Murdering God: Of Shotguns, American Capitalism, and Moral Expediency »
Posted By jovial 3 months ago in NewsExperiencing decreasing levels of the comfort that ensures our loyalty to the criminal enterprise of American Capitalism, we "average" US Americans comprising the poor, working class, and rapidly shrinking middle class still revel in our relatively meaningless social freedoms.
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jovial
Grew up In Brooklyn. Joined the Navy in 1976 stayed in 10 years. Aircraft Electronics tech. Worked for Major Govt. contractor then settled in California ...
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jovial3 months ago
Before you read the accompanying story, I should warn you that the language is graphic. The message is one that gnaws at the inside of my being, every time I look at the news headlines. What is the definition of morality, and how does it it fit into the accounts of God and religion in America under capitalist imperialism?
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hyperbola3 months ago
Well jovial, I think what we are seeing is simply what happens in every military empire. The methods used against foreigners are eventually applied to the home population.
Given that foreigners have been experiencing our military imperialism for over a century, the rot is now very deeply rooted and a serious collapse of America may be required to reverse it.
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memestryker3 months ago
The news focuses on the negative and on whipping people up into an emotional frenzy. The hawks will be gone soon, and we'll have a different menu of sensationalism to choose from.
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earthlingerer3 months ago
It's painfully evident from the article that both parties, and yes, candidates also, are on the same bad side.
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obiefrommuskogee3 months ago
I disagree to some extent. People may be the same, but the Bush administration and RNC has removed the lid on unattractive behavior.
As long as I live, I'll never forget those fat RNC women wearing purple bandaids on their faces trying to dance at the RNC. And then smearing a soldier like Max Cleland.
It makes you want to be part of an alien race instead of the one that lives here now.
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DarkWizard3 months ago
Jovial,
Thank you for the invite and the article is very powerful in its description of our current status.
By allowing governments to be controlled by big business, our elected officials have sold America down the river. This is because big business lives by the capitalistic principle of bottom-line profits. Bottom-line profits have no soul and no conscious. God is truly dead when business and government exist for its own purpose and not for the good of humanity; as it does now.
Evil exists but is hard to identify because we have become willing participants in our own destruction and turn a blind eye away in denial.
Tomorrow will come and we will easily forget the reasons we are in such straits. We have met the enemy and it is us.
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antibrainwasher3 months ago
Indeed not, there is no God, only many gods. thousands of them, imaginary floating invisible men, some with many arms or sexual organs, all the product of tribalist story tellers. Thousands of gods invented just in the last hundred years, including my favorite, the god of sanctified pedophilia and pologimy, Mormonism, and the god of Science Fiction, Scientology.
there is only two gods which have over a billion farting breathing sneezing sighing humans groveling for their attention in hopes of obtaining a seat on the afterlife cloud, the baby jesus and mohammad. But gods chosen strand of DNA is jewish, and behold the zionists, were citizenship is based on DNA.
This current Iraq war is about DNA. Christians love the jewish DNA, Muslims want to eliminate it.
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memestryker3 months ago
abw,
Although Christians and Muslims are just mutations of the Jewish DNA combined with some other DNA that's just as potentially destructive.
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libsRfunny2 months, 4 weeks ago
"This current Iraq war is about DNA. Christians love the jewish DNA, Muslims want to eliminate it."
More blatant anti-Semitism from Propeller's most vocal racist.
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Poulenc3 months ago
Home truths within a tirade.
But perhaps a little too facile. The enemy is most always within. Which means that for most people, certain kinds of consciousness will be denied for as long as possible, if their recognition is likely to cause anxiety or pain.
But good to be reminded of the true state of the union. Always good.
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
One should also remember that Thomas Jefferson felt that the government would only last a few generations before becoming corrupted from "banking institutions" and "monied corporations", when "the blood of patriots" would need once again to be shed to throw off the bondage of tyranny. Smart man. At the time there was no standing army, so no military-industry-government collusion was even a constitutional reality. War is was and always will be a racket.
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antibrainwasher3 months ago
There is no evidence for any of the thousands of gods humans have invented.
There is ample evidence for the power controlled by the magicians conjuring up promices of an afterlife, sold to billions of people, both muslim and christian brainwashed gullible IDIOTS, incapable of rationality.
I got news for the 13 year old that wrote this whining article, the new billionaire globalist is NOT american. He is Chinese, and more ruthless and ambitious and unfettered by christian dogma or social concious.
The new super class of the richest most powerful agenda setting jet owning war starting elite are not bound by borders, like those defining the united states. They live in hotels in Dubai or Switzerland or Hong Kong, and they dont give a fart who or how they make their money, or who they have to enslave or kill to do it. The Saudi royal family has a private 100,000 man army to protect them from the regular Saudi Army. Trained and weaponed by 'merica.
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memestryker3 months ago
Did you see the special on Discovery about the ancient temples (of all kinds), especially in Athens, where multiple religions were practiced, and various feats of "magic" were conducted by religious leaders?
People were so uneducated that they could use basic chemical reactions and early mechanisms that relied on simple machines, heat, cold, wind, etc. to wow the masses!
Not much different today for many religions. And there are plenty of people who are easily led to commit heinous atrocities on behalf of their leaders.
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
They demonstrated how the artifacts were used to snow the "faithful".
Other than perhaps the Dalai Lama (http://www.dalailama.com/) no one on earth knows any more than YOU do about spiritual matters. Reverend Joe, Mullah McMahem, Cardinal Cuckoo,Bishop BooBoo and particularly preachers who go on TV are all men like you or me and have no more insight into the the cosmic muffin than you or I. It is perhaps human weakness that nudges people into following such men.
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Endoscopy3 months ago
WOW!! The Creator of the universe and the one who knows the end from the beginning can be killed by the relatively impotent people He created. The author is rehashing a 60's argument. Nothing new here. Simply garbage.
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antibrainwasher3 months ago
Try this Endo, try praying for a miricle or something mundane to a god, then try praying for a miricale or something mundane to a bottle of coca-cola. Pray the same amount of time, and compare the results.
I'll tell you what, put a rock on your desk and pray for it to move, both ways, get back to me if it moves, I'll convert, either to god or to coca-cola. My faith is strong but I need proof.
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
The "argument" goes back at least to Plato.
I think Newton's argument for gravity was a decent one, and that is older than the 60's! Most of the premises for any religion predate the 60's don't they? Endo, your argument here is weak and unsupported. You assume in your previous comments that everyone accepts the Paulist account of resurrection.
Frankly that is not a fact. It's not even a mythology embraced by much of the world.
(see the link)
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents...
As you can see, only about 33%. And certainly in polls about one's religion many people will respond with what is popular in their region, wishing for no aspersions to be cast.
Many adults fill out forms indicating membership in a church they haven't attended in decades. Why? Because they grew up in that church and because their family were members, so they still consider themselves members. "membership" in a Christian church doesn't require regular attendance or acceptance of its doctrines.
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libsRfunny2 months, 4 weeks ago
"I think Newton's argument for gravity was a decent one, and that is older than the 60's!"
I'm as big a non-believer and anti-religion as most anyone, but I have learned over the years to respect and appreciate people's beliefs so long as they do not bring harm to others.
As for Newton, he said there must be a god because the entire universe is subject to the same laws of physics. Newton isn't the only great scientist who also believed in a god...
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/scienc...
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sumptuousdigs3 months ago
Endoscopy (to look inside?)...Your Universe appears to be material. You seem to be fixated on manifesting the spiritual with materiality. I think your spirituality is immaterial.
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
The dyslexic believes dog created the universe.
No god is a man and no man is a god.
There is good and evil (god and devil = symbols), and it never ceases to amaze me how those who shout the loudest about their take on cosmic matters never fail to choose poorly between these 2 parameters. Religion is used to whip up support for the racket of the day by leaders of nations and movements, you can pretty much get people to defy their own logic, and best interest by convincing them dog is on "their" side. Of course dog, if indeed dog is an entity, and not the collective conscientiousness and/ or unconsciousness (wish hard enough and poof it's so), be on the side of any destruction, taking of life, harm, or enslavement? Is dog evil? perspiring minds want to know.
(Woody Allen once said of dog "If there is a god,he's not an evil god, just an underachiever".
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sumptuousdigs3 months ago
The debate about personal beliefs is not futile but very time consuming and wearisome. The better point for the nonce is the stark message the author sends:
That we, as a people, have lost all moral authority and have become slaves to our own comfort. At the cost of losing anything noble about our humanity, or for that matter, any sense of humanity. Our mission (as a nation), though draped in the mantle of good, has helped perpetuate evil.
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hefaa13 months ago
"Experiencing decreasing levels of the comfort that ensures our loyalty to the criminal enterprise of American Capitalism, we "average" US Americans comprising the poor, working class, and rapidly shrinking middle class still revel in our relatively meaningless social freedoms (we can say "****** you" to George Bush but can't even get our "elected representatives" to impeach him for his Nuremberg class war crimes) as the economic manacles and shackles of wage slavery clamp ever tighter about our wrists and ankles.
In pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, we sell our souls for a relative handful of economic crumbs from the table of the US power elite."
Bingo!
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SonOfTheMask3 months ago
So, cutting through the histrionics, the author thinks that America is in moral decline because we've "murdered God"? Because America murdered God, we are now making immoral decisions as a society? Is that how everyone else is interpreting this essay?
That's the message I'm taking away. Curious as to other people's thoughts...
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sumptuousdigs3 months ago
SOTM, that's my take, more or less. Except the cause and effect are reversed. We are making immoral decisions...thus killing our better nature. "What a piece of work is man..."?
Killer angels.
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months ago
I'm with sumptuousdigs in the interpretation. Immoral behavior and the God consciousness don't mix. Hence "murdering God.
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SonOfTheMask3 months ago
I hear what you're saying, sumptuousdigs, jovial, and rfe. I didn't communicate well enough what I meant. If you look further back in our history, you could easily point to immoral behavior at the society level (slavery, for example). However, there was far less secular and "religious in name only" folks in those earlier times. Clearly, immoral behavior has and does happen regardless of religion (some would argue, because of religion...).
My point is that the "modern era" saw the rise of secular humanism and the "post-modern era" is seeing that movement gaining strength. It is that period that the author seems to be addressing. Referring to Nietschke, etc., seems to put the focus on atheism and existentialism and the idea that morality itself is malleable and ultimately meaningless.
Which came first, chicken or egg? Immorality killed God or disbelief in God caused immorality? Don't know.
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jovial2 months, 4 weeks ago
The link to immorality is almost always returns to economics and the comforts we receive from it. Slavery is bad, it almost certainly had to be known by those who practiced it, but the fruits gained by doing it allowed them to ignore the callousness of it. When one deems their own comfort or good over God, then in essence like you said God becomes malleable. A perfect example of this is war. According to most Religions war is bad, but humans continue to have wars even in populations where the majority of the people consider themselves to be religious. It's not exactly secularism or existentialism that drives this in my opinion. Religion or secularism can be enslaved by capitalism. Capitalism can set it's own morality. Morality can affect Religion and secularism and round and round we go.
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SonOfTheMask2 months, 4 weeks ago
Capitalism ain't great...but it's a damn sight better than the alternatives, in my opinion. I don't believe in laissez-faire economics. The government has a role in regulating and defending against monopolistic power. As in most things, there is a balance and a healthy tension to be achieved. Unbridled capitalism is bad but so is over-regulation and planned economies.
So "no" to theocracy but "yes" to principle-based government.
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SonOfTheMask2 months, 4 weeks ago
That was my point, dio. Well, not the military empire thing, I don't agree at all with that comment. But the rest, yes my point was that even during the earlier history of the U.S. when it was arguably "more religious", there were still things happening that were immoral. The author seems to suggest that the U.S. is in a bad way now only because of the "death of God" and that is too simplistic.
Still, I do think, as did George Washington, that morality is rooted in religiosity and destroying religiosity is the surest way to destroy morality at both the personal and the national/societal level.
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tiredofwhiners2 months, 4 weeks ago
The premise that capitalism is a criminal enterprise is a scary take on our system of free enterprise and capital investment. True, it often brings out the worst in people. It is inherently greedy, but then almost all of you and I have a certain degree of greed because we are all human. Greed is why con men are successful in their scams on ordinary people. What would you replace capitalism with? Where do I go to see honest business and government that is successful? Maybe Iceland or Norway? God is to me irrelevant as I have my own beliefs and do respect others beliefs of a higher being. What is relevant to me is the moral decline I've seen in my 70 years. That is something you learn from your parents and upbringing at a young age.
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jovial2 months, 4 weeks ago
Not talking about replacing capitalism, but maybe putting the proper checks and balances on it. That's where it becomes sticky. Trying to determine what checks and balances preserve the morality of the system and preserve the profitability of it. What has happened in America is we are being told "hands off", corporations and businesses will regulate themselves. What really happens is greed overtakes them the corporation fails and the people get screwed. The Ceo's and other heads of the company just move to another company and do it all over again. BTW, capitalism isn't criminal. It bends and distorts morality. You may consider it criminal, but for most legitimate businesses it sometimes is done within the law.
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Radiofreeeuropa2 months, 4 weeks ago
SOTM brought up the truth of the matter, a corporation is not people and should certainly not be treated as a person beyond tax purposes. Never should they given MORE rights and privileges than a human being. A corporation has no heart and can not be treated as if it did, it has but one goal, make as much profit as possible. Anyone who believes otherwise is in lala land. There must always be some constraint and regulation. At least look at the anti trust laws that have been canned in recent times. The obvious truth is that corporations now write the laws of the land, and only value this land and it's citizens in terms of how it serves their profits. They will and have abandon any regard for this or any nation and it's people if it is profitable to do so. This is not an indictment of capitalism, but of unrestrained capitalism.
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