NP - What's So Bad About Theocracy, Anyway?

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/22/2012 10:38 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
> I don't see the disagreement there, David. Enlighten me.

My quibble is different from David's.  You're anachronizing 
Christianity. Theocracy implies political power. Paul was a pariah in 
the Roman Empire, a criminal if fact. Christianity wasn't even legal 
until AD 313 (Edict of Milan), two and a half centuries after Paul's 
death. Even in Constantine's time Christians were a fairly small 
minority  in the Empire. The emperor had to keep his subjects happy and 
had to appease the Sun God as well as the Christian one. Paganism 
remained a force well into late antiquity.

P
>
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 6:35 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com 
> <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     A not slight quibble:  Jesus (as Biblical character) didn't
>     separate church from state making church's authority superior.
>      His separation was anti-confrontational.  If State was inferior,
>     it wasn't so in this world's authority.
>
>     David Morris
>
>
>     On Friday, June 22, 2012, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
>         I agree with you almost completely, Joseph, except for this
>         one point: Jesus is never anti-authoritarian. Instead, he
>         separates church from state. Render unto Caesar and all that.
>         The state is the state, it is not compatible with religion.
>         That is one of the chief points of differentiation between
>         Christianity and Islam. Mohammed's state is theocratic. "St"
>         Paul comes across as quite theocratic, also. He engineered the
>         true schism in Christianity. All other sectarian divisions are
>         minor after Paul's diversion from Jesus' teachings, the almost
>         inevitable subsequent union of Caesar and Christ, and the
>         advent of militant christianity in Rome. Now, I'm no
>         christian, but I think this Voris guy is as ridiculous as Paul
>         and Constantine, so he scares me a little.
>
>         On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Joseph Tracy
>         <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>              Christian is a loaded word whose ownership should not be
>             conceded to theocratic killers. What we live in is a
>             classic agonistic state religion of imperial dominance
>             with roots in an upperclass ant-colonial revolution, now
>             shading into a weird blend of plutocracy and militarism
>             which uses personal greed and Old Testament homophobia and
>             glorifications of ethnic cleansing as  pressure valves and
>             scape goats when popular revolution looms.  Even the
>             edited Jesus of the fucked over New Testament  was
>              peaceful and anti-authoritarian.  It would be impossible
>             to construct the Cristian Right from a popular consensus
>             about what Jesus taught in the New Testament. Where would
>             they fit the Sermon on the Mount or the constant sharing
>             of food?
>             Unfortunately fascism has become a loaded word, but the
>             combination of militarism, corporate power and colonial
>             power structures along with the changing face of the big
>             enemy( Communism, Islam, Terror, Brownness, Blackness,
>             Yellowness, Redness,  ), the claim to absolute imperial
>             power of life and death all point to that word as being as
>             accurate a description of the US as any I can think of.
>             On Jun 15, 2012, at 11:05 AM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
>
>             > Don't we already live in a Christian theocracy?
>             >
>             > "Ugh!"
>             > "Boo!"
>             > "Yawn!"
>             >
>             > On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 9:59 AM, David Morris
>             <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>             >
>             http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/not_parody_alert_whats_so_bad_about_theocracy_anyway
>             >
>             > You may recall Michael Voris from this video, “What’s So
>             Bad About
>             > Theocracy, Anyway?” that explains why the United States
>             needs a
>             > Christian dictator.
>             >
>             > It’s simple: pro-gay, pro-abortion “parasitic” liberals
>             get to vote.
>             >
>             > Voris is the controversial star of the formerly named
>             “Real Catholic
>             > TV” web series. Yesterday, the conservative crusader
>             announced that
>             > his show will henceforth be known as “Church Militant
>             TV” and that he
>             > will be relaunching his brand (The Archdiocese of
>             Detroit have
>             > sensibly asserted that Voris was not authorized to speak
>             for the real
>             > Catholic Church and so now he’s using this more
>             appropriate name).
>             >
>             > You probably think this is an Onion parody, don’t you?
>             >
>             > It’s not.
>             >
>
>
>
>
>         -- 
>         "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel
>         for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn
>         that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that
>         we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know
>         no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the
>         streets." -- Will Durant
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all 
> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the 
> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments 
> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates 
> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant


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