The Culture War-Whos Winning

[Tommy]

I believe the culture war that is referred to by the far right is going to end up deciding a lot of things


so far this is what I see

I see atheists on TV like Penn & Teller, Bill Maher openly talking about how stupid religion is

I see women at the mall wearing playboy bunny t shirts

I see studies that say religious beliefs is WAY down among high school kids

I see video games, Tight Jeans, lots of sex

I see TV shows that are just busting with sex themes
even the first lady watches desperate house wives


marriage is down, divorce is up

I see science just about killing every pro religious argument

i see hypocrite's at every corner, priests that molests little boys
congressmen having sex with young men and stealing


but on the other hand
religious people seem to be more determined about pushing their views on others and I do beleive that is saving a small percentage of the flock


I think about it a lot but in the end I just dont know............

[stefan segal]

tommy...why is sex so pivital in your thinking? A spiritual relationship with one's maker, is a very private experience...and has nothing to do with sex.

Religion, on the other hand, is a politial mechanism and will utilize anything repressive at hand.

Sex, is a ready target, because most healthy people have an active interest in being a sexual player on some level or another... even in those professing religion, religious strictures are not so prominent a factor in this consideration as much as considering the odds of secrecy from their religious watchdogs...be they parents, or church members/leaders.

People who repress sex, in themselves and particularly in others, are devients from the norm...devients from our hardwiring and against natural law.

This sort of behavior makes them ill...mentally ill in a most demeaning and base fashion...they are to be despised for their hypocracy in saying one thing for others, and in utmost secret, doing quite another.

Closet gays of both sexes, run to the church for an acceptable explanation for their otherness that is difficult to hide in society, and for the protection the church affords. It is for this reason that organized religions seem to exhibit more than their per capita share of homosexuals.

A political movement embedded into streetcorner religion is not only slimey but sick...and should not be encouraged with tax reliefs and asides...that shoulders everyone with complicity in their garbage.

Stefan

[Moby]

I see the issue in your subject line "Culture War". This is the issue that's really polarizing America and every person that is influenced by our culture. There is a constant talk of war that has started with PNAC and has now entered our daily lives.

In general you have people that want to free to live their own lives. You also have people that don't want that much control and wish to be lead. Military and religion are groups there you have leaders and people that are told what to do and that's why they always go hand in hand. You have others that will go out of their way to prove they're free and that no one can tell them what to do.

Look no further then the preacher's daughter or the other catholic school girls for a perfect example of the issue. They spent their youth being pushed one way and denying them the freedom of individuality. What do they do? They try to push their individuality to the extreme to show that they have it. They end up sleeping around and doing lots of drugs or alcohol just to prove that they don't have to live as they're told.

In recent years we've seen that moral leaders often have the lowest morals. Show me a man that uses the name of Jesus to amass wealth and I'll show you a man that has no morality at all. Everyone that spends time thinking about this will come to the same conclusion. So these leaders need to deflect blame and keep people occupied so they create an enemy. Those people are EVIL. That country is EVIL. Doing that is EVIL.

Every time you tell someone that they're evil you're going to get a reaction out of them. Either they will follow you like sheep or you push them away and they end up becoming what you don't want.

There's also a great deal of money in doing this. When you're focused on the evils of others you don't have time to look at your leaders.

One human morality will evolve and more people will get past the first few stages of development. When they do, no one will care if you pray to God 10 times a day or spend your evenings watching depictions of rape, violence and hate on your own TV.

[Linkster]

Its interesting that you brought up the marriage/divorce rates - did you know that about a month ago the census dept released new numbers that showed for the first time in the US, less than 50% of the "couples", partners what ever you want to call the pairing or family arrangement, is a married household - more than 50% is now either classified as living together, single household parents, or same sex partners. This of course doesnt count the single people that live alone as the census study just looks at households

[Linkster]

Just remember Georges dad was the one who started most of this decline of civilization towards Pat Robertsons New world Order
Remember this one?
George Bush: "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." 27 Aug 1988

Of course while he was VP - he also stated: "Let me assure you of one thing: the United States under this administration will never -- never -- let terrorism or fear of terrorism determine its foreign policy."

Seems he shoulda taught sonny boy better

[stefan segal]

I believe that culture is a misnomer for what division you are speaking of...it's more POV of how one approaches life.

One group becomes awed when faced with a majestic tree...while the other calculates board feet...it's a different POV.

When the first group runs into a difficulty, they stop and consider the elements with the notion to improve their approach...while the second sees only a need to redouble their efforts.

The first group is into growth... while thew second, is into control.

The first are husbanders...the second are patriarchs.

Anyway..you get the point...their life approaches are very different.

This is why the dems have trouble becoming postal equal to the repugs...as the difference from their normal attitude doesn't require changing the station as do the dems, but only raising the volume.

No matter what country in whatever period in history, nor how strong or weak, or rich or poor, there is always these two approaches to reality in which the group members despise each other.

In those short periods of a culture's history when involved in a life and death war, or when the technology is such that the distinction between these groups is only that the repug-types beat their cows, kids and wives, to the disgust of their neighbors, the distinction didn't abrade as it does these days.

I believe the war between the states,( two distinct cultures), the Mason Dixon divide was in large part populated by single culture groups ( two cultures can clash...one culture cannot...only factions within that culture can clash)

...the manufacturing bankers in the north...repugs...and the agrarian south...democrats...whose culture was destroyed by the control freak culture of the north...never to rise as such again. (just as flower power can never rise again for the same reason...win or loose, clash with them and you're mindfucked before it's over...inocence is a one strike you're out deal)

The divide between these two POV will always remain, because we have no common language...you say 'compassion'...they hear 'weak'...they tout 'rule of law' and I hear 'oppression'.

It's a tonic when I mull over all the ways I despise them...especially now watching their attempts to morph into something approaching human long enough to lie about their voting records.

It's so much easier for them to speak among their own kind...they all are cheer leaders..like bush...who is so insensitive to others, that he doesn't even suspect he's the most despised man on the planet.

You red state fellas....don't take this wrong...I mean despised in a good way.

You observe that I'm practicing repug-speak, where the actual meanings of words don't matter so much as as the direct instructions embeddeded in the sentence...ie..."don't take this wrong"...you now have your orders. :)
( the smiley face serves for the bearing of the teeth repugs are wont to do to put others off their guard.) ...in a good way.

Stefan

[exarmyranger]

Who's winning?I do'nt know,look's to me like nobody win's...How can goodness be recongnized without evil to compare it with,or visa-versa?I find most self proclaimed Men of God,and their follower's repugnent.however,if you believe in and truelly have faith in God,heaven,and the promise of eternal life.I will defend your Constitutionall Right'(s)to worship an eggplant if you so choose.Someone once said "There are no athiest's in foxhole's!"I am agnostic I've spent many night's in many foxhole's lived thru enemy mortar,rocket,and sniper fire.God was the furthest thing from my mind,survival of my fellow ranger's and myself was foremost.Funny thing though our comrade's in the 82nd ABD motto was "Kill em all!!!Let God sort em out!

[Linkster]

Thats the funny part (if anything about war can be funny) - these people like Bush who have never even held a weapon other than a 22 to do their annual quals for Natl Guard inactives, dont have a clue what the real soldiers think about or do when theyre out on the line - and everything Ive ever experienced has always been looking out for your team - your comrades - and your best friends (which is pretty much all the same group) - I sure wasnt looking to any imaginary object or being to help me through any of it

[stefan segal]

Enough With the 'One God' Stuff
by James Foley
www.alternet.org, September 23, 2006


http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Religion/Enough_OneGod_Stuff.html


In the world today, one ancient religious ideology, monotheism, stands out as especially dangerous, repressive and loony.
Sam Harris's book "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason," which won the 2005 Pen Award for nonfiction, develops a smart, knowledgeable polemic about the growing dangers of all religious ideologies. Although I love Harris' rant, my personal obsession has long been with how weird monotheism is. Monotheism insists there is but one god, a man of course, alone in the universe for all eternity. Even as a child, I found this to be a crazy idea.
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Religion/Enough_OneGod_Stuff.html

The Greeks and Romans, the Hindus, and the Egyptians all imagined many different gods who hang out together, the way people throughout the world do. These cultures envisioned social gods with busy existences who like pleasure, food, sex, art and other good things of life. As with people, the social ties among the gods loosely constrain their destructive impulses. Mostly these gods are so involved with each other they only sometimes notice the lesser beings, just as people only sometimes notice their household animals. The multiple gods of great cultural systems, and the gods and spirits of many tribal cultures as well, are familiar, understandable. They project the human world into the sky, the same way science fiction does (except, of course, science fiction understands it is offering fiction).
But monotheism posits one omnipotent, lonely sucker all by himself -- "the sky god" as Gore Vidal once called him. The first five books of the Hebrews' Bible reveal, not surprisingly, that the sky god is often angry, jealous, vengeful, and even murderous -- regularly toying with, manipulating and punishing the puny beings he creates to worship and amuse him. Not surprisingly, he's a self-absorbed ascetic who invents for his "children" bizarre, impossible-to-comply-with rules governing a multitude of tiny details of daily life. Sometimes he goes berserk about minor infractions; frequently he ignores major violations of his own rules. He's the original bad father, threatening awful punishments, with no wife, lover, siblings, friends, co-workers, neighbors or relatives to reign him in.
Early Christians and then Muslims added to monotheism the great creative innovation of the promise of eternal life. A person gets to live forever if, and only if, that person closely follows the sky god's rules. This made monotheism much easier to sell, especially when coupled with the offer of extra credit toward salvation for converting others. It also made monotheism fantastically effective in motivating, inspiring, controlling and ruling people. Fueled by the monotheists' inexhaustible missionary zeal, in nearly 2,000 years this peculiar ideology has spread throughout much of the globe.
Here in the high-tech futuristic 21st century, the punitive, vengeful, sky god is as strong and legitimate as he's been in a long time. Modernity, it turns out, was no cure for monotheism. If anything, it increases extremism, especially -- but never only -- among the dispossessed. And now in the Middle East we have the volatile blend of pissed-off Jews, Muslims, and Christians, each convinced they possess an a iron-clad mandate from their one and only angry god. Mixed in as well are many weapons, lots of oil, and the dangerous, born-again idiocy of George W. Bush and other prominent Republicans. All this is concentrated on the turf that monotheists everywhere see as their origin, their home, their "holy land."
Present-day America's most popular form of lunatic monotheism -- fundamentalist, evangelical Protestantism (and especially end-of-days Christianity with tens of millions of believers convinced that Jesus is returning soon) -- is deeply obsessed with the holy land. Crazed Christian fundamentalists love it when crazed Jewish warriors battle it out with crazed Islamic warriors. The Pat Robertsons regard the wars as win-win and ordinary believers see them as signs that the saved will soon be lifted to heaven. Unfortunately, these fundamentalist Christians now have enormous influence over the foreign policy of the most powerful nation in the world.
Most monotheists want governments to punish people who fail to obey some of the sky god's ascetic rules. Even moderate, middle-of-the-road monotheists -- like the Roman Catholic Church -- pressure governments to criminalize and punish homosexuality, drug use and abortion. The large and growing numbers of Christian, Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists have far grander ambitions.
Inevitably, some prominent believers turn out to have long been hypocrites, liars and secret sinners -- adulterers, gamblers, drug users, homosexuals. But hypocrisy poses no threat to the monotheists who say the hidden sins demonstrate the awful power of the evils they battle. The self-righteous condemn the sins, of course, but they actually approve of the lies, insisting that "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue -- to the one heavenly lord.
Monotheists, especially in scary and desperate times like our own, easily hate other monotheisms and often loath variants of their own brand. And while they have often been happy to butcher polytheists by the wagonload, monotheists do not ordinarily hate polytheists (except when armed and dangerous). Traditionally, monotheists have regarded pagans as primitive or backward peoples who just don't know any better. But they, the other monotheists and the apostates, do know better, or should.
The historic battles within monotheism are legendary: Hebrews vs. Christians, Sunnis vs. Shiites, Catholics vs. Protestants, Lutherans vs. Calvinists, Church of England vs. dissenters, Puritans vs. Baptists, and so many others. Currently some Islamic extremists have a hard time deciding who they despise more: Is it the evil Christian and Jewish heretics, or is it the evil Muslims heretics? So much heresy, so little time.
For monotheism, it always comes down to heresy, to the rejection of orthodoxy. Starting perhaps with Zoroastrianism, each monotheism itself began as a heresy, instantly generating its own orthodoxy. Heresy -- free thought and choosing to reject the rules -- is the primal offense against the monotheists' conception, and love, of their solitary deity.
The chief authoritarian ideologies of the 20th century were secular and even anti-religious. They are not gone, but they are exhausted. Now, in our global warming, nuclear bomb-loaded world, especially in the United States and the Middle East, we face an older, far more popular and durable ideology: the angry god as mandate and role model.
Like Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell and others before him, Sam Harris insists that the basic premises and literal texts of monotheism are so authoritarian and repressive that people who believe them also easily and frequently support all sorts of other repressive causes. For evidence, see the last 2,000 years of history, or tomorrow's newspaper.

[exarmyranger]

Well put Stefan.I would think a supreme being would have grown tired of our antic's by now.We all (believer's and non believer's)break the rules,set down for us in the Bible at one time or another,if not we would'nt need churches,or prison's,or lawyer's,ect...ect.Unfortionatly I do'nt see that happening in the near or distant future.Great book(s),but...when something sound's too good to be true...

[exarmyranger]

Thats the funny part (if anything about war can be funny) - these people like Bush who have never even held a weapon other than a 22 to do their annual quals for Natl Guard inactives, dont have a clue what the real soldiers think about or do when theyre out on the line - and everything Ive ever experienced has always been looking out for your team - your comrades - and your best friends (which is pretty much all the same group) - I sure wasnt looking to any imaginary object or being to help me through any of it
You know it,Linkster.When Bush die's(sooner the better) his headstone should say something like "HERE REST'S A MAN FULL OF THE TRUTH" BECAUSE IT SURE NEVER CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH!

[Betty Blowtorch]

People who repress sex, in themselves and particularly in others,
are deviants from the norm...deviants from our hardwiring and
against natural law.

Closet gays of both sexes, run to the church for an acceptable
explanation for their otherness that is difficult to hide in society,
and for the protection the church affords. It is for this reason
that organized religions seem to exhibit more than their
per capita share of homosexuals.
I have the perfect solution to the problem
of sexual repression in the Catholic Church.
The bishops must elect Hugh Hefner as Pope.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/4224/hefnerpoperesizemediumgt0.png

Pope Hef will bring healthy heterosexual hedonism
to the Church. Hef will redesign the nuns' habits
and recruit thousands of horny young hotties
who want to serve God and go to heaven.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1723/g5resizesmallhn5.jpg

Nuns will be required to wear skintight latex habits
and will be trained to provide badly needed blowjobs
to all priests, regardless of sexual orientation.

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6333/g201resizesmallvl0.jpg

If anybody can straighten out all those gay priests
and keep 'em away from the altar boys, Hef can.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2070/priestwithaltarboygm1.jpg

Well... maybe not.

[stefan segal]

Betty...If I could vote for your plan...I would.
I'm sure it would draw out the poison...and leave the rest of to enjoy life.

Stefan

[Tickler]

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6333/g201resizesmallvl0.jpg
If anybody can straighten out all those gay priests and keep 'em away from the altar boys, Hef can.

Frankie, could protect me away from the priests.:D

[exarmyranger]

I spent my first 30 yr's on earth with the incorrect assumption that homosexual's were also pedophile's.Then I married a beautiful intelligent woman who's elder brother was(and still is) gay.I eventually became indifferent to his sexual preference.After having a few conversation's with-out broaching the subject (homo&pedo) I asked if he thought the majority of gay men were also Pedophile's.His reply "I do not know anyone in the gay community who in thought or deed is a pedophile...If I ever do,that person better have BlueCross!!!"My brother-in-law,is 6ft.7inche's 275(give or take a few)pound's,ex semi-pro hockey player,From Detroit. I believed him...

[exarmyranger]

My kid's 2 girl's 1 boy are grown and on thier own...They all love thier Unckle,as it should be...

[akbubba]

Just remember Georges dad was the one who started most of this decline of civilization towards Pat Robertsons New world Order
Remember this one?
George Bush: "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." 27 Aug 1988

Of course while he was VP - he also stated: "Let me assure you of one thing: the United States under this administration will never -- never -- let terrorism or fear of terrorism determine its foreign policy."

Seems he shoulda taught sonny boy better

Both Bushes have made so many mistakes you have to wonder , was Dan Quail, the joke of the 90's, really so bad by comparison? We seem to now be lead by a complete dumbass. Could Al Gore have done any worse? Had the election been above reproach I think I might now be second guessing President Gore.

[Tommy]

This is one of the major things wrong with this country

a long time ago we enjoyed each other cultures
we took the best of each culture and built on that

the italians were great stone masons
the Irish were known for their wood working skills
The germans were execlellent with metal
the english were great ship builders

these people came to america and worked together and great cities were built, sure they all had ways that were a little crazy

but everyone respected and accepted

why does it have to be my way or the highway why does it turn in to a culture war now

[Moby]

why does it have to be my way or the highway why does it turn in to a culture war now
Everyone wants to feel good about themselves and some do this through looking inward and others do it through looking outward. If you do this by looking outward you have to make yourself "better" then others or you have no real reason to feel good about yourself.

There's only three ways to make yourself better then those around you.
1. Simply lie to yourself and be conceited but then no one is good enough to be your friend.
2. Find something to hate in others then it's easy to find like minded individuals
3. Actually live a better life, achieve more and help the world. Most of these people stop looking outward though and look inward so they quickly leave this category of people.

Number 2 is the largest and easiest group. So you get people like Rush Limbaugh that don't need to focus on facts or reason as he can simply bash everyone else that's different then him. Suddenly he has a large following of those that need the same sense of being by making themselves feel better by putting everyone else down.

PNAV has learned that emotion (mainly hate) is a much stronger motivator then reason and fact. You never need to make a valid arguement with emotion. You can just keep saying simple phrases and people will pick them out of the air and have no clue what that mean because they support they're emotional responce.

The bottom line is that hate is a strong motivator and our government has learned that lesson well so they will continue to divide us because then we turn our attention to the gay couple down the street and let our leaders steal, torture and destory our children's future.

[stefan segal]

Moby said:

The bottom line is that hate is a strong motivator and our government has learned that lesson well so they will continue to divide us because then we turn our attention to the gay couple down the street and let our leaders steal, torture and destory our children's future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nice analysis Moby...but you'd have to reverse our culture all the way back to when the wars of the religions shook the world.

That would be reverting our thinking to: "1, 2, 3, many", and the sunlit = cause and effect...the shadow = majik.

As long as patriarchal religions hold sway, we will live in division and hate...regardless of xtian copy declaring otherwise.

The problem is basic...not only in structure...deviding virtue from sin...which is the height of mindlessness, but in it's practice...

As xtians, we live by and through reading our script.(known in some circles as: (scripture)

We play the actor's part...we look up and memorize our responses to experience, rather than experience them.

This is the schism we note when xtians act in ways no human should act...,much less, a human with the capacity for compassion.

Through following one's role by reading the script, there is no terra firma for humaity to hold court...in other words, xtians are too occupied with their measurements of others and consequently themselves, in terms of virtue and sin, that they never experience that other person...only tally their acts.

Matriarchial cultures tend to be different in tone, but may or may not be more mindlessly vicious...as they have no lines in the sand describing limits of behavior...it's more of a communal thing, that to go against its good, may result in being summarily flayed and quarted...depending upon who is running the show and how the community evolved.

The Big Dog made a speech at Georgetown college, where he proposed a system of "what the good looks like" , not based upon xtian ideals, but the better good...ie...better good for all concerned. It would work...but a hard sell...as amassing all the $$$ in a community into one's own bank account wouldn't serve the better good...so we're going Robin Hood that money back into the community.

I could live with that...as it is a splinter off what I would choose...a general love of community. (I say 'love', as the height of acceptance...so is the farthest from division.)

Linkster...you had to grit you teeth to exonerate reagan...the arch shit heel of the world...but you know damned well we are living out today what cheney, rumfeld,wolferitz, etc. learned at reagan's knee.

That reagan was a showman and therefore likeable...a good guy to have a beer with...sounds lie some other shitheel of late...doesn't make him less a monster...along with his nestmates.

But you only mention the real enemies of mankind's enablers...the "bungling bush boys"...why did you do that?

Stefan

[exarmyranger]

This is one of the major things wrong with this country

a long time ago we enjoyed each other cultures
we took the best of each culture and built on that

the italians were great stone masons
the Irish were known for their wood working skills
The germans were execlellent with metal
the english were great ship builders

these people came to america and worked together and great cities were built, sure they all had ways that were a little crazy

but everyone respected and accepted

why does it have to be my way or the highway why does it turn in to a culture war now
Why? I have'nt an explanation...Why now?I do'nt know that either.I do think if you asked ten people I'd be willing to bet you'd get ten different responce's.All I can say is If you oppose Gay people being allowed to marry...That's fine,do'nt marry a gay person!

[Moby]

Why now?
Do you think our government is profiting from the citizens pointing fingers at each other? After all, they're waisting more money then any administration in history.