America is a religion

by Goerge Monbiot
Guardian Unlimited
July 29, 2003

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1007741,00.html

(snip)

To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory: "Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, "come out," and to those in darkness, "be free".'"

So American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons. The people who reconstructed the faces of Uday and Qusay Hussein carelessly forgot to restore the pair of little horns on each brow, but the understanding that these were opponents from a different realm was transmitted nonetheless. Like all those who send missionaries abroad, the high priests of America cannot conceive that the infidels might resist through their own free will; if they refuse to convert, it is the work of the devil, in his current guise as the former dictator of Iraq.

(snip)

Gradually this notion of election has been conflated with another, still more dangerous idea. It is not just that the Americans are God's chosen people; America itself is now perceived as a divine project. In his farewell presidential address, Ronald Reagan spoke of his country as a "shining city on a hill", a reference to the Sermon on the Mount. But what Jesus was describing was not a temporal Jerusalem, but the kingdom of heaven. Not only, in Reagan's account, was God's kingdom to be found in the United States of America, but the kingdom of hell could also now be located on earth: the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union, against which His holy warriors were pitched.

(snip)

So those who question George Bush's foreign policy are no longer merely critics; they are blasphemers, or "anti-Americans". Those foreign states which seek to change this policy are wasting their time: you can negotiate with politicians; you cannot negotiate with priests. The US has a divine mission, as Bush suggested in January: "to defend ... the hopes of all mankind", and woe betide those who hope for something other than the American way of life.

- more . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1007741,00.html

that this moment in history will be looked at as a replay of the Crusades or the Inquisition.

if America is a religion then...
the Constitution is its holy book...
and that makes * a blasphemer!

When people have the courage to confront WHY they believe certain things,use reason instead of"faith" and be honest about their fears,and support each other in their emotional free-falls when the delusion breaks up,than the coming inquisition may be averted.
I wonder if this can even be averted when this culture gives people no social and public place to congregate together except business places or clubs where you pay to be there or church.The other option is to be invited to someones house for parties.
And at parties no one really gets all that deep.
Long ago in greece people like Socrates talked in public squares and different people gathered and discussed philosophy together without fighting or preaching.Today that kind of public space to think together have been usurped by businesses,private club, school and church.Just try to loiter and have a spontaneous discussion with others in public space for more than a half hour without a "permit" a cop will tell you to move along soon enough.
Ethics are failing to hold our society in check because philosophers have no place to speak and think in our culture.Religion thinks it is equal to science and the same as philosophy, So culture is becoming blind and ever faithful (semper fi) just like the business people and warlord authoritarians like it..

To me the idea of America as a divine project is not new. I don't know about others, but the church my parents dove into and foisted upon me as a teenager teaches that it's kind of like the promised land - not just better than any other country, but ordained and sanctioned by God. The Garden of Eden was in Missouri, don'tcha know, and after the Antichrist and Armageddon and the Mormon equivalent of the Rapture and everything's said and done, God's kingdom will be set up right here in the good ol' U S of A. I'm unclear on the sequence and details and how it all fits with Israel also being the promised land, but I do remember this: If you were the best of the best in "the Preexistence" (read: heaven, before anyone was born and we were all sitting around talking about how it would be and oh, by the way, there was also a big battle) you were born here at this time. I was one of the most valiant spirits and you were, too. That's what I was taught.

At the core of all the political arguments I've had with my mother is her refusal to question this notion of America being God's chosen country. It justifies theft, slavery, and genocide - if you insist on calling them by those names.

My mom would read that article and go, "What's wrong with that, besides nothing? Of course we're the chosen people. Deal with it."

I think it's right on, and not just because of my experience with a particular set of religious teachings. They only just dovetail nicely with the basic mythology that I was taught in American public schools.

Conservatives in the U.S. still believe that to take everything over is their right as Americans.