"God Bless America!"

[Queso]

;)

foolish people.

 

this statement has been severely bothering me for the longest time.

i see it in commercials, i hear it from the president, i see it on the bus marquee as it passes me.

"god bless america?"

how about....no.

:D

so let's say, hypothetically speaking...there was a god.

and this god could watch over all regions of the universe.

maybe others too, but that's not relevant.

why would the entity of god constantly watch over america? out of the entire world? out of the entire universe?

i would assume "god" would find this place somewhat disgusting, and the only reason god's mighty eyes would be locked upon this part of the world, is for the soul purpose of entertainment, not to bless his awesome powers of salvation upon the significant race of human beings!

 

anyway, my opinion is, this statement is stupid and foolish. plain and simple.

[Aquagem]

so let's say, hypothetically speaking...there was a god.

and this god could watch over all regions of the universe.

anyway, my opinion is, this statement is stupid and foolish. plain and simple.

 

In a day when there were little groups of people in little communities separated by large distances, they had local gods that presumably kept track of local events. Very old Bronze Age stories told tales of gods getting into fights over their territories, and the winner advanced his piece on the board by giving his people a lift (farmland, hunting grounds, slaves). That set of beliefs probably had a several-million-year history by the time the big empires of the late Bronze Age began to arise and move out like army ants to consume the world around them. Now it could be the god of an entire city state, like Babylon, say, taking on the god of the Jews, Yahweh, in a fight to the finish. Beat them down; take them into exile -- that'll show that desert deity a thing or two. But then, along comes the Zoroastrian (probably carved Z into stuff on the way by) and knocks Babylon down, freeing the followers of Yaweh, who go back home confident in their victory, that He has finally prevailed. (We'll skip the Diaspora for now.)

 

So, what started out as a simple, country (i.e., pagan) approach to indwelling spirits only moderately bigger and badder than the people who believed in them, now had moved into the city, later the empire, and as it stands now, a very few, very big, dominant cultures with very big weapons and very big axes to grind. The hubris of the small tribe, which might affect a few hundreds in battle, is now writ large like huge graffiti across whole continents, and threatens the extinction of millions. Driven by the same competitive, murderous intent that evolved with us from the days we lived in remote villages in the Rift Valley, we went wandering in search of new places, new lives. Our wandering ancestors told their tales of victory, survival, and the triumphs of their gods, right up until the day they were wiped out by other, bigger, badder gods. And so it will be someday still ahead of us, as the deadlier legacy of our DNA emerges once again to prove that our god is bigger than theirs. Who knows? Maybe he is - or so we'll think, if there are enough of us left to appreciate it. Till then, we'd just better hunker down, hold hands, build bombs, make babies, cover our eyes to keep out the light, and cry, "God bless America!"

 

(OK - that one got away from me a bit... you never can foresee just where these will end up when you start out.)

[Queso]

hah, very true. but i learned a lot from your reply.

it's just, i feel that most people actually perceive "god bless america" as, some guy up in space looking down at america giving us our wishes.

just something random that ticked me off at the time. but, i'm glad they have hope.

[Fishteacher73]

Just as people sing Chistmas carrols about Santa Claus, people vomit out this cliche to feel good about themselves and to asssert the Good 'ol Boy, Gawd-fearin' mentality of "lets get ta killin' some of them there A-rabs". I just found it funny that after 9/11 everyone was buying cheap US flags that on the bottom said "MADE IN CHINA". Another really fightening thing I read the other day was that as recent as Dec. a good percentage of Americans still thought that Iraq had WMD even thopugh a 9/30 report by US weapons inspectors concluded that there were no WMD nor any indications of programs to manufacture them.

[RiverRat]

While I find it amusing that you wish to cast ‘Christians’ in the same light, I agree with your comment on …

 

I just found it funny that after 9/11 everyone was buying cheap US flags that on the bottom said "MADE IN CHINA".

 

My theory is … the single point of the Big Bang ACTUALLY was centered some where within Beijing. Everything that ever was, is, or will be flows from there.

 

I say…. if us toothless, wife beatin’, Pabst Blue Ribbon drinkin’, NASCAR watchin’, Skoal snuffin’, John Deere ridin’, gun totin’, Bible poundin’ redneck’s wanna wave a flag … then by gummite … it should be made right here in the good ‘ol U.S of A.

 

FTR … never done any of the above. (well … maybe … I did have a few Pabst’s before) ;)

[Freethinker]

anyway, my opinion is, this statement is stupid and foolish. plain and simple.

If only it were that benign. If only we could comfortably sit back and laugh at the "great unwashed masses" and chuckle at their, as you state, stupidity and foolishness.

 

The problem is they use this rhetoric to motivate and jutify the forced promotion of ignorance and hatred. They stop the advancement of medical science and start wars because of their god beliefs.

 

As you say, they are "stupid and foolish", yes. But it may be equally stupid and foolish to passively sit back and allow it to continue. How many more will be slaughterred at the feet of these god myths before it stops being considered cutely "stupid and foolish"?

[Freethinker]

While I find it amusing that you wish to cast ‘Christians’ in the same light,

What other group (other than a percent or two of Muslems) uses this expression?

[Queso]

this is something i am so passionate about. i'm glad you brought it up.

i believe it is very stupid and foolish to sit back and watch and pity, and do nothing about it. there was actually a post about a week ago by mother engine regarding this.

i will stand up for what i believe in, in my life. my biggest regret as i lay there dying would be that i didn't do so.

if only more than few, and less than everybody, would do so.

[Stargazer]

Not only is it arrogant, it's also a sign that one of the most powerful persons in the world, the leader of an entire nation, believes in mythological creatures - and believes in its support, too. Sometimes he claims to be guided by this mythological creature. I know some of his supporters claim that other gods wrong, false or even satan. "My imaginary friend is better than yours!" Brilliant.

 

IPU bless America!

Santa Claus bless America!

Invisible-dragon-in-my-garage bless America!

[RiverRat]

As you say, they are "stupid and foolish", yes. But it may be equally stupid and foolish to passively sit back and allow it to continue. How many more will be slaughterred at the feet of these god myths before it stops being considered cutely "stupid and foolish"?

 

Let me ask you what is your stance on the above remark? What is the ‘final solution’ in your opinion?

 

If it falls along the same line of a prior post directed towards me …

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freethinker

May her majestic horn end your earthly travails you infidel!

 

 

Then all I have to say to you would be …ZEIG HEIL… ZEIG HEIL…. ZEIG HEIL !!!

 

If you actually mean, you wish to gather support for your views and mount a political front to empower your ideology, then I commend you and wish you the best of luck..

[bumab]

What other group (other than a percent or two of Muslems) uses this expression?

 

Guilt by association then? I don't think that's a valid argument ;)

[motherengine]

sorry but i just cannot get my head around the simplistic view of religion as some kind of social evil. to think scientifically it is essential to find the most objective presence of mind before hand. if one is emotionally incised by, or afraid of something to the point that they enjoy condemning it than any insight into that subject will probably be cast through a lens darkly and act more as a filter to factuality as opposed to a direct line. religion can aid a mind made weak through the arduous connection of nature and nurture and that person can end up doing some pretty monsterous things socially. but take away the religion (if this were even possible) and you may develope monsters you never dreamed of. unless there is some great truth or universal purpose to all of this nothing can be simplified. it may be 'wrong' for someone to be raped but then the person's reaction to said rape may be more beneficial to society en mass than would have occured otherwise. this is not an advocation of rape but the assertion that there is a complexity to existence that can only be simplified to 'good' guys and 'bad' guys at the risk of distorting the facts.

[Aquagem]

sorry but i just cannot get my head around the simplistic view of religion as some kind of social evil.

 

I agree. Religion, like other collective human artifacts, serves a wide variety of purposes in human experience, some of them noble, edifying, expanding, and exalting to its adherents. It can also turn malignant like any other bit of flesh, probably for as many reasons as flesh does. One of its major failings is the seemingly unquenchable desire to be right about everything, and not to understand that it, like every other human activity, has limits. And I don't see very religious people looking very hard for where they might be limited, but rather inventing ad hoc explanations for why they were right, all along. In science, you'd get laughed off the stage of history for that attitude, which, I'm sorry to say, many scientists have had. The foundation of science, though, is constructed to root out individual ego worship and get back to the study of nature! :)

[lindagarrette]

I agree. Religion, like other collective human artifacts, serves a wide variety of purposes in human experience, some of them noble, edifying, expanding, and exalting to its adherents.

These are all feelings people have without religion interfering with the thought process. Belief in the supernatural is self deception. :)

[Aquagem]

These are all feelings people have without religion interfering with the thought process. Belief in the supernatural is self deception. :D

 

Sure -- I agree that all of those glowing adjectives I mentioned are available to non-religious people (also, morality, altruism and a host of other positive affective traits that religious people deny we infidels can ever attain). But I would have to say from experience and other studies, neuroscience among them, that, unfortunately, the "grandeur in this view of life" that fills me to overflowing from scientific knowledge won't reach a lot of them. Ever. In that, I've become a pessimist/realist (These two are never far apart).

 

This could be one of the "extended post" topics I'd like to investigate more, maybe in the Lounge. I use the term "the Great Divide of the Human Mind" to describe the collective cranial split between those who need, and others (like you and me, FT, and others) who don't need the supernatural to be able to face the world. I stare at deeply religious people with wonderment -- they live in a world utterly alien to me despite years of churchgoing and spiritual meditations. They stare back at me in wonderment, and about half the time consign me to Hell...

 

I have a chapter from a recent sociology book on which I've been preparing notes, anxious to post them or to write a paper from them, because the evidence, good evidence, echoes what I said above - most people seek a release from the fear of death, hope for a life hereafter, and spend large amounts of life energy loving or supplicating a supernatural being not be smitten. And apparently we have been doing it, since Neanderthal days 100,000 years ago, at least.

 

I would seek out those with a mind more like mine, and I suspect, like yours, to open their eyes to the wonder of science. If others prefer religion, I don't object until their religion impinges on my freedom. Unfortunately, it is impinging a LOT over the last 30 years or so, and I find myself objecting a LOT to their political, economic, and pseudoscientific intrusions. I feel the Age is Darkening rapidly -- I would say twenty years, tops, before the rack is back in style.

 

But I prefer NOT to be like them by saying there is only one way to truth, and it's mine.

 

'Tis a puzzlement. :)

 

By the bye - I'd like to see that treatise you've mentioned several times about diachronic linguistics someday - either in the Lounge, or a digest post in the main forum area. Linguistics would be a great addition to the new Social Sciences forum!

[Freethinker]

Like I said in another thread, and no one could provide an example of there,

 

Show us ANYTHING that religion has EVER done that was neither Secular based (i.e. not a contradiction to that religion's written tenets) nor could be done better withoout the religion involved. Show us an example of ANYTHING in which religion has a more positive outcome than non-religion.

[Stargazer]

Absolutely. Whatever good religion brings, it still has the baggage of non-realism or mythology, and I'm not sure why that is necessary or even desirable other than as entertainment.