Steven Vincent Johnson posted;
Vorts,
An article recently published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune written by Bill Moyers was brought to my attention. While not completely on topic, it is not exactly off topic
I really appreciate your bringing this to my attention. First of all, it's the Minneapolis Red Star and Communist Tribune, which as Dennis Prager http://www.dennisprager.com , says "is truly one of the worst newspapers in America."
I was so infuriated with what Moyers has to say that I wrote the following response.
Something else to consider: While Bill Moyers is not only an excellent journalist who has produced wonderful PBS programs like "Joseph Campbell and Power of Myth" (J. Campbell: 1904 - 1987, available at amazon.com), he is also an ordained Southern Baptist minister. Please keep this in mind when reading Mr. Moyers' essay:
For references check out:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=7158
Our local PBS station plays Power of Myth on a regular basis, it is apparently a big favorite with the liberals. Consequently I've watched a few minutes of it, I regard it as piece of New Age garbage. It figures that Moyers has a liberal Christian education. As Dennis Prager says, "some ideas are so stupid that only someone with an advanced degree could believe them."
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal.
It's Liberals who are delusional, see http://www.satinover.com , look around the good doctor's website and you will see a link to an article whose title is, Is Liberalism a Brain Disease?
It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Absolute power? what nonsense! First of all W is a liberal, who doesn't believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the only path to salvation. We haven't even begun to reverse the deleterious consequences of liberalism, and already they are squacking. I'm proud to say that I don't believe in separation of church and state. It is a legal fiction created out of whole cloth by an activist Supreme Court. America was a Christian Nation from it's founding until the liberals got control of the educational system. As Moyers notes, we are still minority to be reckoned with, but then we are on G-d's side.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality.
Even given the depth of the Liberal brainwashing which the rest of this article makes obvious, I find Moyer's reference to reality rather disingenuous. The Bible Code is proof of The Book's divine origin, Then there is the matter of eschatology, 75% of the verses which were prophetic at their writing came true, on time. The fulfillment of the remaining 25% won't convince a fool like Moyers either.
When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Hum, Moyer's pet brain disease, is an ideology which the deluded follow too, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Actually the trees will be burnt up during the Tribulation. While I regard protection of the environment as irrelevant, I am quick to point out that there are more trees now than ever before. If you truly desire that land should be preserved it should be in private hands, of course any kind of private ownership flies in the face of the liberal's ideology. The problem is the size of the human population. The more extreme followers of Moyer's ideology believe that the answer is reducing the population by 95%, which is no problem if you are among the surviving 5%.
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate.
They're still snickering at us, their brain disease is truly all pervasive.
That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
In case you haven't noticed, the world's condition continues to deteriorate. While we may come up with technological fixes, there is a group of people who believe that the World's condition would be made much better by reducing the population by 95% and setting themselves up as the dictators. They have the nucleus of this one world government ensconced in New York, complete with a Temple where all faiths are welcome, with one exception, those misguided individuals who worship Yahweh and believe in the inerrorancy of his Book. In my humble opinion, this nascent G-dless dictatorship, which would plant it's iron boot squarely on the neck of humanity it the greatest threat that we face.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
A gross over simplification, actually it's Gog of Magog who brings that army against Israel in that battle, but it's not bad for one sentence.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture.
Not accurate. The surviving Jews, one out of three, will accept Yeshua as the Moshiach, (Messiah). We hope that the rapture will occur at the beginning, or the middle of the Tribulation. This is a period of seven 360 day years, which begins with a peace treaty guaranteeing peace, and the safety of Israel.
True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
The proper term is transfigured. As for watching, I'm doing that now, after the transfiguration, I'm going to do my best to forget about this place.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
While I would love to push the button and bring about the Tribulation, it will happen in G-d's own good time.
That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I'm proud to be studying with a Rabbi who is on the board of the Temple Institute. A believer in Louisiana sent a herd of red cows to Israel, see sacrifice of the Red Heifer. We were also helpful in acquiring the 57 kilograms of gold required to fabricate the minorah for the Temple.
It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man."
Wrong, the release of those creatures will happen during the Tribulation. As for the war between Christian civilization and Islam, I believe that it is foretold in Ezekiel 35 and Obahiah, which is first mentioned in Genesis 25.
A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed --
If El Quida were to ask me about the wisdom of attacking us with atomics, I would advise against it. Their god has promised them victory however, and they are true believers too.
an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
Actually that is the beginning of the Tribulation.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
As the author mentions below, we believe that the ecosystem is divinely ordered and will continue to function as long as we are here.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election -- 231 legislators in total and more since the election -- are backed by the religious right.
How sweet it is!
Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.
I think that what Moyers says in the above paragraph is marvelous. I would have quoted from Hosea and Zechriah, too, but half a loaf is better than none.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true.
You can tell when the author is Biblically ignorant because they refer to The Revelation to St. John the Divine as Revelations.
Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks.
It's in the Bible Code. Ditto for the Atomic Catastrophe in 5766.
Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations,
I'm a regular listener to three of them.
or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations,
250, I only get four, that's the best reason I've heard to get a satellite system.
and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected,
While teachers are good, if you really want to understand prophecy, read The Book.
as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible?
The proper name for it is The Birth Pains of the Messiah.
Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture?
Maybe we should build a giant refrigeration system and refreeze the arctic. We can build orbiting power stations and beam the energy down in the form of microwaves, perhaps the beams of microwave energy can be used to stere hurricanes away from populated areas too.
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide.
exactly
One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece."
In spite of their doomsday predictions, there are more people now, and we are living better than ever before. This is a classic example of, what Dennis Prager says, "being liberal means never having to say you're sorry, or admit that you're wrong." America's history is filled with providential happenings, admitting that conflicts with the liberal ideology of course.
However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."
Humans have no right to question G-d's plan. This is especially true of humans who have a brain disease!
No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers."
The hymn's title is Battle Hymn of the Republic, doorknob!
He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.
So what? the opposing side did the same thing. They were as thick as fleas on a dog here in the ghetto, where there are lots of stupid people who don't know any better than to vote democrat. They succeeded in keeping Minnesota in the Blue column. It's a tribute to our liberal higher education system, which has produced generations of deluded fools. Part of the liberal mythos is that the Republican Party is the party of the rich. This is more delusional thinking, the rich are far more likely to support the democrats. George, the currency trader from hell, Sorros is a prime example of this. He would sooner see me starve in the street than give me a job, there is no finer example of an autocratic heathen bastard than George.
It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market?"I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."
That's what faith in a higher power if for stupid!
I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that -- it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.
I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:
* That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.
* That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
* That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.
* That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.
The above is politics. I don't like it, but having done my best to find an alternative source of energy, and watched numerous other researchers do the same, I've concluded that there is nothing I can do about it.
* That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.
Better we should get the oil from our Arab cousins.
I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million -- $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council -- to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.
Better they should live with bugs. While I'm no fan of the Chemical Industry, am I going to give up my rat poison or polymers, or gasoline so that I can go to work?, not a chance.
I read all this in the news.
I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
Ever heard about the undersea volcanos? Maybe we should get a boatload big rubber stoppers and stick them in the vents. Then there is the matter of the Sun. James McCanney www.jmcanneysicience.com , says that the Sun is being hit by rocks coming in at an angle orthogonal to the ecliptic. Coincident with the impacts are Sunspots and an increase in solar energy. You know what you can do about that if you don't like it, don't you? Not a damn thing!
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
People like Moyers worship the created rather than the creator. It is true that the politicians do all sorts of special deals for their supporters, it's called politics. Meanwhile the World's condition continues to deteriorate.
I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer -- pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."
Spoken like a true materialist with no real faith. People like Moyers are the reason that we Evangelicals left the main line protestant churches. Their churches are big and largely empty, most of the people have gray hair. Ours are small and crowded and filled with children.
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
Did you ever take microbiology? the bugs (microbes) overgrow the petri plate and poison themselves. Well the Earth is the petri plate, and we're the bugs.
What has happened to our moral imagination?
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
I see it feelingly.
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free -- not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma -- the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.
==========
Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
� Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
```````````````
