DWill wrote: Yes, of course--monotheism is almost synonymous with authoritarianism.

That is a very big almost. The first known monotheism, that of Akhnaten, was repressed by, what, authoritarian polytheism? Granted monotheism struck first, but it looks to me like polytheism managed a good show of authoritarianism in response.

Furthermore there is good reason to believe the Hebrews may have been a multi-ethnic and even socially anarchic bunch, and monotheism may have emerged as an ideology of anarchic solidarity in that context. It is quite possible that the exclusive and triumphalist monotheism of Elijah was a response to repression by the outside cults of the Fertile Crescent brought in by royal marriages, rather than an inherent attribute of monotheism.

DWill wrote:But authoritarianism isn't needed to create religious or ethnic hatreds, in other words to activate the human instinct of us vs. them, in-group vs. out-group. Racism is as much a function of ethnic friction as of religious teaching--more, I would say.

A very important point, Cortez notwithstanding.

Right, I'm sure that polytheists, as rulers, exercised political authority with the best of them, no kid gloves. My thought was in agreement with D.B. that monotheists became more concerned with exactly what people needed to believe. A fair generalization maybe?

DWill wrote:When you look at Christianity as a whole, you don't see racism to any greater degree than you observe it in the society at large.

But what does that mean for a society that's overwhelmingly Christian anyway?

The simple fact that such a large percentage of Christians are non-white makes it difficult to tag the religion as racist.

Actually, it makes it easier. In the past, black Christians have banded together with the KKK to push anti-gay agendas. It's just trading one bigoted hatred for another.

Compared to other large world faiths, Christianity is said to compare very favorably on the inclusiveness scale. That has a historical base in the early proselytizing of gentile groups.

Dogs aren't too particular about which trees they piss on either. It's all about territory. Conquer first, then discriminate.

Harry Marks wrote: Very interesting connections. This makes sense to me, even if it is not always a fit to every case of hardcore racism.

What's interesting is that David Duke tried to update the Klan--urbanize it, demystify it, attract a better-educated clientele and his Klan collapsed. Outside the rural rednecks, it has little appeal.

Flann 5 wrote:

DB Roy wrote:No, I do not imply that Christianity is inherently racist.

If Christianity is not inherently racist it cannot be it's cause. The white guy who walked into a black Christian church and shot dead the Christians there could never have been following the plain teachings of Christ in the gospels.
That should be obvious.

According to Identity Christians, he was defending his race which they see as the greatest Christian duty whether Roof claimed to be one or not.

First of all "free thinking" does not provide immunity from authoritarianism.

I'm not aware that I said it did. Why don't you quit deflecting? Take an honest, sober look at Christianity and its history instead.

Eugenics and Nazism were supposedly grounded in science, not religion.

A preacher, Oscar C. McCulloch, studied a group of families around Indianapolis he called the Tribe of Ishmael, using records dating back to 1840. McCulloch claimed his study proved human degradation through heredity. McCulloch concluded mental weakness, pauperism, licentiousness, and poor morals stemmed from genetics. McCulloch stated, "Note the force of heredity. Each child tends to the same life, reverts when taken out." Oscar C. McCulloch, Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degradation (Indianapolis, 1881), 7 (B050968).
The findings of Tribe of Ishmael were contested in an article in the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. The author of the article, Robert Horton, then at the Indiana State Archives, claimed, "the rhetoric of McCulloch's work is enough to raise suspicions about the quality of his research." A record on Robert Ross in McCulloch's book calls Ross a man of low cunning and noted that he "seduced all his daughters and made them his mistresses." A case history of the same man in the Family Service Association of Indianapolis described Ross as a "very industrious sober man, " an assessment that his employer and minister confirmed. Horton states McCulloch saw what he wanted to see. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G. Barrows, eds. (Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1994), 1341-1342 (B050857).

http://www.in.gov/history/markers/524.htm

They use Christian symbols like the cross in a nostalgic notion of national 'Christian' identity.They are the least likely people to be found in a Christian church on any given Sunday.

You're probably likely to find no CI imagery in any standard Christian church. You've missed the entire point that we've been discussing. Virtually no white conservative Christian would wittingly, knowingly cavort with CI even though they share MANY of the same beliefs. CI and CI Lite. For this reason, white nationalists and neo-Nazis see that base as a very fertile recruiting ground. Don't take my word for it--go to Stormfront and read it for yourself.

I think D.B. makes a reasonable point that among young whites in America, Christianity can be distorted by some to tap into fears and economic and other realities
Christian leaders should condemn racism unequivocally.

They should but they usually don't.

Christianity in founded on preaching and persuasion and not the sword. It requires extreme distortion of Christianity to justify racism.

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." --Matthew 10:34

DWill wrote:My thought was in agreement with D.B. that monotheists became more concerned with exactly what people needed to believe. A fair generalization maybe?

Yes, I quite agree, but it is not clear this has to be authoritarian. Pagan cultures were just as repressive about personal and family life, and while it is true they were more concerned with practice than with belief, you could be jailed for not worshiping the emperor.

I actually think the emphasis on belief was a step forward in religious development. Granted, that got ugly at times, as authorities sought to control what teachings would be allowed, but the ancient paganisms were social structures without internal reflection and self-reform. And when printing of books entered the picture, the result was a very fulfilling form of religion unlike any the West had seen, with assistance to reflection and meaning that would require many years of ascetic poverty in India.

Flann 5 wrote: Racism is on the rise in Europe and more specifically fear of Islam. There is an understandable basis for this with Islamic extremist attacks and the horrors perpetrated by Isis.
This spills over into a generalized hatred of Muslims even of those who themselves condemn such violence. European societies are predominantly post Christian and secular.
In Britain neo-Nazi hate groups consist mainly of young working class whites who feel disenfranchised for various reasons.
They use Christian symbols like the cross in a nostalgic notion of national 'Christian' identity.They are the least likely people to be found in a Christian church on any given Sunday.

I am a bit surprised they use them at all. I suppose anti-Muslim purpose could make some use of the cross.

Flann 5 wrote: I think D.B. makes a reasonable point that among young whites in America, Christianity can be distorted by some to tap into fears and economic and other realities
Christian leaders should condemn racism unequivocally.
Christianity in founded on preaching and persuasion and not the sword. It requires extreme distortion of Christianity to justify racism.

The problem with that view is that Christianity has managed to adapt itself to power structures of whatever type it had to deal with. To some extent this was to get on with a truly Christian agenda, but there was often strong contamination turning it against, e.g., peasant movements.

Thanks for the overview from a Euro/British perspective. My experience in Switzerland matches to some extent, but the Swiss have avoided much of a Muslim presence.

Harry Marks wrote:In Britain neo-Nazi hate groups consist mainly of young working class whites who feel disenfranchised for various reasons.
They use Christian symbols like the cross in a nostalgic notion of national 'Christian' identity.They are the least likely people to be found in a Christian church on any given Sunday.




I am a bit surprised they use them at all. I suppose anti-Muslim purpose could make some use of the cross.

Hi Harry. The cross of St George the dragon slayer is a standard symbol for England and it also goes back to the crusades which was specifically war against Muslims to retake Jerusalem.
The real issue is that immigrant Muslim communities are culturally different and tend not to integrate but maintain their religious and cultural differences.
Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and in Afghanistan is perceived by the more extreme British Muslims as a form of Jihad ala the great Satan.
I can imagine British Muslims being conflicted in racial and religious terms in the scenario of Britain at war in countries with large Muslim populations.
Then you have the London bombings by Muslim extremists and the constant threat of this hanging over them.
Their reluctance to take Syrian refugees was to some extent influenced by these real fears.

I don't know what the answer is but it spirals into groups like the E.D.L. forming and increased attacks on "foreigners" throughout Europe.
It's not racism per se but inevitably it includes ethnic groups such as Pakistanis and Arabs and the lines get blurred.It's more hatred of religiously identified groups such as Muslims.
There is a rise in anti-semitism in Europe also in recent years.

For the young white working class males they see high unemployment for them with high immigration of ethnic groups and that it's culturally changing British society, so that they see themselves as potential future minorities in their country.

Certainly racism is a problem and some self styled "Christians" in the U.S. propagate their cockamamie interpretations of the bible along racist lines.
Christianity is certainly not racist. Islam has to answer for itself. Many Muslims reject the extremists but I can't make their case for them as far the Quran is concerned.
There are clearly geo-political and social issues in the mix along with the religious element.
So you have a hankering after a white Britain of the past and it's 'Christian' identity set opposite the perceived cultural and religious identity of immigrants and the violent extremist threat from some.
There are many Hindus in England but they are not seen as a threat in the same way as Muslims are, so the war in Iraq and the resulting radicalization of young British Muslims is a major factor.
My point in response to D.B. is that Britain is not a Christian country but a modern secular state and hatred which is the essence of racism does not require any real religious affiliation which you would be hard pressed to find among typical neo-Nazi groups in Britain.
It can have a religious element but can exist among those with no religious affiliation.

Harry Marks wrote:The problem with that view is that Christianity has managed to adapt itself to power structures of whatever type it had to deal with. To some extent this was to get on with a truly Christian agenda, but there was often strong contamination turning it against, e.g., peasant movements.

I don't dispute any of the historical realities,Harry. I just don't think that the Crusades for instance, or racism can be seriously justified as being in line with Christ's teachings, but are in direct conflict with them.

The mistake modern Christians make whether they be racists or non-racists is that these concepts of race did not exist in the days of the bible. The modern concept of race is 20th century. Now, it has roots in the 18th and 19th centuries even then race wasn't as specialized as it became in the 20th. In the 19th century, for example, while the British looked down on the brown-skinned and almond-eyed peoples of the world, they hated the Germanic peoples too.

CI has its roots in a British movement of the 19th century called Anglo-Israelism or British-Israelism. In this system, certain British writers put forth that the British people--the Anglo-Saxons--were the remnants of the 10 lost tribes--the Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel as opposed to the Judahites of the Kingdom of Judah who are today's Jews. There was also a belief in England that Jesus himself had once walked there and this idea so captured their imaginations that William Blake was moved to write the poem (later turned into a hymn) "Jerusalem" concerning Jesus walking upon "England's green and pleasant land." While one writer, was willing to share this Israelite heritage with the Germanic peoples, the others were not. To them, Germans were savages. Rather than worrying about who was white, the British judged race by an imagined Israelite heritage and the Germans were not invited.

By the ragtime era in America, records made then were often very racist but not in the vicious way that white power music is today but strictly as humor. But they made fun of everyone--blacks (of course), American Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, German, Irish, Swedish, Italian, Russian, Eskimo, you name it. These were people not deemed truly white. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with Israelitish notions or not. But the concept of race was changing fast at this time.

When Anglo-Israelism made its way to the US, it came to the attention of clergyman named Gerald L. K. Smith--a terribly racist, anti-Semitic man--who learned it from a small group of preachers as well the writings of an American named Howard B. Rand of Massachusetts and Edward Hine in England.

Smith's student, Reverend Wesley Swift, modified it by turning it virulently racist. While the original Anglo-Israelism was not specifically anti-Semitic (it was even endorsed by certain rabbis), Swift made it extremely Jew-hating. Other races never figured into Anglo-Israelism, they simply weren't part of it. Swift turned them into "mud people." Today's Jews are a mongrel mix of Turk and Mongol called Khazar. They are Satan's agent in his plan to destroy the white race--the true Israelites--to steal their birthright. Moreover, Swift admired the Germans and made them heirs to the Israelite heritage. About this time, the Viking berserker warrior began to be used as a mascot for the white racist Christian movement even though those Vikings were not Christian and definitely would not have understood Swift's concept of race (they were found of sacking the Franks whom they considered beneath contempt whereas Swift considered both to be Aryan).

Swift had a church in LA called the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian where he taught this belief system. He called it Identity borrowing the phrase from Howard Rand meaning the true identity of the white race is Israelite-Aryan. In their version, each of the 10 sons of Jacob and his grandsons (sons of Joseph) came to Europe and settled in different areas essentially founding the Aryan race. They borrowed the British idea that Britain was founded by Joseph's son, Ephraim, and borrowed Rand's idea that the descendants of Joseph's other son, Manasseh, came to the U.S. aboard the Mayflower.

Today's Jews carry on an ancient hatred for the Israelites--the white Aryan race--because they are God's true Chosen and seek to destroy them through financial enslavement to Jewish banks, mixing with the mud race subhumans, the founding of Israel, communism, pornography and any number of other insidious means (fluoridation of water, vaccinations, census-taking, etc).

Swift made headway into the military-industrial complex through a colonel named William Potter Gale and Lt. Col. Jack Mohr who preached it in their circle of rightwing friends, one of them an engineer at Lockheed in Palmdale, California where the Tri-Star jet was built. He was Richard Girnt Butler who joined Swift's church and his Christian Defense League. He became pastor in the CI movement and moved to Hayden Lake, Idaho in the 70s. He built a CI compound there and called Aryan Nations after the idea that the Israelites of the 10 lost tribes founded Europe and were going to transform America into another Aryan nation until the Jews and muds stopped them. And now the white race sits poised on the brink of extinction unless they fight back.

But we're not quite done yet! As bizarre as all this stuff is, modern race theory has one more important component. During the thirties, William Dudley Pelley started a pro-fascist group called the “Silver Shirts.” Pelley was also quite the mystic and he not only believed in flying saucers, he believed that white people were descended from a Nordic-type “Aryan” space race. Then when George Adamski has his “encounter” in the Californian desert in 1952, his Venusian is just such a being. As it turned out, Adamski and Pelley already knew one another. Later on, another famous contactee, Howard Menger, would also claim contact with Venusians who appeared to be identical in every way to Adamski’s. Menger also had photos of his encounters and even his Venusian spaceships looked like Adamski’s. Was it all a set-up? Obviously. Among Menger’s photos were supposed close-ups of the moon when he claimed he was taken on a tour of part of the solar system by his Venusian hosts. The photos are obviously not of large craters and mountains but what looks like, and undoubtedly was, a dirt-clod or small, pitted rock photographed up close.

Pelley was outspoken against Roosevelt and war with Germany because he staunchly supported Hitler. He was imprisoned for eight years starting in 1942. After his release, he went on to found Soulcraft and published a racist mystical magazine called Valor. He also wrote a book called Star Guests in 1950.

That same year, Pelley started a close association with contactee George Hunt Williamson. Williamson had co-authored UFOs Confidential with John J. McCoy of Corpus Christi. The book claimed that the solution to the entire UFO enigma was being suppressed by a cabal of Jewish bankers. This, however, seemed to be McCoy’s feelings rather than Williamson’s. Williamson’s solo efforts contained no racist or anti-Semitic rants. Williamson later assured Jacques Vallee that he never embraced the racial ideologies of Pelley or McCoy and he seemed to be sincere about this.

Also from Corpus Christi were the Stanford brothers, Ray and Rex. They too were part of the contactee movement. They wrote a spate of books on the subject in the fifties, one of which McCoy co-authored. Ray Stanford later wrote a popular book on the Marian apparitions of Fatima, Lourdes, and Zeitoun.

The link between racist and pro-fascist groups, contactees, and certain individuals within the military-industrial complex is impossible to ignore. For instance, after World War II, Aleister Crowley set up a branch of his Templar cult in Los Angeles. His right-hand man in this endeavor was the brilliant but very eccentric Jack Parsons. Parsons was a jet propulsion engineer who claimed to have met a Venusian in the California desert in 1946. He went on to help found both Jet Propulsion Laboratories and Aerojet Corporation. All that time, he was fervently attempting to create “the Moon Child” that Crowley had spoken of so much. He was also keeping Crowley abreast of his experiments in this area. The Los Angeles cult also brought in L. Ron Hubbard, a naval officer, whom Crowley greatly disliked but who seemed to have a strong hold on Parsons’ mind. Hubbard would go on to give us Scientology. Lucky us.

The Aryan Nations was started by the late Richard Girnt Butler, who was an engineer at the Tri-Star Jet plant in Palmdale, California. He converted an Army colonel, William Potter Gale, to the racist cause and Gale would become one of its most violent haranguers, giving radio sermons about the “impending anti-Christian bloodbath.” Aryan Nations sprang out of the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian located in Los Angeles and run by the virulent Klan preacher Wesley Swift. Swift was friends with George Van Tassell who was another fifties contactee who was also friends with William Dudley Pelley. In fact, both Swift and another major Klan leader, Gerald L. K. Smith, were former-Silver Shirts.

Pelley was also heavily involved in Guy Ballard’s I AM cult. I AM is a strange mystical movement located at Mt. Shasta in California, a mountain they hold as sacred. Much of the Silver Shirt membership were also members of I AM. Pelley and George Adamski, who also associated with I AM, likely met each other through Ballard’s cult. Virtually every UFO and contactee cult in existence is tied in some manner to I AM. Perhaps the most famous of these today is Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant who, like I AM, venerate St. Germaine, whom they hold to be some sort of immortal, guiding force. Dr. Andrija Puharich also sprang out of I AM through the patronage of Dr. Charles Laughead who associated with the group and then with Puharich (Laughead supposedly founded Lockheed—the corporate name being a variation of his own--the same company that gave Richard Butler a paycheck).

About the time that all this was going on, the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still was released to movie theatres across the nation just after the formation of Project Bluebook and just before the UFO invasion of Washington D.C. in the summer of 1952. This movie, although campy by today’s standards, thrilled the average American of the early 50s and dazzled him with hitherto unknown possibilities. In its plot, we saw the contactee movement encapsulated. Flying saucer lands, spaceman and robot companion step out. Military overreacts and destroys the gift the spaceman had brought for us. His motives are continually second-guessed and he is misunderstood and put through tribulations. It's hard ignore that the spaceman is a fine Aryan specimen played by Michael Rennie. In the end, the spaceman reveals his purpose. There is an organization, a kind of galactic space council, who have been monitoring earth and have grown concerned for our warlike ways. Our atom bombs threaten their equilibrium. They want us to join them but we must mend our destructive bent. If we do not, they will be forced to destroy us. The choice is ours. And away the spaceman flies to return at some unspecified time in the future either on a mission of goodwill and brotherhood or as the Angel of Death. His message echoed down through the years in virtually every contactee whose name became almost godlike in UFO literature. The messianic quality of the story cannot be ignored. The story of Jesus Christ had simply been updated for the space age.

And beyond the contacteeism of the 50s, the Aryan UFOnaut pops up over and over again. He is something like a Nazi--tall, handsome, austere, cold, emotionless. In UFO literature, they are even called "the Nordics." Travis Walton recounted being taken aboard a UFO where he encountered several blonde men and women in blue uniforms who were perfect physical specimens and had golden eyes. Other than exhibiting weak smiles, they were emotionless and never spoke. In the case of Betty Andreasson, she describes a 12-ft tall being so blonde that his hair is white. He carried a sprig of some kind of plant in his hand. He leads her around but never speaks. Yet in Nazi mythology, this very tall Nordic creature is called an "Ario-German" and this race lives in the land they call Hyperborea located underground and accessible through some kind of opening in Iceland. Now whether Walton and Andreasson are lying is beside the point. We can see that in this modern age we connect Nordics with extra-terrestrials.

There also the term Anglo, Angle, English, etc. Originally a Germanic tribe. Going back to the German and Dutch spelling, it is "Angel." So there you go: The reason the white, Nordic, Aryan is God's chosen is because he is descended from his forbears in heaven--the angels. And they fly but not with wings. Wings were only symbolic of the fact that this ancient heavenly space race had mastered the power of flight. What we call UFOs. And they are still out there. It's a bit tautological however. The racists believe the aliens are Nordics because the contactees reported their alien handlers were Nordics which they got from the racists who thought the aliens were Nordics because the contactees...you get the picture.

There is also a spate of books that the Nazis built the UFOs. These are nothing but speculation and the photos that show UFOs with German autos from the 40s parked closed to them are fake. Again, these books feed off the notion that Nordic/Aryans are related to or descended from a heavenly race. Strangely, in the Betty and Barney Hill case in 1961, Barney (a black man) undergoes hypnosis to recall the night he and his wife were picked by a UFO. As the craft nears the terrified couple, Barney steps out of his car with a pair of field glasses and looks through the windows of the craft and sees two beings looking at him. One he describes as "a red-headed Irishman" in dungarees who smiles at him beatifically. When Barney is asked to describe the other occupant, his face turns into a snarl. "He's a Nazi!" Barney said. The hypnotist asks Barney is the man is dressed like a Nazi and Barney says yes. Make of it what you will.