Straight (you should pardon the expression) from Rick Perry’s terminally ill campaign headquarters, comes this new video. It has earned a serious distinction: it is the most “disliked” video on YouTube. Yesterday, it had 30,000 “dislikes.” Today, that is up to 268,000 dislikes.
I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, “Are you going to start listening to me here?” Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.
Both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry, besides being contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, are believers in Dominionism. What it it? Bascially, it is a belief that Christians (and only Christians) should run institutions, governments, schools and businesses around the world.
Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing. But because it seems so outré, getting ordinary people to take it seriously can be difficult. Most writers, myself included, who explore it have been called paranoid. In a contemptuous 2006 First Things review of several books, including Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy, and my own Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era.”
Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.
– Robert Bentley, newly elected governor of Alabama, and apparently a Christian to the exclusion of others.
I assert that any religion that elevates its gods above others and declares that suffering is appropriate and due to some human beings is responsible for an enormous amount of suffering this world. At the same time that people are dying, for a purported “religious” leader to spout the outright nonsense shown below is very discouraging. Such statements contravene the normal, healthy human response of compassion for those beings suffering in despair, fear, sadness and grief.
Stop to think and feel for a moment. Is this your religion?
Compassion for all beings is noble and is part of the path to enlightenment, as well as a means for an end to suffering, for both you and others. Hatred and accusations of blame do not help anyone and hurt, most of all, the hater. As the Dalai Lama has said:
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
By the way, consistent with such hatred and contempt cited above, cast your mind back to the days immediately following the 9/11 attack. Two days following the attack we find Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell casting blame for the attacks on Americans ourselves. Their “god” could never be mine.
The pity is that those that believe and advocate such thoughts are hurting themselves more than others. On top of the suffering of those in Haiti, I despair at some reactions from those in positions of authority that cannot recognize a better way to face reality and help others at the same time.
Hume is incorrect, by the way. There is redemption in Buddhism. Bascially, the belief is that by living a proper life based on true compassion for all beings, coupled by proper practice leading to the realization of the interconnectedness of all things and the underlying reality of being, will lead to the redemption of all humans.
Traditionally, redemption was offered through “knowledge” (vidya) in the face of “ignorance” (avidya) which is entangled in the “cycle of incarnation” (samsara); but the Mahasanghika substituted “wisdom” (prajna) for knowledge. Furthermore they replaced the old ideal of the redeemed saint (arhat) with the Boddhisattva, who delays his own redemption in order to primarily lead others to salvation. The new ideal soon became popular. In the centuries that followed additional schools emerged from both of these doctrines.
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Thus, the main intention of Buddha is to open Buddha’s wisdom in all people, to understand it and to let them enter into it Herewith, even women and criminals, who were damned as insufficient beings prior to the Lotus Sutra, are granted the chance to fulfill their Buddhahood–they are also accorded the universal dignity of life. For this reason, the Lotus Sutra can be understood as a declaration of the dignity and equality of all human beings without exception.
From a modern point of view, the declaration of the Lotus Sutra is that all human beings, irrespective of differences in race, nationality, culture, religion and sex, are equipped with Buddhahood and equally able to develop their Buddhahood, the highest potential for happiness. Herein lies the reason for the pacifist attitude of the Buddhist, which opposes all forms of war and the killing of people. We consider this declaration to offer a basis for fundamental human rights.
Most citizens may be Christian. But there is no state religion in the country. In fact, the Constitution so provides. Christopher Hitchens takes on Ken Blackwell with ease.
