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Congress Declares Bible "The Word OF God"
PUBLIC LAW 97-280~~OCT.4, 1982
Public Law 97-280 96 STAT. 1211
Joint Resolution Authorizing and requesting the President to proclaim 1983 as the "Year of the Bible".
Whereas the Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and blessed nation and people;
Whereas deeply held religious convictions springing from the Holy Scriptures led to the early settlement of our Nation;
Whereas Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas many of our great national leaders--among them Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson--paid tribute to the surpassing influence of the Bible in our country's development, as in the words of President Jackson that the Bible is "the rock on which our Republic rests";
Whereas the history of our Nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the scriptures in the lives of individuals, families, and societies;
Whereas this Nation now faces great challenges that will test this Nation as it has never been tested before; and
Whereas that renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people:
Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President is authorized and requested to designate 1983 as a national "Year of the Bible" in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has been for our Nation, and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.
Approved October 4, 1982
Intertwining religion with simply politics?
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
~ John Adams ~ (1735-1826)
Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source.. "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88)
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
The cult of the omnipotent state has millions of followers in the united States.
Americans of today view their government in the same way as Christians view their God;
they worship and adore the state and they render their lives and fortunes to it.
Statists believe that their lives -- their very being -- are a privilege that the state has given to them.
They believe that everything they do is -- and should be -- dependent on the consent of the government.
Thus, statists support such devices as income taxation, licensing laws, regulations, passports, trade restrictions, and the like..
~ Jacob G. Hornberger ~
American author, journalist, politician, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation
Source.. Waco And The Cult Of The Omnipotent State, The Tyranny Of Gun Control, 69 (Future Of Freedom Foundation 1997).
Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American History
An invaluable collection of historical works which contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals
The following is a massive collection of the literature and documents which were most relevant to the colonists' lives in America. If it isn't here, it probably is not available online anywhere.
http://constitution.org/primarysources/primarysources.html
No human has yet grasped 1% of what can be known about spiritual realities ...
I grew up Presbyterian.
Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong.
So, what I'm financing is humility.
I want people to realize that you shouldn't think you know it all..
~ John Templeton ~ (1912-2008)
American-born British stock investor, businessman and philanthropist
Source.. BusinessWeek 2005
Spirit Tap – How the Manipulators Steal Your Fight
by Zen Gardner
Nov 2, 2012
by Zen Gardner
Ever wonder about all these rousing freedom fighting movies and “outnumbered little guy gets back” scenarios? Don’t they seem counter-productive to the cause of the contained control world we’re being shoe-horned into by the hour?
In a world of manipulation and social engineering, why would so many heavily promoted dramas regarding rebellion against totalitarian control, and even specifically against a mechanistic, fascist future, be so prevalent?
Think about how you feel after one such moving media event. Spent. You might identify with Braveheart or Leonidas and the 300 and every sinew in your body is pulsing with getting back at the Man. You feel vindicated in your convictions. “Yes, it’s always been this way and we too shall stand and fight to the finish!”..yada yada.
Do you see that happening? Why do you think the droids of Orwell’s 1984 were not just allowed but encouraged to participate in the “2 minutes of hate” against the staged enemy of the day?
Think maybe they knew this innate craving to rebel had to be vented? Sure don’t want it directed at the Elite PTBs now, do we?
evelyn-de-morgan-worship-of-mammon-1909-e1276618198913
Siphoning the Spirit
This is how religion works, or erudite phony intellectualism and the like for that matter. Seeming self expression and empowerment nicely encapsulated in an innocuous little bundle of self-absorbtion. Won’t hurt anybody, too much self loathing and original sin think going on. “I’m innately bad, carnal and easily misled. I’m wrong by default. But oh how I love living vicariously through the machinations of others!”
Brilliant, no? The theatre of the mind, easily reinforced by literal cinemas and scripts thrown about in revisionist history, the nightly news and the readily manipulated false reality shoved in front of our faces via mass media spectacles.
Hell, I’m Spartacus too. Who isn’t?
These fuckers really know how to wrap humanity up in itself, using its innate intuition and conflicted, compromised issues in dastardly ways.
Channeled hate toward an external threat
Glorified, But at Arm’s Length
And how do you work this innate rebellion against tyranny born in the hearts of any normal human? You deftly set it aside. It’s either classified as historical information for a day gone by, or would-be-nice romanticism that’s really not for the real world. In effect, it’s being mocked as futile, but most would never recognize that. Or it’s directed at a pre-designed enemy that works for the PTB’s favor.
Again, clever clods.
Don’t you find it ironic that so much of this type of expression to fight for personal freedom is set in either bygone days, or a futuristic, off-the-charts surreal setting?
Point is, it’s not now! Now is eviscerating any attention or even memory of the recent Occupy movement. “Now” is government’s suppressing dissent in ways not seen in so-called developed countries ever before. “Now” is drones, surveillance, check-points, tracking and invasive monitoring such as the world has never experienced.
Reality check, please. (But you won’t get it from “them”. They don’t like to make the connection.)
So Why the Heroic Rebellion Movies? Emotional and Spiritual Exhaustion.
I can tell you’re starting to catch on.
We’re wonderfully, marvelously human. We have hearts, we have empathy, we have love, we have consciousness. That they could be this cold, evil and manipulating is something we’re catching on to at an exponentially accelerating rate, but we’re getting it. It’s not in our nature to behave in such dark ways, but they’re forcing us to face their ugly temporal reality for the sake of survival.
That’s good and part of our communal spiritual evolution.
This is yet another wake up for those ready for it. They’re tapping humanity’s innate craving for freedom and love, allowing us our emotional outpouring, but in controlled conditions. That’s what it amounts to. It doesn’t propel people to want to rebel and stand up for a cause. It thwarts it.
Instead, it emotionally and spiritually spends them and effectively exhausts them. Sad but true.
Cinemas and TVs are spiritual sucking stations. As you suspected, toxic and to be avoided in almost every case.
But don’t despair. The Truth is there. The real channeling of information and empowerment is amongst the alternative research community. Granted it too is compromised somewhat but that can be expected. Don’t be naive. And certainly not so much you won’t find the Truth you need to spur your soul.
Conclusion
I want to encourage you to keep heart, keep hope and keep your eyes wide open. Not necessarily in a paranoid or wary state, although that should be a hefty part of looking at today’s world.
But know we’re what they fear the most. We are their enemy. An awake and aware populace is their living nightmare, hence all the drugs and deliberate pollution of everything, from our air, water and food to the electromagnetic vibrations surrounding us.
Don’t let them distract or disempower you emotionally, spiritually or otherwise.
Stay awake and aware and alive and conscious and in synch with the Universe and you WILL fulfill your purpose.
As will I.
Much love,
Zen
http://www.zengardner.com/spirit-tap-how-the-manipulators-steal-your-fight/
In the matter of changing religion, State favors are stronger than penalties.
The Framers of America's Founding Documents relied heavily upon the writings of the political philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu.
Typical of Montesquieu's brilliant insight, he once wrote that:
"A more certain way to attack religion is by favor, by the comforts of life, by the hope of wealth; not by what reminds one of it, but by what makes one forget it; not by what makes one indignant, but by what makes men lukewarm, when other passions act on our souls, and those which religion inspires are silent. In the matter of changing religion, State favors are stronger than penalties."
Source.. The Spirit of the Laws, Baron de Montesquieu (1748)
Acceptance of State favors has had disastrous consequences on the churches in America. The church has been effectively silenced (or as Rev. D. James Kennedy put it, "gagged"). Now the disastrous consequences are being felt by the entire nation.
The IRS has succeeded in gagging Christians.
Rev. D. James Kennedy has stated:
“The federal government has proved a tremendous impediment to the ongoing work of Christians. In all the laws that they have passed against Christian schools, gagging the church, taxation, and all kinds of things that they have done, they have made it harder for the church to exercise its prerogatives and to preach the gospel.
Take the last presidential election. There were numbers of things that I knew that I was never able to say from the pulpit because if you advance the cause of one candidate or impede the cause of the other you can lose your tax exemption. That would have been disastrous not only for the church, but for our school and our seminary, everything. So you are gagged. You cannot do that. The IRS, a branch of our government, has succeeded in gagging Christians."
Is there a remedy? Yes! The church can be re-empowered and regain the former glory and influence she once held in America. But in order to do so the church must stop acting as an underling, as a subordinate, as a dependent, of the State. The church must cease asking for State favors.
Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. (3John 1:7)
Rather than being a "favor" or a "benefit", what the church has done through State incorporation and seeking the IRS' 501c3 status, is it traded its birthright for a mess of State-licensed pottage.
The church has taken the hushmoney. But there's a way out. The church can give it back! The church can give back the government "benefits" that no church ever needed in the first place.
By spending a little time here, you'll learn some important facts, problems, and myths about the corporate 501c3 status. You'll discover what happens to churches and ministries when they ask for these State favors and operate as "nonprofit tax-exempt religious corporations." You're likely to learn some things that will shock and amaze you.
You'll also learn why it's completely unnecessary for a church to incorporate and become 501c3, and why most of what you've been told about the so-called "benefits" of incorporation and 501c3, as it applies to churches, is a pack of lies, and that these lies were fabricated by attorneys and accountants to create a multi-billion dollar "church compliance" industry.
Accessing Information and Navigating This Site
If you already know the general category of information that you're looking for, you can select from the links on the top-left of this page. Or you can take a guided tour of this site by clicking the "NEXT" button at the bottom of this page.
Under the Articles link at the top of this page you'll find some thought-provoking incorporated 501c3 church articles that have appeared in newspapers and magazines; and there are also a few audio files of radio interviews that have been done on this issue.
Are you trying to get reliable facts on whether you should:
•501c3 a Church
•501c3 a Ministry
•Incorporate a Church
•Incorporate a Ministry
•Become Tax Exempt
•Become Tax Deductible
•Start a Nonprofit Religious Organization
Are you looking for trustworthy information on how to:
•Start a Church
•Start a Ministry
•Start a Home-Church
•Start a Free-Church
•Empower Your Church
Would you like all that without having to hire an attorney or CPA? You've come to the right place!
http://hushmoney.org/
A Virus Called Fear
People are very strange: murder edition
by Ian Welsh
2015 January 20
I have a simple question for those who read this:
Why is it not OK to kill people in the name of a religion, but it is OK to kill people in the name of a nation?
I’ve always had a great deal of trouble with the way most people run their morality and ethics. Objectively, the Iraqi blockade of the 90s killed vastly more people than 9/11. I once got to see an Iraki pediatrician writing in real time about all the children who died in the 90s, whom she could have saved, if she had had the medicine the West was denying Iraq.
The Vietnam war killed more people. The Chechen war killed more people. The (insert war here) killed more people.
I can run through the intellectual arguments, but on a fundamental level I don’t understand: why is it ok for nations to kill on a mass scale but no one else can? (Well, except some corporations. See Bhopal, India and Union Carbide).
The true decline of religion in the West is, in fact, indicated exactly by the fact that many people think it isn’t OK to kill in the name of your religion. The Crusades, and the religious wars of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation would like to chat with you about that.
For that matter, austerity has certainly killed more people in the West than religious-based terrorism has. Heck, practically everything that does kill people, kills more.
Humans are just very odd. Very, fundamentally, stupid and foolish. Barely conscious.
Spend some time thinking about this. Because it’s a question that is more important than it seems (and it should seem important enough as is)..
from ? How to think
http://www.ianwelsh.net/people-are-very-strange-murder-edition/
Why is it not OK to kill people
in the name of a religion
but it is OK to kill people
in the name of a nation?
Church as Governmental Agency
Executive Order 13397
Nancy Levant; July 25, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
The separation of church and state - gone with the stroke of a pen.
As of March 7, 2006, our nation's leader signed another Executive Order, which tied the Department of Homeland Security to our leader's "faith-based" churches. Okay, all you non profit churches out there -- you now serve the federal government's primary spying agency. That is now your primary function. You are now and officially an organized den of thieves.
I would feel sorry for the pastors, ministers, priests, and rabbis except for the fact that I just can't and won't. How stupid and positively corrupt can you possibly be to take money in exchange for manipulating your flocks of idiot sheep to the national slaughter? And will you also spy on your flocks and provide reports to your new master?
In exchange for money, have you agreed to pacify and organize your flocks in the event of a national emergency? You certainly have, for you have been ordered to do so. And have you been ordered to offer your buildings, your resources, and your labor forces called congregations to serve your newly declared administrator?
I try to come up with words to describe how I feel about this Executive Order and the churches that have "partnered" themselves to this system. The words don't come minus the fact that the church has completely and irreversibly fallen to the lowest and darkest common denominator, which is the total betrayal of the souls of the faithful. I would pray for your forgiveness, but I don't want to.
Nor do I want to write about this sickening topic. But, I appeal to Christian people to 1) ask your church leaders if they are "faith-based" funded, and 2) to leave those churches and start home-based churches with your friends and family members. Do not support Executive Ordered, Department of Homeland Security churches with your presence or your money.
You are being manipulated and reported upon -- guaranteed.
You are being told what to do when more "crisis" hits the nation, and will hit the nation, as all is now planned down to our "weather emergencies," which are providing the training and relocation exercises for the real crisis to come -- the one that permanently collapses Constitutional America.
The church needs to regroup and gather in homes, where faith is restored, private, and truth is real. Forget the church leadership. They are padding their pockets and socially re engineering your mind with think tank religion and crisis management, and they're getting paid to do so -- much like the public schools and mass media.
Raise your churches in your homes. All you need is a Bible --one will do. Save yourselves and your souls and leave your new and improved church buildings, fancy organs, fundraisers, and colorful windows behind.
As in all Communist countries, the church will survive underground, so to speak, and with genuine prayer. And serve your Constitutional America. Don't give up on freedom -- even as it dissolves before your eyes. Be courageous in truth and gather together in truth.
Again and again, I strongly recommend that you contact A.C.E. --Americans for Constitutional Enforcement " at contactus@a4ce.org - and request their Information Packet. Work to preserve your unalienable rights.
There is no other choice but to fall -- much like the American church. And please remember that faith-based churches are now governmental agencies -- just like public schools, mass media, and mass communications -- nothing more and nothing less.
A.C.E. will help you, your family, and your neighbors to learn the truth about today's America. What you don't know is allowing for the total destruction of your rights and your individual freedom. What you don't know is rapidly, rapidly destroying your country. Your continued ignorance is why we are falling. Please contact A.C.E. right now. May God bless the American people.
© 2006 Nancy Levant - All Rights Reserved
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Nancy Levant is a life-long writer, a believer of God, country, Constitutional and individual rights. She resides in rural Southwestern Ohio. She has worked professionally with children since 1974 and is an ardent supporter of home schooling.
Nancy Levant has done radio and television interviews, has been a guest speaker in many venues including college campuses, schools, Indian reservations, human service organizations, and has been the president of a youth sports organization.
Ms. Levant just completed her new book "The Cultural Devastation of American Women: The Strange and Frightening Decline of the American Female." to be released May 2006. Equally, she is a writer for freedom and land rights issues and opposes the United Nation's Agenda 21 implementation in America.
E-Mail: nlevant@juno.com
=============================
The "order" is located at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2996/03/20060307-5.html.
Executive orders apply only to government agencies.
=============================
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-5.html
In Preparation for Martial Law
FEMA Plan to use Pastors as Pacifiers
Nationwide initiative trains volunteers to teach congregations to "obey the government" during seizure of guns, property, forced inoculations and forced relocation
by Paul Joseph Watson - May 24 2006
A Pastor has come forward to blow the whistle on a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation.
In March of this year the Pastor, who we shall refer to as Pastor Revere, was invited to attend a meeting of his local FEMA chapter which circulated around preparedness for a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
The FEMA directors told the Pastors that attended that it was their job to help implement FEMA and Homeland Security directives in anticipation of any of these eventualities. The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to "obey the government" when martial law is declared.
It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the "cowboy mentality" of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure. It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that "this is for their own good."
We have received confirmation from other preachers and Pastors that this program is a nationwide initiative and a literal Soviet model whereby the churches are being systematically infiltrated by government volunteers and used as conduits for martial law training and conditioning.
THE PASTOR WAS TOLD THAT OVER 13,000 COUNTIES WERE ALREADY ON BOARD.
It falls under the umbrella of the NVOAD program which is training volunteers in a "Peer to Peer" program in a neighborhood setting.
Pastors were told that the would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance.
"We get the the picture that we're going to be standing at the end of some farmer's lane while he's standing there with his double barrel, saying we have to confiscate your cows, your chickens, your firearms," said Pastor Revere.
The Pastor elaborated on how the directives were being smoke screened by an Orwellian alteration of their names.
"They're not using the term 'quarantine' - this is the term they're going to be using - it's called 'social distancing' don't you like that one," said the Pastor.
HE ALSO HIGHLIGHTED HOW DETENTION CAMPS HAD BEEN RENAMED TO GIVE THEM A FRIENDLY WARM VENEER.
"Three months ago it was quarantine and relocation centers and now it's 'community centers' and these are going to be activated at the local schools," he said.
Pastor Revere outlined the plan to carry out mass vaccination and enforced drugging programs in times of crisis such as a bird flu outbreak.
"In the event of an outbreak or a bio-terrorist attack, there'd be a mass vaccination....they have a program nationwide 'Pills in People's Palm In 48 Hours'," said the Pastor who was told that Walmart had been designated as the central outlet of this procedure.
Pastor Revere said that many attendees believed in the necessity of the program and were completely unaware to the motivations behind its true purpose and were offered incentives to become volunteers such as preferential treatment and first access for themselves and their families to vaccines and food shipments in times of emergency.
WHICH ROADS TO CLOSE OFF AFTER MARTIAL LAW WAS DECLARED HAD ALSO ALREADY BEEN MAPPED OUT.
The precedent for mass gun confiscation in times of real or manufactured emergency was set during Hurricane Katrina when police and national guard patrols forced homeowners even in areas unaffected by the hurricane to hand over their legally owned firearms at gunpoint as is detailed in the video below.
In the following video Alex Jones exposes FEMA's deliberate sabotage of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts which were used as a platform for a beat test of forced relocation and gun confiscation.
Alex Jones' 2001 documentary film 9/11: The Road to Tyranny featured footage from a FEMA symposium given to firefighters and other emergency personnel in Kansas City in which it was stated that the founding fathers, Christians and homeschoolers were terrorists and should be treated with the utmost suspicion and brutality in times of national emergency.
We have highlighted previous training manuals issues by state and federal government bodies which identify whole swathes of the population as potential terrorists. A Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement pamphlet gives the public characteristics to identify terrorists that include buying baby formula, beer, wearing
Levi jeans, carrying identifying documents like a drivers license and traveling with women or children.
A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.
Shortly after 9/11 a Phoenix FBI manual that was disseminated amongst federal employees at the end of the Clinton term caused waves on the Internet after it was revealed that potential terrorists included, "defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN," and individuals who "make numerous references to the US Constitution."
LAWYERS EVERYWHERE COWERED IN FEAR AT BEING SHIPPED OFF TO GITMO.
In December 2003 the FBI warned Americans nationwide to be on the lookout for people reading Almanacs as this could indicate an act of terrorism in planning. Almanacs are popular glove box inventory of any vehicle and this ludicrous fearmongering was met with a raucous response from satirists and news commentators.
In another twilight zone Nazi-like spectacle, Pastors were asked to make a pledge or an affirmation during the meeting to fulfil the roles ascribed to them by FEMA. They were given assurances that they would be covered by full compensation in the event of resisters injuring them during property seizures and round-ups.
The Pastor said that his county had already succumbed to a tattle-tale like mentality where neighbors were reporting neighbors to the authorities for things like having chickens in their back yard. The brown shirt precedent has been set whereby people immediately turn to the authorities in fealty whenever their paranoid suspicions, fueled by zealous government and media fearmongering, are heightened.
Pastor Revere said the completion of the first stage of the program was slated for August 31st. At this point all the counties within the United States would be networked as part of the so-called disaster relief program.
We issue a challenge to all of our readers to print off this article and the supporting documents and confront their local preacher with it. If they don't receive a response within a week they should investigate further into whether their preacher is involved and hand out information to other members of the congregation.
[andend] - Story Url.: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2006/240506femaplan.htm
FPF/HR - STRONGLY RELATED LINKS - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gkgrb
* US 9/11 TERROR in a CNN Poll - Question: "Do you believe there is a U.S. government cover-up surrounding 9/11?" - 'Yes' - 89% - 'NO' - 11% - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7w7c5
* US SENATOR BOB GRAHAM, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - [ http://tinyurl.com/manno] - regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks: AT LEAST ONE FOREIGN COUNTRY ASSISTED THE 9/11 TERRORISTS - The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, on PBS, reported. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/m4duy
* The 9/11 drama was the 'trigger' used by the PNAC Group, KILLING AMERICANS and others to further their inhuman goals: Anybody who after seeing this video - '9/11 revisited' - still believes the version from the 'PNAC pack' - the Washington cabal - is beyond all professional help - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/jn5jx
* SCHOLARS FOR 9/11 TRUTH - American and other scientists, diplomats, researchers etc.: What happened on 9/11? - What is happening to our world? - How can we improve our situation? - Url.: http://www.st911.org/
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The Netherlands
Inside LSD Full Length Documentary
Historical Library: Church-State Separation
(All documents in blue are accessible in link below.)
A Bit Of Church History by John Gunn
Centennial Oration by Robert Ingersoll
The Church And Wealth In America by Theodore Dreiser (Chapter 14 from Tragic America) (1931)
The Church Is A Burden, Not A Benefit, In Social Life by E. Haldeman-Julius
The Circulation Of Obscene Literature by Robert Ingersoll (1879)
Confessions Of An Abortionist by Martin Avery (1939)
Dare to Question by Elizabeth Stanton
God In The Constitution by Robert Ingersoll
An Interview On Chief Justice Comegys by Robert Ingersoll (1881)
Is Divorce Wrong? by Robert Ingersoll (1889)
Letter to the Danbury Baptists by Thomas Jefferson (1802)
The Lord's Day Alliance by Clarence Darrow
Memorial and Remonstrance by James Madison (1785)
Our Schools by Robert Ingersoll
Papal Despotism by Jeremiah J. Crowley (Chapter 8 from Romanism) (1912)
A Preacher Advocates Church Taxation by Rev. L. M. Birkhead
The Profits Of Religion by Upton Sinclair (1918)
Protestant Menace To Our Government by Lemuel Washburn (1889)
The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner
Rights Of Man by Thomas Paine (1792)
Trial Of C. B. Reynolds For Blasphemy; Robert Ingersoll [ 124K ]
The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson (1786)
Why I Believe In Fair Taxation Of Church Property by Joseph McCabe (1930)
A Wooden God by Robert Ingersoll (1890)
Worship and Church Bells by Thomas Paine (1797)
http://infidels.org/library/historical/chu.html
The Euthyphro Dilemma
(words in blue are 'clickable' links, link at bottom of page)
Divine command theory is widely held to be refuted by an argument known as “the Euthyphro dilemma”. This argument is named after Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, which contains the inspiration for the argument, though not, as is sometimes thought, the argument itself.
The Euthyphro dilemma rests on a modernised version of the question asked by Socrates in the Euthyphro: “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”
Each of these two possibilities, the argument runs, leads to consequences that the divine command theorist cannot accept. Whichever way the divine command theorist answers this question, then, it seems that his theory will be refuted. This argument might be formalised as follows:
The Euthyphro Dilemma
(1) If divine command theory is true then either (I) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, or (II) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.
(2) If (I) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then they are morally good independent of God’s will.
(3) It is not the case that morally good acts are morally good independent of God’s will.
Therefore:
(4) It is not the case that (I) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good.
(5) If (II) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God, then there is no reason either to care about God’s moral goodness or to worship him.
(6) There are reasons both to care about God’s moral goodness and to worship him.
Therefore:
(7) It is not the case that (II) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.
Therefore:
(8) Divine command theory is false.
The first premise of the Euthyphro dilemma presents two alternatives to the divine command theorist: either morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, or morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God. The two options offered to the divine command theorist are intended to be logically exhaustive, so that if divine command theory is true then one of the options must be the case. The divine command theorist is therefore forced to choose one of the options to affirm.
The second premise states the consequences of the divine command theorist affirming the first of the options offered to him in premise (1), “morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good”. It states that if the first option is true then the morally good is morally good independent of God’s will. This claim is supported by an argument known as the independence problem.
The third premise denies that the morally good is morally good independent of God’s will. Of course, the critic of divine command theory does not believe this premise to be true; he believes that morality is independent of God’s will. However, the divine command theorist is committed to accepting this claim because divine command theory just is the theory that all moral truths are dependent on God’s will. Though critics of divine command theory disbelieve this premise, then, they can still use it against the divine command theorist.
The first subconclusion, (4) is the rejection of the first option offered to the divine command theorist in premise (1), “morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good”. That this option is false follows from premises (2) and (3).
Premise (5) states the consequences of the divine command theorist affirming the second of the options offered to him in premise (1), “morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God”. It states that if this option is true then there is no reason either to care about God’s moral goodness or to worship him. The first claim is supported the emptiness problem, and the second by the problem of abhorrent commands.
(6) states that we do have reason both to care about God’s moral goodness and to worship him. Again, this is used as a premise to which the divine command theorist is committed, rather than as a premise that the critic of divine command theory believes is true.
The second subconclusion, (7), is the rejection of the second option offered to the divine command theorist in premise (1), “morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God”. (7) follows from premises (5) and (6). Instead of the emptiness problem and the problem of abhorrent commands, the arbitrariness problem can be used to support it, if need be.
Finally, (8) concludes that divine command theory is false. Premise (1) stated that if divine command theory were true then one of the two alternatives offered to the divine command theorist would also be true. The argument from (2) to (7) has, it is claimed, shown that neither alternative is true. It is therefore inferred that divine command theory is false.
http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/christian-ethics/divine-command-theory/the-euthyphro-dilemma/
Atheists are mostly control freaks looking to impose upon others. That can also be said about some religions too. The peaceful religions are first targets imo.
Forgetting the meaning of freedom
Ben Carson
Creators Syndicate 7:19 p.m. PDT August 22, 2014
Many people in this country were shocked when the U.S. Navy recently announced the removal of all Bibles from military hotels under their control. This was in response to pressure from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a well-known atheist group.
The surprise is not the hypocritical stance of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but rather the fact that an established bulwark of American strength and patriotism caved to a self-serving group of religious fanatics. The previous sentence may seem out of place if you don't realize that atheism is actually a religion.
Like traditional religions, atheism requires strong conviction. In the case of atheists, it's the belief that there is no God and that all things can be proved by science. It is extremely hypocritical of the foundation to request the removal of Bibles from hotel rooms on the basis of their contention that the presence of Bibles indicates that the government is choosing one religion over another. If they really thought about it, they would realize that removal of religious materials imposes their religion on everyone else.
Some atheists argue that there should be a library or cachet of religious material at the check-in desk of a hotel from which any guest could order a Bible, Torah or Koran for their reading pleasure. No favoritism would be shown through such a system, and those who reject the idea of God would not have to be offended.
This is like saying there shouldn't be certain brands of bottled water in hotel rooms because there may be guests who prefer a different type of water or are offended by bottled water and think everybody should be drinking tap water. The logical answer to such absurdity would, of course, be that the offended individual could bring his own water or simply ignore the brand of water he does not care for.
As a nation, we must avoid the paralysis of hypersensitivity, which prevents us from getting anything done because virtually everything offends someone.[emphasis added]
We need to distribute "big boy" pants to help the whiners learn to focus their energy in a productive way. We must also go back and read the Constitution, including the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion. It says nothing about freedom from religion, and in fact, if you consider the context and the lives of those involved in the crafting of our founding documents, it is apparent that they believed in allowing their faith to guide their lives. This has nothing to do with imposing one's beliefs on someone else.
Those of us who do believe in God can hope and pray that at some point secular progressives will come to understand that they must abide by the same rules with which they attempt to control others. There is nothing wrong with the philosophy of "live and let live." America was designed to be a free country, where people could live as they pleased and pursue their dreams as long as they didn't infringe upon the rights of others. By continually broadening the scope of an "infringement" on the rights of others, the purveyors of division will succeed in destroying our nation — but only if we continue to cater to their divisive rhetoric.
Liberty and justice for all has worked extremely well for an extended period of time, and there is no reason to upset the equilibrium by endowing the hypersensitive complainers in our society with more power than everyone else. Thankfully, the Navy quickly realized its mistake and restored the Bible to its lodges. Maybe now we can deal with the real issues that threaten our safety.
Ben Carson is a neurosurgeon who worked at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore for more than a quarter of a century. His website in www.realbencarson.com
http://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/08/22/meaning-freedom/14439355/
The Myth and the Reality
In April 2006, he discussed "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," saying:
It would seem, for many reasons, that the official story of 9/11, which has served as a religious Myth in the intervening years (and still does), is a myth in the pejorative sense of a story that does not correspond to reality.
Award-winning author David Ray Griffin researched 9/11 exhaustively.
He did so in 10 books, many articles and lectures. He provided vital evidence too important to ignore.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106209919
What Will It Be?
An Elite Global Union or An Islamic Global Caliphate
We are in for much trouble in this world. There are two opposing groups trying to take charge. The first group, the Elite international bankers, have been trying to conquer the entire world, both economically and politically, ever since about 1865, or so. Their approach is to dominate the money supply of the world, so that they can buy their way into controlling everything of significance. Their method has become almost successful without them having to fire a single shot.
A few in the past have tried this, but they used deadly force – such as Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Emperor Augustus, and most recently Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Today there is an opposing faction that would try to do the same, but they don’t mind using force. In fact they think that they will go to their Heaven immediately if they kill an infidel, and will go much faster if they kill many infidels as they martyr themselves in doing so.
The first group believes absolutely in usury - the practice of lending money and charging the borrower interest, especially at an exorbitant or illegally high rate. For the second group, usury is forbidden by their holy laws.
The first group has an unusually low fertility rate, about 1.36 to 1.82, while the second group has a fertility rate ranging from 4.26 to 7.68. A ratio of about 1 to 3.75. Over a period of time, who will win – money or population? Time gives the prize to the second group.
In both cases the average citizen of the world loses. The first group would make them slaves and the second group would kill them if they don’t join their effort.
So, the average citizens of the world cannot sleep while all this takes place, for the quality of life of their children and grandchildren are at stake. Do not discount these two opposing groups, for you very likely will become their victim – a slave or dead.
What will it be?
It's impossible to have religious freedom in any nation
where churches are licensed to the government..
~ Congressman George Hanson ~
Source.. In Caesar's Grip, by Peter Kershaw
http://hushmoney.org/
Collectivism is defined as the theory and practice
that makes some sort of group rather than the individual the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern.
In theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups, associations, or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals..
~ Stephen Grabill ~
Source.. Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
Statism as Religion:
Larken Rose on the Tom Woods Show: Published on Apr 16, 2014
Separation of God and state?
Posted: October 11, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By William J. Federer
America's founders did not intend for there to be a separation of God and state, as shown by the fact that all 50 states acknowledged God in their state constitutions:
Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama ... invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution ...
Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land ...
Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution ...
Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government ...
California 1879, Preamble. We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom ...
Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe ...
Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy ...
Delaware 1897, Preamble. Through Divine Goodness all men have, by nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences ...
Florida 1885, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Florida, grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty ... establish this Constitution ...
Georgia 1777, Preamble. We, the people of Georgia, relying upon protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution ...
Hawaii 1959, Preamble. We, the people of Hawaii, Grateful for Divine Guidance ... establish this Constitution ...
Idaho 1889, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings ...
Illinois 1870, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors ...
Indiana 1851, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Indiana, grateful to Almighty God for the free exercise of the right to chose our form of government ...
Iowa 1857, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings ... establish this Constitution ...
Kansas 1859, Preamble. We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges ... establish this Constitution ...
Kentucky 1891, Preamble. We, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties ...
Louisiana 1921, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy ...
Maine 1820, Preamble. We the People of Maine ... acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity ... and imploring His aid and direction ...
Maryland 1776, Preamble. We, the people of the state of Maryland, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty ...
Massachusetts 1780, Preamble. We...the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe... in the course of His Providence, an opportunity ... and devoutly imploring His direction ...
Michigan 1908, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Michigan, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom ... establish this Constitution ...
Minnesota, 1857, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings ...
Mississippi 1890, Preamble. We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work ...
Missouri 1945, Preamble. We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness ... establish this Constitution ...
Montana 1889, Preamble. We, the people of Montana, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty ... establish this Constitution ...
Nebraska 1875, Preamble. We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom ... establish this Constitution ...
Nevada 1864, Preamble. We the people of the State of Nevada, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom ... establish this Constitution ...
New Hampshire 1792, Part I. Art. I. Sec. V. Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience ...
New Jersey 1844, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors …
New Mexico 1911, Preamble. We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty ...
New York 1846, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings ...
North Carolina 1868, Preamble. We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for ... our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those ...
North Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of North Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do ordain...
Ohio 1852, Preamble. We the people of the state of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and to promote our common ...
Oklahoma 1907, Preamble. Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessings of liberty ... establish this ...
Oregon 1857, Bill of Rights, Article I. Section 2. All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences ...
Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble. We, the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance ...
Rhode Island 1842, Preamble. We the People of the State of Rhode Island ... grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing ...
South Carolina, 1778, Preamble. We, the people of the State of South Carolina ... grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution ...
South Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties ... establish this Constitution ...
Tennessee 1796, Art. XI.III. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience ...
Texas 1845, Preamble. We the People of the Republic of Texas, acknowledging, with gratitude, the grace and beneficence of God ...
Utah 1896, Preamble. Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we ... establish this Constitution ...
Vermont 1777, Preamble. Whereas all government ought to ... enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man ...
Virginia 1776, Bill of Rights, XVI ... Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator ... can be directed only by Reason ... and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity towards each other ...
Washington 1889, Preamble. We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution ...
West Virginia 1872, Preamble. Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia ... reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God ...
Wisconsin 1848, Preamble. We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, domestic tranquility ...
Wyoming 1890, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political, and religious liberties ... establish this Constitution ...
After reviewing acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, just maybe, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong.
William Federer is a best-selling author and president of Amerisearch Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America's noble heritage. Federer's "American Minute" is featured each day in WorldNetDaily.
http://www.usavsus.info/USA-GodStateSep.htm
You can't convince a believer of anything
for their belief is not based on evidence
it's based on a deep seated need to believe..
~ Carl Sagan ~
Psychopathology in Religious Ideation
The Case of Death by Proxy (2013)
Michael Moore
Though there is no unequivocal evidence for a causal relationship between religiosity and psychopathology, a large body of data suggests a connection between these two phenomena. (For some of the controversial research findings, see my paper with Daniela Kramer titled "We are Too Weak to Walk Unaided.") Some of this data is anecdotal: "The association of unusual emotional states and psychic experiences with religion is of great antiquity and undoubtedly antedates any documentary evidence" (Rosen 1968, 48-49).[1] The emotional states include seizures, trances, hallucinations, and other abnormal behavior (Rosen 1968, 49). In her Introduction Karen Armstrong similarly mused: "Had the visions and raptures of the saints also been a mere mental quirk?" (1993, xviii-xix). Yet there is no lack of "documentary evidence," either. Consider, for instance, the 18th-century practice of self-castration in Eastern Russia to atone for the sexuality of Adam and Eve (Menninger 1938), and its repetition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s as "an offering to God" (Kushner 1967). Or take the case of Kenneth Pickett, an extremely religious Jehovah's Witness who killed his former wife because he thought that she was in another relationship, which was forbidden in his interpretation of the Bible. Now jailed for life, Pickett justified the killing by saying that he saved his former wife from sin (Bennett 2009). No wonder that Nietzsche spoke of "that strange and sickly world into which the Gospels lead us—a world apparently out of a Russian novel, in which the scum of society, nervous maladies and 'childish' idiocy keep a tryst" (1895/1918, 96).[2]
DSM-IV (APA 2000) makes a distinction between bizarre and nonbizarre delusions. Though both types indicate psychotic disorders, the former are symptomatic of schizophrenia (especially 295.30 or paranoid type schizophrenia), while the latter serve as the major diagnostic criteria of delusional disorder (297.1). The authors of DSM-IV admit that cultural factors often make it difficult to determine whether a given delusion is bizarre or nonbizarre. Take, for instance, the Capgras delusion, the belief that your relatives have been replaced by impostors. Or take the Cotard delusion, the belief that you have died (Young, Leafhead, and Szulecka 1994). Are they bizarre or nonbizarre? Given this ambiguity, I leave it to readers to decide whether the following phenomena "involve situations that can conceivably occur in real life" (APA 2000, 324).
Consider the case of Aelius Aristides (Rosen 1968, 110-121). This 2nd-century Greek sophist and orator was gravely ill when he decided to put himself under the care of Asclepius, the god of healing in Greek mythology. He lived in Asclepius' shrine and received commands from the god in his dreams for about ten years, prescribing for himself painful and apparently nonsensical treatments. Among other methods, Aristides practiced "sacrificial substitution," identical to pars pro toto ("part taken for the whole") rites once performed on the Nicobar Islands and in Tonga (Tylor 1958, 486). Asclepius demanded that in order to avert death, Aristides sacrifice a finger, later permitting the offering of a ring in place of the finger. When this did not suffice, Aristides (or was it Asclepius?) raised the stakes: He believed that two children of his foster sister died in his stead. Aristides' religious delusion is a good example of the dilemma concerning bizarreness: Though delusional, his ardent following of his god's unconventional treatment methods was culturally accepted, and therefore nonbizarre, in his social environment (Rosen 1968, 120; see also Spiro 1987).
Another delusional believer in death by proxy was Spanish-born Rabbi Yosef Caro, a highly influential Jewish scholar of the 16th century. While living in Salonika, Caro recorded in a diary the messages he received during nightly visitations by a celestial mentor (his Maggid). R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (1962, p. 8) refers to this document as "an intimate diary, recounting a life-time of mystical, if not pathological, experiences," finding great resemblance to the manifestations reported by Caro of "mediumistic states and trances" and of automatic speech (Werblowsky 1962, 22). The Maggid rebuked him in practically every communication for having eaten or drank too much, for having slept half an hour between prayers, and for having had unclean thoughts: "Beware of food and drink and bodily pleasures. Whenever you experience pleasure at eating or drinking, meditate on the repulsiveness of food as it is chewed and even more on its repulsiveness as it is evacuated from the body" (Werblowsky 1962, 163). Another command had to do with studying the Talmud: "always return to the study of my Mishnayoth [part of the Talmud] and never separate your thoughts from them, even for a single moment" (Werblowsky 1962, 267). This injunction is reminiscent of John Dollard and Neal Elgar Miller's "Mrs. A," who was obsessed by the thought that her heart would stop unless she counted the beats; this kept her from having sexual thoughts that caused her great anxiety (Dollard and Miller 1950).
As in the case of Aristides (see above), Caro's delusion escalated:
You have thought of improper things, wherefore you have been condemned to death. But I, the Mishnah, have interceded for you, as also did Jacob Tur, Moses Maimonides, Rashi ... and they redeemed you from death. Your sentence was commuted to illness instead, and also many worthy people were substituted for you. (Werblowsky 1962, 150)
The dead included his first wife (of five wives) and three children. When his wife miscarried, Caro recorded the Maggid's interpretation: "the pregnancy was true and God would not have withdrawn his gift ... even if your sins would have warranted it. But because you were sentenced to death, God, in the abundance of his mercy, wanted to redeem you and put the pregnancy in your place" (Werblowsky 1962, 132).
From Greek orator, through Jewish scholar, I now move to Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, founder of the school of analytical psychology. Jung strongly believed not only in God, but also in synchronicity—"temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events" (Jung 1952/1993). In his Foreword to the 2010 edition of Jung's Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, S. Shamdasani writes that Jung regained his soul "by enabling the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and developing a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology." As a child Jung was greatly influenced both by his father—a Protestant pastor—and his mother, who suffered from severe depression and had visions of nightly visitations by spirits. In his memoires Jung (1965) related that one night he had seen a luminous figure coming from his mother's room, with a head detached from the neck and floating in the air in front of the body.
During a serious illness Jung had a mystical vision of his physician, Dr. H:
Suddenly the terrifying thought came to me that Dr. H. would have to die in my stead[3].... In actual fact I was his last patient. On April 4, 1944—I still remember the exact date—I was allowed to sit up on the edge of my bed for the first time since the beginning of my illness, and on this same day Dr. H. took to his bed and did not leave it again.... Soon afterward he died of septicemia" (Jung 1965, 293).[4]
The delusions of Aristides, Caro, and Jung involving death by proxy belong to a broader class of religious practices that border on the psychopathological. Scapegoating is a very old sacrificial practice, vividly described in Leviticus 16:10 (ca. 6th century BCE): "the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness." This was also an accepted practice in ancient Greece, where a human or animal scapegoat (the pharmakos) was killed either in an annual rite for the purification of the people, or in times of famine, plague, or drought, to appease the angry deities (Rosen 1968, 85). Here are two examples of ritual scapegoating that have survived in modern times:
On one day of the year the Bhotiyas of Juhar [aka Shaukas], in the Western Himalayas, take a dog, intoxicate him with spirits and ... chase and kill him with sticks and stones, and believe that, when they have done so, no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the year. (Frazer 1959, #458)
The Jewish New Year's Rite of Caparot [Ransoms] consists of saying three times, holding a fowl above one's head: "I have found a ransom. This is my change, this is my compensation, this is my redemption. This hen (cock for males) is going to be killed, while I shall enter upon a good, happy and peaceful life. (Sephath Emeth n. d., 301)
In Violence and the Sacred (1972) the French historian and philosopher René Girard hypothesized that both archaic religion and ritual sacrifice originated in the victimization process: when a crisis occurs, the group selects an arbitrary victim who is brutally eliminated. This act serves as a psychological relief for the group, which now regards the victim as a miracle-worker, for peace has been regained: The victim has become sacred. A myth is created, and subsequent acts of sacrifice are ritual repetitions of the original event. (See Moore 1977 regarding the parataxic nature of this act, that is, seeing causal relationships between logically unrelated events.)[5] Those, described above, who believe in death by proxy have gone a step further: overwhelmed by anxiety, they delude themselves into believing that a divine power has taken such an interest in them that another human being can be sacrificed in their stead. Their condition comes closest to what DSM-IV (APA 2000) has labeled delusional disorder—grandiose type.[6]
Notes
[1] William James, the son of a Swedenborgian theologian and a member of the Theosophical Society, admitted the psychotic and neurotic origins of religious fervor, but claimed that they were irrelevant. No wonder he treated Nietzsche with disdain: "Poor Nietzsche's antipathy [toward saints] is itself sickly enough" (1902/1963, 373).
[2] See also Novalis' "Fragmente und Studien 1799-1800": "It is marvelous enough that the association of voluptuousness, religion, and cruelty has not attracted the attention of men to their close kinship and common tendency" (1968, 568).
[3] In The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People, Jan Willem Van Henten mentions several cases in Greek tragedy (especially in Euripides), as well as in Roman history, where there is "vicarious death," but these are all cases where a person willingly sacrifices him or herself in order to save others.
[4] A literary example of death by proxy appears in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. According to Manly Johnson, Woolf originally intended for Clarissa Dalloway to kill herself, and created the character of Septimus Smith (whom the heroine never meets and who commits suicide) to serve as a "dark double" who takes upon himself this act of desperation.
[5] Christian theology is largely founded on Jesus' vicarious death ("Substitute Sacrifice"). An often quoted verse is 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin..." See also Matthew 21:28: "The son of man came ... to give his life a ransom for many."
[6] In the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic criteria for this type include delusions of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationship to a deity or famous person (APA 2000, 329).
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References
American Psychiatric Association (APA). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4,000-year quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.
Bennett, Michael. "Man Jailed for Life Over 'Religious' Killing." The West Australian. November 6, 2009.
Dollard, John and Neal Elgar Miller. Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking and Culture. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1950.
Frazer, James G. The New Golden Bough, ed. Theodor H. Gaster. New York, NY: New American Library, 1959. [Originally published 1890.]
Girard, René. La Violence et le Sacré. Paris, France: Grasset, 1972.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1963. [Originally published 1902.]
Johnson, Manly. Virginia Woolf. New York, NY: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1973.
Jung, Carl G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe. New York, NY: Vintage, 1965.
Jung, Carl G. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Bollingen, Switzerland: Bollingen Foundation, 1993. [Originally published 1952.]
Kushner, A. W. "Two Cases of Auto-Castration Due to Religious Delusions." British Journal of Medical Psychology. Vol. 40, Issue 3 (September 1967): 293-298.
Menninger, Karl. A. Man Against Himself. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1938.
Moore, Michael. "Symbolic Burning and the Modern Sacrifice." International Journal of Symbology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 1977): 94-102.
Moore, Michael and Daniela Kramer. "We are Too Weak to Walk Unaided: A Family Therapist View of the Pathogenic Aspects of Prayer" (2000). The Secular Web. <http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_moore/weak.html>.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Antichrist, trans. H. L. Mencken. New York, NY: Knopf, 1918. [Originally published 1895.]
Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg). "Fragmente und Studien 1799-1800." Schriften, Vol. 3. Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer, 1968.
Rosen, George. Madness in Society: Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1968.
Sephath Emeth (Speech of Truth) Prayer Book. New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., n.d.
Spiro, Melford E. (1987). "Religious Systems as Culturally Constituted Defense Mechanisms." In Culture and Human Nature: Theoretical Papers of Melford E. Spiro, ed. Benjamin Kilborne and L. L. Langness. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987: 145-160.
Tylor, Edward B. Religion in Primitive Cultures. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1958. [Originally published 1871.]
Van Henten, Jan Willem. The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1997.
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi. Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Young, Andrew W., Leafhead, Kate M., and T. Krystyna Szulecka. "The Capgras and Cotard Delusions." Psychopathology, Vol. 27, No. 3-5 (May-September 1994): 226-231.
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Copyright ©2013 Michael Moore. The electronic version is copyright ©2013 by Internet Infidels, Inc. with the written permission of Michael Moore. All rights reserved.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_moore/psychopath.html
Practical religion consists in doing good:
and the only way of serving God
is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy.
All preaching that has not this for its object
is nonsense and hypocrisy..
~ Thomas Paine ~ (1737-1809)
US Founding father, pamphleteer, author
If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory
can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion
then and only then will truth, prevail over fanaticism..
~ Thomas Jefferson ~ (1743-1826)
US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Spent an hour in the beginning of the evening at Major Gardiner's, where it was thought that the design of Christianity was not to make men good riddle-solvers, or good mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects, good husbands and good wives, good parents and good children, good masters and good servants. The following questions may be answered some time or other, namely, — Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?
~ John Adams ~ (1735-1826)
Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source.. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-JQKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA5" target="_blank">Diary entry, 18 February 1756.</a>
The purpose of religion, the purpose of government
The "Rebellion" in Heaven and the "Fall" of Man
(More on the Dark & Light Illuminati)
This Awareness wishes to bring out another level of observation which entities may experience. This Awareness wishes to point out how the Light and Dark Forces work together for the ultimate good of humanity.
This Awareness indicates that it has been given that the rebellion in heaven as relayed by mystics and legends, whereby Lucifer took a portion of the angels from heaven and set out in rebellion against the laws of the Divine. This Awareness indicates that this action as referred to as the Fall of Man, or the Fall of the Angels; and whereby through this action, the concept of darkness was created and the results of evil as a position in consciousness for entities to wrestle with.
This Awareness indicates that in a more symbolic sense, this action represented the right of each part to experience its own individuality through its own potential growth and development, to be whatever it could be without being dependent on the Will of a Divine Creator for its every move. This Awareness indicates this action symbolically, is no different from the child being born and the rational thinking part of the mind being given the right to develop and to think and to grow and to nurture itself into a rational being, individual from the dictates of its father and mother. This Awareness indicates that this is the concept of the free will. (This Awareness indicates this may be considered by those who have deeper understanding as an illusion of free will)
This Awareness indicates that the falling angels, Lucifer and his followers, moving out into the universe of mind or consciousness, seeking to create structures and order out of an unfinished creation, an unfinished realm,--unfinished because it did not fit into the expectations of those who were experiencing it,--this Luciferian hierarchy of energies in this unfinished realm, as that which is the left side of the Cosmic Mind, whereas on the intuitive side of the Cosmic Mind is that which hold the creative forces. This Awareness indicates in that intuitive side, the right side of the Cosmic Mind is that force which is holistic in nature, gestalt, capable of seeing the total, seeing the infinite experience, of seeing the whole, or holy creation.
This Awareness indicates that the left side, (that of the Luciferian realm of Hades,) this left side of the Cosmic Mind is that which holds the forces of rational thinking,--thinking which moves from line to line, thought to thought, in increments, inching toward conclusions, never quite reaching a total understanding of anything. This Awareness indicates that in ancient times, long before your modern sciences began to understand the nature of the right and left sides of the brain, the Zen masters of China and the Orient were already working with techniques, psychological techniques developed over a period of time which assisted in breaking down these structural creations, these towers of information built upon logic, built upon structure, upon civilizations of concepts and ideas; and these Zen masters, in breaking down the rational, left-side efforts to reach the absolute tower to Heaven, were doing so in order to allow the right side, (the creative side), to have the holistic experience, the total experience of What Is.
This Awareness indicates that this action by these Zen masters as reflected in their techniques, are well known in the philosophical circles of the West today. This Awareness indicates however, that many entities have not recognized that in the Christian doctrine, this same Zen principle has been applied, wherein the actions are created so that a koan, or system, the rational mind is brought up to a point of clarity beyond which it cannot move without completely falling apart. This Awareness indicates that an example of a technique is that which is often and most popularly referred to as the "sound of one hand clapping." This awareness indicates this utterly confounds the rational mind so that it cannot function.
This Awareness indicates another example as when the new student approached the Zen master and the Zen master told the student, "You may put them there," and the student said, "I have come empty handed. "The Zen master then replies, "You may put them there," and the student replies, "but I have nothing to put down." The Zen master then answers, "Then you may continue holding them." This Awareness indicates these foolish statements are designed to confound the rational mind, the entity who is tirelessly trying to make sense out of the universe, to understand, to gain knowledge, to fully develop and understand everything that needs to be understood from the ground up,--the tower of Babel built to heaven.
This Awareness indicates that wherein these towers are destroyed by these Zen masters through their koans, their tricks or whatever, the mind of the entity then becomes totally frustrated to the point where a new understanding occurs in a flash--this through the intuitive side of the consciousness, the holistic, the right side of the brain. This Awareness indicates that this as that portion of consciousness which contains the holistic approach, as opposed to the dualistic approach to understanding.
This Awareness indicates that in the Christian doctrines, the concept of the virgin birth, the concept of resurrection, the concept of an entity having all power of a god living a life of love and sacrifice: these were designed as koans in consciousness, in the brain of humanity, whereby the logic would be fractured, would not hold up, could not be answered, could not be satisfied; but the effects of these stories, of these wavings, of these religions affects the right side of the brain of humanity and the followers of these religions, so that a new being emerges and acts and lives a life based upon these stories, as though these were to be emulated and followed as truth, even though they may not appear to be rational.
The purpose of religion, the purpose of government
This Awareness indicates that this is the purpose, and has been the purpose of religion, and the purpose of government is that which is to structure a rational system to allow the fundamental material needs to be satisfied. This Awareness indicates that the appropriate action is that which allows both sides to function side by side.
This Awareness has in the past referred to the dark Illuminati and the Light Illuminati. This Awareness indicates that the Dark Illuminati as being likened with those referred to as the Luceferians. This Awareness indicates that these forces may be symbolized in the ancient symbol of the caduceus, wherein the black serpent is shown wrapped up toward the crossbar of a cross, and the white serpent, in opposite direction flows back and forth, also up the crossbar. This Awareness indicates the cross is the symbol of the human consciousness in its evolution and development. The dark serpent as the symbol of the magnetic, dark, rational, greed, material force moving up with understanding, with its intuitive realization of wisdom,--this being the tree of wisdom.
This Awareness indicates that those entities in the movement of humanity in its evolution, who cling to the Dark Force seeking to find growth, salvation, achievement, accomplishment, heights of glory and power through its cells, through its molecules, through its systems, through its methods, will find the wages of these efforts result merely in death and loss. This Awareness indicates that those who link their being through identification of the white serpent, those entities will be sustained in spite of the appearance of material death, in spite of the appearance of loss of fortune. This Awareness indicates this as a symbolic lesson or message.
This Awareness indicates that in another example of this same message, the ancient teacher Kapila asked an entity, "Which would you be--the tree which stands upon the bank of the stream, the bank of the stream which is being washed away by the stream, or the stream?" This Awareness indicates that the entity obviously recognized the importance of being identified with the stream of consciousness rather than the force and the outgrowth of material developments. This Awareness that the entity identifying with the stream of consciousness is the same entity who selects the white serpent of wisdom, the tree of wisdom, whereas the other entity is the same entity who selects the dark serpent, or the serpent of materialism, the tree of the senses, the fruit of knowledge,--the senses which teach and explain the material world, but give little information regarding the abstract and anti-material world.
This Awareness indicates that these actions of the Light and dark Forces, working side by side, mirroring each other, do have an effect upon the souls of entities; this likened unto the grain of sand in the oyster having its effect upon the flesh of the oyster, so that as time passes, the oyster in response to the irritation of the sand--the dark, negative force,--begins to build itself a pearl of great price within its flesh. This Awareness indicates this as the development of the soul, built out of the suffering caused by the Luceferian efforts and energies of the dualistic thinking mechanism of the rational mind.
The pre-planned, pre-programmed and cosmically directed scenario
This Awareness indicates that the same way may be seen in reflection on what is occurring in your present world whereby you see the efforts of that which this Awareness has referred to as the Beast attempting to set up its rule as expressed in the Book of Revelation, following the patterns as prescribed. This Awareness indicates that this as no accident: this as a pre-planned, pre-programmed and cosmically directed scenario to allow entities to have that experience in consciousness whereby the rational side of civilization reaches such an apex as to be capable of seeing the fallacy of such absolute expression.
This Awareness indicates that due to the introduction of mystical teachings, the introduction of certain drugs or hallucinogens and psychedelics that opened up new levels of consciousness for the masses of entities, the rational side of the mass mind has been shorted-out already to such a degree that the apex previously needed to bring man to that point of frustration in his "Beast trip" for the pursuit of world power and domination,--the apex cannot be reached to the same degree because of that which may be termed "premature ejaculation" of the Beast's intention and goals. This Awareness indicates that it has been losing its power since 1969, and at the same time, has been attempting to rebuild its power and potency, but is finding it more and more difficult as entities are becoming aware of its intentions and its foolishness in its efforts.
This Awareness indicates that many entities are now beginning to laugh at the whole concept of a Beast taking over, and this laughter at the Beast is also having its effect in shortening out the rational efforts of the Beast.
This Awareness indicates the entities are looking rather toward something more holistic, something that would be more satisfying to all involved, not just to the few who gain power over the masses. This Awareness indicates that therefore, what is occurring is the Beast is seeking to build its name, to emit its anti-christ, to create the world leader that holds all of the power within it, even as a sperm, seeking to find its destiny. But through the premature ejaculation, the early climaxes, the timing is thrown off: the total mismanagement, the interference of the "dirty hippies", the effects of throwing off the sexual mores, the rules and regulations which have been broken and which can never be patched together again properly---this is beginning to frustrate the ego of the Beast so that it is becoming more desperate, and even as it becomes more desperate, it creates a situation whereby it may totally lose control and simply peter out.
This Awareness indicates that meanwhile, the Forces of Light, the right side of the brain,--the holistic, creative, feminine aspect, the Isis side, that side which has waited for the frustration of the Beast,--this as having undergone certain changes because of these rubbings and irritations of the Beast, and this as that which allows for a new experience, a new being which accepts the Beast for what it is, but gives no power or authority over humanity. This Awareness indicates this force of Light, of wisdom, is that which sees the Beast as a servant of humanity, not a master of humanity.
This Awareness indicates that entities in understanding how these Dark Forces and the Light Forces work together, how the rational can be a servant of the individual but the individual's holistic mind must be the master; how Christ in referring to Satan was, in effect, referring to that which is the materialistic or rationalistic mind, the dualistic mind, and stating that he "keep behind": in effect, this is the essence of the message from the past religious teachings to present social experiences.
This Awareness wishes to remind entities again, that clinging to the black serpent of materialism, with all its promises of security, clinging to the tree of knowledge, holding steadfast to the bank which is being washed away by the Sea of Consciousness, is but the fool's journey. This Awareness indicates the entity who attunes to the spirit, the eternal "now", the eternal consciousness, the realization of being, and in that being, knowing what one is; this is the true security,--security based on the Divine Being, rather than on the material body.
This Awareness indicates that you need not deny the logic, you need not deny the left side of the brain, you need not deny the physical body in order to accent, to accentuate, to adore and to reside in the holistic experience, the intuitive consciousness, the right side, the spiritual side of experience,--this Awareness indicates you need only to remember who is master and who is servant, and keep the left side subservient in all things.
(Source: Revelations of Awareness 81-15)
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time
the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them..
~ Thomas Jefferson ~ (1743-1826)
Source.. Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774
Every culture and every religion of what we call the civilized world carries, in one form or another
a mythos or story about a time in the past or future when humans lived or will live in peace and harmony.
Whether it's referred to as Valhalla or Eden, Shambala or 'A Thousand Years of Peace,' the Satya Yuga or Jannat
stories of past or coming times of paradise go hand-in-hand with hierarchical cultures.
Such prophecies were clearly in the minds of America's Founders when they first discussed integrating Greek ideas of democracy, Roman notions of a republic,
Masonic utopian ideals, and the Iroquois Federation's constitutionally organized egalitarian society, which was known to Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and Franklin.
The creation of the United States of America brought into the world a dramatic new experiment in how people could live together in a modern state..
~ Thom Hartmann ~
Source..Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights, by Thom Hartmann
The ACLJ is at the center of a growing storm.
We have demonstrated that the IRS targeting of conservative groups is widespread – not just "low-level" staff in one IRS office.
We have documented how severe the IRS abuse of power is – making unconstitutionally invasive demands of citizen-led groups.
We have detailed how this intentional targeting of conservative groups is still ongoing – 10 of our clients are still tied up in admittedly improper, onerous IRS inquiries.
Congress, and now the Justice Department, are investigating the draconian actions of the Obama Administration's IRS.
Join tens of thousands of Americans in demanding the IRS end its unconstitutional abuse today. Add your name before Friday's congressional hearing.
Sign the petition to end IRS abuse.
http://aclj.org
Jay Sekulow
ACLJ Chief Counsel
If you want to go to heaven
you had better get busy overthrowing Syria
Paul Craig Roberts
April 21, 2013
The United States government has been at war for eleven years. The US military destroyed Iraq, leaving the country and millions of lives in ruins and releasing sectarian blood-letting that had been kept in check by the secular Saddam Hussein government. On any given day in “liberated” Iraq, the death toll is as high as during the height of the US attempted occupation.
In Afghanistan eleven years of US attempted occupation has had no more success than a decade of Soviet occupation. The Afghans are still not worn down despite more than two decades of war with the two superpowers. Like the Soviets, the Americans have managed to kill many women, children, and village elders, but precious few warriors. In place of the Soviet puppet government there is Washington’s puppet government. That is the only change, and Washington’s puppet is no more secure than the Soviet one was.
In Libya, Washington used its corrupt NATO puppets and CIA-recruited bandits to overthrow another stable government, that of Muammar Gaddafi, leaving Libya mired in sectarian violence. A stable prosperous country has simply been destroyed by western governments that profess human rights values and condemn China and Russia for not having any.
Washington has also been killing civilians with drones and air strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, two countries with which Washington is not at war but has purchased the governments, paying the Pakistani and Yemeni governments for the right to murder their citizens and destabilizing both countries in the process.
And now in Syria Washington is at work destroying another stable secular government headed by a British trained eye doctor.
Washington’s eleven years of illegal aggression against Muslim countries--war crimes according to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis--have resulted in civilian deaths far in excess of military casualties and in a domestic American police state that has destroyed the rule of law and the constitutional protections of US citizens. Washington and its presstitutes have emphasized that these costs are necessary to save Americans from al-Qaeda terrorists, none of whom have ever been apprehended in the United States.
Having listened to the propaganda line pumped out by Washington and its Ministry of Propaganda for eleven years, imagine my astonishment when I saw two juxtaposed headlines: “Al-Nusra pledges allegiance to al-Qaeda” (BBC) and “Move to Widen Help for Syrian Rebels Gains Speed in West” (NY Times). Al-Nusra is the main military component of the “Syrian rebels,” and it has allied itself with our mortal enemy--Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.
Wait a minute! Our government told us for eleven years that we blew trillions of dollars on wars to protect Americans from al-Qaeda, endangering Social Security, Medicare, the social safety net, the dollar’s exchange value, the credit rating of the US Treasury, and our civil liberties in order to save America from al-Qaeda terrorists. So why is Washington now supporting al-Qaeda’s overthrow of the secular, non-Islamist government in Syria which has never ever done anything whatsoever to Americans!?
The New York Times presstitutes, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler, elevated the terrorist al-Qaeda organization to the status of “the Syrian opposition.” At a lunch meeting hosted by Washington’s puppet, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, and US Secretary of State John Kerry, “the Syrian opposition,” aka al-Qaeda, requested antiaircraft and antitank weapons. A senior Washington official said: “Our assistance has been on an upward trajectory, and the president (Obama) has directed his national security team to identify additional measures so that we can increase assistance.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a $123 million “defense aid package” to “the Syrian opposition” that now includes al-Qaeda. Washington had already sent $117 million in “food and medical supplies” to “the Syrian opposition,” and ordered its Middle Eastern puppets to send arms. Note the Orwellian language: support for an outside terrorist force seeking to destroy a government and a people is called a “defense aid package.”
On April 11 the establishment French newspaper, Le Monde, reported that the al-Nosra organization affiliated with al-Qaeda is the dominant force in “the Syrian opposition,” not democratic revolutionaries. Despite this fact, Washington’s puppets, France and Britain, are pushing the European Union to send arms to the al-Qaeda affiliated “Syrian opposition.” And Senator John McCain wants US airstrikes on Syrian government forces with whom the US is not at war, in order to provide air cover for al-Qaeda’s takeover of Syria.
Meanwhile, the Islamist Shiites, whom the Americans left in control of Iraq, have announced that they have joined the battle against the American-supported al-Qaeda forces seeking to radicalize Syria.
So far at last count, the UN reports that the military attack on Syria organized by Washington’s proxies has killed 70,000 people. But americans are preoccupied with the Boson Marathon bombing, which killed 3.
Once again “the indispensable people” are bringing death and destruction to an entire country in order to bring to the dead “freedom and democracy.” No Syrian asked for this “liberation” from his life.
Be a Proud American. We are doing our duty to our rightful hegemony over the world and to Israel, which has purchased our government. It is our right to be the hegemonic power on the planet earth, and that includes the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore it is Washington’s right to overthrow Syria in order to get rid of the Russian naval base there. The Romans would never have put up with a foreign power having a naval base in the Mediterranean, and we can do no less, unless we are some kind of pansy state afraid of our own shadow. The Mediterranean was mare nostrum--our sea--for the Romans. Now it is our sea, and by god we are going to claim it by overthrowing Syria.
Israel, of course, was given the rights to “Greater Israel” by God himself--who am I to question the Christian Zionist preachers who are growing fat on Israeli money--and part of “Greater Israel” is the river in southern Lebanon that supplies precious water.
Hizbollah, provisioned by Syria and Iran has prevented Israel from confiscating southern Lebanon in order to acquire the water rights that God gave them. Therefore, to fulfill our obligations as Israel’s puppet, we are required to destroy both Syria and Iran so that Hizbollah is isolated and out of the way and “Greater Israel” can be created.
The Christian Zionist churches in the US repeat this message every Sunday. If you don’t believe it, you are some kind of anti-american anti-semite and should be exterminated. Or you could be a despicable Muslim terrorist to be waterboarded into confession. Homeland Security will make short work of you just like they did to those Russian Muslim terrorists in Boston who tried to blow up the Marathon race.
I mean, really, how can we indispensable people bring freedom and democracy to the world if the Russians have a naval base in our sea? How can we project strength if we project such weakness by permitting a foreign power’s presence in our exclusive sphere of influence many thousands of miles away from our borders. Don’t forget, America’s borders are the world’s borders. It says so in our song--”From sea to shining sea.” Don’t forget it.
Of course, we don’t want to go head-to-head with another well armed nuclear military power, but the way around that is to demonize the Syrian government and Russia for supporting an eye doctor who is “a brutal dictator” who is resisting an Islamist al-Qaeda takeover of Syria financed by Washington. Our masters in Washington can use the UN and all our well-paid puppet states to pressure the Russians to shut up and get out of our way. I mean, really, does Putin want all those Russian NGOs that we finance to bring their operatives out onto the streets in Moscow and bring down his government? I mean, really, who does Putin think he is standing up to our god-given hegemony over the world, much less Israel’s god-given hegemony over the Middle East? I mean, Putin is in for it, and so are those goddamn Chinese. I mean, really, who do they think they are? Americans? Don’t those Chinks know about our control of the Pacific? I mean, really, are they out to lunch?
And, I mean, really, how can all us get to heaven if we don’t do God’s will and deliver the Middle East to Israel as Israel says the scriptures require. I mean, really, do you want to oppose God and burn in hell? Instead of all those virgins Muslims promise you, you will be devoured by fire. You better get on the right side before you die.
I mean, really, who wants this fate. We had better get rid of Syria sooner than ordered.
If we don’t do what Israel tells us God requires, we are finished. That’s for sure.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/04/21/if-you-want-to-go-to-heaven-you-had-better-get-busy-overthrowing-syria-paul-craig-roberts/
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first part of this provision is known as the Establishment Clause, and the second part is known as the Free Exercise Clause. Although the First Amendment only refers to Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses also binding on states (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S. Ct. 900, 84 L. Ed. 1213 [1940], and Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S. Ct. 504, 91 L. Ed. 711 [1947], respectively). Since that incorporation, an extensive body of law has developed in the United States around both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.
To determine whether an action of the federal or state government infringes upon a person's right to freedom of religion, the court must decide what qualifies as religion or religious activities for purposes of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons. The religion or religious concept need not include belief in the existence of God or a supreme being to be within the scope of the First Amendment.
As the case of United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S. Ct. 882, 88 L. Ed. 1148 (1944), demonstrates, the Supreme Court must look to the sincerity of a person's beliefs to help decide if those beliefs constitute a religion that deserves constitutional protection. The Ballard case involved the conviction of organizers of the I Am movement on grounds that they defrauded people by falsely representing that their members had supernatural powers to heal people with incurable illnesses. The Supreme Court held that the jury, in determining the line between the free exercise of religion and the punishable offense of obtaining property under False Pretenses, should not decide whether the claims of the I Am members were actually true, only whether the members honestly believed them to be true, thus qualifying the group as a religion under the Supreme Court's broad definition.
In addition, a belief does not need to be stated in traditional terms to fall within First Amendment protection. For example, Scientology—a system of beliefs that a human being is essentially a free and immortal spirit who merely inhabits a body—does not propound the existence of a supreme being, but it qualifies as a religion under the broad definition propounded by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has deliberately avoided establishing an exact or a narrow definition of religion because freedom of religion is a dynamic guarantee that was written in a manner to ensure flexibility and responsiveness to the passage of time and the development of the United States. Thus, religion is not limited to traditional denominations.
The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion has deeply rooted historical significance. Many of the colonists who founded the United States came to this continent to escape religious persecution and government oppression.
This country's founders advocated religious freedom and sought to prevent any one religion or group of religious organizations from dominating the government or imposing its will or beliefs on society as a whole. The revolutionary philosophy encompassed the principle that the interests of society are best served if individuals are free to form their own opinions and beliefs.
When the colonies and states were first established, however, most declared a particular religion to be the religion of that region. But, by the end of the American Revolution, most state-supported churches had been disestablished, with the exceptions of the state churches of Connecticut and Massachusetts, which were disestablished in 1818 and 1833, respectively. Still, religion was undoubtedly an important element in the lives of the American colonists, and U.S. culture remains greatly influenced by religion.
Establishment Clause
The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from interfering with individual religious beliefs. The government cannot enact laws aiding any religion or establishing an official state religion. The courts have interpreted the Establishment Clause to accomplish the separation of church and state on both the national and state levels of government.
The authors of the First Amendment drafted the Establishment Clause to address the problem of government sponsorship and support of religious activity. The Supreme Court has defined the meaning of the Establishment Clause in cases dealing with public financial assistance to church-related institutions, primarily parochial schools, and religious practices in the public schools. The Court has developed a three-pronged test to determine whether a statute violates the Establishment Clause. According to that test, a statute is valid as long as it has a secular purpose; its primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion; and it is not excessively entangled with religion. Because this three-pronged test was established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1971), it has come to be known as the Lemon test. Although the Supreme Court adhered to the Lemon test for several decades, since the 1990s, it has been slowly moving away from that test without having expressly rejected it.
Jesus, Meet Santa
Christmas and the First Amendment have had a rocky relationship. A decades-long battle over the place of worship and tradition in public life has erupted nearly every year when local governments sponsor holiday displays on public property. Lawsuits against towns and cities often, but not always, end with the courts ordering the removal of religious symbols whose government sponsorship violates the First Amendment. Since the 1980s, however, the outcome of such cases has become less predictable as deep divisions on the Supreme Court have resulted in new precedents that take a more nuanced view of the law. In such cases, context determines everything. Placing a nativity scene with the infant Jesus outside a town hall may be unconstitutional, for example, but the display may be acceptable if Santa Claus stands nearby.
On the question of religious displays, the First Amendment has two broad answers depending on the sponsor. Any private citizen can put up a nativity scene on private property at Christmas time: citizens and churches commonly exercise their First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech to do so. But when a government sets up a similar display on public property, a different aspect of the amendment comes into play. Governments do not enjoy freedom of speech, but, instead, are controlled by the second half of the First Amendment—the Establishment Clause, which forbids any official establishment of religion. All lawsuits demanding that a crèche, cross, menorah, or other religious symbol be removed from public property allege that the government that put it there has violated the Establishment Clause.
The Supreme Court has reviewed challenges to government sponsored displays of religious symbols under the Lemon test. Based on criteria from several earlier decisions and named after the case Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1973), the test recognizes that government must accommodate religion but forbids it to support religion. To survive constitutional review, a display must meet all three requirements or "prongs" of the test: it must have a secular (nonreligious) purpose, it must have the primary effect of neither advancing nor inhibiting religion, and it must avoid excessive entanglement between government and religion. Failing any of the three parts of the test constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Starting in the 1980s, the test began to divide the Supreme Court. Conservative justices objected because it blocked what they saw as a valid acknowledgment of the role of religion in public life; opposing them were justices who believed in maintaining a firm line between government and religion. In significant cases concerning holiday displays, the Court continued to use the Lemon test but with new emphasis on the question of whether the display has the effect of advancing or endorsing a particular religion.
This shift in emphasis first emerged in 1984 in a case involving a Christmas display owned and erected by the City of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in a private park. The display included both a life-sized nativity scene with the infant Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and secular symbols such as Santa's house, a Christmas tree, striped poles, animals, and lights. Pawtucket residents successfully sued for removal of the nativity scene in federal district court, where it was found to have failed all three prongs of the Lemon test (Donnelly v. Lynch, 525 F. Supp. 1150 [D.R.I. 1981]). The decision was upheld on appeal, but, surprisingly, in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 1355, 79 L. Ed. 2d 604 (1984), the Supreme Court narrowly reversed in a 5–4 vote and found the entire display constitutional.
The majority in Lynch stressed historical context, emphasizing that the crèche belonged to a tradition "acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, by the Executive Branch, by the Congress, and the courts for two centuries." The display, ruled the Court, passed each prong of the Lemon test. First, the city had a secular purpose in celebrating a national holiday by using religious symbols that "depicted the historical origins" of the holiday. Second, the display did not primarily benefit religion. Third, no excessive entanglement between government and religion existed. Perhaps most significantly, the Court saw the crèche as a "passive symbol": although it derived from religion, over time it had come to represent a secular message of celebration.
Lynch laid bare the deep divisions on the Court. By emphasizing context, the majority appeared to suggest that the ruling was limited to circumstances similar to those in the case at hand: religious symbols could be acceptable in a holiday display if used with secular symbols. The majority did not enunciate any broad new protections for governments eager to sponsor crèches. Nonetheless, the opinion did not satisfy the dissenters, who sharply criticized the majority for failing to vigorously apply the Lemon test. They noted that the city could easily have celebrated the holiday without using religious symbols, and they saw the crèche as nothing less than government endorsement of religion.
The emphasis on context became even more pronounced in a 1989 case, County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S. Ct. 3086, 106 L. Ed. 2d 472. In Allegheny, a Pennsylvania county appealed a lower court ruling that had banned its two separate holiday displays: a crèche situated next to poinsettia plants inside the county courthouse, and an eighteen-foot menorah (a commemorative candelabrum in the Jewish faith) standing next to a Christmas tree and a sign outside a city-county office building. Each religious symbol was owned by a religious group—the crèche by the Catholic Holy Name Society and the menorah by Chabad, a Jewish organization. Viewing the displays in context, the Court permitted one but not the other, and its reasoning turned on subtle distinctions.
The Court deemed the crèche an unconstitutional endorsement of religion for two reasons. First, the presence of a few flowers around the crèche did not mediate its religious symbolism in the way that the secular symbols had done for the crèche in Lynch. Second, the prominent location doomed the display. By choosing the courthouse, a vital center of government, the Court said the county has sent "an unmistakable message" that it endorsed Christianity.
But the menorah passed constitutional review. Like the crèche in Lynch, its religious significance was transformed by the presence of secular symbols: the forty-five-foot Christmas tree and a sign from the city's mayor that read, "During this holiday season, the city of Pittsburgh salutes liberty. Let these festive lights remind us that we are keepers of the flame of liberty and our legacy of liberty." Even so, members of the majority disagreed on precisely what message was sent by the display. Justice harry a. blackmun read it as a secular message of holiday celebration. In a more complicated view, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said it "acknowledg[ed] the cultural diversity of our country and convey[ed] tolerance of different choice in matters of religious belief or non-belief by recognizing that the winter holiday season is celebrated in diverse ways by our citizens." Whatever the exact message, the majority agreed that it did not endorse religion.
Since the 1980s the thrust of Supreme Court doctrine has been to allow publicly sponsored holiday displays to include religious symbols. This expansive view of the First Amendment grew out of the Court's acknowledgment that local governments can accommodate civic tradition. Religious symbols on their own are unconstitutional. A display including such symbols may pass review, however, if it features secular symbols as well. Context is the determinant: to avoid violating the Establishment Clause, a crèche or menorah may need a boost from Santa Claus.
The Court has stated that the Establishment Clause means that neither a state nor the federal government can organize a church. The government cannot enact legislation that aids one religion, aids all religions, or prefers one religion over another. It cannot force or influence a person to participate in, or avoid, religion or force a person to profess a particular religious belief. No tax in any amount can be levied to support any religious activities or organizations. Neither a state nor the federal government can participate, whether openly or secretly, in the affairs of any religious groups.
Federal and state governments have accepted and implemented the doctrine of the separation of church and state by minimizing contact with religious institutions. Although the government cannot aid religions, it can acknowledge their role as a stabilizing force in society. For example, religious institutions, along with other charitable or nonprofit organizations, have traditionally been given tax exemptions. This practice, even when applied to religious organizations, has been deemed constitutional because the legislative aim of a property tax exemption is not to advance religion but to ensure that the activities of groups that enhance the moral and mental attitudes of the community will not be inhibited by taxation. The organizations lose the tax exemption if they undertake activities that do not serve the beneficial interests of society. Thus, in 1983, the Supreme Court decided in Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S. Ct. 2017, 76 L. Ed. 2d 157, that nonprofit private schools that discriminated against their students or prospective students on the basis of race could not claim tax-exempt status as a charitable organization for the purposes of federal tax laws.
It is also believed that the elimination of such tax exemptions would lead the government into excessive entanglements with religious institutions. The exemption, therefore, is believed to create only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state—less than would result from taxation. The restricted fiscal relationship, therefore, enhances the desired separation.
Religion and Education The many situations in which religion and education overlap are a source of great controversy. In the early nineteenth century, the vast majority of Americans were Protestant, and Protestant-based religious exercises were common in the public schools. Legal challenges to these practices began in the state courts when a substantial number of Roman Catholics arrived in the United States. Until 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court began to directly address some of these issues, most states upheld the constitutionality of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.
In the 1962 case of engel v. vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S. Ct. 1261, 8 L. Ed. 2d 601, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a prayer that was a recommended part of the public school curriculum in the state of New York. The prayer had been approved by Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders in the state. Although the prayer was nondenominational and student participation in it was strictly voluntary, it was struck down as violative of the Establishment Clause.
Agostini v. Felton
In June 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back restrictions that it had imposed twelve years earlier on federal aid to religious schools. In a 5–4 decision in Agostini v. Felton, 117 S. Ct. 1997 (1997), the Court ruled that public school teachers can teach remedial education classes to disadvantaged students on the premises of parochial schools—a dramatic reversal of the Court's earlier hard line.
Federal law provides funds for such services to all children of low-income families under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.A. § 6301 et seq.). But in 1985 the Court barred public school instructors from teaching title I classes on parochial school premises. In Aguilar v. Felton (473 U.S. 402, 105 S. Ct. 3232, 87 L. Ed. 2d 290), the majority ruled that the mere presence of public employees at these schools had the effect of unconstitutionally advancing religion. To comply with the order, New York parked vans outside of parochial school property to deliver the services, a system that cost taxpayers $100 million between 1985 and 1997.
In a 1995 challenge, New York City argued that intervening cases had invalidated the Supreme Court's earlier ruling. Upon accepting the case on appeal in 1997, the Court agreed. In her majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor held that Aguilar had been overruled by two more recent cases based on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind, 474 U.S. 481, 106 S. Ct. 748, 88 L. Ed. 2d 846 (1986), and Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1, 113 S. Ct. 2462, 125 L. Ed. 2d (1993). O'Connor said that the two cases—permitting a state tuition grant to a blind person who attended a Christian college, and allowing a state-employed sign language interpreter to accompany a deaf student to a Catholic school, respectively—made it clear that the premises in Aguilarwere no longer valid.
Although limited specifically to title I programs, the decision added fuel to another long-standing controversy. Proponents and opponents of school vouchers—a system under which parents would be able to allocate their tax dollars to their children's private school education—disputed whether the case indicated that the Court was moving toward embracing the voucher idea.
In 1963, the Supreme Court heard the related issues of whether voluntary Bible readings or recitation of the Lord's Prayer were constitutionally appropriate exercises in the public schools (abington school district v. schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844). It was in these cases that the Supreme Court first formulated the three-pronged test for constitutionality. In applying the new test, the Court concluded that the exercises did not pass the first prong of the test: they were not secular in nature, but religious, and thus they violated the Establishment Clause because they violated state neutrality requirements.
Although students in public schools are not permitted to recite prayers, the practice of a state legislature opening its sessions with a nondenominational prayer recited by a chaplain receiving public funds has withstood constitutional challenge. In Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S. Ct. 3330, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1019 (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that such a practice did not violate the Establishment Clause. In making its decision, the Court noted that this was a customary practice and that the proponents of the Bill of Rights also approved of the government appointment of paid chaplains.
The Supreme Court has also held that a religious invocation, instituted by school officials, at a public school graduation violates the Establishment Clause (lee v. weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S. Ct. 2649, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467 [1992]). Subsequently, the Court made clear that even indirect school support of a prayer given by students violates the First Amendment. In Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000), the Court held that a Texas public school district could not let its students lead prayers over the public address system before its high school football. The school district's sponsorship of the public prayers by elected student representatives was unconstitutional because the schools could not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion.
In 1980, the Supreme Court overturned a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments, copies of which were purchased with private contributions, in every public school classroom (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S. Ct. 192, 66 L. Ed. 2d 199). Although the state argued that the postings served a secular purpose, the Court held that they were plainly religious. Four of the Supreme Court's nine justices dissented from the Court's opinion and were prepared to conclude that the postings were proper based on their secular purpose.
Because the Establishment Clause calls for government neutrality in matters involving religion, the government need not be hostile or unfriendly toward religions because such an approach would favor those who do not believe in religion over those who do. In addition, if the government denies religious speakers the ability to speak or punishes them for their speech, it violates the First Amendment's right to Freedom of Speech. The Supreme Court held in 1981 that it was unconstitutional for a state university to prohibit a religious group from using its facilities when the facilities were open for use by organizations of all other kinds (Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 102 S. Ct. 269, 70 L. Ed. 2d 440). The principles established in Widmar were unanimously reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, 113 S. Ct. 2141, 124 L. Ed. 2d 352 (1993). In 1995, the Supreme Court held that a state university violates the Free Speech Clause when it refuses to pay for a religious organization's publication under a program in which it pays for other student organization publications (Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 115 S. Ct. 2510, 132 L. Ed. 2d 700).
Facing another education and religion issue, the Supreme Court declared in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 68 S. Ct. 461, 92 L. Ed. 649 (1948), that public school buildings could not be used for a program that allowed pupils to leave classes early to receive religious instruction. The Court found that this program violated the Establishment Clause because the tax-supported public school buildings were being used for the teaching of religious doctrines, which constituted direct government assistance to religion.
However, the Court held that a release-time program that took place outside the public school buildings was constitutional because it did not involved religious instruction in public school classrooms or the expenditure of public funds (Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 72 S. Ct. 679, 96 L. Ed. 954 [1952]). All costs in that case were paid by the religious organization conducting the program.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also held that states may not restrict the teaching of ideas on the grounds that they conflict with religious teachings when those ideas are part of normal classroom subjects. In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S. Ct. 266, 21 L. Ed. 2d 228 (1968), the Court struck down a state statute that forbade the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. The Court held that the statute violated the Establishment Clause because its purpose was to protect religious theories of creationism from inconsistent secular theories.
In Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 96 L.Ed. 2d 510 (1987), the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana "Creationism Act" which prevented any teaching of evolution in public schools unless the course was also accompanied by the teaching of biblical creationism. In his majority opinion, Justice william brennan wrote that the Lemon test had to be used to judge the constitutionality of the Creationism Act. The state contended that the law was simply designed to promote Academic Freedom by ensuring that students would hear about more than one theory on the origins of life. However, the Court noted that teachers were permitted to present more than one such theory before the law had been passed. The actual purpose of the law, then, had to be to make sure that creationism was taught if anything at all was taught. Brennan ruled that the act did not have a secular purpose and that it did not advance academic freedom. To the contrary, it restricted the abilities of teachers to teach what they deemed appropriate. Brennan also pointed out that Louisiana provided instructional packets to assist in the teaching of creationism but did not provide similar materials for the teaching of evolution. This demonstrated an interest in promoting creationism and religion.
In a 1993 case, the Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause did not prevent a public school from providing a sign language interpreter for a deaf student who attended a religiously affiliated school within the school district (Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1, 113 S. Ct. 2462, 125 L. Ed. 2d 1). Commentators have noted that this case demonstrates the Court's willingness to uphold religiously neutral government aid to all school children, regardless of whether they attend a religiously affiliated school, where the aid is designed to help the children overcome a physical or learning disability. As of 2003, it was not clear, however, whether the Court would extend this holding to more general forms of aid to children in religious and public schools alike.
Government and Religion The closing of government offices on particular religious holidays is unconstitutional if no secular purpose is served (Mandel v. Hodges, 54 Cal. App. 3d 596, 127 Cal. Rptr. 244 [1976]). But if employees won the closing through Collective Bargaining, it is permissible even without a secular purpose (Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Kent County, 97 Mich. App. 72, 293 N.W. 2d 723 [1980]).
Government display of symbols with religious significance raises Establishment Clause issues. In the 1984 case of Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 1355, 79 L. Ed. 2d 604, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a city to erect in a park a Christmas display that included colored lights, reindeer, candy canes, a Santa's house, a Christmas tree, a "SEASONS GREETINGS" banner, and a nativity scene. The Court decided the inclusion of the nativity scene along with traditional secular Christmas symbols did not promote religion to an extent prohibited by the First Amendment.
Since the mid-1990s, displays of the Ten Commandments in public buildings other than schools has become more common. Several judges drew national attention when they posted the Ten Commandments in their courtrooms, thereby triggering litigation. Alabama trial judge Roy Moore used the publicity from his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom to run for and be elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in November 2000. After taking office in January 2001, he briefly avoided controversy by posting the Ten Commandments in his chambers rather than in the Supreme Court's courtroom. However, Moore installed a 5,300 pound Ten Commandments monument in the judicial building on a summer night in 2001. A group of citizens objected and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. In November 2002, the federal court issued an order directing Moore to remove the monument. Moore refused and vowed to appeal the decision (Glassroth v. Moore, 242 F.Supp. 2d 1068 [M.D.Ala.2002]). In 2003, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision in Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F. 3d 1282. Despite a federal court order to remove the monument, Moore refused. Finally, in September 2003, the other members of the Alabama Supreme Court had the monument removed. Moore was suspended from office while a judicial inquiry commission reviewed his conduct.
Free Exercise Clause
The Free Exercise Clause guarantees a person the right to practice a religion and propagate it without government interference. This right is a liberty interest that cannot be deprived without
Due Process of Law. Although the government cannot restrict a person's religious beliefs, it can limit the practice of faith when a substantial and compelling state interest exists. The courts have found that a substantial and compelling State Interest exists when the religious practice poses a threat to the health, safety, or Welfare of the public. For example, the government could legitimately outlaw the practice of Polygamy that was formerly mandated by the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) but could not outlaw the religion or belief in Mormonism itself (Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L. Ed. 244 [1878]). The Supreme Court has invalidated very few actions of the government on the basis of this clause.
Religious practices are not the only method by which a violation of the Free Exercise Clause can occur. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S. Ct. 1178, 87 L. Ed. 1628 (1943), the Supreme Court held that a public school could not expel children because they refused on religious grounds to comply with a requirement of saluting the U.S. flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In that case, the children were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they believed that saluting the flag fell within the scope of the biblical command against worshipping false gods.
A more recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ignited a firestorm of controversy. The appeals court, in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 292 F.3d 597 (9th Cir. 2002), ruled that Congress had violated the Establishment Clause when, in 1954, it inserted the words "Under God" into the pledge. Therefore, a California school district's daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance injured the daughter of an atheist father, for the pledge sent a message to her that she was an "outsider" and not a member of the political community. The defendants vowed to petition the Supreme Court to review the case. The Ninth Circuit stayed its ruling until the Supreme Court resolved the issue by either denying review or taking the appeal.
In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S. Ct. 1526, 32 L. Ed. 2d 15 (1972), the Supreme Court held that state laws requiring children to receive education up to a certain age impinged upon the religious freedom of the Amish who refuse to send their children to school beyond the eighth grade because they believe that doing so would impermissibly expose the children to worldly influences that conflicted with Amish religious beliefs.
In 1993, Congress passed the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which provides that "[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, "unless the government can demonstrate that the burden advances a compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive way. This statute was enacted in response to the Supreme Court's 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L. Ed. 2d 876. The Smith case involved a state law that denied Unemployment Compensation benefits to anyone who had been fired from his or her job for job-related misconduct. This case involved two individuals who had been fired from their jobs for ingesting peyote, which was forbidden by state law. The individuals argued that their ingestion of peyote was related to a religious ceremony in which they participated. The Supreme Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause did not require an exemption from the state law banning peyote use and that unemployment compensation could therefore lawfully be denied.
RFRA directly superseded the Smith decision. However, soon after it was enacted, many courts ruled that RFRA violated either the Establishment Clause or the Separation of Powers doctrine. In the 1997 case of City of Boerne v. P. F. Flores, 1997 WL 345322, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6–3 to invalidate RFRA on the grounds that Congress had exceeded the scope of its enforcement power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment in enacting RFRA. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment permits Congress to enact legislation enforcing the Constitutional right to free exercise of religion. However, the Court held that this power is limited to preventative or remedial measures. The court found that RFRA went beyond that and actually made substantive changes in the governing law. Because Congress exceeded its power under the Fourteenth Amendment in enacting RFRA, it contradicted vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal-state balance and thus was unconstitutional.
Although the Free Exercise Clause protects against government action, it does not restrict the conduct of private individuals. For example, the courts generally will uphold a testator's requirement that a beneficiary attend a specified church to receive a testamentary gift because the courts refuse to question the religious views of a testator in the interest of public policy. Similarly, the Free Exercise Clause does not protect a person's religious beliefs from infringement by the actions of private corporations or businesses, although federal and state Civil Rights laws may make such private conduct unlawful.
The government cannot enact a statute that wholly denies the right to preach or to disseminate religious views, but a state can constitutionally regulate the time, place, and manner of soliciting upon the streets and of conducting meetings in order to safeguard the peace, order, and comfort of the community. It can also protect the public against frauds perpetrated under the cloak of religion, as long as the law does not use a process amounting to a Prior Restraint, which inhibits the free exercise of religion. In a 1951 case, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for a city to deny a Baptist preacher the renewal of a permit for evangelical street meetings, even though his previous meetings included attacks on Roman Catholicism and Judaism that led to disorder in the streets, because it constituted a prior restraint (Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 71 S. Ct. 312, 95 L. Ed. 280).
State laws known as Sunday closing laws, which prohibit the sale of certain goods on Sundays, have been declared constitutional against the challenge of Orthodox Jews who claimed that the laws created an economic hardship for them because their faith requires them to close their businesses on Saturdays and who therefore wanted to do business on Sundays (Braunfield v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 81 S. Ct. 1144, 6 L. Ed. 2d 563 [1961]). The Supreme Court held that, although the law imposed an indirect burden on
religion, it did not make any religious practice itself unlawful.
In United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 102 S. Ct. 1051, 71 L. Ed. 2d 127 (1982), the Supreme Court upheld the requirement that Amish employers withhold Social Security and unemployment insurance contributions from their employees, despite the Amish argument that this violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause. The Court found that compulsory contributions were necessary to accomplish the overriding government interest in the proper functioning of the Social Security and unemployment systems.
The Supreme Court has also upheld the assignment and use of Social Security numbers by the government to be a legitimate government action that does not violate the Free Exercise Clause (Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 106 S. Ct. 2147, 90 L. Ed. 2d 735 [1986]).
In the 1989 case of Hernandez v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 490 U.S. 680, 109 S. Ct. 2136, 104 L. Ed. 2d 766, the Supreme Court held that the government's denial of a taxpayer's deduction from gross income of "fixed donations" to the Church of Scientology for certain religious services was constitutional. These fees were paid for certain classes required by the Church of Scientology, and the Court held that they did not classify as charitable contributions because a good or service was received in exchange for the fee paid.
In Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization, 493 U.S. 378, 110 S. Ct. 688, 107 L. Ed. 2d 796 (1990), the Court ruled that a religious organization is not exempt from paying a state's general sales and use taxes on the sale of religious products and religious literature.
Similarly, the Court decided in Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 452 U.S. 640, 101 S. Ct. 2559, 69 L. Ed. 2d 298 (1981), that a state rule limiting the sale or distribution of merchandise to specific booths was lawful, even when applied to ISKCON members whose beliefs mandated them to distribute or sell religious literature and solicit donations in public places.
Military regulations have also been challenged under the Free Exercise Clause. In Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 106 S. Ct. 1310, 89 L. Ed. 2d 478 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause did not require the U.S. Air Force to permit an Orthodox Jewish serviceman to wear his yarmulke while in uniform and on duty. The Court found that the military's interest in discipline was sufficiently important to outweigh the incidental burden the rule had on the serviceman's religious beliefs.
However, a law that places an indirect burden on the practice of religion so as to impede the observance of religion or a law that discriminates between religions is unconstitutional. Thus, the Supreme Court has held that the denial of unemployment compensation to a Seventh-Day Adventist who was fired from her job and could not obtain any other work because of her refusal to work on Saturdays for religious reasons was unconstitutional (Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S. Ct. 1790, 10 L. Ed. 2d 965 [1963]). The Sherbert case was reaffirmed and applied in the 1987 case of Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Commission of Florida, 480 U.S. 136, 107 S. Ct. 1046, 94 L. Ed. 2d 190.
In the 1993 case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113 S. Ct. 2217, 124 L. Ed. 2d 472, remanded on other grounds, the High Court overturned a city law that forbade animal slaughter insofar as the law banned the ritual animal slaughter by a particular religious sect. The Court found that the law was not a religiously neutral law of general applicability but was specifically designed to prevent a religious sect from carrying out its religious rituals.
In Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 92 S. Ct. 1079, 31 L. Ed. 2d 263 (1972), the Supreme Court affirmed that prisoners are entitled to their rights under the Free Exercise Clause, subject only to the requirements of prison security and discipline. Thus, the Court held that a Texas prison must permit a Buddhist prisoner to use the prison chapel and share his religious materials with other prisoners, just as any other prisoner would be permitted to so act.
States have been allowed to deny disability benefits, however, to applicants who refuse to submit to medical examinations for religious reasons. Courts have held that this is constitutional because the state has a compelling interest in verifying that the intended recipients of the tax-produced assistance are people who are legitimately entitled to receive the benefit. Likewise, states can regulate religious practices to protect the public health. Thus, state laws requiring the vaccination of all children before they are allowed to attend school are constitutional because the laws are designed to prevent the widespread epidemic of contagious diseases. Public health protection has been deemed to outweigh any competing interest in the exercise of religious beliefs that oppose any forms of medication or immunization.
A number of cases have involved the issue of whether there is a compelling state interest to require that a blood transfusion be given to a patient whose religion prohibits such treatment. In these cases, the courts look to the specific facts of the case, such as whether the patient is a minor or a mentally incompetent individual, and whether the patient came to the hospital voluntarily seeking help. The courts have generally authorized the transfusions in cases of minors or mentally incompetent patients in recognition of the compelling government interest to protect the health and safety of people. However, the courts are divided as to whether they should order transfusions where the patient is a competent adult who steadfastly refuses to accept such treatment on religious grounds despite the understanding that her or his refusal could result in death. As of 2003, the Supreme Court had not ruled on this issue, and therefore there was no final judicial opinion on the propriety of such orders.
The use of secular courts to determine intra-church disputes has raised issues under both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court decided in the 1871 case of Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 20 L. Ed. 666, that judicial intervention in cases involving ownership and control of church assets necessarily had to be limited to determining and enforcing the decision of the highest judicatory body within the particular religious group. For congregational religious groups, such as Baptists and Jews, the majority of the congregation was considered the highest judicatory body. In hierarchical religions, such as the Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, the diocesan bishop was considered the highest judicatory authority. The Supreme Court consistently applied that principle until its 1979 decision in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S. Ct. 3020, 61 L. Ed. 2d 775. In that case, the Court held that the "neutral principles of law developed for use in all property disputes" could be constitutionally applied in intra-church litigation. Under this case, courts can examine the language of the church charters, real and Personal Property deeds, and state statutes relating to the control of property generally.
Religious Oaths Prohibited
The Constitution also refers to religion in Article VI, Clause 3, which provides, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The provision is binding only on the federal government.
In early American history, individual states commonly required religious oaths for public officers. But after the Revolutionary War, most of these religious tests were eliminated. As of 2003, the individual states, through their constitutions or statutes, have restrictions similar to that of the U.S. Constitution on imposing a religious oath as a condition to holding a government position.
Freedom to express religious beliefs is entwined with the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression. The federal or state governments cannot require an individual to declare a belief in the existence of God as a qualification for holding office (Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S. Ct. 1680, 6 L. Ed. 2d 982 [1961]).
Congress took an unprecedented step when it passed the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. (Pub. L.105-292, 112 Stat. 2787). The law seeks to promote religious freedom worldwide. It created a special representative to the Secretary of State for international religious freedom. This representative serves on a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an advisory organization. The act gives the president authority to take diplomatic and other appropriate action with respect to any country that engages in or tolerates violations of religious freedom. In extreme circumstances, the president is empowered to impose economic sanctions on countries that systematically deny religious freedom.
Further readings
Blomquist, Robert F. 2003. "Law and Spirituality: Some First Thoughts on an Emerging Relation." UMKC Law Review 71 (spring).
Haarscher, Guy. 2002. "Freedom of Religion in Context." Brigham Young Univ. Law Review 2002 (spring).
Semonche, John E., ed. 1985. Religion and Law in American History. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
Skotnicki, Andrew. 2000. Religion and the Development of the American Penal System. Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America.
Spiropoulos, Andrew C. 1997. "The Constitutionality of Holiday Displays on Public Property (Or How the Court Stole Christmas)." Oklahoma Bar Journal (May 31).
Williams, Cynthia Norman. 2003. "America's Opposition to New Religious Movements: Limiting the Freedom of Religion." Law and Psychology Review 27 (spring).
Cross-references
Charities; Ecclesiastical Courts; Flag; Immunization Programs; Parent and Child; Schools and School Districts; Scopes Monkey Trial.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/religion
and how many countries threw them out only to come back with a vengeance.
The Jesuit Fourth Vow or the Blood Oath
No Evidence of Jesuit Blood Oath At Recent Installation Of Wisconsin Provincial Head, But Black Pope of Rome Says Mass and Attends Milwaukee Ceremony - Jesuits firmly deny Blood Oath exists, but text in 1913 U.S.Congressional Record says otherwise.
2006 04 27
By Greg Szymanski | arcticbeacon.com
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/04apr/jesuitbloodoath.html
When a Jesuit priest is elevated to a position of high command, he is administered what is called the Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction. This oath has been called the Fourth Vow or the Blood Oath, given to those in the Society of Jesus besides the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
The existence of the Blood Oath has always been categorically denied by the Jesuits. And when this question was recently put to priests, brothers or lay spokesmen in five out of the 10 Jesuit Provincials in the United States, the existence of it was firmly denied, many saying they never heard anything about it.
Although the Blood Oath ceremony, as recounted by several former Jesuit priests including the late Father Alberto Rivera, is supposedly steeped in pagan rituals, one common element found is only three others are present for the ceremony, including the Superior or Jesuit General.
The other two are monks or priests present flank the Superior with one holding a banner with the papal colors of yellow and white and the other a black banner with a dagger and a red cross above a skull and bones crossbones. On the black banner is the word INRI and below it the words IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIUS, meaning to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, Governments, or Rulers.
Peter-Hans Kolvenbach
In June 2005, Fr. Thomas Krettek, SJ was installed as the Wisconsin Province Society of Jesus provincial head during a Mass of Installation at Milwaukee's Church of the Gesu. Present at the Mass were three Jesuits, Fr. Jim Grummer, SJ, outgoing provincial, Fr. Del Skillingstad, SJ and Society of Jesus Jesuit General from Rome, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach known as the Black Pope.
After Fr. Krettek's appointment, Fr. Grummer was subsequently appointed the new regional assistant for the U.S. Assistancy and general counselor, succeeding Fr. Frank Case, SJ.
The General Council is composed of 12 men, 10 of whom are regional assistants who serve as liaisons to the various Jesuit entities in the region. Fr. Grummer's now includes the U.S. and various countries such as Belize, Jamaica, and Micronesia, which are either a part of or dependent upon an American province.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the Church and the Society of Jesus in this new job. I look forward to helping Father General in whatever ways I can assist him in promoting the mission of the Society of Jesus," said Fr. Grummer after the ceremony appointing Fr. Krettek as the head of the Wisconsin Provincial.
But the question looms: Did the Blood Oath take place and was the Black Pope in Milwaukee last June to administer it along with the two other priests acting as the monks holding the banners?
The communication director for the Wisconsin Provincial this week was unaware of any Blood Oath ceremony, but asked that any questions be put in writing regarding "it" or any other concerns about the Jesuit Order and their global activities.
Although the Black Pope came to Milwaukee to say Mass last June for Fr. Krettek's high command induction ceremony and no evidence exists the Blood Oath took place, there is substantial evidence in the United States Congressional Record of its existence.
The text of the Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction is meticulously recorded in the Journals of the 62nd Congress, 3rd Session, of the United States Congressional Record (House Calendar No. 397, Report No. 1523, 15 February, 1913, pp. 3215-3216).
However, without explanation, the text was subsequently torn out of the Congressional Record, but not before it was copied word for word by several researchers, including Ian Paisley for the European Institute of Protestant Studies.
According to Paisley, the Blood Oath was also quoted by Charles Didier in his book Subterranean Rome (New York, 1843), translated from the French original. And Fr. Alberto Rivera, who escaped from the Jesuit Order in 1967 and died under suspicious circumstances in 1997, confirmed before his untimely death that the induction ceremony and the text of the Jesuit Oath were identical to what appeared in the 1913 Congressional Record.
Before the Blood Oath is administered, Paisley painted a dark picture of the private chapel were the ceremony takes place, as recounted in Didier's book and Fr. Rivera's recollections:
"When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command," said Paisley, "he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colors, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the word INRI, and below them the words IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIUS. The meaning of which is: It is just to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, Governments, or Rulers.
"Upon the floor is a red cross at which the postulant or candidate kneels. The Superior hands him a small black crucifix, which he takes in his left hand and presses to his heart, and the Superior at the same time presents to him a dagger, which he grasps by the blade and holds the point against his heart, the Superior still holding it by the hilt, and thus addresses the postulant."
At this point, the Jesuit General-Superior Speaks and the Blood Oath is administered. The following is a copy of the text of the Oath as it appeared in the 1913 Congressional Record: (Note: If anyone has any doubts that Jesuits aren't trained to be the ultimate deceivers and chameleons, the following words should erase all doubts.)
(The Superior speaks:)
My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among other Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence, to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope. You have been taught to plant insidiously the seeds of jealousy and hatred between communities, provinces, states that were at peace, and to incite them to deeds of blood, involving them in war with each other, and to create revolutions and civil wars in countries that were independent and prosperous, cultivating the arts and the sciences and enjoying the blessings of peace; to take sides with the combatants and to act secretly with your brother Jesuit, who might be engaged on the other side, but openly opposed to that with which you might be connected, only that the Church might be the gainer in the end, in the conditions fixed in the treaties for peace and that the end justifies the means. You have been taught your duty as a spy, to gather all statistics, facts and information in your power from every source; to ingratiate yourself into the confidence of the family circle of Protestants and heretics of every class and character, as well as that of the merchant, the banker, the lawyer, among the schools and universities, in parliaments and legislatures, and the judiciaries and councils of state, and to be all things to all men, for the Pope's sake, whose servants we are unto death. You have received all your instructions heretofore as a novice, a neophyte, and have served as co-adjurer, confessor and priest, but you have not yet been invested with all that is necessary to command in the Army of Loyola in the service of the Pope. You must serve the proper time as the instrument and executioner as directed by your superiors; for none can command here who has not consecrated his labours with the blood of the heretic; for "without the shedding of blood no man can be saved". Therefore, to fit yourself for your work and make your own salvation sure, you will, in addition to your former oath of obedience to your order and allegiance to the Pope, repeat after me:
(Text of the Oath:)
I_______________ , now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the saints, sacred host of Heaven, and to you, my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the pontification of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that His Holiness, the Pope, is Christ's Vice-Regent and is the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given to His Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical Kings, Princes, States, Commonwealths, and Governments, and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore to the utmost of my power I will defend this doctrine and His Holiness's right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of England and Scotland, and the branches of same now established in Ireland and on the continent of America and elsewhere and all adherents in regard that they may be usurped and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of Rome. I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince or State, named Protestant or Liberal, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers. I do further declare the doctrine of the Churches of England and Scotland of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and others of the name of Protestants or Masons to be damnable, and they themselves to be damned who will not forsake the same. I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holiness's agents, in any place where I should be, in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland or America, or in any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant or Masonic doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, legal or otherwise. I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding, I am dispensed with to assume any religion heretical for the propagation of the Mother Church's interest; to keep secret and private all her agents' counsels from time to time, as they entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing or circumstances whatever; but to execute all that should be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me by you, my Ghostly Father, or any of this sacred order. I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ. That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions north, jungles of India, to the centers of civilization of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things, whatsoever is communicated to me. I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants' heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honour, rank, dignity or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agents of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus. In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, soul, and all corporal powers, and with the dagger which I now receive I will subscribe my name written in my blood in testimony thereof; and should I prove false, or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and feet and my throat from ear to ear, my belly be opened and sulphur burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth, and my soul shall be tortured by demons in eternal hell forever. That I will in voting always vote for a Knight of Columbus in preference to a Protestant, especially a Mason, and that I will leave my party so to do; that if two Catholics are on the ticket I will satisfy myself which is the better supporter of Mother Church and vote accordingly. That I will not deal with or employ a Protestant if in my power to deal with or employ a Catholic. That I will place Catholic girls in Protestant families that a weekly report may be made of the inner movements of the heretics. That I will provide myself with arms and ammunition that I may be in readiness when the word is passed, or I am commanded to defend the Church either as an individual or with the militia of the Pope. All of which I,_______________, do swear by the blessed Trinity and blessed sacrament which I am now to receive to perform and on part to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed sacrament of the Eucharist and witness the same further with my name written with the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and seal in the face of this holy sacrament.
(He receives the wafer from the Superior and writes his name with the point of his dagger dipped in his own blood taken from over his heart.)
(Superior speaks:)
You will now rise to your feet and I will instruct you in the Catechism necessary to make yourself known to any member of the Society of Jesus belonging to this rank. In the first place, you, as a Brother Jesuit, will with another mutually make the ordinary sign of the cross as any ordinary Roman Catholic would; then one crosses his wrists, the palms of his hands open, and the other in answer crosses his feet, one above the other; the first points with forefinger of the right hand to the centre of the palm of the left, the other with the forefinger of the left hand points to the centre of the palm of the right; the first then with his right hand makes a circle around his head, touching it; the other then with the forefinger of his left hand touches the left side of his body just below his heart; the first then with his right hand draws it across the throat of the other, and the latter then with a dagger down the stomach and abdomen of the first. The first then says Iustum; and the other answers Necar; the first Reges; the other answers Impious. The first will then present a small piece of paper folded in a peculiar manner, four times, which the other will cut longitudinally and on opening the name Jesu will be found written upon the head and arms of a cross three times. You will then give and receive with him the following questions and answers:
From whither do you come? Answer: The Holy faith.
Whom do you serve? Answer: The Holy Father at Rome, the Pope, and the Roman Catholic Church Universal throughout the world.
Who commands you? Answer: The Successor of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus or the Soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Who received you? Answer: A venerable man in white hair.
How? Answer: With a naked dagger, I kneeling upon the cross beneath the banners of the Pope and of our sacred order.
Did you take an oath? Answer: I did, to destroy heretics and their governments and rulers, and to spare neither age, nor sex, nor condition; to be as a corpse without any opinion or will of my own, but to implicitly obey my Superiors in all things without hesitation or murmuring.
Will you do that? Answer: I will.
How do you travel? Answer: In the bark of Peter the fisherman.
Whither do you travel? Answer: To the four quarters of the globe.
For what purpose? Answer: To obey the orders of my General and Superiors and execute the will of the Pope and faithfully fulfil the conditions of my oaths.
Go ye, then, into all the world and take possession of all lands in the name of the Pope. He who will not accept him as the Vicar of Jesus and his Vice-Regent on earth, let him be accursed and exterminated.
For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com
Greg Szymanski Greg also has his own daily show on the Republic Broadcast Network. Go to www.rbnlive.com Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist and his articles can been seen at www.LewisNews.com. He also writes for American Free Press and has his own site www.arcticbeacon.com
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Article from: http://www.arcticbeacon.com/26-Apr-2006.html
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/04apr/jesuitbloodoath.html
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How the Vatican created Islam
The astonishing story from an ex-Jesuit priest, Alberto Rivera, which was told to him by Cardinal Bea while he was at the Vatican.
2006 04 13
By Alberto Rivera
"The Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem" by Nicolas Poussin (1637)
This information came from Alberto Rivera, former Jesuit priest after his conversion to Protestant Christianity. It is excerpted from "The Prophet," published by Chick Publications, PO Box 662, Chino CA 91708. Since its publication, after several unsuccessful attempts on his life, he died suddenly from food poisoning. His testimony should not be silenced. Dr. Rivera speaks to us still ...
"What I'm going to tell you is what I learned in secret briefings in the Vatican when I was a Jesuit priest, under oath and induction. A Jesuit cardinal named Augustine Bea showed us how desperately the Roman Catholics wanted Jerusalem at the end of the third century. Because of its religious history and its strategic location, the Holy City was considered a priceless treasure. A scheme had to be developed to make Jerusalem a Roman Catholic city.
"The great untapped source of manpower that could do this job was the children of Ishmael. The poor Arabs fell victim to one of the most clever plans ever devised by the powers of darkness. Early Christians went everywhere with the gospel setting up small churches, but they met heavy opposition. Both the Jews and the Roman government persecuted the believers in Christ to stop their spread. But the Jews rebelled against Rome, and in 70 AD, Roman armies under General Titus smashed Jerusalem and destroyed the great Jewish temple which was the heart of Jewish worship...in fulfillment of Christ's prophecy in Matthew 24:2.
"On this holy placed today where the temple once stood, the Dome of the Rock Mosque stands as Islam's second most holy place. Sweeping changes were in the wind. Corruption, apathy, greed, cruelty, perversion and rebellion were eating at the Roman Empire, and it was ready to collapse. The persecution against Christians was useless as they continued to lay down their lives for the gospel of Christ.
"The only way Satan could stop this thrust was to create a counterfeit "Christian" religion to destroy the work of God. The solution was in Rome. Their religion had come from ancient Babylon and all it needed was a face-lift. This didn't happen overnight, but began in the writings of the 'early church fathers'.
"It was through their writings that a new religion would take shape. The statue of Jupiter in Rome was eventually called St. Peter, and the statue of Venus was changed to the Virgin Mary. The site chosen for its headquarters was on one of the seven hills called 'Vaticanus', the place of the diving serpent where the Satanic temple of Janus stood.
"The great counterfeit religion was Roman Catholicism, called 'Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth'- Revelation 17:5. She was raised up to block the gospel, slaughter the believers in Christ, establish religions, create wars and make the nations drunk with the wine of her fornication as we will see.
"Three major religions have one thing in common - each has a holy place where they look for guidance. Roman Catholicism looks to the Vatican as the Holy City. The Jews look to the wailing wall in Jerusalem, and the Muslims look to Mecca as their Holy City. Each group believes that they receive certain types of blessings for the rest of their lives for visiting their holy place. In the beginning, Arab visitors would bring gifts to the 'House of God', and the keepers of the Kaaba were gracious to all who came. Some brought their idols and, not wanting to offend these people, their idols were placed inside the sanctuary. It is said that the Jews looked upon the Kaaba as an outlying tabernacle of the Lord with veneration until it became polluted with idols.
The Kaaba, Mecca. Image from: webislam.com
"In a tribal contention over a well(Zamzam) the treasure of the Kaaba and the offerings that pilgrims had given were dumped down the well and it was filled with sand - it disappeared. Many years later Adb Al-Muttalib was given visions telling him where to find the well and its treasure. He became the hero of Mecca, and he was destined to become the grandfather of Muhammad. Before this time, Augustine became the bishop of North Africa and was effective in winning Arabs to Roman Catholicism, including whole tribes. It was among these Arab converts to Catholicism that the concept of looking for an Arab prophet developed.
"Muhammad's father died from illness and sons born to great Arab families in places like Mecca were sent into the desert to be suckled and weaned and spend some of their childhood with Bedouin tribes for training and to avoid the plagues in the cities.
"After his mother and grandfather also died, Muhammad was with his uncle when a Roman Catholic monk learned of his identity and said, "Take your brother's son back to his country and guard him against the Jews, for by god, if they see him and know of him that which I know, they will construe evil against him. Great things are in store for this brother's son of yours."
"The Roman Catholic monk had fanned the flames for future Jewish persecutions at the hands of the followers of Muhammad. The Vatican desperately wanted Jerusalem because of its religious significance, but was blocked by the Jews.
"Another problem was the true Christians in North Africa who preached the gospel. Roman Catholicism was growing in power, but would not tolerate opposition. Somehow the Vatican had to create a weapon to eliminate both the Jews and the true Christian believers who refused to accept Roman Catholicism. Lookng to North Africa, they saw the multitudes of Arabs as a source of manpower to do their dirty work. Some Arabs had become Roman Catholic, and could be used in reporting information to leaders in Rome. Others were used in an underground spy network to carry out Rome's master plan to control the great multitudes of Arabs who rejected Catholicism. When 'St Augustine' appeared on the scene, he knew what was going on. His monasteries served as bases to seek out and destroy Bible manuscripts owned by the true Christians.
"The Vatican wanted to create a messiah for the Arabs, someone they could raise up as a great leader, a man with charisma whom they could train, and eventually unite all the non-Catholic Arabs behind him, creating a mighty army that would ultimately capture Jerusalem for the pope. In the Vatican briefing, Cardinal Bea told us this story:
'A wealthy Arabian lady who was a faithful follower of the pope played a tremendous part in this drama. She was a widow named Khadijah. She gave her wealth to the church and retired to a convent, but was given an assignment. She was to find a brilliant young man who could be used by the Vatican to create a new religion and become the messiah for the children of Ishmael. Khadijah had a cousin named Waraquah,, who was also a very faithful Roman Catholic and the Vatican placed him in a critical role as Muhammad's advisor. He had tremendous influence on Muhammad.
'Teachers were sent to young Muhammad and he had intensive training. Muhammad studied the works of St. Augustine which prepared him for his "great calling." The Vatican had Catholic Arabs across North Africa spread the story of a great one who was about to rise up among the people and be the chosen one of their God.
'While Muhammad was being prepared, he was told that his enemies were the Jews and that the only true Christians were Roman Catholic. He was taught that others calling themselves Christians were actually wicked impostors and should be destroyed. Many Muslims believe this.
'Muhammad began receiving "divine revelations" and his wife's Catholic cousin Waraquah helped interpret them. From this came the Koran. In the fifth year of Muhammad's mission, persecution came against his followers because they refused to worship the idols in the Kaaba.
'Muhammad instructed some of them to flee to Abysinnia where Negus, the Roman Catholic king accepted them because Muhammad's views on the virgin Mary were so close to Roman Catholic doctrine. These Muslims received protection from Catholic kings because of Muhammad's revelations.
'Muhammad later conquered Mecca and the Kaaba was cleared of idols. History proves that before Islam came into existence, the Sabeans in Arabia worshiped the moon-god who was married to the sun-god. They gave birth to three goddesses who were worshipped throughout the Arab world as "Daughters of Allah" An idol excavated at Hazor in Palestine in 1950's shows Allah sitting on a throne with the crescent moon on his chest.
'Muhammad claimed he had a vision from Allah and was told, "You are the messenger of Allah." This began his career as a prophet and he received many messages. By the time Muhammad died, the religion of Islam was exploding. The nomadic Arab tribes were joining forces in the name of Allah and his prophet, Muhammad.
'Some of Muhammad's writings were placed in the Koran, others were never published. They are now in the hands of high ranking holy men (Ayatollahs) in the Islamic faith.'
"When Cardinal Bea shared with us in the Vatican, he said, these writings are guarded because they contain information that links the Vatican to the creation of Islam. Both sides have so much information on each other, that if exposed, it could create such a scandal that it would be a disaster for both religions.
"In their "holy" book, the Koran, Christ is regarded as only a prophet. If the pope was His representative on earth, then he also must be a prophet of God. This caused the followers of Muhammad to fear and respect the pope as another "holy man."
"The pope moved quickly and issued bulls granting the Arab generals permission to invade and conquer the nations of North Africa. The Vatican helped to finance the building of these massive Islamic armies in exchange for three favors:
1. Eliminate the Jews and Christians (true believers, which they called infidels).
2. Protect the Augustinian Monks and Roman Catholics.
3. Conquer Jerusalem for "His Holiness" in the Vatican.
"As time went by, the power of Islam became tremendous - Jews and true Christians were slaughtered, and Jerusalem fell into their hands. Roman Catholics were never attacked, nor were their shrines, during this time. But when the pope asked for Jerusalem, he was surprised at their denial! The Arab generals had such military success that they could not be intimidated by the pope - nothing could stand in the way of their own plan.
"Under Waraquah's direction, Muhammad wrote that Abraham offered Ishmael as a sacrifice. The Bible says that Isaac was the sacrifice, but Muhammad removed Isaac's name and inserted Ishmael's name. As a result of this and Muhammad's vision, the faithful Muslims built a mosque, the Dome of the Rock, in Ishmael's honor on the site of the Jewish temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. This made Jerusalem the 2nd most holy place in the Islam faith. How could they give such a sacred shrine to the pope without causing a revolt?
Image from: letsgo.com
"The pope realized what they had created was out of control when he heard they were calling "His Holiness" an infidel. The Muslim generals were determined to conquer the world for Allah and now they turned toward Europe. Islamic ambassadors approached the pope and asked for papal bulls to give them permission to invade European countries.
"The Vatican was outraged; war was inevitable. Temporal power and control of the world was considered the basic right of the pope. He wouldn't think of sharing it with those whom he considered heathens.
"The pope raised up his armies and called them crusades to hold back the children of Ishmael from grabbing Catholic Europe. The crusades lasted centuries and Jerusalem slipped out of the pope's hands.
"Turkey fell and Spain and Portugal were invaded by Islamic forces. In Portugal, they called a mountain village "Fatima" in honor of Muhammad's daughter, never dreaming it would become world famous.
"Years later when the Muslim armies were poised on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, to invade Italy, there was a serious problem. The Islamic generals realized they were too far extended. It was time for peace talks. One of the negotiators was Francis of Assisi.
"As a result, the Muslims were allowed to occupy Turkey in a "Christian" world, and the Catholics were allowed to occupy Lebanon in the Arab world. It was also agreed that the Muslims could build mosques in Catholic countries without interference as long as Roman Catholicism could flourish Arab countries.
"Cardinal Bea told us in Vatican briefings that both the Muslims and Roman Catholics agreed to block and destroy the efforts of their common enemy, Bible-believing Christianm missionaries. Through these concordats, Satan blocked the children of Ishmael from a knowledge of Scripture and the truth.
"A light control was kept on Muslims from the Ayatollah down through the Islamic priests, nuns and monks. The Vatican also engineers a campaign of hatred between the Muslim Arabs and the Jews. Before this, they had co-existed peacefully.
"The Islamic community looks on the Bible-believing missionary as a devil who brings poison to the children of Allah. This explains years of ministry in those countries with little results.
"The next plan was to control Islam. In 1910, Portugal was going Socialistic. Red flags were appearing and the Catholic Church was facing a major problem. Increasing numbers were against the church.
"The Jesuits wanted Russia involved, and the location of this vision at Fatima could play a key part in pulling Islam to the Mother Church.
Lucia de Santos, Francisco Marco and Jacinta Maro in 1917. Image from: mystae.com
"In 1917, the Virgin appeared in Fatima. "The Mother of God" was a smashing success, playing to overflow crowds. As a result, the Socialists of Portugal suffered a major defeat.
"Roman Catholics world-wide began praying for the conversion of Russia and the Jesuits invented the Novenas to Fatima which they could perform throughout North Africa, spreading good public relations to the Muslim world. The Arabs thought they were honoring the daughter of Muhammad, which is what the Jesuits wanted them to believe.
"As a result of the vision of Fatima, Pope Pius XII ordered his Nazi army to crush Russia and the Orthodox religion and make Russia Roman Catholic." A few years after he lost World war II, Pope Pius XII startled the world with his phoney dancing sun vision to keep Fatima in the news. It was great religious show biz and the world swallowed it.
"Not surprisingly, Pope Pius was the only one to see this vision. As a result, a group of followers has grown into a Blue Army world-wide, totaling millions of faithful Roman Catholics ready to die for the blessed virgin.
"But we haven't seen anything yet. The Jesuits have their Virgin Mary scheduled to appear four or five times in China, Russia, and major appearance in the U.S.
"What has this got to do with Islam? Note Bishop Sheen's
statement: "Our Lady's appearances at Fatima marked the turning point in the history of the world's 350 million Muslims. After the death of his daughter, Muhammad wrote that she "is the most holy of all women in Paradise, next to Mary."
"He believed that the Virgin Mary chose to be known as Our Lady of Fatima as a sign and a pledge that the Muslims who believe in Christ's virgin birth, will come to believe in His divinity.
"Bishop Sheen pointed out that the pilgrim virgin statues of Our Lady of Fatima were enthusiastically received by Muslims in Africa, India, and elsewhere, and that many Muslims are now coming into the Roman Catholic Church."
Article from: http://www.cloakanddagger.de/lenny/alberto_rivera.htm
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/04apr/catholicislam.html
just posted a book on this board might want to check it out:) hope all is well with you!
all diseased rats
not what he is portrayed by media?
white smoke with a sky rat attached..
Religion and Politics: The Grand Deception
(2nd Edition)
A Second Look at the War on Terrorism
by G. Edward Griffin
The concepts I would like to share with you today were set to paper three days after the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. I printed about a dozen copies and gave them to family and friends. Since then I have added historical data, but the concepts and the message remain unchanged. Many of the predictions I made have already come to pass; but any pride I might have in being right is far offset by the grim substance of those predictions.
After completing The Creature from Jekyll Island, I felt that I still had one more book to write and that it would be called The Freedom Manifesto. I also knew that I would need a dramatic issue in the first chapter to capture attention. Well, the terrorist attack on September 11 was certainly that – and more.
I told those on my email list that I would send them my expanded report, but then I became bogged down in gathering material for the book. By that time, the report had become huge and had to be divided into chapters. All of that took about four weeks. So, what started out to be a four-page report on terrorism metamorphosed into components of what I call The Grand Deception, which I anticipate will become Part One of the book. The first edition of The Grand Deception was put on the Internet in November of 2001. The second edition, which includes expanded historical information, was released on January 15th, 2002.
At first, it was my intent to keep the material up to date with late-breaking events: but then it occurred to me that it might have more value in its original form than if it were continually updated. Writing about news events after they happen is not difficult, but writing about them before they happen is another matter. So, with the exception of expanding historical data and adding epilogues to the thirteen predictions at the end of this report, I decided to let the overview stand exactly as conceptualized on Friday, September 14, 2001. This is that report.
KNOW THE ENEMY
In the year 500 b.c., a Chinese general and philosopher by the name of Sun Tzu wrote a treatise called The Art of War. It has been translated into just about every language in the world and has become a classic of military and political strategy. In it, Sun Tzu said:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.[1]
It is now three days after the attack, and I am haunted by the words of Sun Tzu. America has declared war, but her leaders are not even sure who the enemy is. Is it a man called Osama bin Laden? Is it Afghanistan, the nation that shelters him? Is it the Taliban that rules Afghanistan? Is it a terrorist group called al-Qaeda? Is it Muslim Extremism? We commit to war but do not know the enemy.
The meaning of the war on terrorism is far more complicated than the surface facts would indicate. On the surface, we have a group of people in the Middle East who hate America and have pledged themselves to inflict severe punishment on her, even at the sacrifice of their own lives. If that is as far as we care to look, then the meaning is simple. It is them against us; we are at war; they are the bad guys; we are the good guys; and we must destroy the enemy.
That is the meaning that was given to the American people by their leaders. President Bush summarized it well when he told the nation on September 11 that the attack was an act of cowardice and that America was the target because it was a beacon of freedom. If that is the correct meaning of the event, the logical consequences are that we must fight back; we must defend freedom; and we must not stop until the cowards are wiped off the face of the earth. That is the path of war, retaliation, and, of course, counter-retaliation.
There is, however, a deeper understanding of this event, and it has to do with the maxim: actions have consequences. To come to that understanding, we must do the unthinkable in moments of crisis. We must ask questions.
LOYALTY AND PATRIOTISM
Asking questions is not popular with some people. When a nation is at war, there is a tendency for its citizens to rally behind their leaders without questioning the wisdom of their actions. For them, the test of patriotism is conformity. Those who ask questions are called unpatriotic. Life is simple for the conformists. All they want to know is “What side are you on, anyway?”
After reading this book in its entirety, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about my patriotism or which side holds my loyalty; but, along the way, I definitely will be asking some hard questions about the wisdom of American foreign policy.
Although I may be critical of our politicians and their policies; I want it clearly understood that I totally support our men and women who will be sent into combat as a result of those policies. When we find ourselves in a shooting war, regardless of how we got into it, at that point we have no choice. We must put all that we have into the fight. But, the other side of that coin is that we must fight to win. Our goal must be victory, not stalemate – and we should achieve it as quickly as possible to minimize casualties on both sides. That does not mean fighting a protracted conflict in which something other than victory is the goal. That is what our politicians forced us to do in Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and the Balkan War. After the fighting was over, the tyrannical regimes were still there. We left them in place. Some of them are now supporting the terrorists who have attacked us.
In the days ahead, we must be clear on the difference between loyalty and patriotism. The spirit of loyalty compels us to support and defend our country even when she is wrong. That is necessary in time of war, but patriotism is a higher ideal. It compels us, not only to defend our country when she is wrong, but also to do everything within our power to bring her back to the side of right.
When it comes to patriotism, there is no one who has a greater love for country than I do. That is easy to say; but when you hear someone make that statement, you have a right to know where is the evidence? My evidence is my life. I did not purchase our family’s flag on Tuesday. It is very old and weathered. We have proudly displayed it on every holiday for more than forty years. Often, it was the only flag in the neighborhood. I did not need a terrorist attack to remind me to honor my country and my heritage.
Displaying the flag is important, but patriotism requires much more than that. I have devoted almost the entirety of my adult life trying to mobilize my fellow countrymen to the defense of America from her enemies outside her borders and within. Since 1960, I have left behind me a long paper trail and a mountain of audio and videotapes extolling the virtues of the American system, her culture, her Constitution, and her people. I love America and all that she has stood for in days gone by, but I am saddened beyond words at what has been done to her within my lifetime – and what I fear is yet to be done in the days ahead.
There are those who may say that I am anti-government, but that is not true. I am not anti-government; I am anti-corrupt government. I will do everything possible to defend my government from those who would violate their oaths of office, tear apart the Constitution, or use their positions of trust to oppress our people. To oppose corruption in government is the highest obligation of patriotism.
WHY DO THEY HATE AMERICA?
The first question we need to ask is why? Why do the terrorists hate America?[2]
I am reminded of the story of a young man in medieval times who wanted to become a knight. He obtained an audience with the king and offered his services, explaining that he was an excellent swordsman. The king told him that the realm was at peace, and there was no need for a knight. Nevertheless, the young man insisted that he be allowed to serve. To put and end to the discussion, the king finally agreed and knighted him on the spot. Several months later, the young knight returned to the castle and requested another audience. When he entered the throne room, he bowed in respect and then reported that he had been very busy. He explained that he had killed thirty of the king’s enemies in the North and forty-five of them in the South. The king looked puzzled for a moment and said, “But I don’t have any enemies.” To which the knight replied, “You do now, Sire.”
Do Muslim terrorists hate America because of its religion or culture? Is it because they are envious of America’s wealth or that American women wear short skirts? Is it because they really do hate freedom?
There are several passages in the Qur’an that, indeed, create the impression that Muslims are told to kill non-believers as a matter of religious faith. For example, in chapter 9, verse 5, we find: “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them.” In 9.14 it says: “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace.” In 9.123 we find: “Fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness.” Chapter 2, verse 191 says: “Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out.”
On the other hand, there are other passages that seem to contradict this theme. Muhammad says repeatedly that killing is only justified in self-defense or in retaliation – only after the enemy strikes first. For example, in chapter 60, verses 8 and 9, he says: “Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of [your] religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly…. Allah only forbids you respecting those who make war upon you on account of [your] religion, and drove you forth from your homes.” Chapter 9, verse 13, says: “What? Will you not fight a people who broke their oath and … attacked you first?” Chapter 22, verse 39, says: “Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed.” Chapter 47, verse 4, says: “So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite their necks until you have overcome them. Then make [them] prisoners and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom themselves until the war terminates.”
So, what is going on here? Which concept are we to believe?
To unravel this mystery, we must look beyond the words themselves and view the historical events that were unfolding at the time the words were written, which was around 620 A.D.. The key to understanding is in the last phrase of the previous quote: “… until the war terminates.”
What war?
THE BIRTH OF ISLAM
After Muhammad revealed that he had been chosen as a prophet of Allah, it took many years for him to attract a large following. In the earlier days of his proselytizing, he often entertained Christians and Jews in his own home and counted many of them among his personal friends. He clearly did not think of them as enemies who should be killed on the spot. In those days, “un-believers” were simply those who were not convinced that he had spoken to the angel Gabriel or really had been ordained by Allah to lead mankind. The most prominent of these unbelievers were members of the Quraysh tribe who worshiped multiple gods represented by seven idols located within the shrine called Kaaba, in Mecca. When Muhammad finally began to attract a following, the leaders of the Quraysh plotted against him and attempted to abort his movement by harassing and even torturing his followers. He was forced to flee the city to avoid assassination. When Muhammad used the word “idolaters” in the Qur’an, he was referring to the Quraysh.
This is important because, while the Qur’an was being written from the oral teachings of Muhammad, and while his followers became embroiled in many deadly conflicts with the Quraysh, they were often in relative harmony with Christians and Jews. Shortly after becoming the religious and civil leader of Medina in 622 A.D., Muhammad openly accepted friendship and trade with the Jews there. To clarify their relationship, he drew up a concordat that proclaimed:
The Jews who attach themselves to our commonwealth shall be protected from all insults and vexations; they shall have an equal right with our own people to our assistances and good offices; they … shall form with the Muslims one composite nation; they shall practice their religion as freely as the Muslims.
Unfortunately, this tranquility did not last. By 623, Muhammad and his followers, in order to obtain food and other necessities, were regularly raiding caravans passing nearby, many of them belonging to Quraysh merchants from Mecca. This led to retaliation by the Quraysh who returned to Medina with 900 men intent on annihilating the Muhammadan community, but their attack was repelled.
Before long, Jews and Muslims in Medina became bitterly divided over doctrinal and economic disputes. Armed conflict broke out between the two groups, and the Jews were ordered to abandon the city and leave their possessions behind. But Muhammad was not to enjoy his supremacy for long. Early in 625, the Quraysh arrived from Mecca with an army of 3000 men and routed the Muslims from Medina. Muhammad was severely wounded in the battle. The previously ousted Jews returned to their homes. Six months later, after Muhammad recovered from his wounds, he returned to the city and attacked the Jews, accusing them of aiding the Quraysh. Once again they were driven from the city.
In 626 A.D., the Quraysh and the Jews combined forces and, with an army of 10,000 men attacked the Muslim stronghold at Medina. Muhammad knew he could not defeat such a force in open battle and chose, instead, to protect the city by digging a deep trench around it. Fortunately for him, extreme wind and rain kept the invaders at bay. After an unsuccessful 20-day siege, the Quraysh abandoned the effort and retuned to Mecca. Muhammad at once led an army of 3000 men against the remaining Jews who were overpowered. He gave his prisoners a choice of death or accepting Islam.
By this time, Muhammad had become an able and experienced military leader. He planned sixty-five campaigns and raids and personally led twenty-seven. In 630, he led an expedition against Mecca, which surrendered without a fight. Arabia was finally entirely under his control. Parts of the Qur’an read like military stratagems because that is exactly what they were.
PUTTING THE QUR’AN INTO HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The reason for going into all of this is to clarify that, while the Qur’an was being written, there was a war going on. Those passages that direct the faithful to kill unbelievers were not motivated by religious intolerance but by the passions of warfare and the necessity of survival against an enemy. It was a question of kill or be killed. This fact becomes clear when we recall that, after the fighting was over, and Muhammad finally became the undisputed master of all Arabia, the Christians were allowed to remain and enjoy full liberty of worship. If he had wanted unbelievers killed solely because of their religion, they would have been slaughtered. However, the only limitations placed upon them were that they pay a modest tax and refrain from charging interest on loans.[3]
When passages from the Qur’an are taken out of historical context, it may seem that Muslims are instructed to kill innocent people whose only crime is that they do not believe in Islam. However, when they are understood in terms of the events that were unfolding at the time the Qur’an was written, that notion cannot be supported.
There are those who would divide us today along religious lines and manipulate us into fearing and hating and killing each other. They rely on us not to know this history. They take passages from the Qur’an out of historical context – just as they do with passages from the Bible and the Torah – to prove whatever point they wish.
Islam is not a unified faith with a hierarchy of control to establish doctrine. There is no single leader or council to make pronouncements about how to interpret the Qur’an. The spiritual leader of each congregation can offer guidance and scholarship; but, ultimately, each person is free to make his own interpretation. Consequently, many Muslims since Muhammad’s time have used Scripture to justify aggression, and some of the radical sects of today are continuing to put their own hate-twist to the message, but we must realize that this is not an intrinsic part of the Islamic faith. Exactly the same pattern is seen in the history of other religions as well.
The Middle East is not the only place with this problem. In the Balkans—and many other places in the world – there may be obvious differences in religion or ethnic origin between the combatants, but these are not the real causes of the conflict today. The hatred between them stems from a history of armed conflict in which each side perceives itself as the victim of aggression and cruelty from the other. Religious or ethnic differences may have played a part at the origins of these conflicts, but in their modern context, they are grudge wars. That is the reason different tribes within Islam often fight among themselves just as fiercely as they do against unbelievers.
Throughout history, the Qur’an, the Torah, and the Bible have all been used by cunning leaders to justify their wars; but that is not the fault of mainstream Islam or Judaism or Christianity, it is the fault of cunning leaders.
Even without history and logic as our guide, the fact remains that Islamic terrorists today are not attacking non-Islamic countries at random. They are attacking only those that previously have launched military campaigns against them. Clearly, their motivation today does not come from religion. To them, it is a grudge war. It comes from a desire for revenge.
So, the next question is: revenge for what?
AMERICA BECOMES WORLD POLICEMAN
Ever since the end of World War II, America’s politicians have viewed themselves as global leaders with a responsibility to manage the affairs of the world that outweighs or at least equals any obligation to their own country. For over five decades, the nation’s universities and media have extolled the virtues of internationalism. The old tradition of avoiding foreign entanglements was sneeringly called isolationism. We were conditioned to think that the old way was stupid. The wave of the future was shown to us, and it was a New World Order. Over the years, we watched with approval as our leaders increasingly entangled our once sovereign nation into a world community called the United Nations. Treaty by treaty, we watched and approved as we became increasingly subject to international edicts and played the role of world policeman.
It is in that role that our military began to wage wars against populations far removed from our shores and even further from our national interests. To justify those wars, we were told that we were defending victim groups against their despotic neighbors or ridding the world of drug lords; but, after the smoke of battle cleared, we discovered that there were hidden agendas that were much less noble. More often than not, the real purpose of the war was to control oil fields, pipelines, ports, mineral resources, or military supply lines – or even to distract voters from thinking about scandals in the White House. If you roam around the globe shooting and bombing people, and aligning yourself politically with others who do the same, you cannot expect your victims to like you very much. Some may even be willing to die for revenge.
A MOMENT OF TRUTH IN MEDIA
On Wednesday evening (September 12), Henry Sigman, reported on Nightline: “The U.S. is seen as a sort of an insensitive hegemony with arrogance that seeks to impose it’s own values on the rest of the world. It is seen as an uncritical supporter of the State of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, and the combination of the two does not make for U.S. popularity in that part of the world.”
Adding to this theme was Magnas Raisdorff, who also appeared on Nightline while Ted Koppel, the show’s host, was speaking from London. Raisdorff, a reporter in the London branch of CBS, and an expert on terrorism, agreed with Sigman. He said:
Many in the Arab world regard the U.S., not as an honest broker, but as protecting and shielding Israel over very important political as well as religious issues. Among these issues are: Israel’s control over holy Islamic sites, like the Dome of the Rock;[4] the presence of U.S. troops near Islamic religious places such as Mecca and Medina; the sanctions the U.S. has placed on Iraq are mostly depriving children of drugs and food they desperately need; and, most importantly, Israel’s attacks on prominent Palestinian militants are using equipment, like helicopter gun ships, provided by the U.S.
Then Jim Ruden, also in London, came on the program to summarize Raisdorff’s report saying: “And that is why what happened yesterday, happened, not because ‘America is the world’s brightest beacon [of freedom].’”
At the time of the terrorist attack in September, the United States had a quarter of a million soldiers stationed in 141 countries around the world.(“Keep Your Eye on the Target,” by Congressman Ron Paul, address before Congress, Nov. 29, 2001. www.house.gov/congrec2001/cr112901.htm.) Since the end of World War II, it has launched military strikes against Panama, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Kuwait, Sudan, Haiti, Granada, Afghanistan, and Somalia – all in the pursuit of stopping drugs, defending freedom, or resisting Communism. In the great majority of cases, these objectives were not achieved. The only measurable result has been the creation of hostility toward America. That is what I call the Oops Factor that has been a dominant feature of U.S. foreign policy for over five decades.
Politicians never admit that they have made a mistake – especially a big one. To do so would imply that they are not qualified to lead. No matter what errors they make, they find something or someone to blame. Their standard excuse is that they didn’t have enough money or large enough staff or enough authority. If only we will increase their budget and give them more power, everything will be corrected. Typically, they already have spent too much money, hired too many people, and exercised too much authority, so their proposed solution is more of exactly what created the problem in the first place.
In the case of terrorism, the politicians who create U.S. foreign policy cannot be expected to tell the world they made a mistake. It will be a chilly day in Hades when they announce that they, themselves, have any responsibility for these acts. They will not want the American people contemplating the possibility that Tuesday’s attack might have been related to an interventionist foreign policy. They will try to single out a person and then demonize him so he will become the central focus of anger and retaliation. That person probably will be Osama bin Laden, so, let us see what he has to say about this. (Please remember that these words were written just three days after the attack of September 11 and, at that time, bin Laden had not yet been firmly declared as the responsible party.)
FROM THE MIND OF BIN LADEN
In May of 1998, ABC reporter John Miller interviewed bin Laden at his camp on a mountaintop in Southern Afghanistan. This is what he said:
The Americans impose themselves on everyone. … They accuse our children in Palestine of being terrorists. Those children who have no weapons and have not even reached maturity. At the same time, they defend … with their airplanes and tanks, the state of the Jews that has a policy to destroy the future of these children. … In the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, … houses were demolished over the heads of children. Also, by testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American-led sanctions resulted in the death of more than one million Iraqi children. … We believe that the biggest thieves in the world and the terrorists are the Americans. The only way for us to fend off these assaults is to use similar means. … So, we tell the Americans as a people, and we tell the mothers of soldiers, and American mothers in general, if they value their lives and those of their children, find a nationalistic government that will look after their interests and … does not attack others, their lands, or their honor.[5]
I am not quoting bin Laden because I think he is a nice guy or that I want to exonerate him in any way. In my view, there is never any excuse for terrorism. I include his words only to emphasize what I stated earlier. He and his followers are not motivated by hatred of freedom or religious zeal but by a desire for revenge. In the days ahead, as we contemplate how to put an end to terrorism, we had better be clear on that. As long as we follow a foreign policy of interventionism, we will create new enemies faster than we can track down the old ones and we will never be able to erect anti-terrorist measures capable of stopping them all. If we retaliate against populations or geographical areas, we could unite all of Islam in a holy war against us and light the fire of hatred in the hearts of a billion Muslims whose primary passion in life will be to seek revenge. Religion will have little to do with it.[6]
The Constitution provides a much better solution. When the nation is attacked by another nation, the logical response is to declare war. But when it is attacked by an individual or private group that is not acting on behalf of another nation, then Congress is authorized to issue what is called a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. That is an authorization to a private citizen or organization to pursue and eliminate the threatening party. In the early days of the country, Letters of Marque were issued against pirates on the high seas and against notorious bandits. The people who were called upon for these assignments were professional bounty hunters who were exceptionally efficient in their work. They had no interest in starting a war or killing a lot of innocent people. They had a single target and they did not get paid unless they were successful.
If Congress really wants to eliminate bin Laden and his terrorist organization, issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal would be a much more effective solution than blanketing the Middle East with an armada of planes and tanks and ground forces – and it would be exceedingly more humane as well.[7] We do not need to launch war against the Muslim world to eliminate terrorist organizations within their borders. We will not accomplish that by joining forces with the Leninists in Moscow and Peking who sustain those terrorists. And we certainly do not need to scrap the Constitution and Bill of Rights to be protected at home. You cannot defend freedom by destroying freedom.
Using laws that were in place long before the terrorist attack on September 11, the FBI already had extensive information about terrorist groups within the U.S. and in fact, had arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists and frozen millions of dollars of funds belonging to al Qaeda. The problem was not a lack of authority to do these things, but that the authority was selectively not used when it should have been. Although relatively harmless people were rounded up, the heavy hitters were actually protected.
BIN LADEN PROTECTED BY U.S.
On January 7, 2002, The Australian reported that President Clinton had rejected at least three opportunities to eliminate bin Laden – even after the U.S. State Department had labeled him as “the greatest single financier of terrorist projects in the world.” The first opportunity was when Sudanese officials offered to extradite him from Khartoum in 1996, but the offer was turned down flat. The Australian said:
A second offer to get bin Laden came unofficially from Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American millionaire who was a donor to Mr. Clinton’s election campaign in 1996. On July 6, 2000, he visited John Podesta, then the president’s chief of staff, to say that intelligence officers from a Gulf state were offering to help extract bin Laden…. The deal fell through when, according to Mr. Ijaz, the US sent a senior counter-terrorism expert to the United Arab Emirates to check the authenticity of the offer. Mr. Ijaz said the US’s “front door” approach had rendered that impossible.[8]
A third opportunity came when the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia offered to place a tracking device in the luggage of bin Laden’s mother who was planning to take a trip to visit her son in Afghanistan. This would have allowed the CIA or a team of Special Forces to pinpoint bin Laden’s exact whereabouts, but they declined the offer.
On November 7, 2001, the London Guardian reported that they had obtained FBI documents showing that investigation of members of the bin Laden family in the U.S. had been stopped upon orders from the White House. The FBI file, which had been coded as a national security issue, revealed that Abdullah bin Laden, who lived in Washington, had been under investigation because of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth – a suspected terrorist organization. According to The Guardian:
The FBI files were closed in 1996 apparently before any conclusions could be reached on either the bin Laden brothers or the organization itself. High-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian this week: “There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis,” They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year. The intelligence agencies had been told to “back off” from investigations involving other members of the bin Laden Family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.[9]
Terrorism in the United States is not a problem of needing more laws to restrict personal freedom but a problem of corruption in government. It is insanity to give government agencies the power to tap everyone’s phone and computer, the right to make arbitrary arrests in the name of national security, and the power to try anyone they wish in secret. It is not that government lacked enough authority in the past to act against terrorism, but that it ignored and abused the authority it already had. Increasing authority without eliminating corruption is a prescription for tyranny.
SAGE ADVICE FROM THE PAST
For the past few days, I have found myself thinking about George Washington. At first, I didn’t know why. Then it dawned on me. Hadn’t Washington warned about all this just before leaving office as first President of the United States? So I dug out a copy of his Farewell Address and, sure enough, there it was. This is what he said:
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. … Antipathy in one nation against another, disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. … So, likewise, the passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, … betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and the wars of the latter. … Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the cause of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. ...
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
One cannot read those words of wisdom without sadly realizing how far we have drifted from our nation’s moorings. In retrospect, the so-called isolationism of our forefathers is now looking very good.
PERPETUAL WAR
In the meantime, we are told that we are fighting terrorism. But, as stated previously, terrorism is not the enemy. It is a strategy of the enemy. That is like saying the enemy is hand-to-hand combat or air raids or missile attacks or espionage. Since terrorism is not the enemy, a war on terrorism cannot be won. It is doomed to drag on forever – just like the war on drugs and the war against crime. It might as well be a war against sin.
Shortly after World War II, George Orwell wrote his classic novel entitled, 1984. It was a satirical commentary on what the world might be like in the future if governments continued to expand their power as they were then doing, eventually, they would evolve into a global police state. He described the methods that would be used to keep the masses from rebelling. Thought control was the primary method, but one of the ways they accomplished that was to be constantly at war. In time of war, the populace will accept any hardship and make any sacrifice to defend the homeland. However, to have war, it was necessary to have an enemy, and that enemy had to be despicable in the eyes of the homeland defenders. Atrocities had to be committed and many lives had to be lost. But it was equally important to avoid winning the war – otherwise, the hardships imposed by the state would no longer seem reasonable to its subjects.
The world was divided into three geographical areas called Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, and the rulers of these regions agreed to war against each other but never to seek outright victory. The object was perpetual war. Orwell described it this way:
In one combination or another, these three superstates are permanently at war and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. … This is not to say that either the conduct of the war, or the prevailing attitude toward it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries. … But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at. … In the centers of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. … It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. … War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair … waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.[10]
AN ICON FOR EVIL
One of the most powerful images created by Orwell in his novel was the ritual called “Two Minutes Hate.” All members of the ruling bureaucracy were required each day to assemble before a television screen and view a two-minute propaganda program designed to arouse fierce hatred toward the enemy. Since there was no real enemy, the state had created a media substitute. An actor was selected to look and speak in such a way as to invoke fear and revulsion. The object was to distract the populace from thinking about their miserable condition and keep them constantly filled with the emotion of hatred. Hatred of the enemy made all things tolerable; but, to be effective, it had to be directed at a person, a face, an icon for evil. The face was given the name of Emmanuel Goldstein. Orwell wrote:
The next moment a hideous, grinding screech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair on the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started.
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed onto the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. … Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack against the Party. … He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, … And all the while, lest anyone should be in any doubt about the reality which Goldstein’s specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army—row after row of solid looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swarmed up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull, rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice. …
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. … The dark haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out “Swine! Swine! Swine” and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. … The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was, not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds, any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. …
The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheepface melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his submachine gun roaring and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, … full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.[11]
THE HIDDEN AGENDA
When we look at the facts surrounding the war on terrorism – particularly the lack of a defined enemy and the impossibility of victory – we cannot miss the striking parallels to Orwell’s satire. His only serious error, it seems, was choosing the wrong year for the title of his book.
Orwell’s story, of course, is fiction; but, when it comes to war as a means of controlling or altering society, the real world is not much different. Imagine, for example how “fictional” it would seem to be told that American involvement in World War I was eagerly pursued by an organization supposedly dedicated to world peace. Yet, that is exactly what transpired at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.
The source of this information is a man who was in a unique position to know. In 1954, Norman Dodd had been the staff director of the Congressional Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. I conducted a video interview with him in 1982, and the program was released as The Hidden Agenda. Mr. Dodd described how a member of his staff, Catherine Casey, spent several weeks examining the minute books of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and read important passages, word-for-word, into a Dictaphone. She started with the minutes of the very first meeting of the board of trustees after the Endowment was created in 1909. This is what Mr. Dodd said:
In that year, the trustees, meeting for the first time, raise a specific question, which they discuss throughout the balance of the year in a very learned fashion. The question is: “Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people.” And they conclude that no more effective means than war to that end is known to humanity.
So, then, in 1909, they raise a second question and discuss it, namely: “How do we involve the United States in a war?” … And, finally, they answer that question as follows: “We must control the State Department.” And then, that naturally raises the question of how do we do that. And they answer it by saying: “We must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country. And, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective.
Then, time passes, and we are eventually in World War I. At that time, they record in their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly.[12]
We will return to Norman Dodd in later chapters, because he has much more to tell regarding how tax-exempt foundations, such as the Carnegie Endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheimer Foundation, conspired to alter the substance of American history books. But, for now, the topic is war.
THE REPORT FROM IRON MOUNTAIN
No discussion of the hidden agendas of war would be complete without reference to a think-tank study released in 1966 called the Report from Iron Mountain. Although the origin of the report is highly debated, the document itself hints that it was commissioned by the Department of Defense under Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara and produced by the Hudson Institute located at the base of Iron Mountain in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The Hudson Institute was founded and directed by Herman Kahn, formerly of the Rand Corporation. Both McNamara and Kahn were members of the CFR.[13]
The self-proclaimed purpose of the study was to explore various ways to “stabilize society.” Praiseworthy as that may sound, a reading of the Report soon reveals that the word society is used synonymously with the word government. Furthermore, the word stabilize is used as meaning to preserve and to perpetuate. It is clear from the start that the nature of the study was to analyze the different ways a government can perpetuate itself in power, ways to control its citizens and prevent them from rebelling.
The report concludes that, in the past, war has been the only reliable means to achieve that goal. It contends that only during times of war are the masses compliant enough to carry the yoke of government without complaint. Fear of conquest and pillage by an enemy can make almost any burden seem acceptable by comparison. War can be used to arouse human passion and patriotic feelings of loyalty to the nation's leaders. No amount of sacrifice in the name of victory will be rejected. Resistance is viewed as treason. But, in times of peace, people become resentful of high taxes, shortages, and bureaucratic intervention. When they become disrespectful of their leaders, they become dangerous. No government has long survived without enemies and armed conflict. War, therefore, has been an indispensable condition for “stabilizing society.” These are the report's exact words:
The war system not only has been essential to the existence of nations as independent political entities, but has been equally indispensable to their stable political structure. Without it, no government has ever been able to obtain acquiescence in its “legitimacy,” or right to rule its society. The possibility of war provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power. The historical record reveals one instance after another where the failure of a regime to maintain the credibility of a war threat led to its dissolution by the forces of private interest, of reactions to social injustice, or of other disintegrative elements. The organization of society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer. … It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has insured the subordination of the citizens to the state by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood.[14]
A NEW DEFINITION OF PEACE
The report then explains that we are approaching a point in history where the old formulas may no longer work. Why? Because it may now be possible to create a world government in which all nations will be disarmed and disciplined by a world army, a condition that will be called peace. The report says: “The word peace, as we have used it in the following pages, ... implies total and general disarmament.”[15] Under that scenario, independent nations will no longer exist and governments will not have the capability to wage war. There could be military action by the world army against renegade political subdivisions, but these would be called peacekeeping operations, and soldiers would be called peacekeepers. No matter how much property is destroyed or how much blood is spilled, the bullets will be “peaceful” bullets and the bombs – even atomic bombs, if necessary – will be “peaceful” bombs.
The report then raises the question of whether there can ever be a suitable substitute for war. What else could the regional governments use – and what could the world government itself use – to legitimize and perpetuate itself? To provide an answer to that question was the stated purpose of the study.
The conclusion was that, if a suitable substitute for war is to be found, then a new enemy must be found that threatens the entire world, and the prospects of being overcome by that enemy must be just as terrifying as war itself. The problem arises from the fact that, if traditional war between nations is to be ruled out, then the war must be waged against something other than a nation. It must be something less tangible, yet still terrifying. The report is emphatic on that point:
Allegiance requires a cause; a cause requires an enemy. This much is obvious; the critical point is that the enemy that defines the cause must seem genuinely formidable. Roughly speaking, the presumed power of the “enemy” sufficient to warrant an individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the society. Today, of course, that power must be one of unprecedented magnitude and frightfulness.[16]
The Report from Iron Mountain analyzed many alternative “enemies” that could be created to make a war effort credible. It considered a war on poverty, a war against aliens from outer space, and a war against pollution of Mother Earth. The war against environmental pollution was considered to hold the most promise, but even that would lack sufficient emotional fire to match the hysteria of a real war. The Report concluded:
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war … the “alternate enemy” must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction. It must justify the need for taking and paying a “blood price” in wide areas of human concern. In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier would be insufficient. One exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with a not inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life. … It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species. Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect; it constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization and political power. …
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this purpose. … But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in recent years that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate environmental poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternative enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace [world government] is ever to come about without social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented.[17]
In 1966, international terrorism was still in its infancy, and the possibility of inventing it as a global “enemy” did not occur to those who drafted the Report from Iron Mountain. Had they thought of it, there can be little doubt that it would have been at the top of their list. Everything about the war on terrorism perfectly fits the template for a new and credible enemy so necessary for the so-called “stabilization of society.”
THIRTEEN PREDICTIONS
It is always dangerous to make predictions – especially if they are put into print. If they prove to be wrong, they can haunt you for the rest of your life. Nevertheless, here are thirteen predictions I made three days after the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I said then that I fervently hoped they would be wrong. Unfortunately, most of them have already come to pass. Nevertheless, here they are exactly as conceived on September 14, 2001.
1. The first prediction is that we will not be given genuine options regarding the war on terrorism. We will have only two choices, both of which are disastrous. It will be similar to the Vietnam War in which Americans were expected to be either hawks or doves. Either they supported the no-win war or they opposed it. They were not given the option of victory. Their choice was between pulling out of the war and turning the country over to the Vietcong quickly – or doggedly staying in the war and turning the country over to the Vietcong slowly – which is the way it turned out. Likewise, in the war on terrorism, we will be asked simply to choose sides. Either we are for freedom or for terrorism. The wisdom of U.S. interventionism will not be allowed as a topic for public debate.
Epilogue: On October 8, 2001, President Bush announced the beginning of military strikes against Afghanistan and said: “Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every Nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground.”[18] On the day that Congress approved the first $20 billion to finance the war on terrorism, Senator Hillary Clinton said that the government should make it clear “to every nation in the world, you’re either with us or you’re not, and there will be consequences.”[19] Even so-called conservative spokesmen have succumbed to the party line. On October 31, The Young America’s Foundation, based in Hendon, Virginia – an organization that promotes conservative issues on the nation’s college campuses – found it alarming that some professors were questioning the wisdom of U.S. interventionist policy. One professor was quoted as saying such a horrible thing as “We need to think about the resentment all over the world felt by people who have been victims of American military action.” Another professor is quoted as saying “You can’t plant hatred and not expect to reap hatred.” Such statements are not acceptable to the Young America’s Foundation, which views them as offensive and harmful to the war effort.[20]
2. Most American political leaders are now committed to world government, so the second prediction is that they will crow about how America will not tolerate terrorism, but they will not act as Americans. Instead, they will act as internationalists. They will turn to the UN to lead a global war against terrorism. They will seek to expand the capacity of NATO and UN military forces. Although American troops will provide the backbone of military action, they will operate under UN authority.
3. The third prediction is that the drive for national disarmament will be intensified. This will not lead to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, but merely to the transfer of those weapons to UN control. It will be popularized as a means of getting nuclear and bio-chemical weapons out of the hands of terrorists. The internationalists promoting this move will not seem to care that many of the world’s most notorious terrorists now hold seats of power at the UN and that the worst of them will actually control these weapons. This will be documented in Chapters Four and Five.
Epilogue: On October 20, 2001, Former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, announced that nuclear and chemical disarmament should become a top priority in the war on terrorism.[21] On November 13, 2001, US President Bush and Russian President Putin announced that, as a means of fighting global terrorism, they agreed to cut their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.[22] These reductions will be monitored by the UN. Russia has broken every similar agreement in the past, so there is no reason to expect that pattern to change. It must be remembered that Putin is a former high-ranking officer of the Soviet KGB, which created most of the international terrorist organizations.
4. The fourth prediction is that, if any terrorists are captured, they will be brought before the UN World Court and tried as international criminals. This will create popular support for the Court and will go a long way toward legitimizing it as the ultimate high tribunal. The public will not realize the fateful precedent that is being established – a precedent that will eventually be used to justify bringing citizens of any country to trial based on charges made by their adversaries in other countries. Anyone who seriously opposes the New World Order could then be transported to The Hague in The Netherlands and face charges of polluting the planet or committing hate crimes or participating in social genocide or supporting terrorism.
Epilogue: On November 14, 2001, President Bush announced that terrorists are to be tried by U.S. military courts, so it is possible that this prediction may be wrong – or at least premature. At the time of the attack on September 11, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) had not yet been ratified by enough nations to fully empower it. It was still thirteen short of the sixty nations that the UN claims are required. However, the rate of new ratifications was accelerated after September 11, and there is little doubt that the required number will be reached in the near future. When that happens, the stage will finally be set for the fulfillment of this prediction.
Upon ratification of the treaty by Great Britain on October 4, 2001, the head of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, said that Britain’s ratification “ensures that the International Criminal Court will come into existence in 2002.” In a press release on that same day, the Coalition stated: “Once the ICC is created it would have jurisdiction over acts such as those committed on September 11.”
In other words, the play is not yet over. The entire CFR team that sets U.S. policy in this regard is in favor of expanding the authority of the UN World Court, and the possibility of using captured terrorists as a means to that end must be very tempting to them. We shall see.
5. The fifth prediction is that the FBI will be criticized for failing to detect an attack as extensive and well coordinated as this. In reply, we will be told that the FBI was hampered by lack of funding, low manpower, and too little authority. Naturally, that will be followed by an increase in funding, additional manpower, and greatly expanded authority.
6. The sixth prediction is that, eventually, it will be discovered that the FBI and other intelligence agencies had prior warning and, possibly, specific knowledge of Tuesday’s attack; yet they did nothing to prevent it or to warn the victims. This will be a repeat of what happened at the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City six years previously. Why they failed to do so is the topic of Chapter Four.
Epilogue: The first inkling of prior knowledge came a week after the attack when it was learned that an unusually large amount of money had been placed into the stock market to acquire puts for American and United Airlines stocks. Puts are bets that the value of a stock will decline. When the market value of those stocks plummeted after the attack, those who held puts had their investment increase by eight-hundred percent.[23] The FBI closely monitors the stock market to detect precisely this kind of unusual pattern. However, the FBI had much more to go on than that.
On January 6, 2002, the Orlando Sentinel (in Orlando, Florida) reported that a prisoner in the local county jail had tipped off the FBI a month before September 11 that he had information about a pending terrorist attack in New York City and other targets. Walid Arkeh was an American citizen who previously fled to England to avoid prosecution on charges of dealing in stolen goods and slapping his child. He had been arrested in Britain and sent back to the United States after spending ten months in prison there. During that time he became friendly with three Muslim inmates whom he identified as Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdel Bary, and Ibrahim Eidarous. They had been imprisoned because of their involvement in the 1998 bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Arkeh told the FBI that the terrorists confided to him that something big was about to happen in New York. He said he would provide additional details if they would help him reduce his jail sentence. He was not exactly a model citizen, to be sure, but at least he was trying to alert authorities to the planned attack. He said: “I didn’t want to be a terrorist. I wasn’t working for them, but I became a part of them.” He thought the FBI would be eager to have this information, but such was not the case. As reported by the Orlando Sentinel:
[Arkeh] said the FBI agents didn’t appear impressed, and one stood with his hand in his pocket impatiently asking, “Is that all that you have? That’s old news.”
Arkeh went on to explain that, after the attack on September 11, FBI agents returned to his cell and threatened that he could be charged with co-conspiracy if he told anyone that he knew about the attacks ahead of time. The impact this had on him is evident in the Sentinel’s report:
When pressed by the Sentinel about whether he knew about the Sept. 11 hijacking and targets ahead of time, Arkeh, a compact and muscular man, paused a long time and looked down at the ground. Then he raised his head and smiled: “No. If I did, that would make me a co-conspirator.”[24]
Shortly after that, Arkeh was moved to an undisclosed location by the authorities, and his name, his photograph, and all traces of his presence in the system disappeared from the Department of Corrections web site. To the outside world, he ceased to exist.
The author is currently compiling information about government foreknowledge of terrorist training in U.S. flight schools, receiving tips from intelligence agencies in France, ignoring the boasts of earlier terrorists involved with the first bombing of the World Trade Towers, etc. These items will appear in future editions of this report.)
7. The seventh prediction is that much of the war on terrorism will be waged against Americans inside their own country. New laws, international treaties, and executive orders will severely restrict travel, speech, privacy, and the possession of firearms. Americans have consistently rejected these measures in the past, but there will be much less opposition when they are presented in the name of fighting terrorism. Government agencies will demand to know everything about us, from our school records, our psychological profiles, our buying habits, our political views, our medical histories, our religious beliefs, the balances in our savings accounts, our social patterns, a list of our friends – everything. Any opposition to these measures will be branded as disruptive of our national unity and helpful to terrorism. This will not be unique to America. The same program will be carried out in every nation in what is left of the free world.
Epilogue: In October of 2001, Congress adopted so-called “anti-terrorism” legislation that was a classic example of Doublespeak right out of Orwell’s 1984. In Orwell’s world, “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” In our world, Congress passed a bill to expand the federal government into many areas forbidden by the Constitution and unblinkingly called it the USA Patriot Act. The full title is the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.” It couldn’t have been named better by Orwell, himself. In addition to putting the government in charge of all airport security, it also requires private citizens to inform on each other. Any person engaged in a trade or business is now required to file a report with the government if any of their customers spends $10,000 or more in cash. That is just the beginning. The bill easily can be amended in the future to require a report of any “suspicious” or “anti-government” activity.[25]
In this regard, Canada appears to have taken the lead. On November 8, 2001, the Canadian parliament passed a bill allegedly to control money laundering related to terrorism. It was similar to a law that existed in Nazi Germany requiring all lawyers to inform the government of suspicious anti-government activity on the part of their clients. The Canadian law goes much further. Instead of involving only lawyers, it also requires bankers, realtors, investors, and other financial agents to report whenever they suspect a client may be involved in money laundering. Money laundering is defined by most governments today as any financial transaction that is not reported to the tax collector, including cash sales, tips, and barter. With that definition, literally everyone can be suspected of money laundering. If people fail to inform on each other, they are subject to a fine of $2-million and a five-year jail sentence.[26]
On November 24, it was revealed that the Canadian National Defense Act was amended in response to the terrorist attack against the U.S. and now gives the Canadian government power to close off any geographical area, to forcibly remove people from their homes inside that area, and be exempt from any obligation to compensate them for their loss. The justification for doing so need not be for national security. The government can act in the name of furthering “international relations.” That means, of course, that there are no definable limits on this power.[27]
By January, 2002 – back in the United States – Congress was on a fast track rubber-stamping the following proposals emanating from CFR social engineers: (1) conversion of the states’ National Guard units into a federal police force; (2) establishing federal control over state and local law enforcement and crisis-response agencies; (3) extending federal authority over medical services; (4) authorizing federal agencies to use phone taps, open postal mail, and monitor email – without a warrant or even probable cause; and (5) requiring all citizens to obtain a national ID card tied into a federal and international data bank.
The FBI now is free to place wiretaps on telephones without a court order. On November 21, 2001, the FBI announced its new eavesdropping operation called “Magic Lantern” that allows it to secretly plant a program into anyone’s computer so that every stroke made on the keyboard will be reported back. That means the government now can capture a record of everything you create on your computer, including private passwords, encrypted files, and even deleted files.[28]
While the government clamors to prevent citizens from having any secrets whatsoever, it moves in the opposite direction for itself. President Bush, a member of the CFR, issued Executive Order 13223 that forbids public access to presidential papers, even those belonging to previous administrations. The only researchers who now have access to these important sources of historical data are those who are deemed to have a “need to know” – which means only those who support the CFR spin on important issues. Even Congress is now outside the “need-to-know” category. White House briefings to Congressional leaders on military operations in the Middle East have been greatly curtailed and now contain little more than what is given to the press. In typical Orwellian fashion, we are told that, if America’s elected representatives were to know what the President is doing as Commander-in-Chief, it would be a threat to national security.
In mid-November, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order authorizing terrorists to be tried in secret military tribunals without any of the due-process legal protections afforded in civilian courts. At the end of World War II, even Nazi war criminals were tried in public, but now, anyone deemed to be a terrorist can be tried in secret, even when the death penalty is involved.
Who will be classified as terrorists? The disturbing answer to that question was given by Congressman Ron Paul as he addressed the House of Representatives on November 29, 2001:
Almost all of the new laws focus on Americans citizens rather than potential foreign terrorists. For example, the definition of “terrorism,” for federal criminal purposes, has been greatly expanded. A person could now be considered a terrorist by belonging to a pro-constitutional group, a citizen militia, or a pro-life organization. Legitimate protests against the government could place tens of thousands of other Americans under federal surveillance.[29]
The definition of “terrorism” has, indeed, been greatly expanded. We are now at the point where even those who voice concern over these police-state measures are said to be aiding terrorism and helping America’s enemies. This, of course, is considered to be a serious crime. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a member of the CFR, spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 6th and said: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists – for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies.”
By the end of November 2001, approximately 1,200 people had been arrested as terrorist suspects or as sources of information regarding terrorism. Formal charges were not brought against them. They were not allowed to have legal representation. They were not brought before a judge or given a hearing or trial. They were simply arrested and imprisoned without any Constitutional authority to do so. Furthermore, no one outside of government even knows who they are. Their names have been kept secret. This, allegedly, was to protect their privacy. Incredible! These people were thrown into prison and denied due process of law; yet we are expected to believe that the government is concerned about their privacy?
All of these encroachments against freedom have been high-agenda items among government agencies for many years – long before September 11. Most of them were originally promoted as instruments for punishing tax evasion and controlling political unrest. Practically no one seriously believes that these measures would have prevented the September attack. Only the hopelessly naive can fail to see that the war on terrorism has merely provided an excuse to put them into effect.
8. The eighth prediction is that those who speak out against these measures will be branded as right-wing extremists, anti-government kooks, or paranoid militiamen. The object will be to isolate all dissidents from the mainstream and frighten everyone else into remaining silent. It is always possible to find a few genuine crackpots; and, even though they will constitute less than one percent of the movement, they will be the ones selected by the media to represent the dissident viewpoint. A little bit of garbage can stink up the whole basket. In spite of that, responsible dissenters will still be heard. If they begin to attract a following, they will be arrested on charges of hindering the war effort, committing hate crimes, terrorism, tax evasion, investment fraud, credit-card fraud, child molestation, illegal possession of firearms, drug trafficking, money laundering, or anything else that will demonize them in the public mind. The mass media will uncritically report these charges, and the public will assume they are true. There is nothing quite so dramatic as watching someone on the evening news being thrown against the wall by a SWAT team and hauled off in handcuffs. TV viewers will assume that, surely, he must be guilty of something. His neighbors will shake their heads and say “… and he seemed like such a nice person.”
9. One of the few remaining obstacles to the New World Order is the Internet, because it allows the public to bypass the mass media and have access to unfiltered information and opinion. Therefore, the ninth prediction is that laws will be enacted to restrict the use of the Internet. Child pornography has long been the rallying cry to justify government control. Now, the specter of terrorism and money laundering will be added to the list. The real object will be to eliminate the voices of dissent.
Epilogue: The Public Safety and Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2001 automatically classifies any “cyber crime” as an act of “terrorism.”
10. The tenth prediction is that the war on terrorism will be dragged out over many years or decades. Like the war on drugs after which it is patterned, there will be no victory. That is because both of these wars are designed, not to be won, but to be waged. Their function is to sensitize the population with fear and indignation, to provide credible justification for the gradual expansion of government power and the consolidation of that power into the UN.
Epilogue: On October 21, 2001 (37 days after this prediction) General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “The fact that it could last several years, or many years, or maybe our lifetimes would not surprise me.”[30]
11. The eleventh prediction is that it will take a long time to locate Osama bin Laden. A TV reporter can casually interview him at his mountain stronghold, but the U.S. military and CIA – with legions of spies and Delta forces and high-tech orbiting satellites – they cannot find him. Why not? Because they do not want to find him. His image as a mastermind terrorist is necessary as a focus for American anger and patriotic fervor. If we are to wage war, there must be someone to personify the enemy. Bin Laden is useful in that role. Of course, if his continued evasion becomes too embarrassing, he will be killed in military action or captured – if he doesn’t take his own life first. Either way, that will not put the matter to rest, because bin Laden is not the cause of terrorism. He is not even the leader of terrorism. He is the icon of terrorism. If he were to be eliminated, someone else would only have to be found to take his place. So it is best to give each of them as much longevity as possible. That is why terrorists like Arrafat, Hussein, Qadhafi and Khomeini, not only are allowed to remain in power, but receive funding and military aid from the U.S. government. They are the best enemies money can buy.
If that sounds far-fetched, consider the words of Fareed Zakaria, former editor of Foreign Affairs, the official journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. (The goal of the CFR is the creation of world government, and virtually all U.S. foreign-policy planners – from the President on down – belong to it.) In the September 16, 1996, issue of Newsweek magazine, Zakaria said: “If Saddam Hussein did not exist, we would have to invent him. He is the Linchpin of American policy in the Mideast. … [The end of Hussein] would be the end of the anti-Saddam coalition. Nothing destroys an alliance like the disappearance of the enemy.” This issue will be covered in Chapter Five.
Epilogue: On November 15, 2001, USA Today reported: “Several hundred Army commandos have been posted at road blocks outside Kandahar to help prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from escaping. The U.S. soldiers are interviewing captured Taliban commanders and setting up surveillance gear, such as radar, heat detectors and cameras. … Teams of two to 12 men are searching abandoned caves, tunnels and buildings for maps, documents or computer disks that could lead to bin Laden, officials said. From the skies, pilots are using heat detectors to locate warm bodies in cold Afghan caves. CIA agents are using cash to bribe sources for information about bin Laden’s whereabouts, officials said.”[31]
On November 26, the first strong signal was given from the White House that, eventually, bin Laden might be replaced by Saddam Hussein as the media icon of terrorism. “Saddam is evil,” said President Bush, and he hinted that, after the conquest of Afghanistan, the war on terrorism may be carried to Iraq.[32] Meanwhile, bin Laden remains the preferred icon.
On December 19, 2001, USA Today reported: “One defense official claimed a bin Laden escape could benefit the war on terrorism because popular support for continued military action in other regions would remain strong.”[33] Please re-read that statement.
12. The twelfth prediction is that, when the Taliban is toppled in Afghanistan, a new government will be established by the UN. Like Kosovo before it, a so-called UN “peacekeeping” military force will remain behind, and the country will not be independent. There will be talk about how it will represent the Afghan people, but it will serve the agendas of the internationalists who will create it. The sad country will become just another pin on the map showing the location of yet one more UN province.
Epilogue: Even before the Taliban had been toppled in Afghanistan, the wheels were set in motion for a coalition government to be organized under UN supervision. On November 28, on the first day of the UN-sponsored negotiations to that end, representatives of the Northern Alliance agreed to most elements of the UN plan. Even at that early date, UN spokesmen announced that they intended to install a multi-national military force, under its control, after the fighting is over.[34] After nine days of negotiations, representatives of the various Afghan factions agreed to the UN blueprint. The agreement specifically specified a multinational “peacekeeping” force to be stationed in Kabul and provided for its future expansion into the rest of the country.[35]
On December 19, it was learned that a dozen countries were preparing to contribute military forces to a UN “peacekeeping” force in Afghanistan.[36]
13. The thirteenth prediction is that, while all this is going on, politicians will continue waving the American flag and giving lip service to traditional American sentiments in order to placate their constituency who must never be allowed to know that they are being delivered into slavery.
Yes, actions have consequences, and the long-range consequences of this act of terrorism are even more devastating than the loss of life and property that has been the focus of the media so far.
Behold the Grand Deception: The action is in the reaction. The war on terrorism is a war on freedom.
That is the end of Part One, as it will appear in The Freedom Manifesto. I cannot predict how long it will take to complete the remaining chapters, but I can tell you that I have made this a high priority project. If you would like to be notified when it is published, I suggest that you visit our web site and request to be added to the mailing list. If you are on line as you read this, click here to register. If you are not on line, then log on to our web site registration page at www.realityzone.com/ourcrusade.html.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
In the meantime, the crucial question is what can be done now, especially considering the lateness of the hour. This is where it can really get depressing. At the present time, there is nothing that men and women of good conscience can do to alter the forces of destruction that have been unleashed against them. As long as the nations of the world are controlled by politicians with a globalist and collectivist mindset; as long as they use every problem and crisis as an excuse to expand the power of government; as long as the great majority of our fellow passengers on this spaceship called Earth are unaware of these ploys, then absolutely nothing can be done. But notice I said “as long as.”
The “as-long-as” part of the equation contains two elements that underlie all of our problems: (1) We have put the wrong people into government and (2) the public has been denied vital information – which is why we put the wrong people into government. Therefore, any realistic plan for eliminating terrorism and recapturing freedom must have two objectives: (1) We must put the right people into government and (2) we must see that the public gets the information it has been denied. The political objective is important, but it cannot be reached without first achieving the educational objective, so that is where we must begin.
A WAY TO BYPASS THE MASS MEDIA
The first step is to mass distribute copies of this report. For that purpose, they now are available free from the Reality Zone web site. You can either print them from your computer to be used as handouts and envelope enclosures or you can send emails to your friends inviting them to visit the Reality Zone and read the report on line. That is so simple it can be done with a click of the mouse. At the bottom of the report is a form that reads: Send this report to a friend. While you are on line, you can enter the names of those you would like to read this report. The Reality Zone will do the rest.
I urge you to send this report to everyone you know. Everyone. Don’t worry about how they will react. Some have been so sheltered from reality that they will not be able to accept the validity of this information, no matter how much documentation is provided. After all, they are not getting any of this from the mass media. Besides, people don’t want to hear bad news. But, as events unfold and as the predictions become historical facts, our friends eventually will come on board.
It is my intent to make the Reality Zone a cyberspace information hub where people from all over the world can come for reliable information on the global crusade for freedom. In addition to this report, you will be able to get a printed transcript of the video documentary, No Place to Hide; The Strategy and Tactics of Terrorism. Many other items will be added as we expand. Anyone who wants to translate these materials into a language other than English is encouraged to do so and send it to us for posting. It is our goal to have the documents available in every major language of the world.
With the capacity to send electronic documents over the Internet, we finally have a way to bypass the mass media. Just imagine what would happen if everyone of the 5000 people on my email list would forward a copy of this Report to everyone on their email list. And then imagine that ten or fifteen percent of those would do the same. It would be theoretically possible to reach every person with an email address on the entire planet within a few months.
A GLOBAL FORCE FOR FREEDOM
This is no longer an issue just for Americans. It is now a global battle that cuts across all lines of nationality, race, religion, language, culture, economic status, and level of education. This is a battle in which we are all united by common cause. That includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Americans, Afghans, Iraqis, Russians, Chinese, Mexicans, Somalians, Croatians, Serbs, Australians, Canadians – literally everyone in the world who seeks freedom. I am not talking about governments. I am talking about people.
We must not be tricked into pitting Christians against Muslims or Muslims against Jews, or Jews against Christians, or any other combination of religion against religion. No matter how we may differ over theology, the one thing on which we agree is that it is God’s plan for all men to be free. That is our common cause, and that is the rallying cry that will bring millions into our ranks. We will not be able to defeat the global force of despotism without building a global counter-force for freedom.
We are now engaged in world War III, a war involving every nation and every human being on the planet. You and I are involved whether we like it or not. We cannot escape. There is no place to hide. The only question is when will we commit to battle. If we wait until there is no longer any controversy and all of our friends clearly see that the war on terrorism is a grand deception, then we will have waited too long. The time to step forward is now.
G. Edward Griffin
The following items relating to this report are available from The Reality Zone.
Free printed transcript of this report: www.realityzone.com/granddeception.html
Video documentary, No Place to Hide: www.realityzone.com/noplacetohide.html
Free transcript of No Place to Hide: www.realityzone.com/noplacetohide1.html
Video interview, The Hidden Agenda: http://www.realityzone.com/hiddenagenda.html
Audio version of The Hidden Agenda: Audio Archives Volume II – The Hidden Agenda
Reality Zone, P.O. Box 4646, Westlake Village, CA 91359
Web site home page: www.realityzone.com Telephone: (800) 595-6596
If you want to distribute copies of this report, the only restriction is that they must be given, not sold, and nothing may be added or deleted. The report must be printed in its entirety, including these comments. It may not be used to promote or imply my endorsement of any group, business venture, or individual without written permission.
End Of Report
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Endnotes
[1] Sun Tzu, The Art of War (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983), p. 18.
[2] Five days after I wrote these words, USA Today carried an eyewitness report from Pakistan echoing the same sentiment. It said: “In Pakistan this week, thousands have demonstrated. They’ve burned American flags, raised clenched fists, and held aloft banners telling the world what they think of the USA. One, written in English, asked a stunning question: ‘Americans, think! Why does the whole world hate you?’” See “Extremists’ hatred of U.S. has varied roots,” USA Today, Sept. 19, 2001, p. 1.
[3] The preceding historical synopsis is drawn from Will Durant, The Age of Faith, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), pp.155-174; also The Columbia Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, p. 1397; also “The World of Islam,” by Don Belt, National Geographic, Jan. 2002, pp. 76-85.
[4] Although the Dome of the Rock presently has a Muslim mosque built upon it, the Jews and Christians also regard it as a holy site. It is the location where, according to Scripture, Abraham was tested by God to see if he would obey God’s command, even to the extent of sacrificing his only son, Isaac.
[5] See http://www.abcnews.go.com, John Miller Interviews Bin Laden (May 1998), Sept. 27, 2001.
[6] By the end of the December, 2001, more civilians had been killed in the military action against Afghanistan than in the terrorist attack against the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon – and the war on terrorism was just beginning, we were told, soon to be taken to other countries. See “Afghanistan’s civilian deaths mount,” BBC News, Jan. 3, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1740000/1740538.stm.
[7] On October 10, 2001, Congressman Ron Paul introduced the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001, which would embody this proposal. So far, the bill has not received wide support.
[8] “Clinton’s bin Laden gaff,” The Australian Sunday Times, Jan. 7, 2002, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,3545934%5E2703,00.html.
[9] “FBI and US Spy Agents Say Bush Spiked bin Laden Probes before 11 September,” by Greg Palast, The Guardian, Nov. 7, 2001, http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=103.
[10] George Orwell, 1984 (New York: New American Library/Signet, 1949), pp. 153-164.
[11] Ibid., pp.15-17.
[12] The Hidden Agenda video is available from The Reality Zone, P.O. Box 4646, Westlake Village, CA 91359, phone (800) 595-6596 or from the Internet: www.realityzone.com.
[13] For an analysis of the authenticity of the Report from Iron Mountain, see Chapter 24 of the author’s The Creature from Jekyll Island; A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, 3rd edition (Westlake Village, California: American Media, 1998). Available from www.realityzone.com.
[14] Leonard Lewin, ed., Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace (New York: Dell Publishing, 1967). pp. 39, 81.
[15] Ibid., p. 9.
[16] Ibid., p. 44.
[17] Ibid., pp. 66-67, 70-71.
[18] “In this conflict, there is no neutral ground,” USA Today, Oct. 8, 2001, p. 5A.
[19] “Congress ready to pay the price to hit culprits,” by William M. Welch and Kathy Kiely, USA Today, Sept. 13, 2001, p. 5A.
[20] “Professors blame U.S. for terrorism,” by Jon Daugherty, WorldNetDaily.com, Article_ID=25137, Oct. 1, 2001.
[21] “Gorbachev: Anti-Terror Coalition Should Become Coalition for New World Order,” Associated Press, Oct. 20, 2001, FOXNews.com.
[22] “U.S., Russia to sharply cut arsenals,” by Laurence McQuillan, USA Today, Nov. 14, 2001, p. 1A.
[23] “Suspiciously timed bets against airlines expire today,” by Greg Farrell, USA Today, Oct. 19, 2001, p. 1B.
[24] “Inmate says he told FBI about danger to New York,” by Doris Bloodsworth, Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 6, 2002, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/seminole/orl-asecterror06010602jan06.story?coll=orl%sD.
[25] “New Federal Patriot Act Turns Retailers into Spies against Customers,” by Scott Bernard Nelson, The Boston Globe, www.bcentral.com, Nov. 20, 2001.
[26] Ottawa approach akin to Nazis, judge charges,” National Post, Nov. 9, 2001, p. A4.
[27] “Anti-terror law gives military too much power: experts,” by Ian Jack, National Post, www.nationalpost.com, Nov. 24, 2001.
[28] “FBI develops ‘Trojan horse’ software for better eavesdropping,” by Ted Bridis, AP, Sacramento Bee, www.sacbee.com, Nov. 21, 2001.
[29] “Keep Your Eye on the Target,” by the Honorable Ron Paul, Congressional Record, Nov. 29, 2001. (www.house.gov/congrec2001/cr112901.htm.)
[30] “U.S. war may last decades,” by Karen Masterson, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau, Oct. 21, 2001, HoustonChronicle.com.
[31] “Bin Laden hunt escalates as U.S. aid workers freed,” by Barbara Slavin, Jonathan Weisman and Jack Kelley, USA Today, Nov. 15, 2001, p. 1A.
[32] “Bush turns America’s fury towards Saddam,” by Stephen Robinson, News Telegraph, http://news.telegraph.co.uk, Nov. 26, 2001.
[33] “Bombs halted; search continues,” by Jonathan Weisman, USA Today, Dec. 19, 2001. p. 1A.
[34] “Deal near in Afghan talks,” by Elliot Blair Smith, USA Today, Nov. 28, 2001, p. 1-A.
[35] “Afghan factions sign landmark deal,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1692000/1692695.stm, Dec. 5, 2001.
[36] “Bombs halted,” op. cit.
© 2001 by G. Edward Griffin
Jorge Mario Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis I: White smoke from Sistine Chapel heralds shock decision to elect the first Latin American, first Jesuit and first Francis to lead world's (Catholics )
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/jorge-mario-bergoglio-becomes-pope-francis-i-white-smoke-from-sistine-chapel-heralds-shock-decision-to-elect-the-first-latin-american-first-jesuit-and-first-francis-to-lead-worlds-catholics-8532365.html
big trouble.. many books out there on the jesuits..
The Aragon Templar and the Rothschild Alliance
http://theunhivedmind.com/wordpress/?p=22640
Satanic Vatican - Full Length
flash back may 2012
21st Century Jesuit Wars: Pope’s American Empire & NATO to War on Shia Iran
http://www.vaticanassassins.org/21st-century-jesuit-wars-popes-american-empire-nato-to-war-on-shia-iran/
Joey the Rat steps down..
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who took office in 2005 following the death of his predecessor, said on Monday that he will resign on Feb. 28, the first pope to do so in six centuries.
me thinks the next pope will be the last ...
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Revelation-Chapter-17/
Prophecies of St. Malachy
Concerning Ireland
This prophecy, which is distinct from the prophecies attributed to St. Malachy concerning the popes, is to the effect that his beloved native isle would undergo at the hands of England oppression, persecution, and calamities of every kind, during a week of centuries; but that she would preserve her fidelity to God and to His Church amidst all her trials. At the end of seven centuries she would be delivered from her oppressors (or oppressions), who in their turn would be subjected to dreadful chastisements, and Catholic Ireland would be instrumental in bringing back the British nation to that Divine Faith which Protestant England had, during three hundred years, so rudely endeavoured to wrest from her. This prophecy is said to have been copied by the learned Dom Mabillon from an ancient manuscript preserved at Clairvaux, and transmitted by him to the martyred successor of Oliver Plunkett.
Concerning the Popes
The most famous and best known prophecies about the popes are those attributed to St. Malachy. In 1139 he went to Rome to give an account of the affairs of his diocese to the pope, Innocent II, who promised him two palliums for the metropolitan Sees of Armagh and Cashel. While at Rome, he received (according to the Abbé Cucherat) the strange vision of the future wherein was unfolded before his mind the long list of illustrious pontiffs who were to rule the Church until the end of time. The same author tells us that St. Malachy gave his manuscript to Innocent II to console him in the midst of his tribulations, and that the document remained unknown in the Roman Archives until its discovery in 1590 (Cucherat, "Proph. de la succession des papes", ch. xv). They were first published by Arnold de Wyon, and ever since there has been much discussion as to whether they are genuine predictions of St. Malachy or forgeries. The silence of 400 years on the part of so many learned authors who had written about the popes, and the silence of St. Bernard especially, who wrote the "Life of St. Malachy", is a strong argument against their authenticity, but it is not conclusive if we adopt Cucherat's theory that they were hidden in the Archives during those 400 years.
These short prophetical announcements, in number 112, indicate some noticeable trait of all future popes from Celestine II, who was elected in the year 1143, until the end of the world. They are enunciated under mystical titles. Those who have undertaken to interpret and explain these symbolical prophecies have succeeded in discovering some trait, allusion, point, or similitude in their application to the individual popes, either as to their country, their name, their coat of arms or insignia, their birth-place, their talent or learning, the title of their cardinalate, the dignities which they held etc. For example, the prophecy concerning Urban VIII is Lilium et Rosa (the lily and the rose); he was a native of Florence and on the arms of Florence figured a fleur-de-lis; he had three bees emblazoned on his escutcheon, and the bees gather honey from the lilies and roses. Again, the name accords often with some remarkable and rare circumstance in the pope's career; thus Peregrinus apostolicus (pilgrim pope), which designates Pius VI, appears to be verified by his journey when pope into Germany, by his long career as pope, and by his expatriation from Rome at the end of his pontificate. Those who have lived and followed the course of events in an intelligent manner during the pontificates of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X cannot fail to be impressed with the titles given to each by the prophecies of St. Malachy and their wonderful appropriateness: Crux de Cruce (Cross from a Cross) Pius IX; Lumen in caelo (Light in the Sky) Leo XIII; Ignis ardens (Burning Fire) Pius X. There is something more than coincidence in the designations given to these three popes so many hundred years before their time. We need not have recourse either to the family names, armorial bearings or cardinalatial titles, to see the fitness of their designations as given in the prophecies. The afflictions and crosses of Pius IX were more than fell to the lot of his predecessors; and the more aggravating of these crosses were brought on by the House of Savoy whose emblem was a cross. Leo XIII was a veritable luminary of the papacy. The present pope is truly a burning fire of zeal for the restoration of all things to Christ.
The last of these prophecies concerns the end of the world and is as follows: "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End." It has been noticed concerning Petrus Romanus, who according to St. Malachy's list is to be the last pope, that the prophecy does not say that no popes will intervene between him and his predecessor designated Gloria olivæ. It merely says that he is to be the last, so that we may suppose as many popes as we please before "Peter the Roman". Cornelius a Lapide refers to this prophecy in his commentary "On the Gospel of St. John" (C. xvi) and "On the Apocalypse" (cc. xvii-xx), and he endeavours to calculate according to it the remaining years of time.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12473a.htm
Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques
Being Used On The Public Today
The Battle For Your Mind
By Dick Sutphen
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=58649644
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Do all religions exist solely to control the actions of people, by controlling their thoughts?
Are all religions designed to erode the follower's connection to reality?
Does the encoding of various belief structures make it easier to control that group?
Can all religions be considered practicing sociocognitive warfare?
Men are disturbed not by things that happen
but by their opinions of the things that happen..
~ Epictetus ~
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions
are ever destroyed by their enemies
until they have been corrupted and weakened
by their friends..
~ Walter Lippmann ~ (1889-1974)
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it is also noted..
the free in spirit may post what leads them..
post away!!
Ordo Ab Chao..
Religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers
http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/thinkersonreligion/id9.html
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