RELIGION CRITIQUED
Intolerance
The New York Times has reported that President Bush will allow religious
groups to use federal housing money to build centers for religious worship.
Previously, he has ignored the financial needs of public schools in favor of
education tax credits for private school students. It’s strange that the
President of the United States goes against our Constitution by favoring the
church over the state. President Bush declares that his actions will finally
end discrimination against all religions. Yet he seems to forget that all
religions discriminate against each other by practicing intolerance. The
president claims to have declared a war on evil, but the true evil is caused
by the extremist religions which he plans to support with federal money,
acknowledging that their fundamentalism has only distorted idea of God so
far as causing us to doubt God. Evident intolerance between all religions
split the world against each others so that each of them can seek to
overpower the world with their discriminatory dogmas while proclaiming a
mantra of peace and love.
Regardless of their beliefs, they act as impostors or as false prophets
predicting the immanent end of the world, thereby inviting us to sacrifice
our life since the life here is not important. Every one of these spiritual
leaders - not excluding Catholic priests - are possessing and sexually
abusing their followers, particularly those most vulnerable, reducing them
into empty puppets, easy to be manipulated for they ends, even
indoctrinating adolescents into suicidal acts.
It is a glorious time for all organized religion as freedom of expression
allows for calling Palestinians to kill Jews since Palestine was consecrated
by Allah for the Moslems' generation until Judgment Day. Islamic resistance
founded the Hamas movement which prepares little children to enact suicidal
acts by brain-washing them into thinking that a sacrificed life is precious
for the sake of Allah, that a precious award will await them. The similarity
of their delusions in deceiving people is impressive. Each spiritual leader
to justify his action is always preceded by extraordinary visions coming
from the Angel Gabriel, Jesus, or the extra-terrestrial Solar Angels who
spur them on their mission.
Mohammed, motivated by the vision of the
Angel Gabriel, created monotheistic Islam, which violently rejects all other
religions. The expanding threat of the Muslim world prompted the Pope to
declare a “War of the Cross" to retake Jerusalem from Islamic
tyranny. Each warrior became a soldier of the Church, according to the will
of God. They crusaded to Constantinople - all along the way slaughtering
Jews - and turned the war into a struggle not only against Muslims but also
against infidels, pagans, and heretics. The continuation of the crusades was
even more savagely enforced by the brutal Inquisition. All the while, the
crusades continued to proclaim that Jesus brought only peace and love.
The freedom of all religious expression lends credence to every agenda. A
glorious time for all religions was the announcement that a new leader -
Realian - claimed to have had an extraterrestrial vision of Elohim, who
confirmed him as the final prophet and sent him to relay a message of peace
and sensual meditation. Realian named himself ‘His Holiness” and
immediately set up a group called Clonaid. He insists that Jesus was cloned
and that all humans came from extraterrestrials. Realian affirms that during
his second visit to the extra-terrestrial planet he met Jesus, Buddha,
Confucius, and Joseph Smith, claiming that they were born from mortal women
and Elohim. Holy Raelian believes that after death the human soul will
perish with the body, so the key to eternal life is not the soul but the
re-creation of individuals from their DNA. Whoever desires a duplicate of
himself can order one for $200,000. The disciples from all over the world
practice nudism, freely expressing their sexuality without any obligations
and jealousies; however, all women are devoted to the holy millionaire
Realian. His teaching affirms that dying for Elohim is the most beautiful
thing this planet has to offer. No wonder Raelian espouses cloning. The
practice ensures a never-ending supply of followers for all time.
Joseph Smith, who also experienced a
series of visions and divine revelation, was called by God to restore a true
Christianity. The Mormon Church sees itself as the only fully authorized and
recognized Church by God. Its founding doctrine was based on the assumption
that Christianity was more or less corrupt and that restoring the true
Christian gospel was necessary. Such a restoration, however, required a new
revelation from God to give the truths of Christianity in pure form. This
revelation was given to John Smith. Together with the economic and political
power, the Mormon’s practice of polygamy spread widely.
Superstitious dread about the end of the
world is nothing new. Rev Jones considered himself the reincarnation
of both Jesus and Lenin. He had visions of impending nuclear holocaust,
ordering 638 adults and 276 children to drink juice laced with cyanide.
David Koresh, rock star turned doomsday
prophet, preached a messianic gospel of sex, freedom, and revolution and
told his followers he was Jesus Christ. It ended with the "fiery
apocalypse" predicted by Koresh. In February 1993, the compound was
stormed by the police and a fire broke out killing 86 people inside.
The Order of the Solar Temple was
founded in 1987 by Luc Jouret and Joseph di Mambro, Its motto was
"Money, Sex, and Joy," and Jouret quickly attracted a large
gathering of wealthy, professional followers. The cult appeared to place
great importance on the Sun. Their fiery murder-suicides were meant to take
members to a new world on the star 'Sirius.' The bodies of 48 members were
found. There were three chalets in Switzerland and several more in Canada
found belonging to them.
One of the most unusual mass suicides of the last decade was the
Californian-based cult Heaven's Gate, who believed that a spaceship flying
behind the Hale-Bopp comet was coming to pick them up. Thirty-nine members
died in their mansion in San Diego after eating poisonous pudding or
apple sauce, washed down with vodka. Founders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie
Nettles wrote on the cult's website that in their suicide they were
"graduating" to a higher level of life.
Mr Kibweteere set up his Movement for the Restoration of the Ten
Commandments of God and along with Ms Mwerinde declared the world would end
at the turn of the century. A Roman Catholic priest and key figure in the
Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, Kataribabo earned his degree in
religious studies from Loyola Marymount University, one of America's top
Roman Catholic colleges. After seeing visions of the Virgin Mary, he said
the world was coming to an end because it had become so sinful. Cult leaders
started killing followers when their prophecies that the world would end on
the eve of the new millennium failed to come true.
Around 500 sect members burned to death
in an inferno at their church in Kanungu. So far more than 900 bodies of
cult members have been found and the number is still rising.
The free expression of religion is continuing to manifest in chilling ways,
claiming God’s authority where religious groups lay claim to biological
and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Clear evidence of this lies in the
World Trade Center tragedy or the poison gas attack on a Japanese subway.
And Christian terrorism is now in the same league as Islamic extremism and
the Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers. Certainly bombing an abortion clinic
or a gay bar means that a holy war is being fought on our own soil.
Religions that are motivated solely by an ambition of divine immortality
have forgotten God and his true meaning. Is it not time to stop the
tyrannical cruelty and “divine” brainwashing! Impostors of all religions
possess their followers and sexually abuse the most vulnerable in
particular. The victims are reduced to empty-headed puppets, easily
manipulated for their evil ends.
Now is the right time to stop the tyrannical attitude of all religions to
overpower the world with their dogmas by brainwashing people; this has only
destroyed our lives and taken us far away from God as it happened to me.
I was possessed by a Catholic priest
whose mentor was the recently canonized Padre Pio, himself accused of
possessing and sexually abusing his followers. Because of all the
accusations against him and doubts about the veracity of the stigmata he
claimed to have, the Vatican labeled him an impostor. He was called a
“money machine” since his stigmata attracted enormous amounts of people
and their cash. This was reason enough to declare him a saint, leaving
behind another impostor, Father G, who claims to have been possessed by
Padre Pio and to have received the same stigmata as him. Father G’s
ambition is to be immortalized by the faithful. Like others before him, he
claims to have had a vision of Our Lady of Fatima, therefore justifying his
actions which include blackmailing his followers with the ambition to become
a part of history as future saint. Father G was not above threatening death
to those who resisted as long as his followers gave testimony to his
sainthood. Father G., in all his charlatan glory, is no different from all
empowered spiritual leaders who believe that only their mission is noble
thereby imposing their meaning to our insignificant lives. Certainly,
religious organizations should not be supported with federal money since
they only bring disasters to world.
I invite all people to create a non-profit organization whose mission is to
protect innocent people from the dangers of religious organizations cults
particularly adolescents who are accosted in front of their schools by the
various preachers belonging to America’s 3000 religious groups. There are
many parents that claim not to have recognized that their own children must
have been possessed by someone, as in the case of John Walker who was
brainwashed and drawn to Taliban. If the freedom given to all religions goes
to such extent shouldn’t this freedom be opposed with new legislation to
protect abuses in this area?
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