| FUNDAMENTALISM
12/26/04 <link>
Church-State
Separation in the United States:
Religion in Public Schools and the Legal/Off-Courtroom Strategies of
the Christian Right
Detailed coverage is here.
11/30/04 <link>
UPDATED 12/26/04
Far-Right fundamentalists launch intimidation
campaign against Stevens Creek Elementary School Principal in
Cupertino, CA
- Far Right group files lawsuit against the Principal
and the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD)
on behalf of teacher Stephen Williams who used slanted, dubious or
false propaganda to push a "Christian" nation perspective on
the school students and then claimed "discrimination" when
he was stopped from pursuing this
Detailed coverage is here.
10/14/02 <link>
A
Falwell redux
Jerry Falwell mouths off again on how Mohammad (the founder of Islam)
was a "terrorist", amongst other things, and then apologizes
after receiving a lot of flak for his outrageous comments. The irony
here is that a man claiming to represent Jesus Christ in some form or
the other, liberally behaves as Christ would never have, with abandon!
Mr. Falwell (and his supporters), how are you any different than the
Islamic fundamentalists who issue fatwahs on anyone whom they don't
like? Don't you think the time is ripe to stop the mindless hate. Why
do you teach hate, like it is a virtue?
Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek
piece on America's haters certainly offers us some semblance of
relief. But we find ourselves more relieved that there are indeed many
leaders of the Church who would take an equally strong stand against
the Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons and Franklin Grahams of the world.
We resoundingly applaud the U.S.
National Council of Churches not only for their thorough
condemnation of Falwell, but also their call to President Bush to
not let this pass with stony silence. The NCC goes on to say, "...Falwell’s
'hateful and destructive' statements - among others, that 'Muhammed
was a terrorist' - 'are NOT those of the majority of Christians in
this country nor in the rest of the world,' said the governing body of
the NCC, whose 36 member denominations comprise 50 million adherents.
'His statements about Islam and the Prophet Muhammed are not only
factually untrue and offensive, but are dangerous to the national
security of every nation where Christians and Muslims are seeking a
peaceful relationship.'.....further characterized Falwell’s words as
'not Christian and shockingly uninformed.' Falwell’s comments
'create ideal conditions for breeding terrorism among those who may
not understand that he does not represent the majority of Christians
or Americans,'...(H)is inflammatory words put at increased risk the
lives of thousands of Christian missionaries and humanitarian aid
workers, as well as their Christian partners abroad who are engaged in
heroic efforts to be peacemakers and bridge-builders in difficult and
dangerous circumstances...." Not to mention this
interesting comment, "...Jerry
Falwell implied in his comments that he and his constituency control
President Bush’s policies towards Israel and Palestine..."
Some of the NCC's comments about putting American
lives at risk and destroying America's ability to win the hearts of
the world's ~1.2 billion Muslims (minus their own fundamentalists),
are also echoed by Zakaria in his article.
10/8/02 <link>
How
some of the "religious" "right" lead by example
Some of you may remember the outrageous law against antiracial dating
that the Bob Jones University is South Carolina had enforced for a long
long time. You may also remember that they initially defended
this egregious policy with so-called "Biblical"
references, but finally retracted the policy after the flak
President Bush and the University got after the
former stopped there in his campaign path in 2000. (To his credit,
President Bush did criticize the University later). Well, talking of
Universities running on "Biblical" principles, here's a case
of "morality" working full time at a religious Baptist
school in North Carolina - the Gardner-Webb University. As this CNN article
reports, "...the school's president admitted
he wrote a memo two years ago ordering a star basketball player's GPA
to be calculated without an F he received for cheating -- in, of all
things, a religion class...."
10/6/02 <link>
WP
Editorial slams "religious" right
That they are "religious" is only evident to us when pointed
out since they don't seem to have some of the characteristics that God
(in this case Jesus Christ) espouses. The Editorial correctly takes
Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to task for their
outrageous comments on Islam and Mohammad. I wonder when these
"moralists" will recognize that the history of Christianity
(or for that matter Hinduism, which is our religion) is not exactly
dripping with "peace", to put it lightly. President Bush's
silence on the insanity of the rantings of the so-called "religious"
right is disappointing.
At the same time, our comments would be incomplete if we
did not state that we also have ZERO sympathy for Islamic terrorists and
their supporters, who use "Islam" as the facade to launch
their pathetic "holy wars", nor for their portrayal of the
U.S. as the source of their own, largely self-created, problems. More
on this in a past article of ours.
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