A brief theological question.......

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by djv8ga

Branch Dividian. I became a convert after Janet Reno burned all of those poor people & children to death.
Democrat = Nazi.

Too bad you weren't a member of "Heavens Gate".

Dave

[Charles]

Originally Posted by epifanatic

B.S.pal, the sole blame of that fiasco rests on the shoulders of one Vernon Howell. This piece of crap, self-proclaimed prophet, lead those poor souls down the path they followed, all in the name of god. Spew all the shit about dems and libs you want, but I'll guarantee you, Vernon was no lib.

The whole thing was unnecessary.

One deputy could have driven out there, knocked on the door, and said "Vernon, I've got a warrant for your arrest. You need to come with me."

Chas

[Oerets]

Originally Posted by djv8ga

Branch Dividian. I became a convert after Janet Reno burned all of those poor people & children to death.
Democrat = Nazi.

Branch Davidian hum....... using the same logic and since you mentioned the Nazis, then why not become Jewish?



Barney

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by Charles

The whole thing was unnecessary.

One deputy could have driven out there, knocked on the door, and said "Vernon, I've got a warrant for your arrest. You need to come with me."

Chas

Too simple! The Feds will explain to the deputy what to do, and they are always right

Pete

[merrylander]

All this weeping and wailing for a bunch of heavily armed nutcases is getting old.

[diamondsoul]

Originally Posted by Brett A

I was raised without religion or spirituality. I've spent some time in my life having a relation to something, can't call it God in the typical sense. The closest i can come to explaining it is in the words of an old friend; "The universe loves symbolic gestures".

The theistic religious/spiritual view makes no sense to me beyond being the construct of man in an effort to eff the ineffable.

I think the non-theistic religions really are onto something. The concept of god is not necessary to a purposeful, virtuous life of service.

The non-theistic religions can be just as silly, and triumphalistic, as the theistic ones.

Reading the story of Hui Neng is an eye opener. He had to flee for his life from a Buddhist monastery and started his own sect, Chan, because he wasn't in the proper social class to be accepted as a head monk.

http://sped2work.tripod.com/huineng.html

Buddhism is as rife with intrigue to do with lineage and power as any other organized religion. I well remember seeing two groups of Zen Buddhist monks in South Korea beating each other over the heads with placards and sticks over who was going to be their new head monk. Silly folks.

Rob Preece, a practising Buddhist, wrote this insightful piece about this tendency in organized religion. The tendency to circle the wagons around an orthodoxy and to exclude all those who are progressive or innovators:

http://www.mudra.co.uk/mudra_individuation.html

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by diamondsoul

Rob Preece, a practising Buddhist, wrote this insightful piece about this tendency in organized religion. The tendency to circle the wagons around an orthodoxy and to exclude all those who are progressive or innovators.

Sounds like modern American conservatism, writ large. I guess with their theocratic streak, this should come as no surprise.

[merrylander]

Any organization's first aim is to perpetuate the organization, even at the price of abandoning their initial purpose.

[diamondsoul]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Any organization's first aim is to perpetuate the organization, even at the price of abandoning their initial purpose.

It is rather bizarre how that works. I guess it all comes down to territoriality and the sense of possession and belonging.

All the lofty ideals go out the window when the organization's leaders feel there's a threat to the status quo.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by merrylander

All this weeping and wailing for a bunch of heavily armed nutcases is getting old.

When this 1st happened I felt the same way as you. Bunch of religious wackos shooting at the cops...what the hell did they expect?

Then as time went on, and I found out more about it, like Agent Aguilera's affidavit where he claimed that the legally possessed AR-15's of the Davidians "could" be modified to fire fully automatic, the inert grenades discovered by UPS, the fake meth lab charge made by the government in order to receive military assistance under the provisions of the War on Drugs, etc.

Then, after the fact, the front door to the compound was "lost" and the government bulldozed a crime scene.

Looks to me like someone was destroying evidence.

Maybe they were a bunch of strange ducks. But whenever the government can conduct a heavy handed raid such as this, based on fabricated evidence, and working on the assumption that while they really had no evidence of illegal behavior other than the fact that they "could" be breaking the law, then none of us are safe.

As I said before, the theatrics were not only unnecessary, but ill advised. And a lot of people got killed for no good reason, unless anyone considers a political agenda a good reason.

Chas