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Thread ID: 4600 | Posts: 50 | Started: 2003-01-24

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jay [OP]

2003-01-24 18:09 | User Profile

All: I made a point in an earlier post about the Jew-bashing on this forum. Mind you, I honestly don't care what anyone thinks either way about things, but I do notice that many of you refuse to talk about anything but the Jews and their undue influence.

What if someone took the position that atheists exert undue influence on US Policy? They're only 4% of the population, kinda like the 2% of Jews. Suppose a movement gained force to banish you from America, claiming that you had no right to equal say in social policy b/c you were so outnumbered.

"Colin Powell! Horowitz! Lance Armstrong! See how atheists have entered every realm of white society and forced their way into our culture/policy! They are ruining the country."

Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Think about it. And before the flames begin, know this: I'm hardly a Jewish apologist. I just think some of you are so 1-track minded about our problems. It's an issue worth discussing IMO.

-Jay

weisbrot

2003-01-24 18:23 | User Profile

Originally posted by jay@Jan 24 2003, 14:09 ** All: I made a point in an earlier post about the Jew-bashing on this forum. Mind you, I honestly don't care what anyone thinks either way about things, but I do notice that many of you refuse to talk about anything but the Jews and their undue influence.

What if someone took the position that atheists exert undue influence on US Policy? They're only 4% of the population, kinda like the 2% of Jews. Suppose a movement gained force to banish you from America, claiming that you had no right to equal say in social policy b/c you were so outnumbered.

"Colin Powell! Horowitz! Lance Armstrong! See how atheists have entered every realm of white society and forced their way into our culture/policy! They are ruining the country."

Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Think about it. And before the flames begin, know this: I'm hardly a Jewish apologist. I just think some of you are so 1-track minded about our problems. It's an issue worth discussing IMO.

-Jay **

This atheism is indeed a problem. See below from another website:

Self-Exterminating Jews

by Prometheus

November 7, 2002

The Jewish Diaspora community is demographically imploding due to low birthrates, intermarriage and apostasy.

A study of the fertility rates of various ethnicities within America shows Jewesses to be the least fertile. Jewish birthrates are well below replacement levels, and falling. In the last decade, while the American population rose by 13%, the Jewish population fell by 3%. The surviving Jewish population saw its average age rise from 37 to 41 in just a decade.

The same low fertility patterns for American Jews are being duplicated in Europe, Russia, South America and South Africa. The exception is the relatively small Orthodox community.

Accelerating the demographic decline is intermarriage. The Jewish intermarriage rate is approaching 50% in the United States. If all the children of intermarriages produced "Jewish" children, intermarriage would save Jews from their low birthrates. If the rate were 50%, it would have no positive or negative impact. But the percentage is about 28%. And an intergenerational study in Philadelphia showed that 0% of the grandchildren of intermarriages were raised "Jewish." Intermarriage is effectively apostasy. Again, the exception is the Orthodox community that rarely intermarries.

Further accelerating the demographic collapse of the Jew is direct conversion to Christianity. About a sixth of persons born of Jewish maternal bloodlines are now Christians.

These trends would mark the end of Jews -- understood as people who hold a set of attitudes and beliefs, not as the genetic descendents of Abraham -- EXCEPT for the fact that Jewish fertility in Israel is slightly above the replacement level and that Orthodox fertility is above replacement in the Diaspora. While Orthodox Jews are about 8% of all American Jews, they are having a much larger percentage of all Jewish children. In Israel, Orthodox fertility is about twice that of the secular Jews.

In Israel this differential fertility is creating a demographic transition that has started a cultural civil war between utopian socialist secular Jews and ultra conservative Orthodox and Sephardic Jews. As the secular Jewish Diaspora die-off accelerates, the increasing population of Jews in Israel and the increasing percentage of Orthodox Jews within the Diaspora community will cause the world Jewish population to eventually stabilize and then slowly rise.

As I noted, Jewishness would simply disappear if not for the fecundity of the Orthodox and Sephardic Jews in Israel. It is the Orthodox in particular who will ensure that Jewishness will not rapidly disappear.

What then, is the ultimate fate of the Jew?

To understand that, we must look at the Amish. The Amish are a community of about 100,000 souls descended from 15 families who immigrated to America in the 1600s. This growth was fueled by very high birthrates. Even, today, Amish women average six births, four of whom remain in the faith and two of whom leave for the secular world.

One of the striking features of the Amish is their very low IQ.

This is easy enough to understand. First, the Amish are a bunch of Anabaptist "enthusiasts," and they probably did not attract bright people to begin with. Second, there is the inbreeding problem. Low IQ is one of the consequences of inbreeding due to the lack of diversity within allele pairs. The third and most fundamental reason is eugenic -- or rather dysgenic -- selection.

As noted above, a third of Amish children leave for the secular world. The simple religious life of the Amish has a greater appeal to the dim than to the bright. Thus the smarter Amish kids have been leaving the farm and going off to the city at a greater rate, leaving an ever shallower Amish gene pool.

Thus it is easy to see that the end of Jewishness will not be the bang of extermination or the whimper of demographic collapse, but rather the drool of idiocy.

Today, more than 85% of Jews are either atheists or agnostics. That is to be expected. No intelligent person can take Judaism seriously. Thus Orthodox Jews tend to be less intelligent than the Jewish average. The same process of self-selection that drives the smarter Amish kids to leave the farm drives the smarter Orthodox kids into the mainstream of Jewish society, with its low birthrates and eventual genetic extinction. The dimmer Orthodox Jewish children, however, find solace in Judaism, and pass their genes on prodigiously into a next generation of somewhat dimmer Orthodox Jews.

Those Orthodox children who leave the faith will intermarry with mainstream Jewry. Eventually, the pool of shrinking "mainstream" Jews will increasingly be populated by those with an Orthodox element. As the Orthodox genetic pool drifts down, the "brighter" Orthodox kids will still be dimmer than the average secular Jew, thereby dumbing down the mainstream of Jewry.

Over the centuries, a pool of heavily inbreed, low-IQ Jews will emerge. As the average Jew grows dimmer, Judaism will have to be dumbed down. Eventually, the body of Jews will be so stupid that the ability of average Jews to form "Jewish" thoughts will cease.

Jewry will suffer the fate of Ronald Reagan. The heart will keep beating long after the mind has passed into eternal twilight.

Unfortunately, if present trends are not reversed, there will be no White people around to enjoy it.

PROMETHEUS

weisbrot

2003-01-24 18:26 | User Profile

Originally posted by jay@Jan 24 2003, 14:09 ** What if someone took the position that atheists exert undue influence on US Policy? They're only 4% of the population, kinda like the 2% of Jews. **

These darn atheists...

American Atheists' NJ director grew up as a Reform Jew by Elaine Kahn NJJN Staff Writer [url=http://www.njjewishnews.com/issues/11_18_99/mw/loc/text/story7.html]http://www.njjewishnews.com/issues/11_18_9...ext/story7.html[/url]

The realization that there's no Santa Claus, no Easter bunny -- and no God -- came to David Silverman of Piscataway as a six year old, during a ride in his mother's blue Chrysler.

"I remember the exact moment," says Silverman, state director of the New Jersey office of the American Atheists. "It was an epiphany -- for want of a better word" -- that hit when he wondered why, if God is everywhere and benevolent, "bad things happen to good people."

The existence of God can't be proved or disproved, says Silverman, international business development manager at Lucent Technologies in Holmdel, who was not open about his atheism until college. But an all-knowing benevolent God "and hurricanes taking away whole countries in Central America" are incompatible notions, he says. Nor can atheists commit such concepts as "adapt[ing] religion to support slavery."

The American Atheists claim about 3,000 members nationwide, about 400 of them in New Jersey, including a percentage of Jews "significantly higher than the general population," he says. "Atheism has only one tenet: There are no gods," so atheists come from a variety of backgrounds: black and white, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat. "A lot of people agree with 99 percent of what American Atheists does."

jay

2003-01-24 18:36 | User Profile

LOL! Well, I guess I'll ask the obvious: if the USA is 4% atheist and only 2% jewish, who are the other half? Non-jewish, I'm guessing.

-Jay

mwdallas

2003-01-24 18:51 | User Profile

My only comment is that the Jewish community has been the force that has pushed religion out of the public sphere. Atheists do not have the organization to make much impact on public policy.

jay

2003-01-24 19:12 | User Profile

MW: So, only the 2% of JEWISH atheists have the power & organization skills to push religion out. The other 2% of non-Jewish atheists do not?

-Jay

Nor cal.skiN

2003-01-24 19:47 | User Profile

Weisbrot, Good post. mwdallas, Exactly. Jay, They are the Athiests. Thats what a Marxist is. But ya, I understand your point about Jewish debate though. It does lead to bickering. I guess the fact is, they control our Government, Banks, Federal Reserve, Film institutions, 99% of all the media companies, and almost every Record label in the Country.

Its hard to ignore it when they are effecting our lives and Country in every way, shape, or form. Anyway, I know, same old facts. Did you ever give any thought to why this subject never dies, not even after 2000 yrs?

We can cry all we want to here in America about the Zionists, or Marxists, whatever you like to call them, but its the turd world immigration thats going to finish our people. I prefer not to use the word Jews, because as Henry Ford said- "I have nothing against the Jews in everyday walks of life, its the internationalists I view as the enemy". So I call them Zionists, thats what they are.

And Lets not forget the Media Tycoons handing out the daily guidlines to there puppets. I know you are sick of the subject, but I will leave you with this- P.S. I hope my new avatar lives up to your expectations. No really though, try this one on for size-

What we hear, see and learn is 100% Proof that we live under a total Jewish government and media.

Christian Aryan Law WILL Prevail!

Maybe this will help you understand why this subject will not go away my friend.

Nor cal

mwdallas

2003-01-24 20:02 | User Profile

Correct, Jay.

Of course, the Jews are a small minority in the U.S., and it may seem implausible that they would be able to drive a movement like the separation-of-church-and-state movement. As Benjamin Ginsberg has explained (in "The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State", p. 19), the role of Jews in liberal regimes is political mobilization and the molding of public opinion, and the dominant Jewish presence in the communications media allows them to mold opinion with respect to many issues. Also -- as J.J. Goldberg explains in "Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment" (p. 276) -- it is generally believed that Jews account for 50% of the funding of the Democratic National Committee and half the funding of Democratic Presidential campaigns. They also influence the Republican Party with heavy contributions, and according to Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews account for a quarter to a third of all funds contributed to major political campaigns in the US. Those other 2% who are atheists are not plugged into the sort of political influence that sort of money buys. And compare the number of Jewish-run media outlets with the number run by non-Jewish atheists. Can you name any of the latter? Ted Turner, maybe? When the Supreme Court issued its school prayer decisions, every TV network had always had a Jewish CEO.

On the separation of church and state in particular:

[url=http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.08.18/news.html]http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.08.18/news.html[/url]

"Certainly [Lieberman's] being selected as the first Jew on a presidential ticket is responsible for a tremendous amount of excitement," the deputy executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, David Harris, said. "But that's not overshadowing the substance, which is that he's right on the issues," Mr. Harris said, citing Mr. Lieberman's positions on reproductive rights, Israel, the separation of church and state, gun control and the environment.

He's right on all the issues -- separation of church and state apparently ranks third, right behind abortion and Israel!

More from Mr. Harris:

[url=http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.08.04/news.html]http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.08.04/news.html[/url]

Democrats, however, downplayed the significance of the numbers of Jews in the GOP inner circle. "Of course we don't deny that there are Jewish Republicans and some working on the Bush campaign, but the fact remains that Jews have and will continue to vote overwhelmingly Democratic because of the issues," the deputy executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, David A. Harris, said. "It's not just out of tradition or a habit, but because the Democratic Party stands for reproductive rights, the separation of church and state and the whole host of domestic issues that American Jewry has rallied around," Mr. Harris said.

Here's an interesting article on how the Jewish community determines what is a "Jewish" issue:

[url=http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=602]http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletco....php3?artid=602[/url]

*Many issues are easy: support for Israel, combating anti-Semitism, strengthening programs that care for needy Jews and others. A somewhat broader range also relates unmistakably to Jewish interests: hate crime legislation, for example, or prayer in public schools. *

Happy Hacker

2003-01-24 21:17 | User Profile

Originally posted by jay@Jan 24 2003, 18:09 ** What if someone took the position that atheists exert undue influence on US Policy? They're only 4% of the population, kinda like the 2% of Jews. **

Isn't 10% of the Senate Jewish? What percentage is atheist? 2 or 3%?

Jews who are, what, close to 20% of the Democrats in the Senate and it is Jews who have mainstream support with the Republicans (thanks to see-no-evil Christian zionists). Atheists have no mainstream support in the Republican party. Who might be the next Democrat presidential candidate, an atheist or a jew? Who do you think would have a better chance of winning?

I actually agree with you point. Jews have the support of many right-wing Christians. Atheists have the support of many left-wing Christians. It's a deadly mix that is dragging America to a post-Christian and a post-freedom era.

It isn't the atheist influence that led to the 9/11 attack, it is our blind support of Israel. Our coming expensive murder spree in Iraq is coming with full Israeli support, not atheist support. (You can't call it a war when one side is defenseless and has done no act of war to justify war.)

DRSLICEIT

2003-01-24 21:33 | User Profile

ADD >> STARBUCKS, DUNKIN DONUTS AND SLIM JIMS TO THAT JEW LIST.

Of course no one want s to talk about the Jewish religious tax on all our food products with the sign of KOSHER (K) (U) (PARVEE) being the more well known on labels.

Marcus Porcius Cato

2003-01-24 23:16 | User Profile

"LOL! Well, I guess I'll ask the obvious: if the USA is 4% atheist and only 2% jewish, who are the other half? Non-jewish, I'm guessing."

The USA is 4% atheist and 2% - sez who? You should wholly ignore the Zog's Alice in Wonderland 'statistics'. Those numbers mean exactly what the Kosher Kommisars determine them to mean, no more and no less. A 4 is a 4 except when it isn't, which is most of the time. These are the same people who tell you that 'statistics prove' that pederasty is an illness endemic to heterosexuals - but when was the last time you heard about some NamblaPriest molesting young GIRLS?

Personally, I deem all sincerely religious folk to be potentially dangerous, unstable critters and atheists to be the most dangerous of the lot (Yes Virginia, Atheism IS a religion, consisting as it does in a fanatical denial unburdened by the tiniest shred of evidence of a nebulous entity/ies that neither it nor any of the other competing religious ideologies can define precisely). But I recogonize what the word atheist really means in officially sanctioned discourse. It, along with the equally obfuscatory gibberish phrase 'secular humanist', is a UU approved weasel word allowed today's cowardly christians so that they can dutifully avoid fingering the JEW while valiantly tilting at windmills.

A bunch of vicious white hating Jews forcefully ejected from Germany by Uncle Wolf and immediately presented by the US ruling establishment with positions of mass influence in academia and elsewhere whence they proceed to poison the spirituall well water of American youth? Why we'll rechristen them 'Godless atheists' and just for good measure, 'Godless GERMAN atheists!'. After all, it's the FRANKFURT school isn't it? Chief Editor Ehrenberg's sure gonna love dat un!

You say NARAL was founded by four misopedic Jew baby killers? And that the baby killing industry is STAFFED, never mind funded, at a rate of better than 50% by the eternal masters of the old fetal slice 'n dice? Infanticidal harridans Friedan, Abzug, Steinem, usw, were ALL Jewesses? Equally simple: good shabby goy chicken Christians that we are, we'll blame it all on those shape shifting 'secular humanists'. That oughta be good for a couple of Scooby Snacks from Uncle Moishe.

Alex Linder may be a damn atheist, but he's worth more than the millions of useless Jew apologist Christians that not only studiously refuse to name the Jew but actively provide cover for him.

Ruffin

2003-01-25 00:04 | User Profile

God bless ya Marcus. And I ain't jokin'. B)

Texas Dissident

2003-01-25 02:45 | User Profile

Originally posted by Marcus Porcius Cato@Jan 24 2003, 17:16 Alex Linder may be a damn atheist, but he's worth more than the millions of useless Jew apologist Christians that not only studiously refuse to name the Jew but actively provide cover for him.

Amazing! A new Messiah that is an atheist!

Give me a break.

:wacko:

Ragnar

2003-01-25 02:58 | User Profile

I'm guessing this is a gag thread. Atheists are few and less organized than Wiccans if that's possible. Madelyn Murray O'Hare's old magazine American Atheist was the embarrassment of the print industry till she got knocked off. In fact, Mad Maddy herself was an embarrassment which is why you saw no serious obits on her despite her spectacularly shabby demise.

Atheists are few and cranky. If they are your biggest problem, SMILE, you got no problems.

Centinel

2003-01-25 03:24 | User Profile

It isn't the atheist influence that led to the 9/11 attack, it is our blind support of Israel.

I disagree. Our blind, unmitigated support for Israel certainly was a good chunk of 9/11.

But liberalism, modernism, atheism, and moral relativism have all accelerated the decline of Western civilization. 9/11 was also a reaction by traditional Islamic society to the decadent filth emnating from Hollywood and Madison Ave. that passes for "culture" nowadays.

A culture that glorifies and promotes immodest fashions, casual sex, MTV, drugs, pornography, and rock n' roll, all served piping hot via satellite TV, the movie theaters, radio and television, with a good chunk of the revenues from this 24/7 hedonistic bazaar finding their way back to the moguls in Hollywood, New York and even Tel Aviv.

Is this a clash of civilizations? The Islamics seem to think so. They view American culture as a direct assault on traditional values and society.

Have look at this thread and see what OBL's gripes were:

[url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=4474&hl=laden]Bin Laden's Letter To Americans[/url]

Now check out this thread:

[url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=19&t=3177&hl=netanyahu]Netanyahu: U.S. should attack Iran with TV[/url]

Some other good articles over on Rense.com:

Rampant Hedonism - The Destruction Of America

The Anna Nicole Show - A Pathetic New Low In Television

Burka Vs Bikini - The Debauchery Of American Womanhood

Robbie

2003-01-25 05:00 | User Profile

Some very good points are made about what passes for American "culture" today, indeed. We have become ignorant to our own past, and are supposed to mock it in any way possible. I posted the Rense article about the "Burkas and Bikinis" over here a while back, BTW. As an aside, remember when William Bennett (I believe) suggested that we infiltrate the Islamic world's televsion with good ol' American sex and other good stuff?? So much for imposing the wonders of the U.S.A. on everyone else. Watch any television commercial today, and see the phoniness that oozes out of it. See white males who act as bumbling idiots while their female counterparts are the authoritative, know-it-all, supermommish heroines. See black people trying to look and act white as possible knowing that this isn't necessarily the same outside of television. Watch television shows and see how p.c. and strategically planned they are to show the world how "multicultural" and "inclusive" we are. This can go on and on, but I truly believe that the Islamic people had a reason to give America one hell of a shock that September morning. How do you like living in a society which is more concerned over events that happened between 1933-45 than what happens today. Isn't the New World Order such a great time to be living in??

I also think there is nothing wrong with exposing Jews when it comes to the destruction of our country, for they sure as heck played more than just a key role.

Centinel

2003-01-25 06:09 | User Profile

**As an aside, remember when William Bennett (I believe) suggested that we infiltrate the Islamic world's televsion with good ol' American sex and other good stuff?? **

I don't know about William Bennett, but Benjamin Netanyahu testified before Congress last year and suggested we destabilize Iran with such programming.

Of course that story wasn't widely circulated among his allies in the Christian Right, who spend a good deal of time themselves complaining about Hollywood.

I wonder what the average rank-and-file parishoner in the Southern Baptist Convention or Assemblies of God would think if they knew this stuff about the political Israel they give blind, knee-jerk, unwavering support to. It isn't hard to find if you're online. It comes out of credible mainstream news wires, but for some reason never finds its way into the chain papers or neocon talk radio, and certainly not Fox News.

TD, does the average person in the pew know how corrupt and morally bankrupt modern Israel is?

[url=http://www.4prophecy.20megsfree.com/jerusalem2.htm]Wicked Earthly Jerusalem[/url]

How can these people call themselves "God's Chosen" when they flagrantly violate the covenants laid down in the OT? And how can millions of Americans support them with wild-eyed zealotry? Americans are no more righteous. We're all equally condemned under the law, but the Israel fetish lately in the "conservative" media has been on the verge of idolatry.

Hereward

2003-01-25 07:23 | User Profile

So, when are all you good Christians going to get as upset at Muslims for their crimes against your co-religionists in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Sudan as the Muslims are at the Jews' oppression of the Palestinians?

Centinel

2003-01-25 07:49 | User Profile

**So, when are all you good Christians going to get as upset at Muslims for their crimes against your co-religionists in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Sudan as the Muslims are at the Jews' oppression of the Palestinians? **

Hereward,

Have you ever heard of these groups?

[url=http://www.persecution.com]Voice of the Martyers[/url]

[url=http://www.persecution.org]International Christian Concern[/url]

There is a growing human rights movement on behalf of persecuted Christians that is starting to make waves for the globalist and Wall St. factions in the GOP by pressuring the Bush adminstration to tie US trade policy to nations' human rights records.

I don't know how successful it's been seeing how Wal-Mart keeps importing all the ChiCom stuff it likes and the oil companies are still all over West Africa and the Sudan. But if Bush totally blows these folks off, it could create dissent in the backbone of his support from the Christian Right.

Think of it as "identity politics for Christians."

One of my complaints about these groups is they tend to focus on Christians suffering persecution at the hands of Muslims, and we can guess who has a vested interest in finding yet another way to tarnish a certain country's enemies in the eyes of Americans.

Furthermore, there's no Biblical authorization for parachurch entitites. The churches themselves should be bringing this issue to the forefront.

You don't hear them talk much about Israeli treatment of Christians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. ICC reports on this, but VOM never does. Usually the loudest voices for raising awareness of mistreatment are churches who have missions in the affected areas, and in Palestine this mostly means Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans, who don't have much sway with the neocon and evangelical press, so the Israeli actions get little coverage in the US.

Additionally, what is simplified as "Christian Persecution" is often a complex brew of racial, economic, political, tribal and religious rivalries.

Hereward

2003-01-25 08:00 | User Profile

Centinel - I didn't have the details about those groups, though I was aware of the general movement, and their lack of publicity. Thanks for the links.
It's been persuasively argued that, as far as sheer numbers go, Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world. I guess most of said oppression goes on in China, but nearly all of the rest is in the Muslim world. Wherever Christians and Muslims coexist, and Muslims have the upper hand, the Muslims oppress the Christians - be it in Egypt, the Sudan, or certain inner cities in Britain.

Texas Dissident

2003-01-25 10:05 | User Profile

Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 25 2003, 03:08 **Agitating against the Jew doesn't make you a messiah... **

Of course you are right on that. I just got carried away while reading the sycophantic adulations. Almost experienced an epiphany.

Unlike them, Alex is not a traitor to kin.

Ahh, but if one is an anti-Christian atheist, then they very well are. What was that Belloc quote? Something about Europe and the faith?

Casting aspersions on Christianity does more than perhaps anything, including the Holy Divine Tenet of 'naming the Jew' by those in highest possession of the Truth, to suck the very life-blood out of what animated our kin and collectively drove them to create the great civilization of the West. Indeed, that is traitorious to the upmost degree and requires incredible audacity to mutter such heresy all the while standing on the shoulders of Western Christendom's giants of mankind.

Centinel

2003-01-25 10:42 | User Profile

A more important question is why they don't know it. To my mind they do know what Israel is, and what behaviors that nation engages in. Their financial and moral support is indicative of the fact that they themselves are evil. I understand that this may seem an intemperate judgement, but I have no other word for the millions of people who pray, labor, and financially support those who wish to bring the world to an end.

Well, for the most part, Americans live in a Matrix-like manufactured reality, and since evangelicals make up the backbone of GOP neocon footsoldiers for Israel in America, let's focus on them. The mainstream US media avoids enough frank discussion of Israel as it is, but the media these people tune into is even more shrill. They tend to tune out, turn off or unsubscribe to anything that doesn't tell them what they want to hear, so they stick with Limbaugh, Savage, Fox News...maybe read US News & World Report or The Washington Times. If they go online, Free Republic, NewsMax or WorldNetDaily are the limits of dissenting voices they're willing to entertain. All of the sources I mentioned are highly Zionist-biased, and on the occaison some dissent creeps into them it's quickly purged via angry letters to the editor or a Jim Robinson-approved banning.

The establishment media has done a very good job of polarizing two camps of liberals and conservatives on the American political scene, to the point where paleocons, libertarians, and greens and others are simply nonexistent to these people's worldviews, and any issues they bring up tend to be stifled in Orwellian groupthink. Any news from a "non-approved" source is treated as suspect by them, and with the ridicule of their peers is easily written off as being "left-wing claptrap" without examining its veracity.

When they are on occaision presented with credible evidence of Israeli wrongdoing and can't throw out canards and dogpile on the messenger, they try to rationalize Israel's actions as "necessary for self-defense" or "well, God has a plan for them yet" or worst "well, I can't wait to rapture away from this sinful world."

Now, mind you, I'm not talking about every single person in every evangelical pew in America, but what we see as the evangelical movers and shakers pretty much falls in line with what I've described. I only singled out the SBC and Assemblies of God because they are the two largest evangelical bodies that more or less ascribe to a dispensational eschatology and count among their ranks people like Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Jimmy Swaggart and John Ashcroft.

I think many of the preachers are just as ignorant of or in denial of the media cover-ups and omissions about Israel as their flocks, and as gatekeepers and "experts" what they say from the pulpit greatly influences the laypeople. With the Internet increasingly overthrowing the Jericho walls of media spin, I don't think anyone can honestly keep their blinders on and remain ignorant much longer, and then they'll have to consciously decide whether they stand for right or wrong, because once you have knowledge of something, there's no going back.

You are within your rights to argue that entire mainline establishment, conservative and liberal, has already signed on to Israel's plans, and that the rank and file are by this reason innocent. However, the judgement still obtains in the case of the preachers, pastors, journal editors, intellectual leaders, and deep pockets of American Protestantism. Moreover, if you do take this tack, then the general judgement of Protestants as 'sheep' will have to stand.

First, let's define "Protestantism" on the American scene today as well as historically. I don't count evangelicals and fundamentalists of the Christian Right as "Protestants." None of them protested Rome in the 16th century, and they pretty much all follow a pro-Israel dispensationalist theology. All can trace their roots back to the original Baptists who left the Church of England and migrated to America, and from that point forward they have been pretty much an American homegrown phenomenon, foreign missions notwithstanding. Calling them "evangelicals" is more common, a term they use for themselves, and in the common American discourse, when it's said people know what kind of folks you're speaking about. I've discussed these folks already, so let's concentrate on the remainder.

Let's define "Protestants" as those groups who protested Rome in the 16th century: Lutherans, Calvinists (Presbyterians in Britain and N. Ireland and Reformed on the continent), Anglicans, and Anabaptists (Mennonites and Amish). Now that's a pretty broad brush. Anglicans and Lutherans sometimes cringe at being labeled "Protestant" but too bad they are for this discussion. I'd also like to add two church bodies that came out of the Church of England: Puritans, who became the congregationalists of New England, and Wesleyans/Methodists. The one thing this broad group has in common is that they are all non-dispensational, meaning that they believe in covenant ("replacement") theology, that the Church is the Bride of Christ, that the Church is now the true Israel of God.

Consider whether Israel is God's chosen people, in what sense they are chosen, and who really is Israel. Taking the questions in reverse order, the New Testament makes it clear that the true Israel is made up of believers. As St. Paul states in a number of places, it is children of faith who are the children of Abraham and he calls them the Israel of God. Israel was chosen as the nation through which God would fulfill his promise of sending a Messiah for the salvation of people. It is the people who believe in Jesus as the Messiah sent by God who are the true Israel. In that sense, Israel is God's chosen people. It is not the nation or the race as such, apart from faith, which are God's chosen people. What Protestants don't believe is that modern political Israel is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and that the Jews of political Israel are still God's chosen. Biblical interpretations aside, most believe that the Jews do deserve a homeland in Israel and the state of Israel has a right to exist, and that the Palestinians deserve a state state as well and should not be forced off their lands.

Ever since the late 19th century, most of American Protestantism has been on a downward path of liberalism, but it really accelerated in the social upheaval of the 1960's, and many conservatives left liberal Protestantism for the new fundamentalist Bible churches of the 1970's, which explains how things got from where they were to where they are today, where "mainline" liberal Protestantism is extremely liberal, high ecumenical, and could almost be described as Greens and liberal Democrats at prayer. Almost all of these churches are National Council of Churches members, and among their left-wing agitators for social justice you will also find some tireless and committed agitators for the Palestinian cause. Their theology may have gone liberal, but they are acutely aware of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and some churches even have missions in Palestine, something that no evangelical bodies to my knowledge do.

And last we are left with the conservative Protestants who are relatively small in number and not NCC members, mostly conservative Lutherans and Presbyterians like the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Wisconson Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church and some smaller church bodies. Again, covenant theology, non-dispensational. Politically, these people are conservative. Most are still in the GOP, but their theology and worldview is a good match for paleo-libertarianism or paleo-conservatism. In the US, where a monopoly state church is not a threat, they can be comfortable entering secular political alliances with conservative Catholics of the Sobran/Buchanan variety, since their social worldviews are often compatible. (While in Northern Ireland, traditional Catholics and conservative Protestants are often at each other's throats!)

When you say "Protestant," wintermute, I reckon you're associating the evangelicals, who are numerically and politically large, and have the whole neocon press at their disposal, with the pro-Israel camp. Liberal Protestantism, the "Mainlines" which are the majority of American Protestants are types of people who read The Nation, CounterPunch, The Guardian, and The Independent. They listen to Pacifica Radio and the BBC, and they're the religious pro-Palestinain and anti-war activists you see.

jay

2003-01-25 14:50 | User Profile

Originally posted by Hereward@Jan 25 2003, 02:00 ** Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world.  I guess most of said oppression goes on in China, but nearly all of the rest is in the Muslim world.  Wherever Christians and Muslims coexist, and Muslims have the upper hand, the Muslims oppress the Christians **

Yep. Exactly. So why do the "punks in the pulpits" keep talking about daily life, the Gospel, and the book of Acts when they SHOULD be talking about demographic disaster, crime and pop culture.

I live with an atheist roomate, and he is so liberal it's amazing. Agrees with free sex, drugs, et al. Hates Christians (and all organized religion) and has told me Nazi-ism must "never happen again" One time I read to him that 60% of babies born in L.A. county were illegal and he said "Did you know I don't care?"

Atheists seem to be extreme libertarians, concerned only with THEIR rights. F-ck society. I dont know what Christians in America think about all issues, but they can't possibly be any further left than atheists are. Every atheist I know (about 5) votes Democrat, no kidding

-Jay.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 15:49 | User Profile

Originally posted by Texas Dissident@Jan 25 2003, 04:05 **

Ahh, but if one is an anti-Christian atheist, then they very well are.  What was that Belloc quote?  Something about Europe and the faith? 

Casting aspersions on Christianity does more than perhaps anything, including the Holy Divine Tenet of 'naming the Jew' by those in highest possession of the Truth, to suck the very life-blood out of what animated our kin and collectively drove them to create the great civilization of the West.  Indeed, that is traitorious to the upmost degree and requires incredible audacity to mutter such heresy all the while standing on the shoulders of Western Christendom's giants of mankind.**

Better for our kin had they not been thus diabolically "animated" [molested] to the premature maturation of their political culture by virtue of those Faustian Pacts with, first, the Whore of Babylon, that bastard progeny of Jewish heresy, and now with Jewry itself in these latter days.

Counter-productive Crusading, the debilitating duration of The Hundred Years War, the internecine Religious Wars, horrifyingly psychotic Witch Trials, ultimate weakening of the Monarchies, pathological universalist naivete in political philosophy - are all to the credit of "Christendom's" "Christianity".

Ruffin

2003-01-25 16:32 | User Profile

NN - I have no objection to linking mental evacuation to Christianity; in fact, I'd prefer it to be so, since it's evaporating anyway. But can you give some evidence that this naivete isn't likelier traced to "fat dumb and happy-land", or even worse, to our nature?

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 17:43 | User Profile

Originally posted by Ruffin@Jan 25 2003, 10:32 NN - I have no objection to linking mental evacuation to Christianity; in fact, I'd prefer it to be so, since it's evaporating anyway. But can you give some evidence that this naivete isn't likelier traced to "fat dumb and happy-land", or even worse, to our nature?

Ruffin,

I would put it that Christianity told tales to children, thus contributing its alien measure to that native attribute which you correctly identify.

[And the "evaporation" of the Christian spirit leaves behind a residue of utopian materialism which is even more destructive, lacking correction by Nietzschean perspectives.]

Happy Hacker

2003-01-25 18:21 | User Profile

Originally posted by Hereward@Jan 25 2003, 08:00 ** I guess most of said oppression goes on in China, but nearly all of the rest is in the Muslim world. **

Most Christian oppression is in the Muslim world, not China.

In nearly any Muslim nation, criticism of Islam can land you in jail and proselytizing will also land you in jail. What you might think is innocuous might land you in jail, including in those so-called moderate Islamic nations. And, don't be too shocked if a gunman or a mob ends your life for being Christian. And, as bad as it is for you, white man, it is far worse for the Muslim who converts to Christianity (still a capital crime in Saudi Arabia and other places).

The very small minority that is Christian in Arab countries keep very quiet.

China is bit different. The government often tolerates low-profile proselytizing. No mob is going to chase you down for being Christian. Yes, there are tight restrictions and China is tough with its criminals, but the situation is better than in the Arab world. Yes, there are stories of Christians being arrested for small things, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Okiereddust

2003-01-25 18:56 | User Profile

Originally posted by Happy Hacker@Jan 25 2003, 18:21 ** China is bit different. The government often tolerates low-profile proselytizing. No mob is going to chase you down for being Christian. Yes, there are tight restrictions and China is tough with its criminals, but the situation is better than in the Arab world. Yes, there are stories of Christians being arrested for small things, but these are the exceptions, not the rule. **

Its more than a few stories. You haven't been following China recently have you - the stories of a thousand Churches in a southeastern province burned down, etc?

Ruffin

2003-01-25 19:26 | User Profile

Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:43 ** > Originally posted by Ruffin@Jan 25 2003, 10:32 NN - I have no objection to linking mental evacuation to Christianity; in fact, I'd prefer it to be so, since it's evaporating anyway. But can you give some evidence that this naivete isn't likelier traced to "fat dumb and happy-land", or even worse, to our nature?

Ruffin,

I would put it that Christianity told tales to children, thus contributing its alien measure to that native attribute which you correctly identify.

[And the "evaporation" of the Christian spirit leaves behind a residue of utopian materialism which is even more destructive, lacking correction by Nietzschean perspectives.] **

Thank you. I look forward to further determination and evaluation, per your posts, of the odds that a Braille version of Nietzschean perspectives will reach the market before sundown.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 19:44 | User Profile

Originally posted by Ruffin@Jan 25 2003, 13:26 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:43 ** > Originally posted by Ruffin@Jan 25 2003, 10:32 NN - I have no objection to linking mental evacuation to Christianity; in fact, I'd prefer it to be so, since it's evaporating anyway. But can you give some evidence that this naivete isn't likelier traced to "fat dumb and happy-land", or even worse, to our nature?**

Ruffin,

I would put it that Christianity told tales to children, thus contributing its alien measure to that native attribute which you correctly identify.

[And the "evaporation" of the Christian spirit leaves behind a residue of utopian materialism which is even more destructive, lacking correction by Nietzschean perspectives.] **

Thank you. I look forward to further determination and evaluation, per your posts, of the odds that a Braille version of Nietzschean perspectives will reach the market before sundown.**

I would say that blindness in this regard is irremediable in all but a precious few, hence the absence of a market for such as you suggest.

Texas Dissident

2003-01-25 19:57 | User Profile

Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 09:49 **Better for our kin had they not been thus diabolically "animated" [molested] to the premature maturation of their political culture by virtue of those Faustian Pacts with, first, the Whore of Babylon, that bastard progeny of Jewish heresy, and now with Jewry itself in these latter days.

**

Ha! Says who? You? Please pardon me if I'm not impressed.

I'll let the Catholics address the Whore of Babylon comment.

Counter-productive Crusading, the debilitating duration of The Hundred Years War, the internecine Religious Wars, horrifyingly psychotic Witch Trials, ultimate weakening of the Monarchies, pathological universalist naivete in political philosophy - are all to the credit of "Christendom's" "Christianity".

Indeed. Good and bad in all it's glory. That is the history and heritage of the West whose fruits you take for granted.

I'll go on.

Anti-Christian atheists are fellow-travelers finding common cause with the Godless, Jewish Trotskyists and Bolsheviks who stripped Russia of her Orthodox Christian heritage. What a sterling example of the anti-Christian world!

You can stand with the Jewish commie atheists if you want, I'll remain on the side of Western Christendom, thank you.

il ragno

2003-01-25 20:17 | User Profile

**I disagree. Our blind, unmitigated support for Israel certainly was a good chunk of 9/11.

But liberalism, modernism, atheism, and moral relativism have all accelerated the decline of Western civilization. 9/11 was also a reaction by traditional Islamic society to the decadent filth emnating from Hollywood and Madison Ave. that passes for "culture" nowadays.**

You're both a little mistaken. 9/11 was no monument of and to barbarism but just another housing start in a neighborhood we've helped develop as much as anyone. Only difference between "9-11" and any of our own state-sponsored (or performed) atrocities upon others in the last decade or so - besides the p.r. difference, of course - is that, this time, for once, we got hit back.

Sheee-it. A Clinton-girlfriend wire story was usually good for a few hundred incinerated innocents in some dune-plagued pesthole far away.

Ragnar

2003-01-25 20:19 | User Profile

Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 15:49 ** Counter-productive Crusading, the debilitating duration of The Hundred Years War, the internecine Religious Wars, horrifyingly psychotic Witch Trials, ultimate weakening of the Monarchies, pathological universalist naivete in political philosophy - are all to the credit of "Christendom's" "Christianity". **

These are political events with Christian cover-stories.

They are mirror-imaged by the nonsense Christians say about atheists.

Belief or lack of belief is really a bad indicator of what people will do in any given situation. Serious Objectivists are atheist and conservative, liberal Methodists and Born-Agains of any type are statistically more likely to be divorced. Comparisons like this can stretch to the moon.

Atheists, as atheists, are unorganized and influence nothing. Christians, as Christians, often are and use their influence the wrong way. Had a healthy fraction of Christian denominations started saying NO to immigration in the 1980s, when it got out of hand, the problem would have been solved in less than a year. They was a hefty mintority of denominations influencing this issue -- on the wrong side. Can't pin our biggest problem on atheism.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 23:15 | User Profile

> Better for our kin had they not been thus diabolically "animated" [molested] to the premature maturation of their political culture by virtue of those Faustian Pacts with, first, the Whore of Babylon, that bastard progeny of Jewish heresy, and now with Jewry itself in these latter days.**

Ha! Says who? You? Please pardon me if I'm not impressed.**

You are pardoned as being insufficiently familiar with the pertinent background in various disciplines such as would equip you for the proper evaluation of my contention [which was applauded by my graduate professor of Medieval history as a "brilliant" thesis on paper].

> Counter-productive Crusading, the debilitating duration of The Hundred Years War, the internecine Religious Wars, horrifyingly psychotic Witch Trials, ultimate weakening of the Monarchies, pathological universalist naivete in political philosophy - are all to the credit of "Christendom's" "Christianity".**

Indeed. Good and bad in all it's glory. That is the history and heritage of the West whose fruits you take for granted.**

You fail to exercise informed judgment in this regard, which would indicate that much more bad was endured than was necessary. Were this thread to encompass the "fruit" of my study of comparative and world history, you would be more reluctant to speak of what you think I take for granted.

Anti-Christian atheists are fellow-travelers finding common cause with the Godless, Jewish Trotskyists and Bolsheviks who stripped Russia of her Orthodox Christian heritage.  What a sterling example of the anti-Christian world!

Excellent point. The Weenies among the atheists have transformed the hope for the Kingdom of God into the plot to impose Utopia. The Nazis among the atheists have opposed this effort, however.

You can stand with the Jewish commie atheists if you want, I'll remain on the side of Western Christendom, thank you.

Only atheism have I in common with Communism - apostolic, communist Christianity has much more in common with its modern variety.

[BTW, can we more quickly get to the spirit of concession and equanimity this time ;-) ]

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 23:55 | User Profile

> Counter-productive Crusading, the debilitating duration of The Hundred Years War, the internecine Religious Wars, horrifyingly psychotic Witch Trials, ultimate weakening of the Monarchies, pathological universalist naivete in political philosophy - are all to the credit of "Christendom's" "Christianity". **

These are political events with Christian cover-stories.

They are mirror-imaged by the nonsense Christians say about atheists.**

If TD touts "Christendom" then this "Christianity" is his burden. In the spirit of speaking thus of "cover stories" one is denied the indictment of Communism or any other putatively "authentic" "-ism" - for the vague "ideal" can never be realized in the reality it is designed to reject. And Urban's call for the first Crusade was no "cover story," properly speaking, unless there is some evidence of the proclamation having been otherwise than such a call, and having been falsely recorded for posterity and legend. In any case, the HY War, Monarchies, and poly-sci issues are not subject to the "cover story" allegation.

Belief or lack of belief is really a bad indicator of what people will do in any given situation.  Serious Objectivists are atheist and conservative, liberal Methodists and Born-Agains of any type are statistically more likely to be divorced.  Comparisons like this can stretch to the moon.

All, however, are morally disarmed by the claims of putative victims of "injustice". All reactions to the Left involve obligatory apologies and concessions.

jay

2003-01-26 00:22 | User Profile

Originally posted by Ragnar@Jan 25 2003, 14:19 ** Atheists, as atheists, are unorganized and influence nothing. Christians, as Christians, often are and use their influence the wrong way. Had a healthy fraction of Christian denominations started saying NO to immigration in the 1980s, when it got out of hand, the problem would have been solved in less than a year. They was a hefty mintority of denominations influencing this issue -- on the wrong side. Can't pin our biggest problem on atheism. **

Funny how you cavalierly dismiss any notion Atheists have had any influence. That's my point - when others do it regarding Jews, some of you fly into a fit.

Nobody seemed to have opposed the immigration crisis, X-ian and atheist alike. I would be willing to bet you any amount of money available to my name that Atheists are more pro-immigration than Christians are. While my roomate is an anecdotal example of how liberal they are, I still stand by my view they are severe libertarians. (in other words: open borders nuts)

I wonder how many atheists will vote GOP or America First. I bet at least 2.4% will.

-Jay

Ragnar

2003-01-26 02:00 | User Profile

Horse's Mouth (or something) says:

Electing Atheists to Political Office

by Edward Tabash

NO KNOWN ATHEIST CURRENTLY HOLDS ANY MAJOR POLITICAL OFFICE IN THE UNITED STATES.

It is long overdue that people who do not believe in any god are elected to significant political office. We Atheists are the most unjustly despised minority in America, today. Polls show that a greater number of voters would vote against someone just for not believing in god than they would vote against someone for being gay. Blacks, Latinos, women, gays and lesbians, all of these historically despised and discriminated against groups have managed to elect some of their own to state legislatures and to Congress.

Members of many religious minorities have had the same success. Atheists are the only holders of a viewpoint on matters of religion who cannot point to anyone, serving in either Congress or in any state legislature, and claim such an individual as one of our own.

In 2000, I was the only known Atheist to be a major contender for a state legislative seat in the United States. I finished a close second, out of four candidates, for a seat in the California State Assembly. My efforts to gain meaningful support for my campaign from other non believers showed me how far we Atheists are from understanding and implementing the practical necessities of getting at least some of our own elected to political office...

Read the rest (if you want to) at:

[url=http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=122]http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=122[/url]

NOTE: When white politicians start whining like this, it means they're losers and likely to keep right on losing. Atheists are right up there with nudists and cross-dressers in America and always have been. Sorry but it's true.

Roger Bannister

2003-01-26 03:58 | User Profile

I think Jay is right in some ways. I also reckon that there ARE atheists in office. Right now. They won't admit it, but they are there. No doubt about it.

Ragnar

2003-01-26 04:09 | User Profile

Originally posted by Roger Bannister@Jan 26 2003, 03:58 ** I also reckon that there ARE atheists in office. Right now. They won't admit it, but they are there. **

It matters that they won't admit it. Pure atheism is a fringe in America. It influenced only one thing in 200+ years, school prayer. Not really on a level with Preacherman Woodrow Wilson and the destruction of Europe (eg).

jay

2003-01-26 15:09 | User Profile

Atheist Vote - 2000 election

[url=http://www.adherents.com/misc/poll_Harris2000.html]http://www.adherents.com/misc/poll_Harris2000.html[/url]

                 Two-Person Race          
                   Bush Gore  Undecided   
                       %    %       %

All Registered Voters (n=13,224) 48 47 5

All Protestants (n=6,544) 55 40 5

Episcopalian (n=221) 59 39 2

Presbyterian (n=336) 57 36 7

Lutheran (n=515) 50 46 4

Methodist (n=1,081) 49 45 6

Southern Baptist (n=933) 68 30 2
Other Baptist (n=767) 42 53 5

Other Denominations (n=1,674) 56 40 4

Non-Denominational (n=1,016) 63 33 4

Latter-day Saints (n=186) 65 34 1

Catholic (n=2,629) 48 48 4

**Jewish (n=305) 23 71 6

Atheist/Agnostic (n=944) 30 62 8 **

Ahhhh....so, the atheists and the Jews are completely left-leaning voters.  I said that's what I figured from my life experiences, and the Harris Poll from 2000 bore it out as well.  Before anyone talks about X-ians "ruining Western Civ", let's talk about the Atheists who actually VOTE left.  Just like the other group we talk about here....

-Jay

il ragno

2003-01-26 15:19 | User Profile

You're mistaking a secular Jewish agenda for non-belief due to surface similarities. That's like having someone yell at you in the middle of the street for importing Somali Lost Boys to rural Maine because, well...Lutherans are Christians....and you're a Christian.....so therefore.....

As for that poll:

1) It's now painfully obvious that voting for Bush and voting for Gore were two routes to the exact same destination (I do love how some folks rant and rave that the GOP is a sellout/sham-opposition, then go Freeper on us when armed with poll numbers. But you forgot to add "DEMONrat"!)

2) No poll purporting to represent my beliefs, that somehow neglected to ask me personally for my take on the matter, is worth a goddamn to begin with.

jay

2003-01-26 15:22 | User Profile

Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 26 2003, 02:38 ** I can't think of a single public issue, major or minor, that 'atheists' can produce any money, organization, or impetus for in the current day. And neither can you. **

Atheists can very much change/sway things, WM. In the Minnesota Senate race last November, atheists/agnostics comprised 7% of voters.

(of course, they went 71-20 for Walter Mondale. Atheists are flaming liberal lock-step DEM voters)

[url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,69297,00.html]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,69297,00.html[/url]

If paleos could get a 7-10% voting bloc, our concerns would be heard! Both parties would give in on the immigration issue IF THAT MEANT getting our bloc to support their economic/social policies.

-Jay

jay

2003-01-26 15:23 | User Profile

Originally posted by il ragno@Jan 26 2003, 09:19 ** 1) It's now painfully obvious that voting for Bush and voting for Gore were two routes to the exact same destination (I do love how some folks rant and rave that the GOP is a sellout/sham-opposition, then go Freeper on us when armed with poll numbers. **

Il: I didn't vote in 2002 b/c you are correct: both parties love immigration and Western destruction. However, I'm not going to bury my head in the sand and ignore political trends. I know that the enemies of the West are far more likely to be Jewish or Atheist than they are to be Christian.

-Jay

Avalanche

2003-01-26 16:00 | User Profile

Wintermute (vampire hunter extraordinaire!): It seems that the sole piece of hard evidence presented on this question is school prayer. I do not think that the motives of those who truly ended school prayer have anything at all to do with atheism. I think it is more strongly connected to a visceral hatred of signs of the Christian religion among Jews, both practicing and 'atheistic', than any kind of Shelley-style 'atheism'. That, and the fact that Christians can never seem to grovel enough towards their loathsome 'chosen people'. Exactly why this is we'll have to discuss at another time.

I can give you an insiders view of the brainwashing that leads 'us' atheists to work to ban prayer (in school, at football games, at townhall meetings and so on...). Now -- let me remind you, that having been awoken from my "drugged slumber," I no longer see the "danger" of prayer in public quite the same way... But this is how I was raised (by brainwashed leftist, liberal, feminist, atheist, universalist egalitarians... and my daddy was a Baptist Bible-thumper when my mamma (then an Episcopalian) married him....) in "Jew York." (And as a jewish-influenced atheist, remember where my... preferences... come from; who inculcated them!)

First, it's unkind and unfair to all the other religious kids (ALL those Hindus and Buddhists in the class ;) ). to make them sit through a prayer not their own. (It's really true, you DIDN'T much associate it with jewish kids... this was to 'lesser' religious kids...) (The Catholics were "all" over at St. Charles school, so nobody cared about them, they were already praying in their classrooms...). (I used to argue that these Christians who wanted ‘locally approved’ ("community standards") prayers should remember Antelope Oregon, where the local prayers would be to Raj Neesh!)

It made (and makes) ME uncomfortable to sit through folks praying en masse because in my atheistic mind, they were indulging in their little group delusion (sorry Tex Diss et al., it’s how I feel... :( ). It made me quite uncomfortable because the whole school prayer thing was forcing KIDS to sit through either group delusion, or the religious stylings of some group, maybe other than their mommies’ and daddies’ choice. My mom taught kindergarten – and she had a couple of Jehovah Witless kids – and it was so sad and disturbing that the class would be making (not even Xmas decorations, but say, President’s Day) holiday crafts, and the little JW kids had to sit it out. And no pledging Allegiance either... How HORRID for those kids (who couldn’t understand why they were segregated...)

So, to protect these children from discomfort, and confusion, prayer and religion needed to be OUT of schools.

Next, there was the problem of the Christians pushing all the time for prayer because kids needed the ‘guidance’ – that always (and still!) bothers me because little Christian kids would and could pray whenever they wanted – this was an attempt to make NON-Christian kids pray as Christians... THAT still bothers me!! (If y’all damned Christians want YOUR kids to pray in the morning, then get up 15 minutes earlier and pray as a FAMILY before the kids GET to school!! If you’re too lazy to get up, then DON’T force non-Christian kids to fill in for YOUR unwillingness!)

So, the continual claims that this is for ‘your own kids’ and not for the others is bogus on the face of it! (But now, I think forcing rooms-full of black animals to try out Christian prayer MIGHT have the slightest effect, and may therefore be worthwhile...)

All of the brainwashing is focused on protecting non-Christian religions... but notice there is no focus on JEWISH kids... Even though, as it turns out, the ‘throw ‘em out’ crowd was mainly jewish! We atheists were acting ‘on behalf of’ non-Christian kids; without realizing we were acting on pro-jewish plans... (Jews and Jewish views were ubiquitous – like the air – you didn’t even know you were swimmin’ in it!)

I think the majority of atheists don’t really CARE if Christians want to pray anywhere, it’s the effect on those who don’t want to pray that is disturbing... I remember being real uncomfortable in the Catholic church I went to with a friend (in my early teens). I was, then, a Baptist, and I was caught on the ‘pin’ of “do I kneel with them or stay sitting”? It’s polite to NOT stick out -- in protesting the Viet Nam War, I STOOD with the class, but didn’t pledge allegiance... It was/is rude to sit through this (or any) ‘religious’ function when all-else were standing. But it was not that I participated in their event, just that I didn’t want to be rude to them by noticeably doing something different.

So, it’s not atheists tryin’ to destroy religious life... It’s atheists trying to protect kids from something that makes THEM (the atheists) uncomfortable; expanded to be trying to protect even themselves from being made to sit through something that makes them uncomfortable... There is no ‘organized atheist conspiracy’ to force religion out of public life, there IS a disorganized preference for NOT making “everyone” uncomfortable so the Christians can have their moments of prayer. (Why does it have to be a public moment? Didn't Jesus say something about ‘praying in public, you get your reward in public' – but 'if you want to get God’s reward, go in a closet and pray to Him and for Him alone'?) (And if you want a "public group prayer" -- go to CHURCH to get it, eh?! :) )

Is there a jewish consipracy to to force religion out of public life? I dunno, but it sure SEEMS like it!

il ragno

2003-01-26 16:25 | User Profile

I know that the enemies of the West are far more likely to be Jewish or Atheist than they are to be Christian.

1: If you equate this coming war with 'emnity of the West' (which I do, as opening Pandora's Box for the benefit of somebody else cannot be in the opener's best interests) then how in the world do you explain away the Christian Zionist support for, and pressure on behalf of, this military adventure? And don't start by calling them 'false Christians'.....intramural holier-than-thou spats are a piss-poor way to proselytize for the clear-headed,common-sense, pro-West joys of Belief.

2: Belief - or non belief - is THE most private part of a person's inner life. I would imagine credence and skepticism are often mano-a-mano in most people's minds at different periods in their life and I hesitate to stamp anyone else's forehead for them. This is something I see a lot of - "when I was 20, I believed in a lot of silly things but now, at 30, I've had my awakening. I got it all sussed out now." No, bunky, the world will turn around many more times for you - as it will for me - before the curtain comes down. I try to have respect for genuinely devout religious types but when I encounter this kind of standard-issue, Godless-atheists-are-our-downfall alarmism, I'm reminded that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel...but only if the church is standing-room-only.

Ragnar

2003-01-26 18:39 | User Profile

Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 26 2003, 08:38 **It seems that the sole piece of hard evidence presented on this question is school prayer. I do not think that the motives of those who truly ended school prayer have anything at all to do with atheism. **

Madalyn Murray O'Hare, America's sole visible atheist for many years, took credit for ending school prayer on behalf of her then-school aged son. The son later became a born-again Christian and repudiated his mommy. This filial loyalty is an example of typical atheist behavior in my own experience as well. I've also noticed that along with being disloyal, atheists are also permanent teenagers -- a characteristic of fringe types generally.

As far as who took the ball and kept running with the school prayer issue, I'm sure they are not atheist at all. Mad Maddy had the courage of her convictions, give her that. The more recent activists have been dishonest as a number of posters have already pointed out.

Walter Yannis

2003-01-27 08:16 | User Profile

Originally posted by weisbrot@Jan 24 2003, 18:23 ** Thus it is easy to see that the end of Jewishness will not be the bang of extermination or the whimper of demographic collapse, but rather the drool of idiocy.

**

This made me think of Israel's decision to import hundred of thousands (?) of Ethiopian Falasha Jews. I'll bet that their average IQ is roughly equivalent to that of other black Aficans - somewhere in the low-to-mid 70's.

What in the hell were they thinking?

Walter

Walter Yannis

2003-01-27 08:32 | User Profile

Originally posted by il ragno@Jan 26 2003, 16:25 ** I try to have respect for genuinely devout religious types but when I encounter this kind of standard-issue, Godless-atheists-are-our-downfall alarmism, I'm reminded that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel...but only if the church is standing-room-only. **

My conversion to WN happened when I realized that the ideological arguments were merely cover for a run-of-the-mill tribal conflict.

The central tribal conflict of our civilization is (and has been since the Enlightenment) the conflict between Jews and European gentiles. Being a trusting sort by nature, I found it difficult to imagine that people lied about their own identies and motives.

Edward O. Wilson and others (especially Sir Arthur Kieth and then later MacDonald) convinced me that ideology is very often merely a mask for a protean ethnic stuggle. I got really ticked off when I realized this. I blush at my naivete.

So, I don't get all excited about ideology anymore, because I've learned to look through it to the ethnic realities underlying them. Of course, there is a genuine philosophical debate about the existence of a Diety, but none of that was at issue. As you said, Mad Maddy was the sort of nutcase that every people produce, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Jews were behind the court campaign to end school prayer. It's in their interests to veil their attack on the Christian identity of the majority in high-sounding universalisms rather than showing their faces openly. Mad Maddy provided the requisite cover for them, just as Jane Roe provided cover for the legalization of murder of gentile babies in 1973. She was a nice Irish Catholic girl. Named O'Hare and not Finkelstein. That's so important, dontcha know?

Walter

jay

2003-01-27 16:04 | User Profile

Originally posted by il ragno@Jan 26 2003, 10:25 ** then how in the world do you explain away the Christian Zionist support for, and pressure on behalf of, this military adventure? And don't start by calling them 'false Christians'..... **

What are the % of Zionist Athiests vs. the % of Zionist Christians? Isn't that important to ask? I don't know anyone back in the Midwest who blindly supported Israel - in fact, I never even heard about it.

Once again: it's a good think atheists aren't 20-30% of our population. If they were, you'd have an election between Ralph Nader and Barbara Boxer. Gore wouldn't even get out of the primary.

-Jay

Ruffin

2003-01-27 17:12 | User Profile

Originally posted by Walter Yannis@Jan 27 2003, 02:32 ** > Originally posted by il ragno@Jan 26 2003, 16:25 ** I try to have respect for genuinely devout religious types but when I encounter this kind of standard-issue, Godless-atheists-are-our-downfall alarmism, I'm reminded that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel...but only if the church is standing-room-only. **

My conversion to WN happened when I realized that the ideological arguments were merely cover for a run-of-the-mill tribal conflict.

The central tribal conflict of our civilization is (and has been since the Enlightenment) the conflict between Jews and European gentiles. Being a trusting sort by nature, I found it difficult to imagine that people lied about their own identies and motives.

Edward O. Wilson and others (especially Sir Arthur Kieth and then later MacDonald) convinced me that ideology is very often merely a mask for a protean ethnic stuggle. I got really ticked off when I realized this. I blush at my naivete.

So, I don't get all excited about ideology anymore, because I've learned to look through it to the ethnic realities underlying them. Of course, there is a genuine philosophical debate about the existence of a Diety, but none of that was at issue. As you said, Mad Maddy was the sort of nutcase that every people produce, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Jews were behind the court campaign to end school prayer. It's in their interests to veil their attack on the Christian identity of the majority in high-sounding universalisms rather than showing their faces openly. Mad Maddy provided the requisite cover for them, just as Jane Roe provided cover for the legalization of murder of gentile babies in 1973. She was a nice Irish Catholic girl. Named O'Hare and not Finkelstein. That's so important, dontcha know?

Walter **

I suspect this is a heavily travelled road lately. I took it.

Thank God(?) for instinct. Burn the maps!