Help wanted to decipher/interpret an article about Christianity and Islam in the US.

reply to post by babloyi

You think "Obama administration" is the relevant detail in that statement? They were the same even when Bush was in power.

I was obviously making a joke, sorry that you missed it.

The reality is that the actions of the US government that Skorpion is complaining about have nothing to do with religion, whereas the crazy Muslim who kills innocents in suicide bombings, on pretty much a daily basis, is motivated because the people he's blowing up are either non-Muslims or the "wrong kind of Muslim."

It is not Christian Fundamentalists that motivate US military actions in the Middle East, but it is certainly Muslim Fundamentalists who are behind the church bombings, suicide bombings and beheading videos.

reply to post by adjensen

I'm sorry too, but that's alright!

Do you seriously believe that it is NOT Christian Fundamentalists that motivate US military actions in the Middle East (end of times, supposed colossal end-times battle against muslims, temple mount, preserve Israel, no matter what their behaviour, and no matter the consequences to others, etc.)?
You think that it is just for fun that every US president has to make a big show about being a Christian, with the conservative extremists sniping and attempting to weaken this ("Obama is a secret muslim!" "Obama didn't put his hand on the Bible!" "Obama didn't say the proper words!" "Romney lost because he's mormon!" and so on)?
You think it is just a coincidence that the military uses religious motivation to influence the soldiers, and uses the religion of the enemy to dehumanise them? That the previous administration used religious symbolism to frame the war? I can say that even for members of ATS who are army/ex-army, it seems that very often, if they're not of the small group that are critical of or let-down by army behaviour, they're bordering on (sometimes way past the border) racist in their attitudes towards muslims.

At the very top level "TPTB" might not be "proper believing christians", whatever that might be, but they DEFINITELY use Christianity to motivate the masses to achieve their own vile ends- the same thing that is done with muslims.

reply to post by adjensen

The reality is that the actions of the US government that Skorpion is complaining about have nothing to do with religion, whereas the crazy Muslim who kills innocents in suicide bombings, on pretty much a daily basis, is motivated because the people he's blowing up are either non-Muslims or the "wrong kind of Muslim."

Christian fundamentalists are known to support/elect governments brutalizing Muslims.
The reason they don't do it themselves is because they have the luxury of sitting back with a beer and watching somebody else do it. That does NOT make them "purer" than their Muslim counterparts.

reply to post by babloyi

Do you seriously believe that it is NOT Christian Fundamentalists that motivate US military actions in the Middle East (end of times, supposed colossal end-times battle against muslims, temple mount, preserve Israel, no matter what their behaviour, and no matter the consequences to others, etc.)?

Of course I believe that, because there is no evidence for it.

The activities of the United States (indeed, of the west in general) in the Middle East are in favour of economics and regional stability, they have nothing to do with Christian Fundamentalists. Are there those who cheer on conflict in the Middle East because they think it has something to do with prophecy? Sure. Are those people and their claims the reason for conflict in the Middle East? Of course not.

I don't know where you and Skorpy live, but it is beyond ludicrous to claim that Christian Fundamentalists control the American government, never mind the Canadian, British, German and French governments. Fundamentalists are a small minority here in the states, and they're effectively nonexistent in other NATO countries.

adjensen
The activities of the United States (indeed, of the west in general) in the Middle East are in favour of economics and regional stability, they have nothing to do with Christian Fundamentalists. Are there those who cheer on conflict in the Middle East because they think it has something to do with prophecy? Sure. Are those people and their claims the reason for conflict in the Middle East? Of course not.

"The West"? I hadn't said anything about "The West". The title topic, the thread's subject matter (for the most part), and my comments on it have all been about Christian fundamentalists in general, and the US in particular, and with good reason.
The US is a special case as far as this topic goes. For the most part, aside from a little residual guilt, the rest of the west is fairly ambivalent towards Israel. It is only the US that stands by it absolutely, even if it is wrong, even if it is contrary to the idea of "economic and regional stability" in the Middle East, it is the US that provides it with billions and billions in military funding.

It is the US that is certainly not for "economic and regional stability", rather, for regional and (therefore also) economic supremacy for themselves, and for Israel (and thus by proxy for themselves). As I said, TPTB might not have religious motivations, but they certainly egg on the masses using religion. Again, you think Bush was joking when he said that his decisions were through speaking with God, and how he called the War of Terror a crusade?
You seriously telling me that the neoconservative bloc in US politics is a "small minority"? That the lobbyists and funders attempting to push through this agenda (some say half of the US's 400 billionaires) is a small minority?
For just one example:
www.haaretz.com... His politics and beliefs.
www.rightweb.irc-online.org... How he spends his money to achieve that.

Since you didn't address my other points, I'm going to assume you agreed with them. But in case you didn't, here is some more reading material:
U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam
The United States Military … a Crusader Force?
HADJI DON'T SURF and PORK-EATING CRUSADER, some of the many "infidel" line of clothing items popular with the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, sold by the company under contract from the US DOD to produce their multicam camo.

reply to post by babloyi


You injected yourself into a debate between Skorpion and I, regarding his claims like this:

Christian fundamentalists are known to support/elect governments brutalizing Muslims.

By which he seems to believe that the US government is subject to the whims and desires of Christian Fundamentalists, and thus military drone strikes on innocents are religiously driven attacks, which is obviously ludicrous.

Whether or not the United States military uses religion as a motivator for some people isn't really germane to the discussion. Religion is not the motivation for American and western intervention in the Middle East, unlike Skorpion's claim, but it is the motivation behind church bombings, suicide bombings and ritual beheadings, and those are Muslim actions, not Fundamentalist Christian actions.

reply to post by adjensen

I simply took the whole discussion from Sk0rp's initial statement of how the "Christian fundamentalism" is just as dangerous (if not more so) than "muslim fundamentalism", drawing on its heinous beliefs and goals, and how they've permeated the US's foreign policy and military, specifically against muslims (although originally against communists).

But still, are you saying that the Christian Fundamentalists that these politicians cater to to achieve their ends are NOT enabling them? How is sk0rp wrong in that statement you quoted?

- Numerous Christian Fundamentalists exist that hold beliefs about the inherent inhumanity of Muslims, of the God-given right of Israel to the land of the middle-east (from the Euphrates to the Nile, I think it was), of the destruction of the mosque and rebuilding of the Temple to further Christian prophecy.
- The US political system (gerrymandering, campaign donations, treating corporations as individual entities, etc.) set itself up in such a way to isolate and polarise the people towards such groups, and give these groups the voice and power to influence politics to a dangerous degree.
- To cater to these extreme beliefs (and sometimes because they believe them), politicians run that line, use that language, make a big show of being super-christian and Israel's best bud, promise their donors in private that they'll never make Israel compromise in a single thing, all so that they get elected.
- Aside from appeasing these extremists with their hawkish policies (that end up killing many innocent muslims as well), these politicians also take that opportunity to secure lucrative oil and defense contracts.

Christian fundamentalists are known to support/elect governments brutalizing Muslims.

So again, how is it wrong?

reply to post by babloyi

So you're saying that the Christian Fundamentalists that these politicians cater to to achieve their ends are NOT enabling them? How is sk0rp wrong in that statement you quoted?

He claims that Christian Fundamentalists support and elect governments (plural) that "brutalize Muslims." Going beyond the absence of Fundamentalists in any significant numbers outside of the US, he fails to recognize that those governments are supported and elected by populations who are not Fundamentalists and have no religious agenda to further. He has failed to prove that the motivation of the United States and NATO is a religious one, or that those killed in drone strikes are killed because they are Muslim, not because they are engaged in militant behaviour (or, in the case of innocents, mistaken for militants.)

In other words, he's done absolutely nothing to further the argument that Christian Fundamentalists are manipulating the western military into killing Muslims, just because they are Muslims. Never mind the clear fact that Muslims are killing Christians, Hindus and other Muslims, on a daily basis for purely religious reasons.

Frankly, it's surprising that there is any argument at all from someone who is not a pro-Islamic propagandist like Skorpion.

reply to post by adjensen

believe that the US government is subject to the whims and desires of Christian Fundamentalists,

False. I'm not saying that at all.
I said that Christian Fundamentalist are known to support governments that brutalize Muslims.
You could support a gangster who kills your rivals, that doesn't mean he is subject to your whims.

For example, Conservative Christians Biggest Backers of Iraq War

Its these same Christian fundamentalists who cry "Islamic terrorism" are blind to the death and destruction of Muslims caused by their governments. Straining gnats and swallowing camels.

and thus military drone strikes on innocents are religiously driven attacks, which is obviously ludicrous.

I'm not just talking about drone strikes.
If you want to go down that route, Bush Jr was a born again Christian and even claimed God told him to go to war. And his actions led to a war / destabilization of a country that has killed people on a scale much higher than any terrorist has achieved. Thereby, proving once again, that Christian Fundamentalism is deadlier than Islamic fundamentalists.

The difference being most people don't see it because they don't seem to realize that violent fundamentalists can wear suits and speak english.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


Okay, perhaps you don't understand the difference between Christian Fundamentalists and Conservative Christians, who are two different groups, and you apparently don't understand how to differentiate between religious motivations and non-religious motivations.

George Bush, yeah, certified nut, but that was a case of his view of reality coinciding with the desires of the military-industrial complex, which is not motivated by religion. And Bush, a Fundamentalist? Hardly.

I've always suspected that George W Bush wasn't really a big fan of Christian fundamentalists: he's an evangelical with Catholic leanings, not a Bible-basher. Now my suspicions have been confirmed by a new book about the worldwide religious revival called God is Back by the Economist's John Mickelthwait and Adrian Wooldridge.

In the 2000 campaign, they report, Bush was visiting the Boeing Plant in Washington State when he was asked whether his enthusiasm for free trade with China might cost him the Christian vote. The reporter who asked him the question was from a hotbed of fundamentalism in Texas.

Bush: "You only think that because you live around those whackos." (Source)

adjensen
Okay, perhaps you don't understand the difference between Christian Fundamentalists and Conservative Christians, who are two different groups

There's very very little between the two 'groups', you'd struggle to find a fundamentalist that wasn't a conservative and vice versa.

reply to post by Prezbo369

you'd struggle to find a fundamentalist that wasn't a conservative and vice versa.

Struggle? I can look in a mirror to find a conservative Christian who isn't a Fundamentalist. Most Catholics are conservative Christians, while almost no Catholics are Fundamentalists.

When the Moral Majority was established in 1979 to oppose things like abortion and homosexual rights, its evangelical founders did their best to include Catholics. Despite the organization's reputation for being the political voice box of televangelists and peddlers of the apocalypse, by the mid '80s it drew a third of its funding from Catholic donors. Leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson consciously used the Moral Majority (and, later, the Christian Coalition) as an exercise in ecumenical coalition building.

Falwell and Robertson were fans of Pope John Paul II and his resilient anti-communism. But they also recognized, like Nixon, that the Catholic Church had a vast intellectual heritage that could be drawn upon when fighting the liberals. For example, when debating abortion, evangelicals had hitherto tended to rely on Scripture to make their case. Catholics, on the other hand, had been integrating the concept of "human rights" into their theology since the 1890s.

Under Catholic influence, the pro-life movement evolved from a zealous, theology-heavy rationale to one more couched in the language of human dignity and personhood. (Source)

I keep seeing the argument made here on ATS, over and over, that any Christian who is not a raging liberal must be a Fundamentalist, which is absolutely ridiculous. The majority of conservative Christians are not Fundamentalists, to any extent.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I guess everybody has a point.

I can only say that Christian fundamentalists have had some cases of terrorism, and they were all swept up after 9/11, and they did support the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (although I'm still wondering if it was wrong).

But we've had so many bombs and global wars in so many countries due to Islamic ideology that I cannot side with it, nor have any sympathy for it whatsoever.
It's like a daily list of horror and infamy.

What kind of people bomb schools for girls in Pakistan, or attack churches and schools in Nigeria?
Who beheads people in the middle of the street?
Shame on that ideology!
Who attacks other Muslims in Iraq almost on a daily basis?
Who murders Druzes and Alewites, and other minorities in Syria?
Who arranges and sends girls to marry old men in their home countries?
Who mainly takes savage customs, like honor killings to the West?
Who is a problem almost in every country across the globe, and spreads the most vile propaganda about Jews?
Who wants to kill gays and makes fatwas against authors of fiction?
Who doesn't allow religious freedom in their countries, and still doesn't have a unanimous anti-slavery position?

Who blew up a bar in Uganda during our World Cup, that killed over 60 people?

I'm sad if innocent people suffer, but maybe none of that would have happened if Islamists didn't want to awaken a global war.

I see very little evidence that they want peace anywhere, and they're just taking Western liberals for a ride.

The days when only Christian fundamentalists opposed Islam are over.
Their behavior is so shocking (and deliberately so, I think) that even the Western liberals are turning.