The New Dark Ages.

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Angry mobs are roaming the streets of New York City threatening and attacking a group that plans to use a building as a community center for American Muslims. The media is promoting this mob attack. The politicians are either silent, refusing to defend the American citizens who are being subject to the mob violence, or they speak out against the American citizens and talk about them like they have no rights in this country. Or some even just say flat out that the Muslims should go somewhere else. It's like a replay of the white flight hysteria in this country when the courts began ruling that a home seller could not refuse to sell to a black family. "They should go somewhere else," the angry white mobs screamed.

What is the lesson here? Both major political parties and all wings of them, from left to right, and the entire government (with the noted exception of President Obama) demand that an American citizen must swear an oath of allegiance to Christianity or its cousin religion Judaism. Those are the only two religions that are acceptable. Islam don't make the cut. It's a "foreign" religion. "Our" national religion is either christianity or Judaism.

Why would the government force Americans to become Christians as a condition to enjoying the rights of a citizen? Such as the right to build a community center, and to associate with others at that center? Those rights are being denied to one group of Americans, which consists of people who have not yet taken the oath to Christianity or Judiasm.

We have entered a new period of the dark ages. Our government is acting as the destructive force. We did not need invaders from other countries to tear down our nation and burn the books, destroy learning, because our government is doing it on behalf of multinational corporations. They have already taken away many of our jobs and sent them to foreign countries, an act which should land them all in prison. They have manipulated the stock market and created asset bubbles and crashes, repeatedly, to the point that they have succeeded in stealing much of the wealth and savings, retirement, college funds, of most people in this country. They are in the process of eliminating Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, and public education.

They are firing teachers and chaining children to tables inside cubicles where they will sit and look at a computer screen presumably filled with images created by monsters who seek to devour the world like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, the Bush Boys, Rupert Murdoch and his fanatical Muslim Saudi prince financier. They are eliminating all rights of women to control their own reproductive decisions, and have struck down laws intended to give women equal rights in the nation. Now they are forbidding scientists from doing research to try to cure diseases, ruling that only "Christian" scientists can do faith-based research, apparently praying for a cure.

Most kids watch hours of TV every day, inside and outside of school. Most adults, if being honest, would list "watch TV" when asked what they do in their free time. What is the purpose of promoting images flashed on a screen to an audience, instead of promoting reading, writing, discussion, and literacy? That's what's going on in this country, in and out of the schools. Don't read or write, just show movies, make movies. What is the effect on the brain of only being exposed to images? A failure to learn the skill of critical thinking. Images only promote acceptance: it is, I see it. It's a limited form of thinking. Reading and writing requires the use of an entirely different part of the brain which requires us to weigh information, sort through, decide what is relevant, what is truthful or not, make decisions, put together an idea, then learn going forward whether our process was flawed or was solid. Watching images and listening to noise, like on TV, not only does not teach critical thinking, it actually numbs the part of the brain that would do it. Perhaps that part atrophies over time.

Why would our government and both political parties try to make us stupid? Easier to manipulate. What about the demand that all citizens must swear allegiance to Christianity or Judaism as a condition to enjoying basic civil rights? What's the purpose of that? How does that fit into this picture?

Religion promotes a magical and mythical way of looking at the world, childlike, a belief that we individuals have no power, have no right to try to figure out what is right or wrong, have no ability to change anything because God is in charge, and have no responsibility to ever make an effort. Remember that airplane in Pennsylvania (which some say was shot down by the U.S.) which crashed in a field on 9/11? Some people said that a group of passengers decided to rush the cockpit and try to overpower the hijackers because they realized (they'd gotten the news by telephone) that if they didn't do that, they all would die. But the reports also said another group of passengers sat in the back, held hands and prayed. It was so clear to me that the praying group reacted to the threat of their own death in exactly the way the killers wanted: they passively sat and did nothing, they made no effort at all to save themselves. Lambs to the slaughter. The other group, on the other hand, made an emergency plan and tried to do something to save themselves. Rational-based thought and action.

I think our government is conditionining the civil rights of people on citizens taking an oath of allegiance to Christianity or Judaism because they want us to be childlike, to believe in myths and fables, to believe we have no ability to think rationally or to understand the world, no right to try to affect it because, after all, God is in charge. God must want those politicians robbing us blind and destroying our children's future. We can't understand, because God has a plan.

I'll tell you what. I've got my own plans, and they do not include myths, magic thinking, of fables. I don't think God has anything to do with what is being done to our country, and the people who promote that view are the worst of all. It's like the priest fondling a little boy's penis and telling the boy that God wants him to do this. It's the grossest misuse of religion to promote greed, disloyalty, betrayal, even murder. George W. Bush claimed that God wanted him to kill a million Iraqis for no reason at all. And the churches in this country celebrated this monster, backed his play, enthusaistically got behind the idea of slaughtering a million human beings. That is a good description of where magical, mythical thinking will get you: dead.

People are so worried about having to carry a national ID card. They should be worried about having to carry a church membership card in order to be free to travel or live their lives, or work, or go to school. Because the people running this country are using religion to destroy us. As for me, when I look in the air I imagine drones falling on mothers and babies, not angels or virgin births.