52 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
52 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
Nuke ‘em for Christ
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<p>Pat Robertson, the same paragon of Christian virtue who has opined<br />
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in the past that Wiccans like me should be burned alive the way they<br />
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used to in the good old days, just created an interesting dilemma for<br />
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me by suggesting that the <a href='http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1521&u=/afp/20031009/pl_afp/us_diplomacy_threat_031009192152&printer=1'>State<br />
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Department should be nuked</a>.</p>
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<p>As a pagan anarchist, I’m completely uninterested in being<br />
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considered a paragon of Christian virtue. So I can admit to feeling a<br />
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sneaking sympathy with Robertson’s modest proposal. I mean, it<br />
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wouldn’t just be nuking the government, it would be nuking one of the<br />
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more repulsive parts of same. The BATF and DEA are certainly a<br />
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greater threat to liberty and happiness, but watching the Foggy Bottom<br />
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crowd compete to see who can pander most abjectly to “international<br />
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opinion” and a succession of enemies from the old Soviet Union to the<br />
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France of today has been pretty nauseating.</p>
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<p>But no. I have my own standards of virtue, and they don’t quite<br />
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stretch to vaporizing Foggy Bottom. Innocents (that is, persons who<br />
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are not causally implicated in the government’s normal practices of<br />
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coercion and fraud) could be harmed. Cleaning staff, visiting<br />
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children, that sort of thing. Shocking bad form to whack them, don’t<br />
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you know.</p>
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<p>Now. Seriously. I’ve taken some flak in the past for implying that<br />
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Christianity is just as vile and violence-prone a religion as Islam.<br />
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Pat Robertson has made this point for me before and doubtless will again.<br />
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Because, like Osama bin Laden, he <em>really believes</em>. He pays<br />
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attention to all the bits of the Bible and doctrine and history that<br />
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most so-called ‘Christians’ edit out — a maneuver that<br />
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makes them better human beings, but worse Christians.</p>
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<p>Christianity is sold as a “religion of love” but that is just as<br />
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bogus as calling Islam a “religion of peace”. What is far more<br />
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important and fundamental to both is eschatological dualism, which<br />
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Islam inherited through Mohammed’s roots in Monophysite Christianity.<br />
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(What? You didn’t know that Islam started life as a mildly schismatic<br />
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Christian sect? Yes, it’s true.)</p>
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<p>“Eschatological dualism” is fancy theologist-speak for the belief<br />
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that history consists of a titanic struggle between God and the Devil,<br />
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which will culminate at the end of time with a great sorting out — godly<br />
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obedient people to Heaven, sinners to Hell. Eschatological dualism<br />
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is the root of the “Kill them all, God will know his own” attitude that<br />
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has always been rather more characteristic of both religions than “peace”<br />
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or “love”. Pat and Osama, brothers under the skin, are squarely in that<br />
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grand old tradition.</p>
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<p>Christianity, fortunately for all of us, has become quite decadent<br />
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and weak these last 400 years or so — Robertson merely dreams of<br />
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smiting the Devil’s minions with Godly fire, rather than actually<br />
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incinerating 3000 people on a fine autumn morning. But it may take<br />
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another 400 before Christianity withers away sufficiently that my<br />
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descendants need not fear being burned at the stake by a charismatic<br />
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looney-tune like Robertson. Islam, 600 years younger, will probably<br />
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remain deadly for rather longer.</p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=106582824060943272">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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