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Increasing Difficulty In Avoiding The Word 'Conspiracy' When Dealing With American Christianity

I'll link to this for my own take on the topic. It is not happy.

For those who don't like polemic, the post's got two links to AlterNet in it. One is an article concerning the frightening proportion of American schools that use textbooks filled with propaganda that's not only very, very deep in the reality-denying end of the right-wing scale (such as claiming that environmentalists' only goal in discussing global warming is to destroy the economies of rich countries), but also extremely, and openly, Christian supremacist:

The A Beka civics text states, “God’s original purpose for government was to punish the evil and reward the good.” The same text describes the ideal form of government. “All governments are ordained by God, but none compare to government by God, theocracy.”

The second link is to a short piece I found via Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist blog. It's written by an ex-pastor who was educated at Liberty University; essentially, the kind of guy I personally (and I can't be alone in it) would call an enemy of human progress. This guy was kicked out of the church when he got a divorce, and after a short period selling cars went on a road trip around America. Seeing things for himself proved to him that nothing Liberty U. had told him was true - happy result all round. Guy gets kicked out over stupid arbitrary rule, looks at the world ...

Except for the scary part. He also takes a bit of his piece to talk about the religious right's plans for America. It's nothing short of the end of democracy, and the beginning of something that my own country hasn't seen since they stopped burning lonely old women and calling them witches:

They truly believe that if you have not been “saved,” you are living under a curse and are incapable of knowing what is best and that because of this you should be ruled over. You should also know they do not believe that even centuries-old Christian communities (Catholics, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, etc.) are “saved,” only those who think like they do.

That's what really frightens me. That, plus indoctrination at the school level - if this is a conspiracy (I still recoil from using the word, but what else can one call it if it's true?) then they're planning to make their move in a generation or two. A long time in politics, but demographically it's no time at all.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Aaron S. (USA) on May 30, 2011 at 12:18pm

On the bright side, most of this isn't anything new, I don't think - a lot of the things A Beka Book et al teach have been taught to schoolchildren in the USA since at least the mid-1800s. And, in my own personal experience growing up in a fundamentalist community that used these textbooks in their homeschools, about half of the kids will sooner or later figure out that it's all a sham and will at least convert to a more liberal religion. Then again, the other (roughly) half stick with it for the rest of their lives, which is the sad part.

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on May 30, 2011 at 12:44pm

What bothers me is that they've been doing it for so long - if that ex-pastor is to be believed - presicely because it'll create a receptive environment for their theocracy. And being fair, I can see what he means. It might just be me only paying attention to US politics for the last seven years or so, but I've never heard of any period in modern US history with a greater number of idiots calling for just such a government.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 30, 2011 at 1:17pm

It isn't really a conspiracy when it is a stated goal of a group.

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on May 30, 2011 at 2:24pm

I guess you're right on that one. Given how underhanded the bastards are being at it, it might arguably still fit the term. So what shall we call it?

I'll just copypasta a bit from the ex-pastor's article that illustrates what I mean.

"I want you to know that the fundamentalist political movement is the beginning of a cultural revolution that will take our nation to a very dark place. You have to understand that this has been methodically planned and is being carried out with the utmost vigilance. In accordance with their worldview, my old friends do not in the least care about what you think. They are against democracy, and they are seeking to end the rule of the majority in our great country."

If that's true - and I'd hope he has some evidence to back it up, but I can see why they wouldn't want to mention this shit in writing - then people better start pushing back. Hard.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 30, 2011 at 3:15pm

The philosophy they are open about says that citizens should not be given the rights to sin or not, for that makes the nation sinful. That is directly against freedom of speech, religion and democracy in general. Why else would they fight for the laws they do?

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't see their schemes to fundamentally change US government as going on in the dark, it seems right out in front to me.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on May 30, 2011 at 3:33pm

That's not what was meant about a 'dark place'. You pulled that one word out and applied it to a part of the statement that it wasn't referring to. The dark place is where we would end up if they were allowed to succeed ... like the dark ages.

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on May 30, 2011 at 4:25pm

Yeah, that'd basically be the Bad Ending for American society. Which is a pity, 'cause it was started as the most ambitious attempt at an enlightened society in human history up to that point.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 30, 2011 at 9:18pm

Dark place? I was responding to:

Given how underhanded the bastards are being at it, it might arguably still fit the term. So what shall we call it?

I used the term "going on in the dark" for underhanded. I wasn't referring to the quote that Mick was using.

Oh, discussion boards, where the lack of context makes stuff confusing that seems straight forward at the time.

Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on June 5, 2011 at 3:35pm