[MD] MOQ and some interesting a-theology quotes about non-gods

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Krimel]
The alternative is the inerrancy crowd that turns scripture into tea 
leaves, tarot cards and goat entrails.

[Arlo]
The rise of the so-called "Assembly of God" churches, and the 
ascension to power of people like Rick Warren, should be of grave 
concern to us all. Sadly, to counter the movement from "theologic" 
towards "evangelical" the mainstream denominations are "dumbing down" 
their ministry to meet the demand for aggressively anti-intellectual, 
anti-spirtual, superiorist, xenophobic doctrine. Frankly, I am 
appalled, embarrassed and dismayed that our country has fallen so low 
as to give people like Warren legitimate power and access to our candidates.

A friend of mine summed up the difference this way. In "the old view" 
(of Christianity), you were tasked to help the poor, feed the hungry 
and shelter the homeless. The downtroden and suffering around were 
your brothers and sisters, and your "purpose in Christ" was to 
alleviate their suffering. Now, "the new view" of the AoG crowd is 
that those who suffer do so because God is punishing them. They are 
unworthy and deserving in their suffering. YOU, on the other hand, 
have every right to that shiny new Lexus because God loves you. But 
that hungry, homeless man sleeping on the vent this winter? God does 
not love him. So you can sleep easy and comfortable in your bed, and 
not worry at all about these unfortunate wretches. Maybe toss a buck 
or two in the collection plate Sunday. That's all God really expects. 
Go hit the back nine at your country club. Jesus would want it that way.

This is the tail-end of the slow usurption of doctrine by the 
capistocracy, that has found in Christianity a population more than 
happy to "speak the word", and always happy to condescend to (and 
fear when appropriate) those horrible pagans and barbarians, while 
the only real God they actively worship is money and wealth, a wealth 
that accrues BECAUSE OF God's love NOT in opposition to God's commands.

Manly Hall, a "theosophist" I enjoy and someone I find astonishingly 
informed of the mystic traditions, bothers me at times because he 
says outright that the vast majority of people will always be sheep, 
always need the "exoteric" dogma to believe in, always flock to the 
simplistic, pandering, and anti-intellectual words of children's 
readings of the mysteries. Part of me cringes at this, mostly because 
I want to believe that all people can achieve the "esoteric" 
understandings he goes on to write about, but as time goes on I am 
more and more wondering if Hall was right, if the majority of the 
world's population will always be aggressive sheep following 
authoritarian dogma. That Western religion is moving away from 
esoteric-enlightened "theology" (you can make a good argument it 
never got there, but as you say, the path was there) and towards this 
aggressive authoritarian dogma just further confirms Hall's words. 
That we are now electing politicians who see our army as "God's Army" 
and actively believe that Armageddon is coming IN OUR TIME, pushes my 
ability to dismiss Hall to the limit. That people continue to send 
money to preachers who described Hurricane Katrina as God punishing 
gays and infidels, to preachers who see those who perished as the 
damned laid waste by God's Mighty Wrath finalizes it for me.

While we continue to lament Islam's inability to latch a Reformation 
Enlightenment, we are slowly but surely regressing from our own.