America is a religion

[donsu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1007741,00.html

US leaders now see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons

-snip-

To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory: "Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, "come out," and to those in darkness, "be free".'"

-snip-

Since the attacks on New York, this notion of America the divine has been extended and refined. In December 2001, Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of that city, delivered his last mayoral speech in St Paul's Chapel, close to the site of the shattered twin towers. "All that matters," he claimed, "is that you embrace America and understand its ideals and what it's all about. Abraham Lincoln used to say that the test of your Americanism was ... how much you believed in America. Because we're like a religion really. A secular religion." The chapel in which he spoke had been consecrated not just by God, but by the fact that George Washington had once prayed there. It was, he said, now "sacred ground to people who feel what America is all about". The United States of America no longer needs to call upon God; it is God, and those who go abroad to spread the light do so in the name of a celestial domain. The flag has become as sacred as the Bible; the name of the nation as holy as the name of God. The presidency is turning into a priesthood.

-snip-

The dangers of national divinity scarcely require explanation. Japan went to war in the 1930s convinced, like George Bush, that it possessed a heaven-sent mission to "liberate" Asia and extend the realm of its divine imperium. It would, the fascist theoretician Kita Ikki predicted: "light the darkness of the entire world". Those who seek to drag heaven down to earth are destined only to engineer a hell.
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ah, that old time religion keeps rolling on

[sweetheart]

1. monbiot is quite the writer

This is a dupe thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=97584&mesg_id=97584&listing_type=search

but you posted more of the article.

How do you feel about defining america as a religion? It seems that manifest destiny was always a religion, just not taught in that light? The religion of rationalizing invasions is very old indeed.

[donsu]

2. I think fundamentalist want it to be

and in their minds it is. And since they are now in charge........

[sweetheart]

3. since when did liberty become majority rules

The whole principal of "liberty" is not majority repression or majority religion... rather tolerance.

Ignorance is the real religion in america these days... clearly. The article is all too precise.... we are now defined by nazi christian sickos... i've burned all my american flags as i stand for freedom of religion. It seems that "red" is a bad luck colour in flags. Red for blood of patriots, red for naziism, red for repression, red for uncontrolled hatred of other races... sadly, to stand for freedom of religion is to burn the flag of religions.