originally posted by: shawmanfromny
...
Content from an article that was published today:
“The Brussels Commission thinks only about building a free market in the service of the great financial powers,” he continued. “The
European Union no longer protects the pThe Cardinal also blamed the European Union for its “desire to globalize the world, ridding it of nations
with their distinctive characteristics,”peoples within it. It protects the banks.”
www.infowars.com...
Nationalism has always been popular within the Roman Catholic Church (or other religions), as some people contrast it to globalism. A poor contrast
cause the 2 often go together:
Trump: ‘I’m A Nationalist And A Globalist. I’m
Both.’ – Talking Points Memo
From a comment I made recently in another thread:
The Bible says that people receive “the mark of the wild beast” because they follow it “with admiration,” to the point of worshipping it.
(Revelation 13:3, 4; 16:2) They do this by giving worshipful honor to their country, its symbols, or its military might. As
The Encyclopedia of
Religion states: “Nationalism has become a dominant form of religion in the modern world.” (See also
Nationalism in a Global Era, page
134, and
Nationalism and the Mind: Essays on Modern Culture, page 94.)
News columnist Joseph Kraft wrote concerning Einstein’s views on nationalism: “[Einstein] set an example in renouncing nationalism. ‘I never
identified myself with any particular country,’ he once wrote. He called nationalism ‘an infantile disease . . . the measles of the human
race.’” Nearly everybody gets it at one time or another, and it continues to spread. Back in 1946, British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote:
“Patriotism . . . has very largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the Western World.”
Similarly, in a letter to the editor of Bombay’s “Indian Express” newspaper, an Indian man stated: “I do not believe in patriotism. It is an
opium innovated by the politicians to serve their ugly ends. It is for their prosperity. It is for their betterment. It is for their aggrandizement.
It is never for the country. It is never for the nation. It is never never for common men and women like you and I. . . . This sinister
politician-invented wall shall divide man from man—and brother from brother; till one day it shall bring about man’s doom by man. Patriotism or
nationalism, to my mind, is an idiotic exercise in artificial loyalty. . . . I take no hypocritical pride in being petty this or that. I belong to
mankind.”
Philippine educator Primo L. Tongko observes that “national anthems and national flags have frequently given rise to a very questionable human
motive of extreme or blind love of country, they have tended to make people fanatically nationalistic, so much so that sometimes they have not been
ashamed even to say, ‘My country right or wrong.’”
One dictionary defines nationalism as “a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on
promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations.” Ivo Duchacek, a professor of political science, observed in his book
Conflict and Cooperation Among Nations: “Nationalism divides humanity into mutually intolerant units. As a result people think as Americans,
Russians, Chinese, Egyptians, or Peruvians first, and as human beings second—if at all.” A former UN secretary-general wrote: “So many of the
problems that we face today are due to, or the result of, false attitudes—some of them have been adopted almost unconsciously. Among these is the
concept of narrow nationalism—‘my country, right or wrong.’”
“Nationalism’s chief symbol of faith and central object of worship is the flag, and curious liturgical forms have been devised for ‘saluting’
the flag, for ‘dipping’ the flag, for ‘lowering’ the flag, and for ‘hoisting’ the flag. Men bare their heads when the flag passes by; and
in praise of the flag poets write odes and children sing hymns.”—
What Americans Believe and How They Worship (1952), by J. Paul
Williams, pages 359, 360.
“Twenty-five years ago this June,” observes the Catholic Jesuit magazine
America, “Americans piously inserted the phrase ‘under God’
into the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.” In reflecting on the reason for this move,
America says that “most who supported the change in
wording (and there were few who did not) frankly admitted that the inclusion of God was a political, not a religious, act.” In those days of fervent
anti-Communism, notes the article, “the Catholic War Veterans of Wayne County, Mich., resolved that letting God into the Pledge would give
‘additional meaning to the spiritual defense of our nation.’ God . . . was being recalled to active duty.”
The significance of this was expressed by one religious writer of the time who said that, by putting God into the pledge, America was “adopting a
God of war who appears as a nationalistic deity directing bombs and bullets into the hearts of our enemies.” Observes “America”: “Quite
simply, the nation was afraid of the future, and it tried to meet this fear by having its children parrot in singsong fashion just how good it
actually was. The Pledge was to be a spiritual boot [military training] camp for babes.”
Do you want your children to learn about a nationalistic “God of war” or, rather, about the “God of peace” as revealed in the Bible? (Phil.
4:9) “America” draws this conclusion: “The phrase ‘under God’ is the concrete symbol of what was, 25 years ago, and may still be, the
established American religion: worship of the state. We ought to drop it.”—June 9, 1979, pp. 469, 470.
Nationalism and religion often go together. Wrote Dr. Robert L. Kahn, a rabbi: “Religion and Nationalism always tend to go hand in hand. In times of
war, particularly, . . . ‘For God and Country’ becomes a sort of battle cry. This has always been so. [In World War II] one of the popular songs
was the war-whoop of a chaplain, ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.”’
How is the mark of the beast placed on someone’s right hand or forehead? (Revelation 13:16) Regarding his commands to the nation of Israel, God
said: “Bind them as a reminder on your hand, and they should be like a headband on your forehead.” (Deuteronomy 11:18) This meant, not that the
Israelites were to mark their literal hands and foreheads, but that God’s words would guide all their actions and thoughts. Likewise, rather than
being something literal such as a microchip, the mark of the beast symbolically identifies those who let the political system rule their lives. Those
with the mark of the beast place themselves in opposition to God.—Revelation 14:9, 10; 19:19-21.
Historical evidence indicates that the first Christians did not involve themselves in political affairs. As Jesus said of them: “They are no part of
the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) Rather, they shared a common allegiance to a heavenly government, God’s Kingdom. New
York educators Eugene A. Colligan and Maxwell F. Littwin said regarding them in the book
From the Old World to the New: “They preferred the
Kingdom of God to any kingdom that they might serve on earth.”