Spiritual Problems with USA

[Vmarco]

American's are obsessed about being judged.

 

"To dare to even speak about judging in America, or about American's, is against the unstated rules. And of course, one's definitely going to be put in one's place for doing something like that."

 

Why do American's get all frazzled when others judge them? That answer is simple.

 

"You can judge a society by the way it treats its minorities." Mahatma Gandhi

 

You want to know the real America of today,...look at its prison system. No other Country comes close to the incarcerations numbers of America,...and minorities make up the majority of inmates.

A pre-McCarthy era Humantarian once said, “As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Eugene V. Debs. That America is long deceased.

 

In the 1950's, Christians with a theocratic agenda took over America. They changed the US Nationalal Motto to the constitutionally illegal Christianized national motto, “In God We Trust,” thus replacing “E Pluribus Unum.”

 

The Land of E Pluribus Unum is long deceased.

 

The US Governments continued, Constitutionally illegal endorsements of the majorities Judeo-Christian god, goes unchallenged.

 

In May 2002, the 9th District Court said that the "The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community."

 

In essense, they said "Under God" promoted a situation where non-Judeo-Christian-Muslim minorities,...such as Taoists, atheists, polytheists, Buddhists, Deists, Wiccans, Humanists, female based monotheists, etc, are not members of the Community.

[Marblehead]

The US Governments continued, Constitutionally illegal endorsements of the majorities Judeo-Christian god, goes unchallenged.

Not really true. There have been valid challenges - some successful, some not. It's not possible to challenge the entire system all at one time. That would never go anywhere.

[Vmarco]

Not really true. There have been valid challenges - some successful, some not. It's not possible to challenge the entire system all at one time. That would never go anywhere.

Every challenge to the OBVIOUS Constitutionally illegal endorsements of the majorities theism is dismissed in one way or another.

 

Look at the Michael Newdow. Yes,...he got the despicable "under god" thing to the Supreme Court,...and the chichen-shxt SCOTUS threw it out because they said Newdow did not have proper "standing."

 

The pathetic and illegal gravity of the matter was totally brushed away,...and non-theist continue being second-class citizens,...if citizens at all,...in the eyes of the theocratic majority.

 

 

 

"I don't know that those who don't believe in God should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." George HW Bush

[Marblehead]

I understand your feelings and while I hold to them as well I understand that as long as the theists can force their will they will continue to do so. There is a fear of not believing. Therefore they believe.

[dawei]

There is a fear of not believing. Therefore they believe.

 

Interesting point... but not sure where you'll go with it...

 

From fear or guilt?

 

Which can include a fear of losing some sort of perceived power

[dawei]

"You can judge a society by the way it treats its minorities." Mahatma Gandhi

 

You want to know the real America of today,...look at its prison system. No other Country comes close to the incarcerations numbers of America,...and minorities make up the majority of inmates.

 

The quote is interesting to say the least... the prison situation is very true indeed.

 

It does call into question 'how we got here' but I don't think it was not just an evolving thought on crime; A witch-hunt is a witch-hunt.

 

There is a strange sense of justice which seems to turn to retribution even though it spreads way beyond crime... why do we hunt that bear who mauled someone? Or try to find that shark who bite someone? Or that alligator? We walk into their natural habitat and they act in their own way... but we want to hunt them down to kill them now...

[Vmarco]

 

Interesting point... but not sure where you'll go with it...

 

From fear or guilt?

 

Which can include a fear of losing some sort of perceived power

Perhaps partially, a fear of letting go the parental influence that defines sheeple.

 

IMO,...Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt one’s, that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of hollowness.

[dawei]

Perhaps partially, a fear of letting go the parental influence that defines sheeple.

 

IMO,...Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt one’s, that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of hollowness.

 

I hear you... but this seems counter-religious, secular utopian ideas... that's not going to happen...

 

Let's move on to more substance at least.

[Vmarco]

 

It does call into question 'how we got here' but I don't think it was not just an evolving thought on crime; A witch-hunt is a witch-hunt.

 

There is a strange sense of justice which seems to turn to retribution even though it spreads way beyond crime... why do we hunt that bear who mauled someone? Or try to find that shark who bite someone? Or that alligator? We walk into their natural habitat and they act in their own way... but we want to hunt them down to kill them now...

If one was to objectively (without Nationalistic emotion) at the overall World's prison population,...a prudent person may think that perhaps an objective dialogue could follow. Unfortunately,...American's as a whole,...not all,...but surely the majority of voters,...are tethered to an ego-centered psychopathy that quivers from any suggestion that they were wrong.

 

Christian American's often believe in punishing those who they feel infringe upon their interpretation of faith, and perpetuate rules with long terms of incarceration or capital punishment. The US States with the highest utilization of the death penalty are the ones in which church attendance is the highest. Do killing and incarcerating others heal us, or those who we feel hurt us? Is the further disempowerment and disconnection of those in anguish through hefty prison sentences, isolation from society, and even death, a love-based, nonobjective response to the crime? Is not a criminal simply someone who has forgotten or who has been obscured from the presence of love?

 

We are all love, every individual on this planet, from the most admired to the most despised. Duality’s beauty may be relative and in the eye of the beholder, but once more, I say that the beauty of the inner love is inherent in all of us, without exception. Western religions strive to proselytize for a concept of love that merely reinforces a delusion of separateness. That is not love. Only in duality’s construct is love considered the opposite of hate. In the reality of undivided light, love has no opposite. Division is an illusion of the deceived,...and 100% of Christians are deeply deceived.

 

Christian beliefs now undermine many of the values established by those who founded the United States. Even our criminal justice system is a product of Christian ideals, not American or spiritual values. Just as Christians see their god and so-called evils outside themselves, they also see crime and criminals as outside themselves. To Christians and to adherents of the other Abrahamic religions, criminals are separate from society, not part of the interconnected dynamic of our national and planetary community.

 

More than half of all U.S. prisoners have been incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Most are first-time offenders, usually people who possessed small quantities of marijuana or conscious altering psychotropic substances. Many get “punked out” and sold into slavery as sex partners for the duration of their often lengthy imprisonments. What kind of hateful society does such a thing to people for minor, victimless crimes? Is this incarceration doing anything to solve the so-called drug problem?

 

Following the September 11, 2001, tragedy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said,

 

You can eliminate people, but you cannot eliminate human thought. If we could love even those who have attacked us and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome? These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all. If you truly wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.

[Vmarco]

 

I hear you... but this seems counter-religious, secular utopian ideas... that's not going to happen...

 

Let's move on to more substance at least.

 

Substance,...is a good start. Substance to Christian would likely be very different than substance for a non-theist.

 

If we lived in an era of peaceful alternatives to criminal management, instead of the current violent, Neanderthal solution to social problems, America would surely be a different place.

 

Look at the percentages of U.S. prisoners by race or socioeconomic class. Blacks comprise nearly fifty percent of prisoners. (In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian immigrants were often treated with more contempt than were Blacks.) More than a million people in the U.S. are currently in prison for nonviolent crimes. What could society do with the tens of billions of dollars spent incarcerating nonviolent offenses? A peace-orientated society would be discussing the decriminalization of many nonviolent crimes and figuring out how to empower the impoverished. Community resource centers could establish conflict-resolution programs and create financial and self-recognition opportunities so that the disadvantaged could build personal value and self-respect. In a culture of peace, prisons would be an option of last resort, not long-term mandatory condemnation. A non-Christian community-justice strategy based on healing, wellness, encouraging peace, and the birthing of human beingness would cost far less than what is spent on imposing humiliation, suffering, and hostility on others.

 

Although polls suggest that fourteen percent of the U.S. population is nontheist (for example, the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey), only one-fifth of one percent of U.S. prisoners are said to be nontheists. This suggests that prison populations, thus crime, could be reduced by some ninety percent just through the commonsense of nontheism. That would reduce the U.S. from being the country with the most prisoners on earth to about sixth place among the 215 countries listed by the International Center for Prison Studies. Nontheism would save at least $100 billion a year just from the prison system. A society that “trusted in love,”...instead of a murderous, pro-slavery, vacillant, petty, racist, conditional God, who is so insecure, that it demands to be worshiped, obeyed and prayed to,...could save ten times that amount. Could you imagine taxation being only a small percentage of earnings?

[Vmarco]

America puts $550 billion into fossil fuel subsidies per year,...that is to say, $550 billion Corporate Welfare for Oil Companies alone.

 

Germany produces 6 times more solar energy than the entire USA. (note: Germany is slightly smaller than the State of Montana)

 

Why?

 

Sure,...America is about BIG MONEY,...but one look at its elected officials, and it is obvious that America is about Christocracy too.

 

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand....after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Secretary of the Interior James Watt on Global Warming, according the Bill Moyers

 

"the more deeply I search for the roots of our global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for the lack of a better word, spiritual". Al Gore

Edited December 10, 2014 by Vmarco

[Marblehead]

Interesting point... but not sure where you'll go with it...

 

From fear or guilt?

 

Which can include a fear of losing some sort of perceived power

I doubt I can go anywhere with the statement. It was only a spontaneous thought at the time.

 

Yes, I suppose guilt could be included in what I said. The fear and guilt of not believing.

 

The first doubt is like the first cut, it is the most painful.

 

No, I really don't want to go anywhere with this as I foresee too much negativity in lingering on the thought.

[Vmarco]

I doubt I can go anywhere with the statement. It was only a spontaneous thought at the time.

 

Yes, I suppose guilt could be included in what I said. The fear and guilt of not believing.

 

The first doubt is like the first cut, it is the most painful.

 

No, I really don't want to go anywhere with this as I foresee too much negativity in lingering on the thought.

 

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer

 

America has been neck deep in the first two stages since the beginning (and I stress, the beginning) of the McCarthy era. The McCarthy era never died,...but merely transformed,...in to the Reagan Era (the first President to put his faith-based agenda before his Oath to the Constitution), to the Moral Majority, to the Tea Party Social Conservative Movement.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Vmarco