Can you believe it? Even more excerpts from the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. Here’s my post. Alrighty then, starting with number 76…

76) Runesmith’s Canadian Content: We must hold fast to our compassion, our tolerance, and our respect for one another. Because the minute things start to get bad (and they will), the vultures will descend and start whispering in our ears. They won’t talk about God or Christ at first – they will use terms like ‘family values’ and ‘tradition’ and ‘average Canadians’. They will speak with nostalgia and longing of better, simpler days when everyone looked like us and respected their elders and we all went to church every Sunday. This is how it started in the United States. This is how it started in Australia. It’s starting here right now.

77) David 2’s Brutally Honest Random Thoughts: “A true democracy would destroy our freedoms the moment the “majority” finds them distasteful. And that is already happening right now. If you don’t believe me, I’ve got three words for you: Federal Communications Commission. A democracy inside a republic says that there is something more important than majority rule, and in America that “something” is the US Constitution.”

78) Laelaps: “So he believes it’s his job to be God’s messenger, evidenced by the part where Bush says “I was praying for strength to do the Lord’s will.” What this suggests is that Bush was reluctant to go to war, but it was God’s will, so then Bush prayed for forgiveness for doing the very thing he thinks God wants him to do. While I don’t have a problem with the leader of this country having a religion, this brand of religion where leaders believe they have an open line to God and base their decisions not on rationality but on some abstract delusion of what God does or doesn’t will is dangerous and frightening.”

79) Les Enrages: “The other consequence was that it totally devastated the idea that this mythical God created the universe, as described in Genesis. (actually two descriptions that are at odds with oneanother – the Elohist creation story from the first chapter of Genesis, and the Jahwist version that starts halfway into Gen. 2, 4) This bearded Yahweh (aka Jehova – counterpart to Jove, aka Jupiter, Zeus) certainly didn’t create the vast universe of modern cosmology – nearly 40 BILLION light-years in diameter and around 16-18 BILLION years old. No, the authors of the bible were not aware of galaxies, quasars, neutron stars, black holes, or any of the wonders you can see in photographs from the Hubble telescope.” And from the second post: “Through Thomas we see a Jesus much more in keeping with a modern secular society, but one much less amenable to manipulation by authoritarians. As Elaine Pagels points out in the Gnostic Gospels, the normative variety of Christianity quickly became as hierarchical and authoritarian as the Scribes and Pharisees of the Gospels. I don’t think it coincidental that this Pauline influence radiated not from Jerusalem but from Rome.”

80) Darwin’s Dagger: “Virginia may be the home of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, but it is also the home of Jefferson and this document, the foundation for religious freedom in this country. For freethinkers, atheists, agnostics or just those who choose to hold beliefs outside of the Christian mainstream, these words are sacred.”

“Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

81) Live and times of an ex(2)-pat Yank: “God to me is too much of a mystery… Is TOO powerful to not approach with a certain sense of awe and mysticism. The one place that used to “house” the mysticism was a building specifically made for worship, a church/mosque/synagogue/temple. And people from all over our country, regardless of their particular persuasion, spent an inordinent amount of ‘weekend’ time in their worship-building. Then they’d go home, have dinner with their families, go to sleep… And then wake up and go to work on Monday.”

82) Phillip Allen: “God will not coerce anyone to follow his way; and he will not bless a system that tries to force people to obey him and his ways. Jesus was repelled by all efforts to make him a ruler in order that he might force his kingdom on the world.”

83) Killing time, making noise: “All it takes is the will of the people, and the system can adapt to changes in their lives. But sadly, the mechanism that allowed so much flexibility also seems to have allowed for its own demise. When the will of the people is bent to the will of the forces the system was designed to exclude, through fear, coercion, lies, and manipulation, those forces creep into the cracks in the system, and destroy it from within.”

84) Ten Percent: Many rebel leaders have been tortured to death, or assassinated by the state. At Blairwatch today they post up Martin Luther King’s A Time to Break Silence. Better for you than chocolate eggs. For my part I shall quote one of my own personal heroes (you thought I was going for a personal jesus/depeche mode joke there, go on admit it you did. Ok I almost was, but I demurred at the last second) Kurt Vonnegut-‘Take Care of the People, and God Almighty Will Take Care of Himself.’ Peace.”

85) Cross Left: Very good biblically-based critique of anti-gay prejudice. The ending is the best part, though. “He spoke out loudly, and often, against hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and pride. He was most strongly against the established religionists of the day who had well over 600 rules and laws to follow, and showed no justice, nor mercy. Jesus informed these types of people that the prostitutes and tax collectors would get into heaven before them. And He made it clear, the most important commandment was to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. I, for one, am tired of this constant harassment of others by those who consider themselves to have the right to judge. I’m tired of them trying to deny equal protection and rights to those they consider not worthy to be citizens of our democracy. Perhaps it’s time they started fixing themselves, instead of trying to fix others.”

86) xcsharpshadowx:
I’m sick of beging hushed,
of being forced
to tame the Word,
and I’m finished using global peace
to justify my sword,
because politics is top-down,
and real love is ground-up:
my friends, don’t get me wrong,
I follow Jesus,
I’m just fed-up.

87) Dawne Gee at Clean Cut Kid: “i was not surprised that he would pretend not to recognize the attempts on the national and state level (many state levels, for that matter) to support, encourage, or otherwise enable one religion over another, or to (probably truly) misunderstand the wording and intention of the First Amendment. but i do find it sad that Bob declines to respectfully disagree. it’s a by-product of his belief that there is no room in the world for anything he doesn’t believe in. thus, terms like “hegemony” and “theocracy” are lost on him, for after all, what else is there?”

88) Harp and Sword (Listed as Big Brass Blog?): “Benjamin Franklin had to jump through many legal hoops to get around the laws of Pennsylvania which favored the Society of Friends (Quakers). John Adams, while personally devout, had his scuffles with the institutionalization of the Congregationalist Church by Massachussetts. One thing that the founders understood was that backing one sect through government is an essential and primal assault on the liberty of the individual to follow the most personal and private of decisions. Oddly enough, among the most fervent backers of the first amendment was the fledgling movement of the Baptists. They had seen their young sect relegated to the far fringes of the wilderness by the Anglicans in Virginia, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the stern Calvinists of New England. They had been told many times that their personal faith was grounds to deny them access to the public arena. They wanted to make sure that this did not happen.”

89) Cassandra Waites: This one is outstanding. Read it. “It does not matter if the individual first given theocratic power is trustworthy. It does not matter if the individual first given theocratic power is firmly grounded in sound teachings. Aaron was a good sound priest. Eli was a good sound priest, but that did not say a thing about his sons. Sooner or later, people like Annas and Caiaphas will be attracted to the power and do what they can to keep it. And where there are people like Annas and Caiaphas, sooner or later good people get influenced into doing bad things.”

90) The Jaded Skeptic: “What does this have to do with science? Science is not a democracy. We don’t vote and pick how much gravity their will be this year. We don’t elect or impeach the laws of motion. Evolution occurs, no matter how much you pray against it. Sorry.”