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Re: poptarts with a twist of lennon



>From: "Peter T. Chattaway" >
>I haven't surveyed all the wars in the history of our planet, but I think
>I would place economics over religion, personally.

Yeah.  Greed is the creed.

>My hunch is religion didn't become a primary cause for warfare
>until the rise of evangelistic religions like Christianity, which were not
>necessarily tied to any specific nation.

Please insert [perceived as] between "become" and "a" in the above, Peter, 
shall we?   ;-)

Before the advent of such
>religions, my hunch is that nations were more interested in *dominating*
>other nations than they were in *converting* them to their own faiths.

Sure, but they still were afterwards.  Nothing changed, except that they now 
had a religion that provided an excuse for their actions.

>But I could very easily be wrong about that.

Only insofar as perception vs reality is concerned.  As an astute observer 
of human nature, it has come to my attention the everyone, from the 
President down to the garden variety pscyhopath, likes to believe in their 
inheriant goodness.  Nobody likes to be wrong.  Everybody wants to put a 
spin on their actions and words, to paint themselves in a better light.  
People are capable of covincing themselves that they are right even to the 
point of distorting facts to back up their position.  We do it all the time. 
  We justify our selfishness, stupidity, callousness, etc, as our "right".

NOT TO START AN ABORTION DEBATE, but regardeless of how you feel on the 
issue of choice vs. life the fact that a bomber can kill the staff of a 
clinic in the name of "pro-life"  is ultimately no different from the way 
pro-choicers can deny the humanity of a fetus, at any stage on embryonic 
development, and reduce it to a "mass of protoplasm" with merely the 
"potential" to beome human life.  In either case, the same thing is going 
on- regardless of whether or not religous belief is informing them,   people 
can convince themselves of anything to reconcile their views/actions.  
Therefore, a rapist's victim "deserved it".  The child abuser is 
administering discipline. The junkie is taking medicine.  The conservative 
christian girl who is sleeping with her boyfriend can repent EVERY NIGHT and 
be forgiven because she is "saved".  Etc.  To say religion is the reason for 
war is like saying the above reasons are valid and true.

Think about that movie "Seven".  Were religion or the Bible the reason for 
the killing?  How about insanity?  Sin?

So a conqueror or an imperialist nation staging an incursion is no different 
than any of these human examples.  Did the Romans likely tell themselves, 
"I'm here to rape and pillage and take what isn't mine", or rather, "I'm 
hear to fullfill my sworn duty to Ceaser and God."  What would you tell 
yourself?  The latter?  That's what enables people to sleep while their beds 
are burning, and to dance while the Earth is turning.  It may be a cliche, 
but "denial isn't just a river in Egypt" is a true cliche.

Hearing Neil Young sing "Imagine" at the Sept. 11 benefit show was 
sickening.  He seemed to be saying, "see, John Lennon knew this was gona 
happen, and will contiue to as long as religion itself is allowed to 
continue."  At least the politically correct press were right this time, in 
their efforts to be PC, by stressing that the impetus for the attack was not 
a distorted take on Isamic religion, but hatred and greed instead.  A 
preverted take on a religion facilitated the attack, no doubt, but that's 
all it did.  All it ever has, really.

the spoil is oil,

Matt






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