Religion in Political Movements

[PoliticalChic]

Simply because it is easier, many pick an event, a time, a movement, as an origin, a place to begin their understanding of same.
After all, there is so very much to know, that for those who don't have the love for research, or have same but lack the time to pursue it, they take shortcuts, and as a result, draw conclusions based on limited knowledge.


One can make the effort to understand the deluge.....or simply be swept along with it.


Using said 'shortcuts,' some are tempted to see totalitarian ideologies- communism, fascism, Nazism- as being unrelated to Islamic fundamentalism, and, well....that would be a mistake.


1. Existentialism is centered on the idea that events occur without causation, without the motivation of earlier events....
But even Albert Camus, regularly seen as spokesman for existentialism, sought causes for current events.

Camus, in ‘The Rebel,’ attempted to find the traits in modern civilization that lead to totalitarianism, and its resultant horrors. Camus’s conclusion: totalitarianism and terrorism are one in the same, and, so, if we discover the roots of totalitarianism, we discover the roots of terrorism!

a. The Western urge to rebel, coming out of the French Revolution, mutated quickly into several cults of death and mayhem. No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

 

[Moonglow]

And the God of Abraham taught the Israelite that not only would defeat be necessary but genocide would be the norm...any color was okay...

 

[PoliticalChic]

And the God of Abraham taught the Israelite that not only would defeat be necessary but genocide would be the norm...any color was okay...

I anticipate today's lesson to be a five-parter.
Imagine how you could inflate your post-total as you offer some indecipherable word salad after each!

Today....your lucky day!

 

[sameech]

And the God of Abraham taught the Israelite that not only would defeat be necessary but genocide would be the norm...any color was okay...

I anticipate today's lesson to be a five-parter.
Imagine how you could inflate your post-total as you offer some indecipherable word salad after each!

Today....your lucky day!

So far as I can tell, your "lesson" has little to nothing to do with religion, particularly since you did not separate the manipulation of masses via religion from the religion itself.

 

[PoliticalChic]

And the God of Abraham taught the Israelite that not only would defeat be necessary but genocide would be the norm...any color was okay...

I anticipate today's lesson to be a five-parter.
Imagine how you could inflate your post-total as you offer some indecipherable word salad after each!

Today....your lucky day!

So far as I can tell, your "lesson" has little to nothing to do with religion, particularly since you did not separate the manipulation of masses via religion from the religion itself.

"So far......"


Funny you should write that.....you impatient little devil, you.....


3. Elements of Enlightenment thought that led to the radicalism of the French Revolution, and later inspired Marxism and ideas about materialism, historical determinism and utopianism. also tended to view religion in exclusively negative terms, and to put all emphasis on ideas about human perfection. Gates of Vienna Multiculturalism and the Enlightenment


a. Therefore, there is a certain irony in that the mythology of the totalitarian ideologies, curiously enough, was based on the New Testament, specifically the Book of Revelation of St. John the Devine.

There is a people of God, and these are under attack, both from within (the city dwellers of Babylon, who have sunk into abominations) and from without (by the forces of Satan). Resistance will result in the war of Armageddon…with the extermination of the evil ones. But not without horrifying destruction. Then there will be the reign of Christ for a thousand years.



4. Sometime after the First World War, the Babylon-Armageddon made its way into political theory. Each version had a people of God, under attack. There was the proletariat for the Bolsheviks and Stalinists; the children of the Roman wolf for Mussolini’s Fascists; the Warriors of Christ the King for Franco’s Phalange, and the Aryan race for the Nazis.
"Terror and Liberalism,"chapter two, Paul Berman

 

[NYcarbineer]

No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

Well, here's the uniform:

here's the monochrome symbol:

 

[PoliticalChic]

No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

Well, here's the uniform:

here's the monochrome symbol:

But you don't live in the Vatican, do you.

Nor in a theocracy.

So....your post was just as momentous as any of your other posts.

Dismissed.

 

[PoliticalChic]

5. Totalitarianisms coincide....whether the governance is by communists, socialists, fascists, Nazis.....

For every one of 'em there were always subversive dwellers of Babylon, good at trading various commodities, polluting society with their abominations.
Bourgeoisie, kulaks, Freemasons and cosmopolitans, and, always, Jews. Aided, of course, by Satanic forces, variously identified as capitalists, or Americans and their technology ( Heidegger’s Nazi interpretation) or the international Jewish conspiracy.


a. The reign of God, their view of "God," was always just ahead.
The Age of the Proletariat (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); the resurrected Roman Empire (Fascists); the reign of Christ the King (Spanish Phalange); or a blond Aryan version of the Roman Empire, called the Third Reich (Nazis).



b. And the period of grace was going to be pure and perfect- cleansed of pollutants and abominations.
Purity of unexploited labor (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); purity of Roman Grandeur (Fascists); the purity of Catholic virtue (Phalange); or the biological purity of Aryan blood (Nazis). And, always, to last for a thousand years: a perfect society- no flaws, no competition, no turmoil.



c. Of course, for all of the movements, it would be a one-party, unchallenged state, representing the final unity of mankind.
And the leader…a superman, a genius of geniuses, the one predicted by history, godlike- thrilling his worshipful followers… perhaps establishing a new religion….perhaps, even teleprompter-capable.
[Can any resist the comparisons to 'the one'???]



d. Always, before the reign, there was going to be the war of Armageddon- the exterminating bloodbath! The class war (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); the Crusade (Fascists); of the race war (Nazis).
Berman, Op. Cit.



Revelation 19:21 “And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse,…

 

[g5000]

I can't help but notice YOU ARE NOT WEARING A FLAG PIN!!!

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Simply because it is easier, many pick an event, a time, a movement, as an origin, a place to begin their understanding of same.
After all, there is so very much to know, that for those who don't have the love for research, or have same but lack the time to pursue it, they take shortcuts, and as a result, draw conclusions based on limited knowledge.


One can make the effort to understand the deluge.....or simply be swept along with it.


Using said 'shortcuts,' some are tempted to see totalitarian ideologies- communism, fascism, Nazism- as being unrelated to Islamic fundamentalism, and, well....that would be a mistake.


1. Existentialism is centered on the idea that events occur without causation, without the motivation of earlier events....
But even Albert Camus, regularly seen as spokesman for existentialism, sought causes for current events.

Camus, in ‘The Rebel,’ attempted to find the traits in modern civilization that lead to totalitarianism, and its resultant horrors. Camus’s conclusion: totalitarianism and terrorism are one in the same, and, so, if we discover the roots of totalitarianism, we discover the roots of terrorism!

a. The Western urge to rebel, coming out of the French Revolution, mutated quickly into several cults of death and mayhem. No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

More time you spend attacking a supposed threat, the more difficult it is to claim they're the threat instead of you.

 

[g5000]

On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; I sought especially the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different creeds and are especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and explained my doubts. I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

That attitude was swept away by the Religious Right, a political movement.

The following is sust as true about America today as it was for Europe in 1834:

The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut but the bonds that restrain it, and it will rise once more. I do not know what could restore the Christian church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may be for human policy to leave to faith the full exercise of the strength which it still retains.

Tocqueville Book I Chapter 17

 

[g5000]

1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state,

Well, thank God we didn't pass the PATRIOT Act or create the Department of Fatherla-...er...Homeland Security!

Thank God we didn't tolerate Bush setting up a system of NSLs and the NSA listening to our phone calls and reading our emails.

Thank God we didn't go along with detaining people without a writ of habaes corpus!

Thank God we didn't allow Bush to torture those detainees.

Thank God we didn't let the GOP Congress pass a law requiring we all carry national identity papers.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Simply because it is easier, many pick an event, a time, a movement, as an origin, a place to begin their understanding of same.
After all, there is so very much to know, that for those who don't have the love for research, or have same but lack the time to pursue it, they take shortcuts, and as a result, draw conclusions based on limited knowledge.


One can make the effort to understand the deluge.....or simply be swept along with it.


Using said 'shortcuts,' some are tempted to see totalitarian ideologies- communism, fascism, Nazism- as being unrelated to Islamic fundamentalism, and, well....that would be a mistake.


1. Existentialism is centered on the idea that events occur without causation, without the motivation of earlier events....
But even Albert Camus, regularly seen as spokesman for existentialism, sought causes for current events.

Camus, in ‘The Rebel,’ attempted to find the traits in modern civilization that lead to totalitarianism, and its resultant horrors. Camus’s conclusion: totalitarianism and terrorism are one in the same, and, so, if we discover the roots of totalitarianism, we discover the roots of terrorism!

a. The Western urge to rebel, coming out of the French Revolution, mutated quickly into several cults of death and mayhem. No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

More time you spend attacking a supposed threat, the more difficult it is to claim they're the threat instead of you.

Someone should explain to you that your post has nothing to do with the OP.

I imagine, based on your evinced skills, this really is the best you can do,huh?

 

[PoliticalChic]

On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; I sought especially the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different creeds and are especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and explained my doubts. I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

That attitude was swept away by the Religious Right, a political movement.

The following is sust as true about America today as it was for Europe in 1834:

The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut but the bonds that restrain it, and it will rise once more. I do not know what could restore the Christian church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may be for human policy to leave to faith the full exercise of the strength which it still retains.

Tocqueville Book I Chapter 17

And this is related to the thread.......how?

 

[g5000]

On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; I sought especially the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different creeds and are especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and explained my doubts. I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

That attitude was swept away by the Religious Right, a political movement.

The following is sust as true about America today as it was for Europe in 1834:

The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut but the bonds that restrain it, and it will rise once more. I do not know what could restore the Christian church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may be for human policy to leave to faith the full exercise of the strength which it still retains.

Tocqueville Book I Chapter 17

And this is related to the thread.......how?

Take some vitamins and maybe it will come to you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state,

Well, thank God we didn't pass the PATRIOT Act or create the Department of Fatherla-...er...Homeland Security!

Thank God we didn't tolerate Bush setting up a system of NSLs and the NSA listening to our phone calls and reading our emails.

Thank God we didn't go along with detaining people without a writ of habaes corpus!

Thank God we didn't allow Bush to torture those detainees.

Thank God we didn't let the GOP Congress pass a law requiring we all carry national identity papers.

Another non sequitur.

Perhaps you should consider having a higher intellect explain the thread to you...maybe a third grader.

With this much time on your hands, you should be making toast with a hair dryer.

 

[PoliticalChic]

On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; I sought especially the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different creeds and are especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and explained my doubts. I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

That attitude was swept away by the Religious Right, a political movement.

The following is sust as true about America today as it was for Europe in 1834:

The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut but the bonds that restrain it, and it will rise once more. I do not know what could restore the Christian church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may be for human policy to leave to faith the full exercise of the strength which it still retains.

Tocqueville Book I Chapter 17

And this is related to the thread.......how?

Take some vitamins and maybe it will come to you.

So.....you can't?

Just picked some random page you came across?

 

[PoliticalChic]

No idea, or movement, remains trapped in a bottle, e,g, remaining in its birthplace....especially if it is successful.
Unfortunately for mankind, totalitarian dictatorships have largely been successful.


Here's where we move on to the Middle East.

6. Communism was the first of the new mass movements in Europe, and the first to flourish in the Middle East as well. Europe’s Fascist and fascist-style movements began in the years after World War One. The major difference was that Communists and Marxists, aimed to show how similar they were in every country…the Fascists’ aims were to show how local and parochial, how ‘nationalist’ and ancient its interests were.


a. Baath Socialism had its myth of man and history, the Arab nation was it’s people of God, corrupted and polluted by forces within and forces without. From Michel Aflaq, the founder and greatest of the Baathi theoreticians: "The philosophies and teachings that come from the West invade the Arab mind and steal his loyalty.”


b. And the people of evil who corrupted the nation of God, were, of course, the Jews. Pan-Arabists of one kind or another were responsible for the anti-Semitic outbreaks of the ‘40’s and ‘60’s.
The Arabs, in this projection, would return to their “pure, original nature” by revering the revolutionary Leader who embodied the “Arab Spirit,” the spirit one embodied in the Prophet Muhammad himself. This meant unlimited mass obedience, and this implied following the political organization, or the state.

This view was not only totalitarian, but anther element that traces back to the Enlightenment- nihilism.

 

[NYcarbineer]

No matter the particular movement, there were two key conditions in all: 1) it was based on a submission to a central authority, the total state, and 2) it was based on the idea of one, the collective, instead of many.



2. Each of the movements, communist, fascist, Nazi, adopted the same set of rites and symbols to express that ideal: crowds chanting en masse, the monumental architecture, the insistence on unquestioning belief in preposterous doctrines.

a. Each of the movements chose its own monochrome symbol, representing the oneness of authority, in red, brown or black.

b. Each donned the identical uniform, - a shirt of red, brown or black.

c. Each recounted a theory about history and mankind, explaining the movement’s goals and actions.




And each attempted to align it's origin back to the mankind's experiences at a time earlier than the French Revolution.....a time written about in the Bible.

Well, here's the uniform:

here's the monochrome symbol:

But you don't live in the Vatican, do you.

Nor in a theocracy.

So....your post was just as momentous as any of your other posts.

Dismissed.

You're the one comparing the Nazis to organized religions.

 

[NYcarbineer]

5. Totalitarianisms coincide....whether the governance is by communists, socialists, fascists, Nazis.....

For every one of 'em there were always subversive dwellers of Babylon, good at trading various commodities, polluting society with their abominations.
Bourgeoisie, kulaks, Freemasons and cosmopolitans, and, always, Jews. Aided, of course, by Satanic forces, variously identified as capitalists, or Americans and their technology ( Heidegger’s Nazi interpretation) or the international Jewish conspiracy.


a. The reign of God, their view of "God," was always just ahead.
The Age of the Proletariat (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); the resurrected Roman Empire (Fascists); the reign of Christ the King (Spanish Phalange); or a blond Aryan version of the Roman Empire, called the Third Reich (Nazis).



b. And the period of grace was going to be pure and perfect- cleansed of pollutants and abominations.
Purity of unexploited labor (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); purity of Roman Grandeur (Fascists); the purity of Catholic virtue (Phalange); or the biological purity of Aryan blood (Nazis). And, always, to last for a thousand years: a perfect society- no flaws, no competition, no turmoil.



c. Of course, for all of the movements, it would be a one-party, unchallenged state, representing the final unity of mankind.
And the leader…a superman, a genius of geniuses, the one predicted by history, godlike- thrilling his worshipful followers… perhaps establishing a new religion….perhaps, even teleprompter-capable.
[Can any resist the comparisons to 'the one'???]



d. Always, before the reign, there was going to be the war of Armageddon- the exterminating bloodbath! The class war (Bolsheviks and Stalinists); the Crusade (Fascists); of the race war (Nazis).
Berman, Op. Cit.



Revelation 19:21 “And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse,…

Is Heaven a democracy, or a Kingdom?