The result was that science, culture, and human rights — and even the exploration of any religious doctrine not authorized by Church authorities — were frozen for a “dark” thousand years…
The pseudo-Christian white Nationalist groups , by demanding everyone think and believe as they do have absolutely no support from God.
They are attempting to capture all of us for a return to their Dark Ages Cult.
We are not having it .
We must not dither about this .
Do not cast a single vote for anyone parading as a Christian when we know who they are.
We know who Donald Trump is .
If this is the best person they could come up with as an endorsed ( by them) not Christ, candidate , they are clearly pushing a lie. I don’t care how many people tell me that Donald has been ‘ changed by God’ ,
They are wrong .
Just listen to him.
He spreads hate and violence, mistrust and death of education, science, art medicine.
They want us to return to totally ignorant Darkness.
We are more malleable that way .
We need to reject every labored lie of these so called Christians.
Christian Nationalism fits in with Fascism because monarchies have always fancied themselves as anointed by God. Fascists want to reinstate kingdoms and monarchies, ultimately. Ever wanna be a serf?
If they in fact win and dominate, they will fracture and a religious war will ensue, between the cult of Rome and i's heretical offspring, Protestants. Protestant will form alliances and vie for dominance, and then square off against the cult of Rome for dominance of the nation.
It is not so much the reformation that brought an end to the religious war, but Henry VIII's break from Rome, following the creation of America and the spread of the post revolutionary French enlightenment. to America and then the world.
I can't help but recall the original Star Trek episode, in which the guy who was black on the left side was in eternal war with the guy who was black on the right side. If I remember, Kirk had to give up on them. There is a good argument for Star Trek being a font of wisdom.
Hear, hear! Too many Americans are ignorant of how restrictive church policy was during the Dark Ages. The accounts of the Holy Inquisition often expressed incredulity by the inquisitors at how gleefully peasants confessed to heretical teachings. They thought they were telling it correctly, but how would they know? They were preached at in Latin, a language none possessed and thus had almost no education. That didn't save them from the stake or the fire, of course.
The same thing happened in Islamic countries, once a hotbed of learning in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, economics and more. And, of course, later repressed by the clergy. Knowlege is toxic to religion and thus repressed. That's why in more educated countries such as those in Scandinavia, religion is dwindling. And it's why education is being attacked in Republican held states.
If you want to follow the teachings of Jesus you don't need a bible. If you want to do what is best the country you don't have to nit-pick every word in the constitution. Just do the right thing.
A few weeks ago, a commenter on Hartmann's substack recommended I read Christopher Hitchens's "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." I listened to the audiobook and then purchased the book so that I could follow up with some of the references and read some passages closely. I have to disagree with the late Hitchens that religion poisons everything, but many significant harms have been done in the name of religion. We need to be vigilant, as Thom has pointed out in today's article.
By the way, I recently finished Hartmann's audiobook from the Hidden History series on American Healthcare and also purchased the book as a resource. It's excellent, and I urge everyone to buy the book and or audiobook.
“If you want to follow the teachings of Jesus you don't need a bible. If you want to do what is best the country you don't have to nit-pick every word in the constitution. Just do the right thing.”… excellent comment Chris!!!
The teachings of Jesus are older than Jesus, Look to Krshna, Buddism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism- Hillel the Elder in The Babylonian Talmud , Jainism, Sikkism, and the basis of Christianity, Zorastrianism. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5852af6a579fb39b66b50478/t/5caf993c652dea8557e6a38a/1555011900715/The+Golden+Rule+Across+the+World.pdf
The Bhagavad Gita made a profound impression on Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing a "school" of religious philosophy still known as "American Transcendentalism" including Thoreau and "Walden Pond."
Agree, Chris. When I was teaching the school president said, "Don't do anything you wouldn't want on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper." Unfortunately a lot of people--mostly though not all Republicans--seem to have lost the ability to feel shame. This is especially so for those who avidly listen to The Donald, turn their brains off and agree with whatever nonsensical hate he spouts. It's like being in a cult where the leader is seen to be perfect! But I think worse than those unthinking followers are the ones who go along for their own gain. They know what they are doing is wrong and are the real enablers.
I agree Chris, except for following the teachings of Christ. The Bible is akin to a supermarket aisle, you pick and choose what chapters and verse you feel support your needs and assuage your fears.
Luke 19:27
But those mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.’”
Luke 22:36 Sell your cloak and buy a sword.
1Corinthians 14:34 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.
Gramted the last is by Saul of Tarsus, but it is stil holy scripture per Christians who use god as a sock puppet.
I humbly submit, don't throw the baby, etc.: The King James Book of John is particularly amazing in the face of the farce passing as MAGA religiosity now! There is a tragic irony about Islam, since it was the Arabs who preserved remnants of "Western Civilization" ie Greek and Roman roots now celebrated, when the European priests were burning it all. It was shocking to me when my Mom, Master-degreed from a prestigious institution, who had taken me, at age 10, to admire the Alhambra, Irving book in hand, bellowed "Kill them all!" at the TV in the run-up to the devastation of Iraq: "Bomb them back into the caves where they came from!" Not dementia. Just Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Fox.
I am a Christian and a liberal and an architect, hence a potentially gratifying target for the new Inquisitors. A long and deep secular education in a Quaker school, founded by an early Abolitionist family, and advanced Arts training allows me a fair platform to see what has evolved in the Supreme Court and the “Republican” Party and radical American Catholicism. It is zealotry of the worst and most venal pseudo-Christian kind.
I loved Jack Kennedy and admired his brothers, and I feel the same about President Biden, they were and are men of Faith who understood the necessity of limiting privately held religious belief at bay, if there was a conflict with their secular responsibilities in this Democracy. We can’t passively allow the Zealots any further purchase of political power in this country, and must recapture the areas of American life that have already been seized through deceit and obfuscation.
That necessity to recover generationally held rights is at the top of ticket in November.
Thank you for the thoughtful post, Donald. I admit, I do not consider true followers of Christ to be Christians. That is because I would not lump them in with those would burn people alive (after brutal torture), hung heretics (also after brutal torture) or who consider black people as simply a cursed tribe (Cain and Ham) who deserved to be enslaved, sadly a view shared by many Christians. I once overheard a fundamentalist colleague say to another, "It was God's choice to curse them; not my fault he ordained them to be inferior. and not my place to question God." There IS biblical support for slavery in the Bible.
Certainly the new Christian Nationalists will plunge us into an authoritarian nightmare. But their goal is to put us into their idea of a new golden age, replicating the imperial Christianity following the age of exploration. The Age of Reason brought us democracy and scientific inquiry, which the Christian imperialists have always detested.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte.
I have studied too much history to share the idea that religion is or even can be a force for good in the world, except in very limited situations that mostly have nothing to do with the religion itself, but the heroic actions of a few within that religion. Good people do not require religion to be good people. Thom, 1000 years of darkness is pretty telling as to what happens to people who embrace religion of any kind. Patriarchal religion (and they pretty much ALL are patriarchal) creates fearful people, indoctrinated as children, who then find comfort and escape from their (often religiously instilled) terrors on an individual level, while allowing enslavers (overt and covert) to set the rules and exploit them. That anyone could continue to support an institution that burned alive women, mostly widows or women who would not be docile slaves, or hung/strangled men as heretics is a triumph of human evil. Burning does seem to be one of religion's all time greats. The Hindus did it to widows, too, those who were considered superfluous after their owners/husband's deaths. Their own sons, those to whom they gave life, were the ones required to enforce widow-burning. Now, it is infrequent, but I have read Hindu scholars who will say it is only "a matter of time" before they are burned again.
Look at the immense wealth collected and held by the Catholic Church and the Protestant mega-churches. See hucksters tell us about God's commandments, while lasciviously watching their wives diddle the pool boy. Observe as, behind closed doors, they sexually molest or physical torture children. One can be a grifter or a mark within a religious system or one can simply (to the degree allowed by the religious rulers) abstain from stone-aged mythology used to control and enslave. That has been my path since I walked out of their churches for the last time as young adult.
When I hear people say, "Oh these Evangelicals/fundamentalist Catholics are not REAL Christians, I can only think, "Oh they are ABSOLUTELY real Christians, historically speaking. The fact that "not all" Christians behave in this manner does not negate the fact that their institutions frequently do.
Thank you Ms. coyote, as usual you are the lone voice which hits the mark.
"Anyone who can make you accept absurdities can make you commit atrocities" attributed to Voltaire.
Anyone who can believe there is a big daddy in the sky will eventually commit or look away from atrocities. The whole point of religion is to control human behavior. It is an extra-biological mechanism of human social control. Its greatest enemy is Democracy which is as an alternative mechanism.
My advice is for all believers to read the five proofs of God's existence in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. The greatest thinker in Christianity shows how all the proofs are faulty and unacceptable. I wonder how many Christians have read him and understand the vast implications of what that brilliant thinker said.
Well, yes, but he also said of women, "the female is a deficient and misbegotten male.” He believed we were necessary for procreation and nothing else as we are, in all ways, inferior. He also believed that all fertilized human eggs are meant to be male, but some disruption caused them to be those "misbegotten" males.
He put it thus: "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."
Suzie the opposite is true, the original state of humans and mammals was female, and we reproduced parthenogentically. I don't need science, to prove it look at nipples on the male, also look at YDNA, it really isn't a Y it is a truncated X, some segments were cut off the X chromosone, and instead of reproductive organs on the inside, the reproductive organs are on the outside,
I know you understand this, but Aquinas did not and he was informed first and foremost by the Bible, and secondarily by Aristotle, who frequently voiced the misogyny of his day.
The whole of the ancient world was patriarchal and thus misogynist. The Priests of Sumer, Akkadia and Babylon, would seek out the prettiest virgins, dress them in white, garland and perfume them, then rape them in private, and then make a big to do of sacrificing them to the god or gods.
Queen Hatsheput of Egypt pulled of one, an became the only female phaRAoh, but still had do cross dress and have a beard affixed to her statues.
Aristotle the first botanist, but it stopped there.
I do not accept that "the whole of the ancient world" has always been patriarchal, though the history of the "civilized world" as written by the men does seem so. Even today, anthropologists have a way of erasing female accomplishment. For example, while it was most likely women who domesticated dogs, by throwing them kitchen scraps, all credit is given to men in the most recent documentary I saw - it was all about dogs hunting with men, something that likely only happened after women domesticated those dogs. There was no mention of women's role. It was only about men. Erasure.
Also, recently (within the past few months) DNA analysis shows that Mayans sacrificed male children as well as female, at about the same age often from the same families (at least two sets of twins were found). Call me cynical, but I suspect politics at work with who got chosen as a gift to the gods. Piss off the wrong priest or other elite and tell your kids goodbye.
We have some clues, however, that pre-written records, patriarchy was far less prevalent. I've of late been studying Japanese spirituality (by no means an expert, or even what one would consider knowledgeable - only a smattering; perhaps someone here knows more.) But I was intrigued by this one thing. There were both male and female gods in ancient Japan's Shintoism. The chief deity and origin God was Ameratsu, a female. When the patriarchal version of Buddhism was made the state religion, the female gods genders were changed and they were given male names, their histories mostly erased.
"In 552 A.D the introduction of Buddhism from China would interfere with the Shinto dominated perception of women. According to Dr. Lebra and Joy Paulson, “The aspects of Buddhism which define its character had begun to make inroads on society’s attitude towards women.” This particular form of Buddhism that assimilated in Japan was immensely anti-feminine. Japan’s newfound Buddhism had fundamental convictions that women were of evil nature, which eventually led women into a submissive role of in Japanese society." ... "The anti-feminine tendencies of Buddhism redefined the role of women and continually progressed and regressed over a period of thirteen hundred years. There is an evident change of femininity and matriarchy at the dawn of Japanese civilization to the restricted and submissive women of the Tokugawa era that was “devoid of legal rights,” by the birth of modern Japan"
Japan still keeps an oral Shinto tradition and some of the female gods are still revered.
In the Middle East, the advent of Yahweh - father of all three "great" religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity was when it got really nasty. Yahweh was originally a Jewish war god. He was not the only god in the pantheon, but a special god for the Jewish people, later promoted to the all-seeing, omnipotent deity we have inherited today. Yahwism, in all its forms, is deeply tied to war.
Ms. Coyote, I am not defending or advocating for Aquinas, only recognizing his insightful logic and importance for Christians. I am an Atheist who studied Symbolic Logic under the great Irving Copi at the University of Michigan a lifetime ago. Copi was, I think, a non believing Jew. Aquinas' foolishness about other topics in no way detracts from his convincing logic about the idea of a god. Just as Euclid's and Pythagoras' foolish ideas about nature detract not at all from their timeless truths, without which there would be no mathematics as we understand it today.
I should say, however, there are real followers of Christ. These are few and far between and generally don't engage in systematic religious repression. I think of my mother, who fed the poor from her own table, though she had very little herself, and, at risk to herself, often sheltered the homeless from the brutal Kansas snow storms.
Ms. Coyote, your mother sounds like she was the kind of Christian friends I have admired, in my life, Amish and Seventh day Adventists. They seemed to be teaching me what they believed in by using their lives as examples.
My late father in law, Mac Harrington lived the same way. He could sometimes be difficult and forceful. But he too took into his farmhouse wandering poor people during the Great Depression. He gave them food, shelter from brutal Michigan winters, minimal pay, and the dignity of useful work, plus a good recommendation when they left. These people were Native American, Hispanic, Black, White or a combination of ethnicities. Mac didn't choose. Mac didn't care. One of those wanderers, a native Ojibway, George Le Galt, stayed for the rest of his life. My wife and I called him Uncle Georgie.
The Great Depression was an extraordinary test of the character of America, and it seems many passed! In San Francisco, my grandfather was a "high steel" man with work on the Golden Gate Bridge. He left crab traps out to pick up after work, but also had a cow, a goat, and chickens on a mini-farm at the crest of "Diamond Heights" next door to Twin Peaks. My mother told me how they helped neighbors and strays, and darn if there wasn't a mysterious "Uncle ------?" who lived with them after being injured working on the Bridge!
Thank you, Gerald, for your thoughtful reply. While under the influence of Southern Baptism, my mother could be physically abusive and emotionally cruel. She had been taught that children are evil and need to be whipped into godliness, though SHE was never whipped, by her own admission. There were many complicated factors involved and it has taken a lifetime for me to end my anger and find compassion, which is all I feel now. She had a hard, frightening life with little support. The scars remain, but the anger and blaming do not. But the anger I will always feel towards the Southern Baptist hierarchy is deep and righteous.
Ms. Coyote, Child rearing is a difficult process indeed. I have an old friend who once told me her son was "willful" and she was having a hard time "breaking his will." I was flabbergasted. Needless to say, as soon as her son graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in civil engineering [ he was always a smart, imaginative kid] he moved 2000 miles away to Denver and they rarely see each other. She suggested to him that she would like to buy a second home in Denver so she could be closer to him. He shot that down immediately. She is concerned because he has no wife and no children, only girl friends.
My friend is a deeply religious Christian. In every way she is a good and honest, kind-hearted person, a talented social worker. Her religion insists that the will of Man must be subordinated to the will of her Christian god.
As an Atheist, it never occurred to me that my childrens' will should be broken. I never raised my hand to them. Never tried to push them into anything. I always hoped the example of the lives of their mother and I would suffice. I think it worked. My daughter, a married mother and practicing attorney, lives four blocks from me. My son a medical researcher lives five miles away with his occasional beautiful lady friend and his large, handsome dog. I am lucky. I made out fine. So have my kids.
You are a good dad! No child needs to be hit. I remember a phone call when my mother insisted I "break my daughter's will" after she acted out some childhood issue (non-violent and harmed only herself.) I was so aghast I just held the receiver to my ear, unable to respond. Everything came into sharp focus at that moment. The one thing fundamentalists and people in prison have in common is that, in the vast majority of cases, both were whipped as children.
My kids have lived near me the whole of their lives. My daughter just accepted a position to grow within her company that does require relocation. She's a great mom, but her 16-year old son doesn't want to move. So he's living with me for now. It's no big deal to us; we're a clan, not an isolated nuclear family.
Ms. Coyote, all the Anthropological evidence seems to indicate that the extended family is more beneficial to children than the isolated nuclear family. It sounds as though you have spontaneous, gut level understanding of this truth.
Acutely accurate, absolutely necessary. As someone baptized Roman Catholic, an atheist for over fifty years starting my senior year in high school m and a convert to Greek Orthodoxy at age 70, I support the clearest separation of church and state, as does the Greek Orthodox Church in America, our priests do not preach politics from the pulpit and can’t even vote. Our church fully supports science; indeed, our current national Archbishop’s first encyclical was one warning of the threat of human-induced climate change. Our emphasis is on free will; to us, enforced religion is an oxymoron, and we acknowledge there may be other paths to God than our own. Our parish pastor recently told a group of Sunday School students during a Divine Liturgy service that our faith could be summed up in five words: “Love God and love people”.
Part of my conversion was the realization that I had lived a very Christian life without the label. That makes me even more dismayed and disgusted at the so-called Christian nationalists, whose beliefs are a veritable cornucopia of oxymorons measured against what Christ taught and who he was as set forth in the Gospel. Like the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages and even today, these people would prefer that people not read the Bible for themselves, especially the four gospels. Rather, they would have them believe the characterization of the Bible,e spewing forth from their huckster “evangelical” fundamentalist carnie barkers. They are greater enemies of Christianity than any atheist I know.
As a Christian myself now, in the oldest of Christian churches, I find these people deep,y offensive. They would take away my rights as an American and a Greek Orthodox Christian if they had the power. I must oppose them with all that I can. To quote Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, “Hier stehe Ich; Ich kann nicht anders.”
To vote blue is to be both truly American and truly Christian. To vote red is to be neither.
Interesting! My mother was raised Southern Baptist and had the mindset that accompanies this. She also converted to Greek Orthodoxy later in life and it completely changed her for the better.
This is an important factor that is rarely given any emphasis in our education system.
The Catholic Church not only burned books, but also, by passive aggression, prohibited the reading and copying of pagan – i.e. Greek – manuscripts so they deteriorated completely. All Greek learning was lost to Europe.
But as Europe went into the dark ages, Islam entered its golden age based on Greek ideas. That age ended also because of domination by the clergy. On one hand, the introduction of the Madrasah schools at which only the Koran was taught because that’s was all the average person needed for their salvation. And then leading influencer, Al-Ghazali, forbade the reading of Greek manuscripts except for specially trained mullahs. So the Greek manuscripts were preserved just kept out of circulation.
Then, after the conquest of Toledo, Western scholars discovered the Greek manuscripts that had been preserved by Islam. These were brought to Florence and Cambridge and were the seeds for the Renaissance.
Curiously, as if the two civilizations were on a seesaw, as Europe rose from throwing off the repression of learning by Christianity (for policies that had nothing to do with the teachings of its founder, it should be noted), Islam sank into its dark age.
Both religions of faith, not facts. I graduated from public high school without ever having to spell the word agnostic once or what it was or what it meant! I am anagnostic!!!, @$#🤬🤬🤬*#@, I never heard of Plato or Utopia or moderation either 🤬🤬. Phony Christians, you can't live with them but you can live without them!
The Dark Ages didn't go away. The practices of persecution, book banning, and shaming never went anywhere. We only need to look at what the Catholics have done to indigenous people around the world. They tortured children here and in Canada far into the 20th Century; the bodies are still being unearthed to this day.
Organized religion up-ended my childhood in a horrible way. Elders tried to use me when they excommunicated my mother. Hateful. Rotten. Men.
The Bible is written by men for men. The Koran? The Torah? Buddhism? Hinduism? No updates folks; they are still in the Dark Ages about women. Thankfully not all men believe this rot! No wonder regarding religion young people are choosing to say hell no!
WE deserve better than the Republicans' archaic way of thinking, especially about women's bodies and health care. Keep calling them out, Thom, and we will help you.
Only recently, through reading history, was I made aware of the Catholic church’s primary role in the Dark ages. Their backward views completely stunted all progress for almost 1000 years. How many centuries did it take them to apologize to Galileo! And even in the 20th century they were at it, arguing against Einstein’s revolutionary findings. Religion should stay OUT of science. Although raised Catholic I have recently happily resigned from the church.
Conservatism and religious fundamentalism are essentially two flavors of the same mental disorder. For both, the cruelty is the point. They both fetishize human suffering. Trickle down economics, disinvestment in health and human services, crumbling infrastructure, LGBTQ exclusion, racism, overturning Roe, etc. Dark Ages indeed.
The right would like to believe that conservatives would error on the side of caution and not reckless abandon! But lunatics can't tell the difference between the two of them. The right just choose to believe whatever they want to believe.
We can believe anything we want to believe, but if it is not true it is worthless though.
Seems to me the new “ Religion “ in America is to worship the $ . Adams said,
“ But when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable power.”
The corporate elite have enlisted their lobbyists and , more recently, just bags of cash to free themselves from rules that prevent their natural inclinations to monopolize. The list of restraints they have removed is long and , by analogy, is there much of a difference between the dark ages brought on by powerful religious interests
or the poverty of the people brought on by the Almighty Dollar?
Sorry but I can't seem to restrain myself from pointing out an oxymoron when I see one. " the seven deadly sins in Christianity and Islam are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth." (Wikipedia)
Notice that one first on the list" proud christian." Like I said , can't help myself.
Key to understanding the functions of any religion is the absolutism aspect of their enterprise. No challenge can exist because of the complete imperialism of a presented Supreme Being. Members are locked into a servitude obeisance automatically. A ruler that cannot be doubted on any level. Total submission. All religions tend to grow exponentially into evil bent because of the complete control factor that becomes necessary to uphold that servitude. To take the whole of religion and plot it, and take the whole of fascism and plot it, and then overlay those plots, you will find a near complete match. Fascism makes the same demand for complete compliance that religions do. Absolutism! Only the fascists call their supplanted, substituted God tyrant, dictator, or on the individual tribal corporate level, CEO. It is a rational observation to recognize that a coup to establish fascism and an explosion of unchecked religious fervor for complete control go hand-in-hand. To save this country from both, both must be fought against as one.
Freemasonry is not a religion although some lodges require a belief in a supreme being but not any specific religion.
It is eclectic in that there should be a ‘volume of the sacred law’ at every lodge meeting. But that book can be from any religion. For example, there are Jewish lodges that use the Torah. And any religious book could be used. In India it could be the Bhagavad Gita. So, while the Masons accept Christianity, they accept all religions. They believe in the separation of church and state.
The concept of ‘civil religion’ suggests that a pervasive, nonsectarian understanding of morality and transcendence sacralizes the nation-state, the polity, and the history and destiny of a society.
In 1787 US all lodges were blue lodges.
There are divisions. The "York" rite is exclusively Protestant. The "Scottish rite" is nonpartisan. But at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the texts and symbols are consistent.
What was called Deism in the 18th Century, housed people who would be called atheists today, as in those days there were only deists and satanists, it was a Manichean world.
I believe it is urgently imperative to the survival of humanity, and quite possibly life itself, that today - August 5, 2024 - be the day we humans denounce theocracy in any and all forms. Religious states are an illegitimate body of authority using the guise of divinity as a facade of governance. We literally will not continue as a species if we continue to treat theocratic dictatorships as normal features of civilization. It really is that simple.
The pseudo-Christian white Nationalist groups , by demanding everyone think and believe as they do have absolutely no support from God.
They are attempting to capture all of us for a return to their Dark Ages Cult.
We are not having it .
We must not dither about this .
Do not cast a single vote for anyone parading as a Christian when we know who they are.
We know who Donald Trump is .
If this is the best person they could come up with as an endorsed ( by them) not Christ, candidate , they are clearly pushing a lie. I don’t care how many people tell me that Donald has been ‘ changed by God’ ,
They are wrong .
Just listen to him.
He spreads hate and violence, mistrust and death of education, science, art medicine.
They want us to return to totally ignorant Darkness.
We are more malleable that way .
We need to reject every labored lie of these so called Christians.
Christian Nationalism fits in with Fascism because monarchies have always fancied themselves as anointed by God. Fascists want to reinstate kingdoms and monarchies, ultimately. Ever wanna be a serf?
Not signing up today !
Patricia… excellent commentary
If they in fact win and dominate, they will fracture and a religious war will ensue, between the cult of Rome and i's heretical offspring, Protestants. Protestant will form alliances and vie for dominance, and then square off against the cult of Rome for dominance of the nation.
It is not so much the reformation that brought an end to the religious war, but Henry VIII's break from Rome, following the creation of America and the spread of the post revolutionary French enlightenment. to America and then the world.
While the Protestants and the Catholics are going toe to toe, Americans will be easy prey. We may all end up being slaves!
I can't help but recall the original Star Trek episode, in which the guy who was black on the left side was in eternal war with the guy who was black on the right side. If I remember, Kirk had to give up on them. There is a good argument for Star Trek being a font of wisdom.
I was going to add a comment. However; I thought better of it after reading MS. Lanes post. Thank you MS. Lane well put.
Hear, hear! Too many Americans are ignorant of how restrictive church policy was during the Dark Ages. The accounts of the Holy Inquisition often expressed incredulity by the inquisitors at how gleefully peasants confessed to heretical teachings. They thought they were telling it correctly, but how would they know? They were preached at in Latin, a language none possessed and thus had almost no education. That didn't save them from the stake or the fire, of course.
The 2025 planners probably think that the Spanish Inquisition was the "good old days".
I'm sure Alito and Thomas are pouring over 17th century texts to find a way to make witch-burning a constitutional "religious freedom."
Holy Originalism.
Bingo Paul, Bingo
The same thing happened in Islamic countries, once a hotbed of learning in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, economics and more. And, of course, later repressed by the clergy. Knowlege is toxic to religion and thus repressed. That's why in more educated countries such as those in Scandinavia, religion is dwindling. And it's why education is being attacked in Republican held states.
If you want to follow the teachings of Jesus you don't need a bible. If you want to do what is best the country you don't have to nit-pick every word in the constitution. Just do the right thing.
A few weeks ago, a commenter on Hartmann's substack recommended I read Christopher Hitchens's "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." I listened to the audiobook and then purchased the book so that I could follow up with some of the references and read some passages closely. I have to disagree with the late Hitchens that religion poisons everything, but many significant harms have been done in the name of religion. We need to be vigilant, as Thom has pointed out in today's article.
By the way, I recently finished Hartmann's audiobook from the Hidden History series on American Healthcare and also purchased the book as a resource. It's excellent, and I urge everyone to buy the book and or audiobook.
“If you want to follow the teachings of Jesus you don't need a bible. If you want to do what is best the country you don't have to nit-pick every word in the constitution. Just do the right thing.”… excellent comment Chris!!!
The teachings of Jesus are older than Jesus, Look to Krshna, Buddism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism- Hillel the Elder in The Babylonian Talmud , Jainism, Sikkism, and the basis of Christianity, Zorastrianism. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5852af6a579fb39b66b50478/t/5caf993c652dea8557e6a38a/1555011900715/The+Golden+Rule+Across+the+World.pdf
The Bhagavad Gita made a profound impression on Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing a "school" of religious philosophy still known as "American Transcendentalism" including Thoreau and "Walden Pond."
Agree, Chris. When I was teaching the school president said, "Don't do anything you wouldn't want on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper." Unfortunately a lot of people--mostly though not all Republicans--seem to have lost the ability to feel shame. This is especially so for those who avidly listen to The Donald, turn their brains off and agree with whatever nonsensical hate he spouts. It's like being in a cult where the leader is seen to be perfect! But I think worse than those unthinking followers are the ones who go along for their own gain. They know what they are doing is wrong and are the real enablers.
like every repulicant congressperson
I agree Chris, except for following the teachings of Christ. The Bible is akin to a supermarket aisle, you pick and choose what chapters and verse you feel support your needs and assuage your fears.
Luke 19:27
But those mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.’”
Luke 22:36 Sell your cloak and buy a sword.
1Corinthians 14:34 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.
Gramted the last is by Saul of Tarsus, but it is stil holy scripture per Christians who use god as a sock puppet.
I humbly submit, don't throw the baby, etc.: The King James Book of John is particularly amazing in the face of the farce passing as MAGA religiosity now! There is a tragic irony about Islam, since it was the Arabs who preserved remnants of "Western Civilization" ie Greek and Roman roots now celebrated, when the European priests were burning it all. It was shocking to me when my Mom, Master-degreed from a prestigious institution, who had taken me, at age 10, to admire the Alhambra, Irving book in hand, bellowed "Kill them all!" at the TV in the run-up to the devastation of Iraq: "Bomb them back into the caves where they came from!" Not dementia. Just Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Fox.
I am a Christian and a liberal and an architect, hence a potentially gratifying target for the new Inquisitors. A long and deep secular education in a Quaker school, founded by an early Abolitionist family, and advanced Arts training allows me a fair platform to see what has evolved in the Supreme Court and the “Republican” Party and radical American Catholicism. It is zealotry of the worst and most venal pseudo-Christian kind.
I loved Jack Kennedy and admired his brothers, and I feel the same about President Biden, they were and are men of Faith who understood the necessity of limiting privately held religious belief at bay, if there was a conflict with their secular responsibilities in this Democracy. We can’t passively allow the Zealots any further purchase of political power in this country, and must recapture the areas of American life that have already been seized through deceit and obfuscation.
That necessity to recover generationally held rights is at the top of ticket in November.
Thank you for the thoughtful post, Donald. I admit, I do not consider true followers of Christ to be Christians. That is because I would not lump them in with those would burn people alive (after brutal torture), hung heretics (also after brutal torture) or who consider black people as simply a cursed tribe (Cain and Ham) who deserved to be enslaved, sadly a view shared by many Christians. I once overheard a fundamentalist colleague say to another, "It was God's choice to curse them; not my fault he ordained them to be inferior. and not my place to question God." There IS biblical support for slavery in the Bible.
Certainly the new Christian Nationalists will plunge us into an authoritarian nightmare. But their goal is to put us into their idea of a new golden age, replicating the imperial Christianity following the age of exploration. The Age of Reason brought us democracy and scientific inquiry, which the Christian imperialists have always detested.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte.
I have studied too much history to share the idea that religion is or even can be a force for good in the world, except in very limited situations that mostly have nothing to do with the religion itself, but the heroic actions of a few within that religion. Good people do not require religion to be good people. Thom, 1000 years of darkness is pretty telling as to what happens to people who embrace religion of any kind. Patriarchal religion (and they pretty much ALL are patriarchal) creates fearful people, indoctrinated as children, who then find comfort and escape from their (often religiously instilled) terrors on an individual level, while allowing enslavers (overt and covert) to set the rules and exploit them. That anyone could continue to support an institution that burned alive women, mostly widows or women who would not be docile slaves, or hung/strangled men as heretics is a triumph of human evil. Burning does seem to be one of religion's all time greats. The Hindus did it to widows, too, those who were considered superfluous after their owners/husband's deaths. Their own sons, those to whom they gave life, were the ones required to enforce widow-burning. Now, it is infrequent, but I have read Hindu scholars who will say it is only "a matter of time" before they are burned again.
Look at the immense wealth collected and held by the Catholic Church and the Protestant mega-churches. See hucksters tell us about God's commandments, while lasciviously watching their wives diddle the pool boy. Observe as, behind closed doors, they sexually molest or physical torture children. One can be a grifter or a mark within a religious system or one can simply (to the degree allowed by the religious rulers) abstain from stone-aged mythology used to control and enslave. That has been my path since I walked out of their churches for the last time as young adult.
When I hear people say, "Oh these Evangelicals/fundamentalist Catholics are not REAL Christians, I can only think, "Oh they are ABSOLUTELY real Christians, historically speaking. The fact that "not all" Christians behave in this manner does not negate the fact that their institutions frequently do.
Thank you Ms. coyote, as usual you are the lone voice which hits the mark.
"Anyone who can make you accept absurdities can make you commit atrocities" attributed to Voltaire.
Anyone who can believe there is a big daddy in the sky will eventually commit or look away from atrocities. The whole point of religion is to control human behavior. It is an extra-biological mechanism of human social control. Its greatest enemy is Democracy which is as an alternative mechanism.
My advice is for all believers to read the five proofs of God's existence in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. The greatest thinker in Christianity shows how all the proofs are faulty and unacceptable. I wonder how many Christians have read him and understand the vast implications of what that brilliant thinker said.
Well, yes, but he also said of women, "the female is a deficient and misbegotten male.” He believed we were necessary for procreation and nothing else as we are, in all ways, inferior. He also believed that all fertilized human eggs are meant to be male, but some disruption caused them to be those "misbegotten" males.
He put it thus: "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."
Suzie the opposite is true, the original state of humans and mammals was female, and we reproduced parthenogentically. I don't need science, to prove it look at nipples on the male, also look at YDNA, it really isn't a Y it is a truncated X, some segments were cut off the X chromosone, and instead of reproductive organs on the inside, the reproductive organs are on the outside,
I know you understand this, but Aquinas did not and he was informed first and foremost by the Bible, and secondarily by Aristotle, who frequently voiced the misogyny of his day.
Wish I could like! Count this.
The whole of the ancient world was patriarchal and thus misogynist. The Priests of Sumer, Akkadia and Babylon, would seek out the prettiest virgins, dress them in white, garland and perfume them, then rape them in private, and then make a big to do of sacrificing them to the god or gods.
Queen Hatsheput of Egypt pulled of one, an became the only female phaRAoh, but still had do cross dress and have a beard affixed to her statues.
Aristotle the first botanist, but it stopped there.
Six things that Aristotle got wrong. No 1 is Women are monstrouos, and in keeping with Aristotle the cult of Rome has carried through, the church loved Aristotle. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/6-things-aristotle-got-wr_b_5920840
he also believe that the speed of an object was proportional to its weight and that heavy objects fell faster than light objects.
I do not accept that "the whole of the ancient world" has always been patriarchal, though the history of the "civilized world" as written by the men does seem so. Even today, anthropologists have a way of erasing female accomplishment. For example, while it was most likely women who domesticated dogs, by throwing them kitchen scraps, all credit is given to men in the most recent documentary I saw - it was all about dogs hunting with men, something that likely only happened after women domesticated those dogs. There was no mention of women's role. It was only about men. Erasure.
Also, recently (within the past few months) DNA analysis shows that Mayans sacrificed male children as well as female, at about the same age often from the same families (at least two sets of twins were found). Call me cynical, but I suspect politics at work with who got chosen as a gift to the gods. Piss off the wrong priest or other elite and tell your kids goodbye.
We have some clues, however, that pre-written records, patriarchy was far less prevalent. I've of late been studying Japanese spirituality (by no means an expert, or even what one would consider knowledgeable - only a smattering; perhaps someone here knows more.) But I was intrigued by this one thing. There were both male and female gods in ancient Japan's Shintoism. The chief deity and origin God was Ameratsu, a female. When the patriarchal version of Buddhism was made the state religion, the female gods genders were changed and they were given male names, their histories mostly erased.
"In 552 A.D the introduction of Buddhism from China would interfere with the Shinto dominated perception of women. According to Dr. Lebra and Joy Paulson, “The aspects of Buddhism which define its character had begun to make inroads on society’s attitude towards women.” This particular form of Buddhism that assimilated in Japan was immensely anti-feminine. Japan’s newfound Buddhism had fundamental convictions that women were of evil nature, which eventually led women into a submissive role of in Japanese society." ... "The anti-feminine tendencies of Buddhism redefined the role of women and continually progressed and regressed over a period of thirteen hundred years. There is an evident change of femininity and matriarchy at the dawn of Japanese civilization to the restricted and submissive women of the Tokugawa era that was “devoid of legal rights,” by the birth of modern Japan"
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/286/women-in-ancient-japan-from-matriarchal-antiquity-to-acquiescent-confinement
Japan still keeps an oral Shinto tradition and some of the female gods are still revered.
In the Middle East, the advent of Yahweh - father of all three "great" religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity was when it got really nasty. Yahweh was originally a Jewish war god. He was not the only god in the pantheon, but a special god for the Jewish people, later promoted to the all-seeing, omnipotent deity we have inherited today. Yahwism, in all its forms, is deeply tied to war.
Thanks Suzie! I know Aquinas is a problematic figure if one is female, but I would not have been able to quote!
Ms. Coyote, I am not defending or advocating for Aquinas, only recognizing his insightful logic and importance for Christians. I am an Atheist who studied Symbolic Logic under the great Irving Copi at the University of Michigan a lifetime ago. Copi was, I think, a non believing Jew. Aquinas' foolishness about other topics in no way detracts from his convincing logic about the idea of a god. Just as Euclid's and Pythagoras' foolish ideas about nature detract not at all from their timeless truths, without which there would be no mathematics as we understand it today.
I don't believe you are being defense. I do believe that female voices have been wiped out of educational institutions.
A thunderous standing applause Suzie, well said, well said.
I should say, however, there are real followers of Christ. These are few and far between and generally don't engage in systematic religious repression. I think of my mother, who fed the poor from her own table, though she had very little herself, and, at risk to herself, often sheltered the homeless from the brutal Kansas snow storms.
Ms. Coyote, your mother sounds like she was the kind of Christian friends I have admired, in my life, Amish and Seventh day Adventists. They seemed to be teaching me what they believed in by using their lives as examples.
My late father in law, Mac Harrington lived the same way. He could sometimes be difficult and forceful. But he too took into his farmhouse wandering poor people during the Great Depression. He gave them food, shelter from brutal Michigan winters, minimal pay, and the dignity of useful work, plus a good recommendation when they left. These people were Native American, Hispanic, Black, White or a combination of ethnicities. Mac didn't choose. Mac didn't care. One of those wanderers, a native Ojibway, George Le Galt, stayed for the rest of his life. My wife and I called him Uncle Georgie.
Mac was an Atheist.
The Great Depression was an extraordinary test of the character of America, and it seems many passed! In San Francisco, my grandfather was a "high steel" man with work on the Golden Gate Bridge. He left crab traps out to pick up after work, but also had a cow, a goat, and chickens on a mini-farm at the crest of "Diamond Heights" next door to Twin Peaks. My mother told me how they helped neighbors and strays, and darn if there wasn't a mysterious "Uncle ------?" who lived with them after being injured working on the Bridge!
Thank you, Gerald, for your thoughtful reply. While under the influence of Southern Baptism, my mother could be physically abusive and emotionally cruel. She had been taught that children are evil and need to be whipped into godliness, though SHE was never whipped, by her own admission. There were many complicated factors involved and it has taken a lifetime for me to end my anger and find compassion, which is all I feel now. She had a hard, frightening life with little support. The scars remain, but the anger and blaming do not. But the anger I will always feel towards the Southern Baptist hierarchy is deep and righteous.
Ms. Coyote, Child rearing is a difficult process indeed. I have an old friend who once told me her son was "willful" and she was having a hard time "breaking his will." I was flabbergasted. Needless to say, as soon as her son graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in civil engineering [ he was always a smart, imaginative kid] he moved 2000 miles away to Denver and they rarely see each other. She suggested to him that she would like to buy a second home in Denver so she could be closer to him. He shot that down immediately. She is concerned because he has no wife and no children, only girl friends.
My friend is a deeply religious Christian. In every way she is a good and honest, kind-hearted person, a talented social worker. Her religion insists that the will of Man must be subordinated to the will of her Christian god.
As an Atheist, it never occurred to me that my childrens' will should be broken. I never raised my hand to them. Never tried to push them into anything. I always hoped the example of the lives of their mother and I would suffice. I think it worked. My daughter, a married mother and practicing attorney, lives four blocks from me. My son a medical researcher lives five miles away with his occasional beautiful lady friend and his large, handsome dog. I am lucky. I made out fine. So have my kids.
You are a good dad! No child needs to be hit. I remember a phone call when my mother insisted I "break my daughter's will" after she acted out some childhood issue (non-violent and harmed only herself.) I was so aghast I just held the receiver to my ear, unable to respond. Everything came into sharp focus at that moment. The one thing fundamentalists and people in prison have in common is that, in the vast majority of cases, both were whipped as children.
My kids have lived near me the whole of their lives. My daughter just accepted a position to grow within her company that does require relocation. She's a great mom, but her 16-year old son doesn't want to move. So he's living with me for now. It's no big deal to us; we're a clan, not an isolated nuclear family.
Ms. Coyote, all the Anthropological evidence seems to indicate that the extended family is more beneficial to children than the isolated nuclear family. It sounds as though you have spontaneous, gut level understanding of this truth.
Acutely accurate, absolutely necessary. As someone baptized Roman Catholic, an atheist for over fifty years starting my senior year in high school m and a convert to Greek Orthodoxy at age 70, I support the clearest separation of church and state, as does the Greek Orthodox Church in America, our priests do not preach politics from the pulpit and can’t even vote. Our church fully supports science; indeed, our current national Archbishop’s first encyclical was one warning of the threat of human-induced climate change. Our emphasis is on free will; to us, enforced religion is an oxymoron, and we acknowledge there may be other paths to God than our own. Our parish pastor recently told a group of Sunday School students during a Divine Liturgy service that our faith could be summed up in five words: “Love God and love people”.
Part of my conversion was the realization that I had lived a very Christian life without the label. That makes me even more dismayed and disgusted at the so-called Christian nationalists, whose beliefs are a veritable cornucopia of oxymorons measured against what Christ taught and who he was as set forth in the Gospel. Like the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages and even today, these people would prefer that people not read the Bible for themselves, especially the four gospels. Rather, they would have them believe the characterization of the Bible,e spewing forth from their huckster “evangelical” fundamentalist carnie barkers. They are greater enemies of Christianity than any atheist I know.
As a Christian myself now, in the oldest of Christian churches, I find these people deep,y offensive. They would take away my rights as an American and a Greek Orthodox Christian if they had the power. I must oppose them with all that I can. To quote Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, “Hier stehe Ich; Ich kann nicht anders.”
To vote blue is to be both truly American and truly Christian. To vote red is to be neither.
Interesting! My mother was raised Southern Baptist and had the mindset that accompanies this. She also converted to Greek Orthodoxy later in life and it completely changed her for the better.
Well if they won't let us use the magic mushrooms on the cult, we need to persuade the cult to change to Greek orthodoxy then!
This is an important factor that is rarely given any emphasis in our education system.
The Catholic Church not only burned books, but also, by passive aggression, prohibited the reading and copying of pagan – i.e. Greek – manuscripts so they deteriorated completely. All Greek learning was lost to Europe.
But as Europe went into the dark ages, Islam entered its golden age based on Greek ideas. That age ended also because of domination by the clergy. On one hand, the introduction of the Madrasah schools at which only the Koran was taught because that’s was all the average person needed for their salvation. And then leading influencer, Al-Ghazali, forbade the reading of Greek manuscripts except for specially trained mullahs. So the Greek manuscripts were preserved just kept out of circulation.
Then, after the conquest of Toledo, Western scholars discovered the Greek manuscripts that had been preserved by Islam. These were brought to Florence and Cambridge and were the seeds for the Renaissance.
Curiously, as if the two civilizations were on a seesaw, as Europe rose from throwing off the repression of learning by Christianity (for policies that had nothing to do with the teachings of its founder, it should be noted), Islam sank into its dark age.
Both religions of faith, not facts. I graduated from public high school without ever having to spell the word agnostic once or what it was or what it meant! I am anagnostic!!!, @$#🤬🤬🤬*#@, I never heard of Plato or Utopia or moderation either 🤬🤬. Phony Christians, you can't live with them but you can live without them!
Same experience here.
Oh if only!
The Dark Ages didn't go away. The practices of persecution, book banning, and shaming never went anywhere. We only need to look at what the Catholics have done to indigenous people around the world. They tortured children here and in Canada far into the 20th Century; the bodies are still being unearthed to this day.
Organized religion up-ended my childhood in a horrible way. Elders tried to use me when they excommunicated my mother. Hateful. Rotten. Men.
The Bible is written by men for men. The Koran? The Torah? Buddhism? Hinduism? No updates folks; they are still in the Dark Ages about women. Thankfully not all men believe this rot! No wonder regarding religion young people are choosing to say hell no!
WE deserve better than the Republicans' archaic way of thinking, especially about women's bodies and health care. Keep calling them out, Thom, and we will help you.
The family unit and religions that require faith have stopped the evolution of the human race, so they never will go away unless we exorcise them!
Only recently, through reading history, was I made aware of the Catholic church’s primary role in the Dark ages. Their backward views completely stunted all progress for almost 1000 years. How many centuries did it take them to apologize to Galileo! And even in the 20th century they were at it, arguing against Einstein’s revolutionary findings. Religion should stay OUT of science. Although raised Catholic I have recently happily resigned from the church.
They still hate Darwin!
Conservatism and religious fundamentalism are essentially two flavors of the same mental disorder. For both, the cruelty is the point. They both fetishize human suffering. Trickle down economics, disinvestment in health and human services, crumbling infrastructure, LGBTQ exclusion, racism, overturning Roe, etc. Dark Ages indeed.
The right would like to believe that conservatives would error on the side of caution and not reckless abandon! But lunatics can't tell the difference between the two of them. The right just choose to believe whatever they want to believe.
We can believe anything we want to believe, but if it is not true it is worthless though.
Seems to me the new “ Religion “ in America is to worship the $ . Adams said,
“ But when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable power.”
The corporate elite have enlisted their lobbyists and , more recently, just bags of cash to free themselves from rules that prevent their natural inclinations to monopolize. The list of restraints they have removed is long and , by analogy, is there much of a difference between the dark ages brought on by powerful religious interests
or the poverty of the people brought on by the Almighty Dollar?
Unlimited greed, "capitalism", and God do not mix!
Sorry but I can't seem to restrain myself from pointing out an oxymoron when I see one. " the seven deadly sins in Christianity and Islam are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth." (Wikipedia)
Notice that one first on the list" proud christian." Like I said , can't help myself.
They missed lying.
Key to understanding the functions of any religion is the absolutism aspect of their enterprise. No challenge can exist because of the complete imperialism of a presented Supreme Being. Members are locked into a servitude obeisance automatically. A ruler that cannot be doubted on any level. Total submission. All religions tend to grow exponentially into evil bent because of the complete control factor that becomes necessary to uphold that servitude. To take the whole of religion and plot it, and take the whole of fascism and plot it, and then overlay those plots, you will find a near complete match. Fascism makes the same demand for complete compliance that religions do. Absolutism! Only the fascists call their supplanted, substituted God tyrant, dictator, or on the individual tribal corporate level, CEO. It is a rational observation to recognize that a coup to establish fascism and an explosion of unchecked religious fervor for complete control go hand-in-hand. To save this country from both, both must be fought against as one.
Wow Gerald, an excellent exposition I read it and the words Islam, Southern Baptist, Catholicism flashed before my eyes. The worst of the worst.
As I have reported previously, many if not most of the founders were Freemasons who espoused "civil religion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry https://www.jstor.org/stable/3510655
I wonder whether any MAGA are Masons?
Onward Christian soldiers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-I2nK0qRQ
Freemasonry is not a religion although some lodges require a belief in a supreme being but not any specific religion.
It is eclectic in that there should be a ‘volume of the sacred law’ at every lodge meeting. But that book can be from any religion. For example, there are Jewish lodges that use the Torah. And any religious book could be used. In India it could be the Bhagavad Gita. So, while the Masons accept Christianity, they accept all religions. They believe in the separation of church and state.
The separation of church and state is essential.
But, unfortunately, not a reality.
The concept of ‘civil religion’ suggests that a pervasive, nonsectarian understanding of morality and transcendence sacralizes the nation-state, the polity, and the history and destiny of a society.
In 1787 US all lodges were blue lodges.
There are divisions. The "York" rite is exclusively Protestant. The "Scottish rite" is nonpartisan. But at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the texts and symbols are consistent.
Masonry and Deism were also similar.
What was called Deism in the 18th Century, housed people who would be called atheists today, as in those days there were only deists and satanists, it was a Manichean world.
AA calls out to a higher power, and you can choose your own. I choose the fan overhead.
I choose the truth, and if there is no truth, there is also no God!
I believe it is urgently imperative to the survival of humanity, and quite possibly life itself, that today - August 5, 2024 - be the day we humans denounce theocracy in any and all forms. Religious states are an illegitimate body of authority using the guise of divinity as a facade of governance. We literally will not continue as a species if we continue to treat theocratic dictatorships as normal features of civilization. It really is that simple.