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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: How Bush Failed Jesus and the Return of the Christian Crusade Why Bush's jumbled logic that Christianity is by "Presidential proclamation" divine, and Islamic beliefs are by utter existence provocative and depraved, has fueled an incendiary front of hatred and racial intolerance under the banners of Christianity and patriotism in America. As the government of the United States ostensibly wages an unbounded and ceaseless war with Islamic religious fundamentalists, our current President, George W. Bush, has proclaimed he senses a "third awakening of religious devotion" within America. This "third awakening" that Bush cloaks, but does not conceal, is the return of Christianity as a crusade. The sheer oddity of pronouncing a rebirth of a feverish religion, in a country founded on a secular government and not a spiritual one, is the tenable reality that we have become what we most fervently oppose, despise, and scorn -- a society ruled by theocracy and not democracy. At the core of this deep disparagement is the jumbled logic that Christianity is by "Presidential proclamation" divine and Islamic beliefs are by utter existence provocative and depraved. Fueling this incendiary insidiousness is the radicalism of the neoconservative movement through the Bush Administration that drives a country now nearly drenched in hate and racial intolerance under the banners of Christianity and patriotism. George W. Bush, a declared, "born-again Christian", after falling prey to drugs and alcohol for years, did not accurately find God, but George did find religion. What George found in religion was not greater guidance but compulsive coercion and mangling manipulation. The true maliciousness of this is not religion, in and of itself, but what all religious fanaticism perpetrates. Religion divides; religion causes hatred, judgment of others, bigotry, wars, militant activists, extremists, death and destruction, and impedes progress, such as the recently vetoed bill for stem cell research. There have been more people killed, maimed, and murdered in the name of religion, than for any other reason or cause in man's history. These motives, above all others, are the core purpose for separation of church and state in our country. The most overwhelming misnomer today is that supporters of Bush's faux-Christianity and "third awakening" are genuine Christians. They simply are not. The basic message of Christianity is one of peace and hope, faith and kindness, helping the meek, caring for the young, and securing the elderly. Christianity, as a principle, is fine. As a divisive and domineering creed, it becomes a distorted disaster that fails miserably to pay homage to the human side of Jesus. The rationale here is not to debate faith or personal views on Christ; but that Jesus has a more tenable and historical value we can all live by. Whether or not Jesus was the son of God is immaterial. You, and only you, must decide and reflect on that notion. The issue that is so often missed and then distorted by the religious-right for preferential needs, pure greed, and self-pontification is this: Jesus preached a message of harmonious existence. Jesus taught an inspirational message that was contemptible to the Jewish priests during his time that all people were worthy of hope, prosperity, fairness, kindness and equality. Whether Jesus was a great man or divine being is irrelevant. He spoke the most basic truths about acceptance of one's neighbor and common humility. That if you were graced by good fortune, health and prosperity, to share it with your fellow man. Jesus was the first real liberal who stood up to the Jewish priests, over 2000 years ago, against their corrupt temples and pilfering of money from Jewish peasants. He exposed their contemptuous hate of the commoner. Christ proved these crooked clerics were stealing from the impoverished to subsidize their own intemperance for greed and power. What Jesus had uncovered was an incredibly deceptive plan and an abhorrently insatiable appetite for money and control under the facade of faith. Jesus wisely advised, to all who would listen to his simple but matchless wisdom, that everyone has significance and worthiness. That every human being is inevitably unrestricted in access to liberty and happiness, not just those chosen by corrupt, mortal dictators based on the size of your tithing to their coffers. Jesus' ultimate death was, in fact, a direct result of his imminent threat to the rulers of the day and a cautionary tale for the rest of humanity to come. Unfortunately for countless many, over the last two millennia a simple, powerful message of restraint and compassion has been distorted, filled with falsehoods, used as a weapon of fear, a reason to kill, maim and even torture by very depraved and egotistical men who exhibit no decency, no decorum, or the slightest glimmer of conscience. Today, we have subjugators, such as George W. Bush, which have evolved into monstrous megalomaniacs that will stop at nothing to tyrannize every person that opposes his warped theocratic and imperialistic ideals of his perverse "awakening of religious devotion." Bush and his breed genuinely believe that people who dissent from their psychotic world vision should share the very same fate as Jesus. That is the true irony of Bush's religious overtones and propagandized piety. The very man, Jesus, that Bush claims to have saved him from his wicked ways and set Bush on the path to righteousness, feels no pity or remorse for the unspeakable acts against humanity, crimes against this once great nation, and so many others suffering around the world that he has so willingly imparted on us all in Jesus' name. After all, theocracy is the ultimate methodology to rule a nation by. Rationality and intellectualism are always persecuted while faith and ignorance meld into blind nationalism. This in turn produces a mass delusion of grand arrogance that erroneously justifies insidious acts of human brutality and conquests of world dominance under a forged veneer of consecration and devotion. The real "awakening" we are experiencing is the grimacing, grim truth that America is being pushed and bullied into a theocratic dictatorship, ruled by a narrow-band of hateful and dangerous men. A nation where the rule of law will no longer come from a constitution derived by the collective people, but from an apocryphal, ancient manuscript that forces faith to be fact and non-believers are consequently victimized, spurned, or eradicated. It's an often-used adage and cliché, but perhaps we should all ask, not in the celestial sense, but in the pragmatic sense, "What would Jesus do?" http://www.ranellirants.blogspot.com Frank J. Ranelli is a free-lance political writer, researcher and author. In addition, he is an activist and advocate for the progression of peace and the advancement of the Democratic Party. He currently focuses his journalism on educating people of the dangers of the Bush administration, election reform issues, how the war in Iraq is immoral and why the impeachment of President George W. Bush is necessary to restore our democracy. His writing has been well-received and widely published in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet. His "smartly-written and imagery invoking" articles have earned him such praise as, "Written with directness, strength, passion...It's great when it smacks, glares, grabs one!" -Ms. Joyce Benedict, Park Guide for FDR Historic Site
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