Nevada
02-02-2005, 11:25 AM
This article is long but very interesting and scary enough to give me palpitations
Once they came for us - Descending into ignorance Email this page Print this page
Posted: January 27, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today
Then they came for me
''First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.''
- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
In the same way America's CIA in the 1980s unleashed the violent aspirations of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, letting the terrorist genie out of that bottle, the call to fundamentalist Christian movement in American politics, encouraged by the current leadership of the GOP, holds the potential to unleash consequences that diminish the open society concept in America, perhaps irrevocably.
It is always a dangerous thing when a country's government turns increasingly fundamentalist around one particular faith, including Christianity. Whatever the attacks on the liberal philosophy, which the ''Christian'' right harshly condemns as the work of the devil on earth, the notion of a secular, tolerant, open-minded society remains the best possible way to democratic intelligence and truth in decision making.
We believe this to be a self-evident truth and one of the most genial of all the foundational elements of the American republic. Formed socially and intellectually from the social climate of the European enlightenment and influenced by American Indian social and governmental examples, the political thought of the U.S. founding fathers rode on some wonderful ''new'' notions of human intellectual, social and personal freedoms. Dominant among these was the freedom of intellectual, scientific pursuit of knowledge, free, precisely, from the dogma of the major Christian churches, given as these were to condemn all new knowledge that might contradict any of their faith-based dictums and mandates.
This was the best of the freedom that America pledged to sustain. Indian people early joined this debate over their own spiritual concepts and traditions with Christian missionaries and what comes across from those early documents is how versatile and free the Indian thinkers were relative to the ''black robes'' who came among them. Indian people died in large numbers to maintain their independence of culture and ownership of their own lands, even as many chose to embrace the narratives of Christian culture beyond or in addition to their own indigenous narratives of emergence and Creation.
Reducing social truth to a literal interpretation of the Bible is a surefire way to dumb down the American populace and diminish or retard the many advances made in education and general public enlightenment (including public policy) for several generations. There are those who are inspired by the wish to manipulate others who are prone to homily as a political bloc. The new Christian religious exposition is not benign - not because the Christian faith lacks wisdom or compassion - but because those who would manipulate these spiritual sentiments politically are usually political activists bent on acquiring power irrespective of the proliferation of ignorance.
The strategy, employed again and again, is to create national and international crisis out of particular problems and complex social situations. Howard Dean, with whom we had our differences, identified this during the recent presidential campaign: ''Guns, God and Gays are the fear-factor issues.'' When these are used and abused to trigger powerful emotions in people, careful discussion becomes impossible and only tense, browbeating argumentation follows.
We are encouraged that more and more voices are challenging this notion of what represents the American republic. There is alarm, finally, that religious faith-based belief is seriously challenging scientific method and the diffusion of knowledge across many school districts in a wide variety of states. The theory of evolution for one is widely challenged by creationists dressed under the banner of ''intelligent design.'' What concerns is not the challenge itself, as scientific assertion must always be ready for ongoing challenge, but the fact that the challenge has no such basis in the intellectually accepted scientific method of rigorous inquiry. Rather, ''intelligent design'' is simply well conceptualized and crafted ideological garbage.
It shocked many people recently when CBS polling revealed that 55 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution. This jumps by 12 percent to 67 percent for people who voted for President Bush. But this should not surprise, considering that, according to Gallup, one third of Americans believe the Bible literally. Professing tolerance for the possible truth of other religious points of view is nearly impossible for this mindset. In the states of Wisconsin, Montana, South Carolina, Kansas, Arkansas and Mississippi, organized parent groups of this persuasion have consistently pressured against the teaching of evolution. Usually they substitute the term ''intelligent design'' for creationism in their curriculums, but they are really talking about the genesis of the Christian Bible as literal truth - a position from which they will not deviate.
That ''intelligent design'' as euphemism for direct divine intervention as science in public schools is a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state is apparently not much of an issue yet, but it needs to be. As religious faith overlays public policy debate, the very science of government, compromise and negotiation, become moot. The principle that guides religious faith has no compatibility with the leeway and tolerance required of legislators. Other recent research (Public Agenda) points out that support for political compromise is diminishing rapidly among American evangelicals of a literal-Bible persuasion, indeed, among all Christians. These are people for whom, as columnist William Raspberry wrote, ''compromise between righteousness and sin is: Sin.''
The most ominous of all these trends is the ''millions of Christian fundamentalists,'' as Bill Moyers the journalist-philosopher recently remarked, who ''believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.'' America and the world do not deserve to be guided by such ignorance.
Moyers reminds us this trend goes back to James Watt, President Reagan's first secretary of the Interior, who: ''Told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.'' In public testimony he said, ''after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.'' These days, the belief resonates strongly, Moyers goes on, with ''nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total - more since the election - [who] are backed by the religious right.''
The Washington Post (Jan. 23) complains that a dumbing down of America is the result of the faith-based government, warning that it can leave our country's science flank vulnerable to the new waves of scientists coming out of Asia and Europe. We agree, but would add that a public bigotry against science goes hand in hand with a public bigotry and ignorance against other, non-Christian faiths. The underlying aggression of militant missionizing, that is, the willingness to accost others directly in order to proselytize and impose a religious view - this has been suffered greatly by Indian peoples of the Americas.
And once before, as conquering saviors, they came for us en masse. Under the notion of militant Christianity was institutionalized this country's greatest misguided social experiment: The Indian boarding schools of the early 20th century, whose official intent was to destroy all that was core in American Indian spiritual belief and ritual, in order to ''kill the Indian and save the man.''
Indeed, for American Indian tribal peoples, the experience of the Christian mission has been difficult to digest. The good that it has brought is shrouded in substantial darkness and abuse. Christianization often imposed itself with the intent to fill the full glass of the Indian mind, intending to drown out the indigenous intelligence, sometimes as an invention of the devil himself. This was the general social premise of an imposed ''educational'' experience where various Christian denominations bid for ''their Indians'' region by region and reservation by reservation, until most were divided for each particular brand of evangelism. This system (as overwhelming force) lasted more than half the century in various ways and it was accompanied by the formal criminalizing of Indian ceremonial spiritual practices that reflected comprehensive and pragmatic religious traditions.
We suggest that dogma and truth are completely different things. There is religious dogma. There is scientific dogma. And there is truth.
Dogma - scientific or religious - is not truth. Truth is elusive. Dogma is not elusive at all. Dogma is always concrete in the mind of the dogmatic. While truth reveals itself sparingly, and best to those with humble attitude, dogma is the brick that hits you in the head from both sides. Dogma does not reveal but imposes itself upon all weary- and weak-minded people, convincing all who will listen of their worthlessness and presumed damnation, but for the power and the path of light offered only by itself. Dogma seeks converts to justify itself. Truth is, and can be found, by intuition and by method. Elusive, it will yield itself always to serious intent and respectful treatment. It has huge natural power that directs itself.
When dogma leads, times become hard and suffering increases. Truth is given by the hand of nature to the open and curious mind of the human being but it can only come to where it is sought, where it can be useful, where it is appreciated.
Let no one be fooled. The religious fundamentalism that is sweeping America poses a serious threat to the advancement of an American culture that learns and grows from rationally applied inquiry and investigation. From an American Indian perspective derived from cultural roots that reach back to the earliest consciousness of these lands, we state clearly that what we are witnessing in America is not American at all. The time has come for all Americans of mature intelligence and courage to speak out against fundamentalist religious doctrine and intolerance and those who would benefit from America's descent into ignorance.
Once they came for us - Descending into ignorance Email this page Print this page
Posted: January 27, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today
Then they came for me
''First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.''
- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
In the same way America's CIA in the 1980s unleashed the violent aspirations of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, letting the terrorist genie out of that bottle, the call to fundamentalist Christian movement in American politics, encouraged by the current leadership of the GOP, holds the potential to unleash consequences that diminish the open society concept in America, perhaps irrevocably.
It is always a dangerous thing when a country's government turns increasingly fundamentalist around one particular faith, including Christianity. Whatever the attacks on the liberal philosophy, which the ''Christian'' right harshly condemns as the work of the devil on earth, the notion of a secular, tolerant, open-minded society remains the best possible way to democratic intelligence and truth in decision making.
We believe this to be a self-evident truth and one of the most genial of all the foundational elements of the American republic. Formed socially and intellectually from the social climate of the European enlightenment and influenced by American Indian social and governmental examples, the political thought of the U.S. founding fathers rode on some wonderful ''new'' notions of human intellectual, social and personal freedoms. Dominant among these was the freedom of intellectual, scientific pursuit of knowledge, free, precisely, from the dogma of the major Christian churches, given as these were to condemn all new knowledge that might contradict any of their faith-based dictums and mandates.
This was the best of the freedom that America pledged to sustain. Indian people early joined this debate over their own spiritual concepts and traditions with Christian missionaries and what comes across from those early documents is how versatile and free the Indian thinkers were relative to the ''black robes'' who came among them. Indian people died in large numbers to maintain their independence of culture and ownership of their own lands, even as many chose to embrace the narratives of Christian culture beyond or in addition to their own indigenous narratives of emergence and Creation.
Reducing social truth to a literal interpretation of the Bible is a surefire way to dumb down the American populace and diminish or retard the many advances made in education and general public enlightenment (including public policy) for several generations. There are those who are inspired by the wish to manipulate others who are prone to homily as a political bloc. The new Christian religious exposition is not benign - not because the Christian faith lacks wisdom or compassion - but because those who would manipulate these spiritual sentiments politically are usually political activists bent on acquiring power irrespective of the proliferation of ignorance.
The strategy, employed again and again, is to create national and international crisis out of particular problems and complex social situations. Howard Dean, with whom we had our differences, identified this during the recent presidential campaign: ''Guns, God and Gays are the fear-factor issues.'' When these are used and abused to trigger powerful emotions in people, careful discussion becomes impossible and only tense, browbeating argumentation follows.
We are encouraged that more and more voices are challenging this notion of what represents the American republic. There is alarm, finally, that religious faith-based belief is seriously challenging scientific method and the diffusion of knowledge across many school districts in a wide variety of states. The theory of evolution for one is widely challenged by creationists dressed under the banner of ''intelligent design.'' What concerns is not the challenge itself, as scientific assertion must always be ready for ongoing challenge, but the fact that the challenge has no such basis in the intellectually accepted scientific method of rigorous inquiry. Rather, ''intelligent design'' is simply well conceptualized and crafted ideological garbage.
It shocked many people recently when CBS polling revealed that 55 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution. This jumps by 12 percent to 67 percent for people who voted for President Bush. But this should not surprise, considering that, according to Gallup, one third of Americans believe the Bible literally. Professing tolerance for the possible truth of other religious points of view is nearly impossible for this mindset. In the states of Wisconsin, Montana, South Carolina, Kansas, Arkansas and Mississippi, organized parent groups of this persuasion have consistently pressured against the teaching of evolution. Usually they substitute the term ''intelligent design'' for creationism in their curriculums, but they are really talking about the genesis of the Christian Bible as literal truth - a position from which they will not deviate.
That ''intelligent design'' as euphemism for direct divine intervention as science in public schools is a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state is apparently not much of an issue yet, but it needs to be. As religious faith overlays public policy debate, the very science of government, compromise and negotiation, become moot. The principle that guides religious faith has no compatibility with the leeway and tolerance required of legislators. Other recent research (Public Agenda) points out that support for political compromise is diminishing rapidly among American evangelicals of a literal-Bible persuasion, indeed, among all Christians. These are people for whom, as columnist William Raspberry wrote, ''compromise between righteousness and sin is: Sin.''
The most ominous of all these trends is the ''millions of Christian fundamentalists,'' as Bill Moyers the journalist-philosopher recently remarked, who ''believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.'' America and the world do not deserve to be guided by such ignorance.
Moyers reminds us this trend goes back to James Watt, President Reagan's first secretary of the Interior, who: ''Told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.'' In public testimony he said, ''after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.'' These days, the belief resonates strongly, Moyers goes on, with ''nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total - more since the election - [who] are backed by the religious right.''
The Washington Post (Jan. 23) complains that a dumbing down of America is the result of the faith-based government, warning that it can leave our country's science flank vulnerable to the new waves of scientists coming out of Asia and Europe. We agree, but would add that a public bigotry against science goes hand in hand with a public bigotry and ignorance against other, non-Christian faiths. The underlying aggression of militant missionizing, that is, the willingness to accost others directly in order to proselytize and impose a religious view - this has been suffered greatly by Indian peoples of the Americas.
And once before, as conquering saviors, they came for us en masse. Under the notion of militant Christianity was institutionalized this country's greatest misguided social experiment: The Indian boarding schools of the early 20th century, whose official intent was to destroy all that was core in American Indian spiritual belief and ritual, in order to ''kill the Indian and save the man.''
Indeed, for American Indian tribal peoples, the experience of the Christian mission has been difficult to digest. The good that it has brought is shrouded in substantial darkness and abuse. Christianization often imposed itself with the intent to fill the full glass of the Indian mind, intending to drown out the indigenous intelligence, sometimes as an invention of the devil himself. This was the general social premise of an imposed ''educational'' experience where various Christian denominations bid for ''their Indians'' region by region and reservation by reservation, until most were divided for each particular brand of evangelism. This system (as overwhelming force) lasted more than half the century in various ways and it was accompanied by the formal criminalizing of Indian ceremonial spiritual practices that reflected comprehensive and pragmatic religious traditions.
We suggest that dogma and truth are completely different things. There is religious dogma. There is scientific dogma. And there is truth.
Dogma - scientific or religious - is not truth. Truth is elusive. Dogma is not elusive at all. Dogma is always concrete in the mind of the dogmatic. While truth reveals itself sparingly, and best to those with humble attitude, dogma is the brick that hits you in the head from both sides. Dogma does not reveal but imposes itself upon all weary- and weak-minded people, convincing all who will listen of their worthlessness and presumed damnation, but for the power and the path of light offered only by itself. Dogma seeks converts to justify itself. Truth is, and can be found, by intuition and by method. Elusive, it will yield itself always to serious intent and respectful treatment. It has huge natural power that directs itself.
When dogma leads, times become hard and suffering increases. Truth is given by the hand of nature to the open and curious mind of the human being but it can only come to where it is sought, where it can be useful, where it is appreciated.
Let no one be fooled. The religious fundamentalism that is sweeping America poses a serious threat to the advancement of an American culture that learns and grows from rationally applied inquiry and investigation. From an American Indian perspective derived from cultural roots that reach back to the earliest consciousness of these lands, we state clearly that what we are witnessing in America is not American at all. The time has come for all Americans of mature intelligence and courage to speak out against fundamentalist religious doctrine and intolerance and those who would benefit from America's descent into ignorance.