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Date: 19 Jul 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Religious rogues (was: war water)
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In article <8l28r2$2s5$0@dosa.alt.net>,
karl@FS.Denninger.Net (Karl Denninger) wrote:
(( cuts ))
> =
> My issue with these practices is that in their organized form here in t=
he =
> United States they are inherently intertwined with both "sorcery" (as y=
ou =
^^^^^^^^
> defined it) and also with control of those who worship for the purpose =
of =
> fiscal and personal gain by those who run those "houses of worship." =
You continue to make an equation between traditional African religion and=
sorcery.
This is certainly wrong as a matter of precept, but if that has been your=
experience,
then that is certainly unfortunate, but your inference would still be
unwarranted to
the extent you are seeking to claim that wrong-doing is inherent in the
religion. As I =
said in my earlier post, traditional African religion is indeed burdened =
by
many whose
agenda is less the cultivation of iwa pele than acquiring and wielding po=
wer
over
others, whether through sorcery or other means. There is nothing in that=
that
is inherent in the religion however. I brought up the perfidy of "Chris=
tian"
popes
and enslavers to make a point. You acknowledge the point in one breath, a=
nd
then in the next you again assert the nonsense that wrong-doing of the so=
rt you
mention is somehow "inherent" in the traditional religion. I can accept =
that
you
have been unfortunate to have met people purporting to practice tradition=
al
African religion who have taken advantage of you or other people. You ca=
nnot,
however, infer from such misfortune that roguishness is inherent in the
religion.
If that were a correct mode of argumentation, you would also have to conc=
ede
the inherent wickedness of Christianity (as distinct from the so-called
"Christianity"
practiced by Europeans from Constantine on down to the present). But you=
expressly affirm the morality of Christianity, blaming the wickedness of =
its
practitioners not on the religion they claim to profess, but to human wea=
kness.
That is my point precisely when it comes to traditional African religion.=
The
wickedness of some of its practitioners does not inhere in the religion. =
Furthermore,
the wickedness of some adherents of traditional African religion is as no=
thing
compared with the wickedness of the "Christian" popes who authorized, in
the name of religion, the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of
indigenous
people everywhere outside of Europe. In fact, spell-casters and sorcerer=
s, of
whatever stripe, make no religious claim whatever, in the sense that I ha=
ve
used that term, =
quite unlike the succession of "Christian" popes beginning at least
in 325 AD after the Nicaean Conference called by Constantine, who express=
ly
stated that "Christianity" would be deployed as a tool of conquest, not t=
o
mention
the "fiscal and personal gain" that derive from conquest. Pure wickedness=
,
moreover inherent in the "religion". =
Even if one were to wash Christianity of
such wickedness, there still lies at the core of Christianity a doctrine =
of =
exclusivism - that there can be no reyoking to oneness with God except th=
rough
Christ - that is inevitably pernicious in its effects on those who conver=
t to
such a doctrine: it undermines if not destroys ancestral cultures. No on=
e
should =
need to reject their own ancestral culture in order to find God. Traditi=
onal
African religion, and indeed the religions of indigenous people everywher=
e,
understand perhaps better than Christianity the true meaning of the bibli=
cal
injunction "honor thy mother and thy father that thy days may be long," f=
or =
none of them find merit in proselytizing, and the "fiscal and personal ga=
in"
that comes from this particular kind of conquest. =
Long story short=E2?=A6 if you want to save the world from religious rogu=
es, my
advice would be to focus your outrage on the successors of those popes wh=
o
have shaped the present world. If you want to condemn rogues in general,=
you might also want to focus your outrage on the potentates of the presen=
t
world order who today continue to profit from the twin theft of land and =
labor,
as yet unatoned and unreparated, that lies at its base. Those on the gro=
up
whose
interest is sorcery will certainly not benefit from your observations, an=
d
those
whose interest is the cultivation of iwa pele, are in far less danger pur=
suing
an
interest in traditional African religion, than, say, following another Ji=
m
Jones,
Jimmy Swaggart, or Branch Davidian.
> -- =
> Karl Denninger (karl@denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights
Activist
In Maat,
Grisso
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