commandment against taking god's name in vain, and its really too bad there's no herafter for them to learn what a true god would think of the whole 'bullies for god' notion.

I blame bad theology more than impiety; some people are stupid enough to imagine a worthwhile god endorsing a war.

Islam is not so easily disarmed of that potent defense, the red-flag word 'crusader', which would incite awareness of an invader that at best would reduce them to McMuslims in servitude to Western multinationals and Judeo-Christian supremacists. Your attitude is closer to that of secular-in-denial looking for that fig-leaf and conscience-balm of best intentions.

Ah... are you talking to me?

My entire point is that while SOME Muslims think they are facing a crusade, others do not.

[General Brock]

Now, see, you're conflating a lot of things here. For example: fundamentalists as a group do not have any interest in strangling the economy or promoting crook-dom on Wall Street. They are neither for nor against, because they're too disconnected from reality to have anything like an economic policy.

What is it about the 'end times' mentality don't you don't get? Of course it wouldn't bother them... well, unless they are one of the victims of the economic downturn... but its not like this wasn't prophesized.

On the economic front, it is the secular far right wing, the corporatists who by and large don't give a toss about God one way or the other, who are pulling the fundies along for the ride... just as on social policy (abortion, teaching evolution, gay marriage) the fundies are pulling the corporatists along.

Actually, the corporatists seem like the type to sin hard Monday to Saturday and ask for forgiveness on Sunday.

This is what you don't get: Not every Republican is a fundamentalist, and not every aspect of the Republican agenda comes from Christian fundamentalism.

Remember I said Americans are in denial as to the extent of Christian Fundamentalist influence and religious influence can never be discounted in any assessment of American policy and motives. You don't get that it is significant that this is a Democrat dominated administration, but may as well be Republican.

It's a compromise between what they want (overt theocracy that pushes the curriculum now restricted to home-schooling as public policy, for instance) and what they can get. They can't get a lot of what they want.

That's because Fundamentalism is a diverse movement. I may be guilty of oversimplifying it in this discussion, but while in some things it can be a like a monolith, they don't get along well enough to achieve any kind of government like in Iran. What they've accomplished so far is impressive. They've achieved the dystopia of their dreams and its only getting worse.

I'm going to give up trying to explain my analogy, because I don't think anyone could explain it to you.

I'll keep working on it.

Do you honestly not get what I'm talking about here? I'm saying that you'd have to be out of your mind to take that "legacy of knowledge, reason, and inspiring imagery" (well, inspiring imagery, anyway; the Olympians weren't actually big on knowledge and reason) as evidence for a conspiracy. It isn't and wasn't evidence of a conspiracy.

This all started because I said Americans were in denial about the extent to which fundamentalist Christianity influences them. I pointed out a few bars on the cage, reading material on the floor, and receive condescending lectures on Zeus worshippers and conspiracy and how I don't understand and appreciate the intricacies of the cage. There is nothing demonstrating to me that America is a country where responsible secularism reigns or is even a coherent constituency.

But the argument you're using for a fundie Christian conspiracy controlling the US through popular culture would work just as well as proof of the existence of that (nonexistent) conspiracy. An argument that can be used to prove the existence of things that do not, in fact, exist is a bad argument.

The fundies don't have to conspire to attain what they already have, so I am not arguing that there is a Fundie conspiracy.

To undertake Jihad is to undertake a struggle, and the form of this struggle is not always a convenient external war, but the struggle between informed conscience and base desire.

To normal Muslims this is true. To the Muslim fundamentalists (especially the Wahhabis)? For them, jihad is a gunpoint thing, because they see a vital need to reform Islam. At gunpoint.[/quote]

Well having them and nearly every other Muslim not working for the crusade want to point guns at our soldiers doesn't seem like the best solution, and wouldn't be happening if some neocon idiots hadn't hijacked the good 'ol U.S.A.., which would have been far harder to accomplish had the people been more aware and critical of the outcome of Christian extremism starting at the grassroots and working up.

Ah... are you talking to me?

Sometimes I think so.

My entire point is that while SOME Muslims think they are facing a crusade, others do not.

That's OK. Some Americans don't realize they are on a (c)(C)rusade either and looking a lot like Christian extremists with secular veneer.

This has all been very interesting but its also getting circular. I apologize for the snarkiness of some of my posts. Also, no-anti-Americanism was intended, just anti-supremacism.



At this time I am uncertain as to how to continue.

The OP was about a fundie who promoted a cycle of violence that kills a child with corporal punishment and gets away with it. A fundie can start a crusade spawning even more spectacular cycles of violence in the same spirit of coercive force and get away with it. The cycle of violence is not a secular diagnostic tool, its a gospel affirmation.

I have no way of overcoming your denial that Americans are in denial of the extent to which they are living in Fundie World, 'cause my arguments are wacked and don't have to be anything more.

[General Brock]

OK, I give. Were the Zeus worshippers supposed to be about Fallacy of false cause? Fallacy of accident? Affirming the consequent or Denying the antecedent? There was just something reddish and fishy about it that I couldn't place.

Throughout this thread you've done nothing but validate my contention that American seculars are in denial of the extent to which Fundamentalist extremism influences Judeo-Christian society in politics and policies. It not because you are denying the assertion - its how you are denying it.

Although you have not claimed to be an American, in truth a charge of denial is applicable to seculars of many western Christian nations including Canada, if to far less effect. The rebuttals jumped straight to admonishments for wrongthink and conspiracy theorizing, without providing any tangible counter examples to back that up. It did not even occur to you to do so; defusing and dismissing 'wrongthink' was more important.

I cited the shutdown of the Antiwar movement, an umbrella movement that includes some religious people, but is secular-dominant. The Antiwar movement has always emphasized their opposition to the irresponsible use of war in support of OIL; Oil, Israel, and Logistical base. If successful, policy would have stepped 'outside the cage' of the fundie 'end times' paradigm. Arguments against the word 'crusade' despite its validity in secular and non-technical religious context only come off as denial. By comparison, it would have been fine to cast the Vietnam War as part of a c(C)rusade against communism. The message was, 'don't think that way'.

I mentioned a couple of cultural artifacts, the television show Xena (Mycenaean age historical fiction) and Dresden Files novels (modern day fantasy), as reconciling non-Christian themes to Christianity. Again, the same accusations of wrongthink, but without any convincing counter examples of works that don't do this yet are successful.

The Wall Street bailouts would have been very difficult and dangerous to address, but had a positive secular worldview won out, there would have been a Wall Street Cleanup. There was persistent opposition to the bailouts, and it was well-reasoned. Uncle Tom Obama used the AIG scandal to remove bailout denial and corruption cleanup from the table. With an almost memetic sleight-of-hand it became only a question of how to spend bailout money in the popular media. The crooks were forgiven and could keep their loot and bailout money as long as they submitted to a 'no conspicuous excess' slap on the wrist.

The secular world as a caricature of wickedness and sin is just accepted, a more responsible secular vision lacks validity and is not pursued. Only religion tends to be allowed to act with fervor. Had bailouts been been a pro-abortion bill, the holier-than-thou Fundies would have been out in force, writing letters and holding protests and making a ruckus despite the unliklihood of winning against a Democratic dominated government. Banksters broke just laws everyone agrees with - so where were the examples of the coalition of the smarter than thou? Where are their personalities? What are their weighty lobby organizations? Where is their people power and financial clout to challenge the hand of the executive?

Relevant, dominant and effective national character-defining American policies, popular artifacts, and lobby groups championing positive values as a secular thing and celebrating secular society would go a longer way to convincing me than imaginary Zeus worshippers that don't exist.