My x-Dominican nun friend and I also had interesting talks about sin and guilt. As a Latin-Greek linguist and biblical scholar, she said that the Bible has been mistranslated. And this, of course, would be “shot down” instantly by the religious right.
And then she made an interesting non-verbal statement about sin. Drawing a diagram for me of spokes on a wheel, she said “sin is relational”. All the spokes lead to the center, she pointed out. All it takes is one broken spoke on the wheel, and the connection with the center has been disrupted. It’s all about connecting with people and with God (For those of us who believe in that), is what she was pointing out. (And, in the case of our current political climate, it’s all about connecting with other nations).
And look at how the religious right refuses to connect with others. Because obviously, others are condemned to hell if they don’t follow their “moral” and “only” path. Further, they themselves are condemned if they associate with such hell-bound people. Snobbery and isolation in the name of God? Is this love? Is this what God wanted, if God exists? Isn’t this the basis on which many wars have been waged?
So here is more about the original meaning of the word “hell”. In the Greek original, she told me, hell meant the dump. Where you throw out the garbage, then incinerate it. After being burned to ashes, the remains are recycled back into earth. So they are purified, even transformed into something good. That was the original meaning of “hell” and the “Fires of hell“. It is not a spiritual place to punish sinners, nor is it a banner to wave manipulatively over peoples’ heads, as mistakenly done by the religious right. Once again, that is where denial of the fundamentalists’ own shadow, and denial of the reality that nobody is capable of being without some darkness, itself ends up breaking the spokes on the wheel.
It only makes sense that while acknowledging and learning from one’s shadow, compassionate understanding is the yield. Apparently, we actually need some of our darkness, as a teacher! And too much light can result in us striking out, and tip us back the other way. Too much light can actually cause evil, not enhance the good! So we need that shadow, in order to maintain balance and spiritual wellness.
What does this have to do with the current state of our politics? Everything. The misguided right believes it has the mission to instruct us all to be perfect. And guide us all to that perfection. As if they knew better than we ourselves, what our lives should look like and how they need to be lived by us. (A psychologist/friend once pointed out to me that Hitler himself was religious: His “work,” she said, was to purge the human race).
And that attitude is one of the ingredients in the greater recipe of what is driving the soul of America into censorship and control. The other parts of the recipe of course are greed, corruption by it and economic control. Add to this a good measure of protecting agendas (which are almost invariably based on economic self-gain). The combination of religious fundamentalism (denial of the shadow), economics and agendas are what influence the legislation which we now have. Fundamentally, and as the underpinnings thereof.
After all, the Patriot Act is wrapped up in such secrecy that even Congress and the ACLU don’t know the extent of the civil liberties abuses. By gagging recipients of National Security Letters (FBI subpoenas for private medical and Internet/phone records) and serving up a good five years in jail for telling even one’s Significant Other about it, nobody can possibly know what is really going on. Bypassing the Judiciary in the process of an individual FBI agent serving up these NSL summons, not even Congress hears about the individual cases. Strategically, another part of the Patriot Act is to loosely define “terrorism” to include dissenters, religious and peace groups in its sweep.
What is the purpose of such secrecy, as in the National Security Letters? And what is the purpose of dubbing activists, religious and peace groups as terrorists? Secrecy. And more secrecy. To protect economic agendas, such as fighting wars without end based on lies. And to protect the religious right, to assure its power and control over the nation. Without such religious programming, the ability to brainwash an entire nation of people is lost. And brainwashing is just what fascism is about, and brainwashing is just what this Administration is about. And that is why they control the media. That brainwashing, too, is why the media---and increasingly, common American life----is censored. And once again, the brainwashing itself is one centrally important strategy: To gather public support for economic and power-based agendas. Religious programming is one handy tool to effect such public brainwashing. As is, of course, religious programming designed to generate hate of a particular religion. And that, of course, is based on….economics and agendas. Just as we are seeing with the war on terror.
And that is why our Founding Fathers created a separation of church from state, and a system of checks and balances. Both are fundamental to preserving human freedom. Anytime the Government starts to control religious practice and belief, it is a step toward authoritarian government:
Just as in ancient Greece people were jailed and killed for expressing their beliefs, so there is a parallel in which Greek citizens were jailed during the 70s for singing songs exposing the Government malpractice. Just as in the Renaissance era the average citizen had to pay the Church a stipend, plus dish up a penalty equivalent to a full week’s salary for each week of church missed….just as Renaissance masses played tiddlywinks from Catholic to Protestant to whatever the current King/Queen’s accepted religion was….and while the People were caught in the dictatorial crossfire between obeying the religious orders of the Nobility vs. that of the Church, which often contradicted each other…Imagine the Renaissance composer William Byrd paying a full year’s salary because he missed one year of Church and had the nerve to practice his own religion of choice….so the current control coming from the Religious Right is undermining American freedom.
And contrary to popular belief, which would assert that “in America, it is not even nearly that bad”, the ACLU’s website is a-crawl with endless statistics of activists, peace and religious groups being dubbed and treated as terrorists:
A declassified FBI document on the ACLU’s website shows the FBI’s investigation of the Thomas Merton Peace Center “because of advocating, among other political positions, pacifism”. www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28000res20060314.html
Religious profiling of Middle Eastern and other religious groups are the norm. The purpose: Probably to protect the government agenda of “looking strong” in the war on terror, (more accurately known as the war OF terror). Even bird watchers are being repeatedly grilled by the agenda-crazed FBI: http://www.rightsmatter.org/multimedia/
"Since when did feeding the homeless become a terrorist activity?" asked ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights." http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/17548prs20050518.html
The agenda to protect politicians first and people last, as exact and fundamental opposite to the underpinnings of the Constitution, may be noted in the following link: News of the classified bulletin (about FBI crack-downs on dissent) also comes on the heels of an ACLU lawsuit against the Secret Service for the continuing practice of allowing pro-Bush protesters to remain visible to cameras during presidential appearances, and corralling anti-Bush protesters into pens or designated areas far from the media. http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/16960prs20031123.html
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