Dr. Forbush Thinks

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I am reading Kevin Phillips book, “American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury.” He has divided the book into three parts, each of which deals with Oil, Religion and Finance in that order. Currently I am reading the religion part. Mr. Phillips goes into a lot of detail pertaining to the evolution of religion in America. It is quite interesting to note that the cult religions during one generation grow up to replace the mainstream religions, and this has been happening since the Pilgrims came to America. Each generation continues to be dissatisfied with their parent’s or grandparent’s religious practice and searches for something different, new or better.

Mr. Phillips shows us how the seeds of the current wave of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and evangelical type religions were very small cults or offshoots of mainstream religions that have grown over the last century gradually replacing Methodist or Presbyterian mainstream religions of the late 1800s. But these religions had undergone similar replacement of congressional churches of the 1700s.

The whole idea of what church is most popular is curious. It is quite clear that man is voting by his attendance at these churches, which determines where more people decide to attend church. In America people shop around for their religion much more than any other country in the world. This is because in America there are so many more religions to choose from.

I have known people who attend one church for a year or two celebrating the freshness of their religious experience. This experience is “new” and comes across as vital and invigorating. But, after two or more years in the church they start saying that they tried a new church down the road last weekend, but they weren’t so happy with it. However, after a few months of shopping around they find that new church that has that certain cache that gives them that certain freshness they desire in their lives.

Personally I find this strange, because my relationship is with God, not the preacher at the church. However, this being said I have attended church across the country and in Europe, because we have moved around quite a bit. As most of you know I am Catholic, so I can’t speak to the different religions issue because our family has been members exclusively of Catholic Churches. However, that said, we have attended other churches for weddings, funerals, baptisms, and other events.

But, apparently there is a need in America for people to wander around from Church to Church seeking the perfect place to worship. So, this morning when I looked at a flyer that came in the mail yesterday I wasn’t surprised by the invitation to attend yet another Church. But, this mailing was much more detailed than most church mailings that I receive. And, the details in the mailing are certainly disturbing, because these holy people who run this church are lying to attract people to their church. But, maybe they are lying in the same way that George W Bush lies to sell his war in Iraq. Maybe it is more like a clever deception instead of an outright lie.

For example, they have a clever numerology piece in which they nudge you into believing that “Gods Love” is more important than “Hard Work.” I forgot exactly what the wording was, because of course that is malleable in numerology. You could write God’s eternal love, Gods Love of his special people, God’s great love, or any number of other phrases to come to the desired conclusion. So, by assigning a number to each letter in the alphabet a through z mapped to 1 through 26 they conclude that “Hard Work” equals 98. Suddenly they claim that the 98 is now 98%. Of course this is religious numerology, so they don’t justify what that means. “98% of what?” I would ask my students. And, they do the same thing for “Gods Love” and come up with 101 and promptly claim it to be 101%. Is this amazing or what? I am just stunned that people actually are persuaded or swayed or convinced of anything based on this argument. But, then again these are the people who elected George W Bush, not once, but twice to be President of the United States of America.

It was quite clear from the pamphlet that these guys were preaching right of center. And it was clear that they were using deception as well. The even made a political statement in their pamphlet, telling the reader that the crime rate is soaring. I’m not sure where they get their information, but the crime rate for our city and county are both down, not up and certainly not soaring. Nevertheless, because of this soaring crime rate we need to elect public officials that will do something about this soaring crime rate. Of course that is code for Republicans who have traditionally spent more money building prisons to house all the drug abusers that are then forced to join prison gangs for survival. Many of these people then own their safety, and then their loyalty back to the gang after they get out of prison. These former drug abusers become the next generation of drug sellers, and petty thieves working for their gangs. It seems strange that building prisons doesn’t reduce crime, but propagates it. But if you can be convinced that numerology informs your destiny, then I guess that you will believe just about anything.

By the way, I thought that numerology was the work of the Devil. Or, is that only the case when people use numerology against the church’s teachings? And, what happens when you translate the phrases into different languages and the numbers don’t agree? Or, are people taught that English is the one true language that God has chosen to communicate with us? Or, maybe we need to translate everything into Hebrew and then work the numerology, because Hebrew certainly must be God’s true language. Or, maybe we need to have someone who speaks in tongues translate the phrases into their “tongue language” and then we would translate that universal language into the numerology. Or, perhaps Latin wasn’t Latin the universal language? This numerology stuff is just so complicated. If someone figures it out, please write me a note. Or, better yet, publish it in a book. These people will certainly buy the book and you’ll make a ton of money. That being said, you don’t even have to figure it out just write the book and make the money. Isn’t that the point of Republicanism anyway?





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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Politics, Religion, Numerology, Fundamentalists, Crazy Stuff