Faith and Politics, and the Current situation. July 24: Who is the Victim? of what? .

Lebanon is the most obvious victim right now. Their national infrastructure is being destroyed, people are being killed, displaced, injured...

Israelis are also victims, hiding in shelters, facing the reality that their government is responsible for horrible actions, becoming the recipients of new levels of hate and contempt from billions around the world.

US citizens are also victims. They must watch helplessly as their "elected" leaders watch in silence as Israel destroys a nation. They watch in silence as the Lebanese people are victimized. They watch helplessly, knowing that the reason the US and the Bush administration is silently allowing Israel to pound Lebanon, destroying its infrastructure day after day is because there are neoconservatives at high levels in the US government, all appointed by Bush, who are hungrily, droolingly lusting to attack Syria and Iran. They want to continue their failed, irresponsible imperial campaign to express and make use of the full power of the USA, as the world's only superpower.

Who are the extremist religious fascists?

My evangelical friend warns me to be careful when I discuss born-again evangelicals, and he's right. There are millions of born again evangelicals who are quite rational. But then there are those who have bought the Bush Republican line hook, line and sinker. AND... they also buy the LEFT BEHIND rapture story. They're so excited and happy to see the increase in hostilities in the middle east, they're literally whooping for joy, giddily thrilled that they will be "raptured," taken up by the returning Messiah, along with all the other "believers" while the rest of the humans on the planet either suffer nasty deaths or are "left behind" in a kind of purgatory. Really, these people are struggling with the question of whether they should cancel vacation plans or plans to move, because the mideast crisis is getting hot enough so they will be "raptured" and won't need to travel. These people are HAPPY about the conflict. They Support Bush's hands off approach that allows the kettle to boil. These people make up a major part of Bush's remaining base.

Then there are the Israeli ultra-orthodox Jews. These folks have it pretty sweet. They get to push for a bigger Israel, for settlements in the occupied lands, for upping the conflict, and they are exempt from the draft that affects the rest of the Israelis. The theory is, their little boys are too precious because they are studying the torah, the hebrew version of the bible. I would love to see a few million US jews tell Israel to get rid of the grossly inequal and unfair law. Perhaps if these Israeli chickenhawks had to put their children in the same danger that the rest of the Israelis do, they might take a different tack.

Let's not forget the evangelical Shiite Islamic mullahs in Iran, who would love to see a Pan-Islamic middle east, with all the countries controlled by Islamic-- sharia-- laws. Bush's simple-minded approach to installing democracy in the middle east is not working, not when Islamofascists take this gift and turn around and use the opportunity to end democracy and turn the government into one based on Islamic law, like the taliban had. Iran loves the conflict in Lebanon.

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine real, lasting peace coming to the middle east while the religious extremists are still making their trouble.

I was talking an old friend who's Jewish. He was saying that there will NEVER be peace in the middle east. I replied that this idea, of a forever war in the middle east is unacceptable. that an Israel forever at war should not be. "But what about Iran," he asked. "What about the ultraorthodox Jews in Israel?" I replied.

Extremist fundamentalist religions are a dangerous threat to the planet. It is possible for fundamentalists to be enlightened, to practice their faiths without forcing their beliefs on others, to respect other faiths. I've met people who practice such faiths. Somehow, we need to come up with ways to enlighten the people of these extremist faiths so they no longer need to support war, killing, conflict and toxic evangelism. I don't have the answer, but this is a challenge I haven't heard discussed very often as a potential solution. We need to start exploring this option instead of bigger and better weapons.



Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, The art, science and power of story, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.

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Bull's Eye

If the evangelicals are so ecstatic about experiencing the rapture, they should travel to Haifa, stand in the middle of the street, bend over and paint a bull's eye on their butt. It won't take long.

by skyreader7 (0 articles, 32 comments) on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 6:06:29 AM

evangelicals who can't wait for the rapture

are cowards. They can't wait to be rescued from the normal stresses and vicissitudes of life.

by RobKall (203 articles, 85 comments) on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 6:23:25 AM

Spiritual immaturity and hypocricy

I live in the US for a long time and it is my sad opinion that in here most of the so- called religious extremists and fanatics do not really believe in their God. They are fanatics because they are a) really shallow people; and b) it suits their needs and interests. If tomorrow morning the NYSE would change its course, those folks would become moslem fundamentalists in a blink of an eye. So are the the so called Jewish fundamentalists. Even short acquaintenance with many of them reveals a 'Pentecostal Jew' that is a person who is totally ignorant, very shallow and extremely immature. That extreme spiritual immaturity is the one common feature of all such kind of pseudo-fundamentalists. They are full of shit.
Their believes are pseudo-believes because they are pseudo-people.

As for the people in the Middle East I would caution again for one reason only: our information here in the US is 99% wrong. So far I have not seen even one correct explanation even on such trivial topic as a difference between Sunni and Shii. Also our media deliberately and with malice conceals the fact that main Sunni people are not Arabs but Turkish. I would even say that the description of other people practiced by our 'experts' is based on their own attitude towards Christianity; as they know that we here imitate Christianity they think that other people are not sincere in their religious convictions either. It is not so.
Rob had listed many correct things but one thing which we here produce in abundance and spread around the world is the deadliest of all. It is hypocricy. We are soaked with it.
In fact, our everyday life here is so full of it that it becomes a part of the character. We live and die with it. And that makes us here the enemies of the world. No other nation has such a concentration of hypocricy now. And people see it, all people see it. And in their cultures it is common to destroy such individuals. That is why there will never be peace in those places which we touch. It is because of us. We deliver evil and then we, being afraid of the disclosure make sure that people cannot unite against us. Like the logical way in the Middle East would be a local treaty between all the local nations to have that area weapon- free and foreigner- free. But we will never let them do that. Because then they will unite against us.
So, the conglomerate of spiritual immature children in shorts send death to others and bask in hypocricy.

by panurg (2 articles, 387 comments) on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 6:50:29 AM

Add Shallowness and Spiritual Hubris Into the Mix

Spiritual immaturity, you hit the nail on the head. And while we are at it include shallowness and spiritual hubris in that they think theirs is the only true religion. As if all the great religions don't provide a way to God. They want to convince the world that if you don't believe in their religion, in their sect, then you will go to hell.

And then there are the hijackers of religion who are actually political extremists who use religion to justify violence. "God is on our side." Does any half way sane or educated person believe that any religion advocates violence?

It is religious provincialism at its worst.

Once the Dali Lama was interviewed and asked about what was missing in the world in that the world had become such a negative place.

His answer: warm heartedness.