Memorial Day: A High Holy Day of Militarism
Once more, the it is the season for sentimental clap-trap about how American soldiers have died for our freedoms,which we would not have if it were not for their "giving their lives" - which in truth they almost always never give but lose unwillingly, and in the course of killing many innocent people to reduce their own risk.
Whenever I hear this nonsense, I ask those proclaiming it just what American soldier's death since 1945 has defended anyone's freedom in this country or anywhere else. I want to know whether if they hadn't gone and murdered 3 million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laos minding their own business in their own country, would the Vietnamese have come over here and stopped any American from exercising his own freedom to do or say anything at all? Did any American lose any freedom whatever when the Vietnamese finally tossed the invaders out and did away with the American puppet dictatorship on April 30, 1975?
And how did anyone benefit from the bombers and invaders killing a million people in Iraq and otherwise trashing that country? Is it really better off now, a third of it under the control of the barbarians of ISIS, than it was under Saddam Hussein?
When I ask these questions, I never get actual answers - probably because there aren't any. Instead, I get sentimental indignation against the sacrilege of mentioning such truths on their Holy Day. Now here we come to a huge difference between the religion of Jesus and other kinds, including almost all American "Christianity" - alluded to particularly in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12: for Jesus, as he also said in John 8:31-32, the only issue is whether we receive the love of the truth. Nothing else matters. The Satanic nature of the worship of the American military, with its fatuous claims that American soldiers do a thing for anyone's freedom by getting killed in imperial wars of aggression, is evident not only in the audacious falsehood of these claims, but even more so at the rage against the truth if anyone states it, especially on the Holy Days of this religion. It's the same rage of religious people documented in the gospels when Jesus would tell the truth, as in his own hometown (Luke 4:16-30).
But I see no reason why their idea of Memorial Day deserves the slightest respect - mindless sentimental celebration of wars and those who die in them, no matter how foolishly or wickedly, and no matter how ruinous in fact this all is to the American republic. Perhaps James Madison and the other founders were mistaken when they identified war and standing armies as the principal enemies of liberty, so that the blather of modern flag-wavers about the glories of the military are correct instead, but in view of the founders having been fairly smart men, I defend their view without embarrassment.
Certainly it's fitting on Memorial Day or any day to argue for their position, especially when opponents of their political thought have the effrontery to make themselves out to be shining patriots as they subvert the principles of the American republic as explained by the founders.
And as a biblical Christian, I find it right on any day to oppose a religion of human sacrifice descended in a straight line from the sacrifice of children to Molech - the notion that there is something holy and redemptive about burning young men in the fire in stupid wars, thereby supposedly gaining liberty. This is an obvious counterfeit of the Christian doctrine that our liberty was purchased by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and nothing else.
Finally, all such pagan religion has found virtue in burning children and other humans in the fire in devotion to their gods - the American state being just one more - so it is no worse than I expect in the world.
But I have a problem with this religion being entertained in churches, mixing it with the gospel, as in past times these churches have mingled the gospel with white supremacy. This mixture of incompatible religion, worshiping God and demons at the same, gets a great deal of notice in the Bible - and for good reason. It is a big problem. It blights the spirituality of all who engage in it, making us reliable instruments of Satan while we profess to know God. It is no surprise that such religion simply profanes the name of God in the world, being useless for any purpose, and unfortunately, it's just about the only religion that we see these days in American churches.
There is good news in that. American Chritianity is not useless because there is anything deficient in the gospel, or because the Bible that Jesus and the apostles relied on has failed. It's useless for exactly the reason the Bible says it is, because it is apostate - utterly surrendered to the demonic doctrines of this world, like the religion of Jeroboam, Ahaz, and of Ahab and Jezebel, having a form of godliness while denying its power. If that apostasy works out exactly as Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles tell me to expect, I don't have to enjoy it, but I know at least they are not wrong about anything. Indeed, their testimony about all things is confirmed, and I can believe them with a good conscience.
Whenever I hear this nonsense, I ask those proclaiming it just what American soldier's death since 1945 has defended anyone's freedom in this country or anywhere else. I want to know whether if they hadn't gone and murdered 3 million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laos minding their own business in their own country, would the Vietnamese have come over here and stopped any American from exercising his own freedom to do or say anything at all? Did any American lose any freedom whatever when the Vietnamese finally tossed the invaders out and did away with the American puppet dictatorship on April 30, 1975?
And how did anyone benefit from the bombers and invaders killing a million people in Iraq and otherwise trashing that country? Is it really better off now, a third of it under the control of the barbarians of ISIS, than it was under Saddam Hussein?
When I ask these questions, I never get actual answers - probably because there aren't any. Instead, I get sentimental indignation against the sacrilege of mentioning such truths on their Holy Day. Now here we come to a huge difference between the religion of Jesus and other kinds, including almost all American "Christianity" - alluded to particularly in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12: for Jesus, as he also said in John 8:31-32, the only issue is whether we receive the love of the truth. Nothing else matters. The Satanic nature of the worship of the American military, with its fatuous claims that American soldiers do a thing for anyone's freedom by getting killed in imperial wars of aggression, is evident not only in the audacious falsehood of these claims, but even more so at the rage against the truth if anyone states it, especially on the Holy Days of this religion. It's the same rage of religious people documented in the gospels when Jesus would tell the truth, as in his own hometown (Luke 4:16-30).
But I see no reason why their idea of Memorial Day deserves the slightest respect - mindless sentimental celebration of wars and those who die in them, no matter how foolishly or wickedly, and no matter how ruinous in fact this all is to the American republic. Perhaps James Madison and the other founders were mistaken when they identified war and standing armies as the principal enemies of liberty, so that the blather of modern flag-wavers about the glories of the military are correct instead, but in view of the founders having been fairly smart men, I defend their view without embarrassment.
Certainly it's fitting on Memorial Day or any day to argue for their position, especially when opponents of their political thought have the effrontery to make themselves out to be shining patriots as they subvert the principles of the American republic as explained by the founders.
And as a biblical Christian, I find it right on any day to oppose a religion of human sacrifice descended in a straight line from the sacrifice of children to Molech - the notion that there is something holy and redemptive about burning young men in the fire in stupid wars, thereby supposedly gaining liberty. This is an obvious counterfeit of the Christian doctrine that our liberty was purchased by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and nothing else.
Finally, all such pagan religion has found virtue in burning children and other humans in the fire in devotion to their gods - the American state being just one more - so it is no worse than I expect in the world.
But I have a problem with this religion being entertained in churches, mixing it with the gospel, as in past times these churches have mingled the gospel with white supremacy. This mixture of incompatible religion, worshiping God and demons at the same, gets a great deal of notice in the Bible - and for good reason. It is a big problem. It blights the spirituality of all who engage in it, making us reliable instruments of Satan while we profess to know God. It is no surprise that such religion simply profanes the name of God in the world, being useless for any purpose, and unfortunately, it's just about the only religion that we see these days in American churches.
There is good news in that. American Chritianity is not useless because there is anything deficient in the gospel, or because the Bible that Jesus and the apostles relied on has failed. It's useless for exactly the reason the Bible says it is, because it is apostate - utterly surrendered to the demonic doctrines of this world, like the religion of Jeroboam, Ahaz, and of Ahab and Jezebel, having a form of godliness while denying its power. If that apostasy works out exactly as Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles tell me to expect, I don't have to enjoy it, but I know at least they are not wrong about anything. Indeed, their testimony about all things is confirmed, and I can believe them with a good conscience.
posted by Peter Attwood at 5/24/2015 07:03:00 PM
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