My Renditional Assessment of Religion

[Frances Morey]

Clarkson,
No, not hardly, never even set foot in a Baptist church until I attended a shape note sing fest in TomBall, TX. But churches were invented so we would have someplace to go on Sunday, someplace to have weddings, to find solace and take respite with others when things become unimaginably oppressive. The idea of religion is to hold up ideals of human behavior and interraction and give us such goals and place to get the hang of it. 
Then the schools began to function, as relief for parents, in socializing the young, and maybe teach them a thing or two while at it. Even later the state stepped in taking on the social service function and the church was left with not much to do. We all know, idleness is the devil's workshop. So the churches today are an empty shell of the functions it used to fill. 
The muslim world is the opposite, where church, state, commerce and family are all one. When asked who sponsored her education here in America one Saudi woman replied, "Well, the company," as if, who else? Duh.
I came to find out this meant the government, which is ubiquitously in charge of everything. So what, over here in our putative democracy, things hardly go the way a clear majority of us say we want when polled. Perhaps a monarchy is a slicker way to affect social change for the better, if the dynasty hasn't interbred too much for too long.
Churches eventually became the last bastion of where the transmission of culture takes place: teaching music, the support of the arts, choral singing, and dancing. Whoa, yeah, I was born and raised Catholic and we learned to appreciate dancing as a great way to show off our human capabilities for movement and rhythm, instead of a sin. 
Where things went wrong for Baptists is when some proudly uneducated umbrella "convention" decided that higher learning was no longer a necessary perequisite for preaching to a flock. Too bad.
Frances
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Clark Santos 
  To: Remembrances of Austin Ghetto ; survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 10:16 AM
  Subject: Re: Another Rendition


  Frances,
  You sure weren't born in the Baptist church, where it was an outright sin to shop anywhere but HEBs. Do you really think Christianity and religions were founded to save souls and get people closer to God. 
  Think how much more your car registration would cost without free license plates.

  EL PATRON 

  On Mar 9, 2005, at 1:12 AM, Frances Morey wrote:

  Ramsey,
  I'm scared, too. Just when we can't believe anything worse can happen, it does. I feel that the Know-Nothings led by the Neocons, rather than the christians, are the real weapons of our national destruction. It isn't christian to withhold stem cell research depriving countless people who would benefit from it. It isn't christian to incarcerate more people than any nation on earth! It isn't christian to run a government for the protection of the rich to the detriment of the majority of the populace, rejecting a hike in the minimum wage, which 60% of the voters favor, turning our nation into a mean spirited, angry, punitive and heartless place. That marijuana is cynically kept illegal because the war on drugs feeds the judicial-incarceration industry is another instance where 60% of the people favor decriminalization and the legislation does not reflect the opinion of the public, indeed, countermands it. Where's the democracy?
  The poor are getting poorer, and can't support their churches, so the "faith based" funding props them up, in exchange for delivering the vote. That ain't christian, it's an insidious plot to control the population as it squeezes them from middle class into poverty, while the rich bask in greedy triumph with tax cuts.
  Christianity hasn't sold out, the churches that cloak themselves in it have. There is a difference.
  From being on the road, Katfish reinforced what we tend to take for granted--that we live in a kind of rarified social hothouse here in Austin. Most of the country is the way he and Della found it and reported it to us. I don't feel so bad about not being able to travel. I'm just glad I can hang on here.
  Frances
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Ramsey Wiggins 
  To: GHETTO2 at LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 11:19 PM
  Subject: Re: Rendition

  Seems to me every time christians get a lot of power, people get burned at the stake -- to save their souls, of course. Power and rigid ideology produce ever more strenuous coercion every time they get together. If people dissent, more and more power is applied, ratcheting up the level of coercion to torture, mass imprisonments, and finally mass murder.

  We could also compare the republican putsch to Stalin, whose rise to power had a similar arc: a reform movement -- the russian revolution -- based on a rigid ideology, co-opted by a powerful psychopath and propped up by platitudes about the general welfare and fear of enemies without and within. By the time the secret police are disappearing people, the Stockholm syndrome sets in and everybody loves big brother.

  We need to start keeping track of one another. The way we carry on, it wouldn't surprise me if one of us woke up in an egyptian jail one day.

  Seriously.

  RW


  On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at 07:41 AM, Gerry wrote:


  Gonzales, the American hero poor boy who made it to the top, is lying through his big white teeth. Will this be his role now, apologist for war crimes? In the New Yorker there is a long, in-depth article on rendition and how since 9/11 the US has sent hundreds of prisoners abroad to be tortured. This practice is, perhaps, the most dastardly of all the practices engaged in by the Bushies and Rummy, including firing on unidentified vehicles occupied by Italian journalists. I guarantee the NY article will make your flesh crawl. Now they are denying it in spite of a ton of evidence to the contrary. War criminals, torturers, christians run amok. They are tainting all of us and digging such a deep hole we may not be able to crawl out of it in our lifetimes.
  G
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