religious terrorist in us

[briannell]

THE CHRISTIANIST CONSPIRACY By Maggie Gallagher
Wed Jul 13, 2:08 PM ET

Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, wrote to his mom about born-again Christians: "They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible." His letter was published by USA Today.


Oops, there goes another Christian fundamentalist terrorist.

Rudolph's dark devolution from "pro-lifer" to mass murderer owes far more to progressive thought structures than to any traditionalism, Christian or otherwise. For example, about Herman Melville's "Billy Budd," Rudolph writes home: "It makes a powerful statement" about "the relativity of history, and just who ends up being the good guy or bad guy depends on who gets to write the story."

Social constructionism in a nutshell: The person who writes the story gets to decide who the good guys and the bad guys are. Good and evil, as Nietzsche taught, are just the tastes and preferences of the powerful. Who are the powerful? Well, as Nietzsche also taught, anyone who can write a new storyline and persuade the sheep to follow it. Thus are men tempted to become as gods to their fellow men, to abandon both reason and faith in pursuit of power.

Even Islamists, as many have pointed out, have far more in common with Marxist and other avant-garde ideologies than with traditional Islam. Random bombs that kill women and children on London buses do not represent a return to the Muslim past, but avant-gardism in a new context. Like good social constructivists, Islamists indulge in a sophisticated new interpretation of an ancient text in order to escape a traditional moral prohibition (in their case, the killing of innocents). (What makes genteel academic social constructivists believe that they are the only ones who get to dream up new stories, once those old absolutist moral taboos are swept aside?)

I hate conspiracy theories. But one can't avoid noticing the ongoing effort among certain powerful groups to craft a dramatic new storyline for religion in America: to lump Christian "fundamentalists" in with Muslim "fundamentalists," to equate evangelicals with fundamentalists and Catholics with evangelicals, merging all traditional religions into one scary, irrational and potentially violent "Christianist" mass. A traditional religion, in this view, is any faith community that does not accept sexual liberalism. This is the core of liberalist drama in America today, the line that if crossed will put you in the crosshairs.

The New York Times may not be a very good place to get the news anymore, but it is an excellent vantage point for observing the unfolding of the latest narrative crafted for the herd. This week's front-page, above-the-fold, screaming headline "Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution" is a gem of the art form.

The headline reveals either embarrassing ignorance or willful disregard for truth on the paper's part. A single cardinal does not have the power to redefine church teaching. Nor does the church, after centuries of experience separating scientific and religious questions, generally transform scientific theory into Catholic dogma. The reporter finds no evidence that the Catholic Church, which has never had any serious problem with evolution as scientific theory, was planning to promote intelligent design. Buried in the story was the concession that the Vatican "had no plans to issue new guidance to teachers in Catholic schools on evolution."

A Catholic cardinal announces that Catholics believe that creation has meaning and purpose and was not a random event. How can this be front-page news?

Perhaps because it is useful to the grand liberalist metanarrative portraying religion as an irrational, backward force for evil in America today?

Will the sheep follow?

(Readers may reach Maggie Gallagher at MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com.)

[Hell's Bells]

THE CHRISTIANIST CONSPIRACY By Maggie Gallagher
Wed Jul 13, 2:08 PM ET

Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, wrote to his mom about born-again Christians: "They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible." His letter was published by USA Today.

this guy is does not seem to be a christain...name me one christain terrorist and please dont say the unibomber or the person who bombed the oklahoma building...they werent christains

[SonomaCat]

THE CHRISTIANIST CONSPIRACY By Maggie Gallagher
Wed Jul 13, 2:08 PM ET

Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, wrote to his mom about born-again Christians: "They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible." His letter was published by USA Today.

this guy is does not seem to be a christain...name me one christain terrorist and please dont say the unibomber or the person who bombed the oklahoma building...they werent christains

How about the people who have shot or threatened abortion clinic doctors?

A more robust example is the IRA. They were exclusively Catholic, and killed lots and lots of people in the UK.

History, of course, is filled with examples of examples of murder done in the name of Christianity. We don't call them "terrorists," though, because they were on "our" side. Terrorism is a term reserved for people we consider our enemies.

[mquast53000]

Comparing today’s Christian fundamentalist with today’s Muslim fundamentalist is idiotic- the article should have said extremist not fundamentalist. Is there a true threat of an extremist Christian attack on American soil? Many attacks done by Christians are often not done in the name of Jesus. They are usually people who say they are Christians, but do evil things and use their supposed religion as a disguise (i.e. the BTK killer). This article is a classic example of trying to strike fear deep into American society. “Don’t be just afraid of Muslims, be afraid of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and everyone else in the world!” The media is out of control with their fear driven reporting.

[SonomaCat]

I believe the article itself is written from the point of view of attacking the supposedly anti-Christian liberal media for supposedly promoting an idea that there is a Christian fundamentalist problem. It seems to be attacking a theory that I hadn't heard of before -- possibly a bit of a straw man argument. It didn't appear to be advancing those kinds of ideas, though.

In the end, it's all about politics and violence done in the name of religion by people who don't represent the true peaceful and loving aspects of that religion. I am sure there are a lot of Muslims (most of them) who would claim that the extremists that commit violent acts in the name of Allah are not true Muslims, either. I think that's quite valid from their perspective, just as good-hearted Christians will distance themselves from people who claim to be Christians but commit evil acts.

And, to redirect mquast's summation of my personal beliefs, I am not anti-religion -- I am just against using religion as a justification for doing bad things or putting other people down. If religion inspires people to do good things, then it's good. If it makes them do bad things, then it's bad.

[El_Gato]

The most troubling thing to me about religious conflict, especially in the world today, is what precisely do the extremists (aka terrorists) expect to gain from their jihad?

Logically, it seems to me that their actions are meant to either A) convince us to convert to their religion by fear of death/violence, or B) to simply exterminate any & all "non-believers".

Or is it possible that they are simply so desperate to go to their version of heaven (with the virgins & all, it must be tempting), that they commit these acts believing that it is their ticket?

My point is, does Osama actually believe that we'll all convert? Or that they can actually kill ALL of us who don't believe in the Muslim religion? What is it exactly that drives these men? Do they really believe that Allah wants them to force us all to convert or die?

Or are they simply a bunch of misguided "bullies" who've decided that continuing this (ultimately pointless) course of action is better than anything else they could do with their lives?

I don't know a whole lot about the Muslim faith but it seems to me there are far more peaceful members than jihad-ists, pretty much like all the other religions.

[SonomaCat]

I don't think OBL is trying to convert anybody. It's all political -- they want all westerners out of the Middle East, and they have a twisted view that this is the best way to go about that. They want to preserve their historic oppressive way of life (even if most of their own countrymen don't).

Granted, I'm sure their view is that life would be a lot better if every non-extremist Muslim on the face of the Earth was dead (a different take on a sentiment that most religions share in that they think that everybody should believe the same things they do), but from what I understand, the motivation for the violence is to try to change western government's policies in the middle east (namely, to go away and never come back).

[El_Gato]

If you're correct (and I'm not implying you aren't), it's amazing that they think with the stakes (cheap oil) as high as they are that they'll get us out of that region.

And if they did, the Chinese & Indians (the dot, not the feather) would soon fill the void we left behind.

It's amazing that a guy like Osama can brainwash enough people into believing it's possible to keep that region free from foreign involvement...

[SonomaCat]

The hoarding of all of the oil profits for the luxurious lifestyles of the monarchies while leaving most of the people in a country very poor goes a long ways towards creating an environment where people are more easily led to belief radical things. When your life really sucks, it's pretty easy to sell you on promises of better things. Hate often sells well in bad neighborhoods.

In this case, they are led to believe that the westerners are the cause of all of their problems, when in reality most all of their problems come from within. It's always easier to blame the outsiders, though.

The U.S. and European support of Israel is obviously also a big part of their gripes. They aren't big fans of multi-cultural democracies in their neighborhood -- especially ones with lots of Jews in it.

It's also ironic that OBL's money is essentially from the westerners and the oil industry. That either makes his a true idealist or a huge hypocrite. It doesn't seem like he uses his money for anything too luxurious (and instead spends it on weapons), so maybe his is at least philosophically consistent. Not that a philosophically consistent genocidal psycho murderer is necessarily better than an inconsistent one.

[Hell's Bells]

most of obl's money is from illegal heroin sales from his time in afganistan, his family has disowned him for years and his own home country has a price on his head for wanting the present goverment to step down for allowing western goverments to conaminate the pure soil of saudi.

[SonomaCat]

He reportedly received $300m as an inheritance. I'd never read much about him personally before -- here's a good comprehensive summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

['93HonoluluCat]

He reportedly received $300m as an inheritance. I'd never read much about him personally before -- here's a good comprehensive summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

There's a good bio of OBL in the 9/11 Commission Report (chapter 2, if memory serves).