A case can indeed be made that Obama has made of himself a jockstrap for the brotherhood! :)
During most of human history - and presently with those humans who remain in tribal societies faced with dangers from raiders and predatory animals - male members of the tribe are expected to defend the group and die fighting as may be necessary. They are all warriors, even as on a daily basis they are farmers, herdsmen, potters, smiths, etc. In our frontier days men dropped their plows and grabbed their rifles when raiders struck. Again, it was expected of them and they killed those who tried to harm their families and the group as a whole. Today we live in "protected" societies and the warrior obligation has been relegated to others. A mistake. I believe with all my heart that the males or our species have an obligation to protect and defend unto death their loved ones and the weak and helpless of their societies. I am armed and will do my duty. Shouldn't you?
The Old Testament - quoted and revered by Jesus and his Apostles - is rife with genocide, torture, infanticide, looting and every sort of abomination, all ordered by the same God as the one of the so-called New Testament. The Mountain Meadow Massacre pails to virtual insignificance next to the Bible God-sanctioned violence perpetrated against the peoples of Canaan by Moses, Joshua and a host of other barbarians. I know, I know - God ordered it, so it was OK, right?
The entire body of your work is designed to shore up the defenses in your mind that preserve your cherished state of being - certainty that you are right. Black and white is all that can exist for the true believer. No room at all for grey. You are an intelligent man who must continuously slap mortar on the bricks that make up the foundation of your cherished notions; because deep down you cannot help but doubt. Don't deny it. You live in fear of the truth that can only be found in the reality you steadfastly hold at arm's length, lest it test you and find you wanting; a state of being you cannot tolerate. You steadfastly deny what is as plain as the nose on your face, because you are become a prisoner of the lies that support your needs. Truth has no place in your life. You accept fantasy to be truth, simply because it suits you. You are of the majority of mankind, although you believe in all your heart to be of the anointed few who truly grasp the truth, such as you see it to be. I know your kind well.
"Mystical" and "miraculous" equate to superstition: a willing acceptance of the unreal that suits a person of faith's deepest psychological needs. The Pope chanting a mass in all his golden finery is no different in my opinion than a Zulu witch doctor shaking a goat-bladder rattle while mumbling prayers to Unkulunkulu. The deeper one digs into the willing-dispensation-with-reality that is religious faith, "the more increasingly indefensible it becomes"...unless one understands that the person of faith needs and cherishes the beliefs because he/she just cannot cope with life and reality just as it truly is. Such people need and demand the certainty that only faith can provide. Lies are lies, even when made to oneself - which can be the worst of all.
Contrary to what a lot of people of faith like to espouse, religion is not at all about reason. It is about belonging. It is about shared longings. It is about feeling good about oneself and one's fellows. It can be about the feeling of superiority over all infidels, while being the dirtiest, poorest and least educated goat-herder in the land. It is having the answers to the great mysteries, with the freedom from agonizing doubt that can come from it. Religious faith comes from a deep psychological need that constantly builds impregnable walls around itself for fear reason may penetrate and threaten what is cherished.
It will get you a good-paying job as an EEOC representative. Every one I've ever had the misfortune of meeting was black.
From Rudyard Kipling - (Appropriate to this article and to Marines pissing on dead enemies)
"We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind."
There is also the fact that liberals in general are taught to deplore violence as something done by inferior Neanderthals, not superior intelectuals, which is how they perceive themselves. With that belief, liberals haughtily dismiss anyone who carries a gun as a member of the despised, who is not to be willingly associated with, much less supported. That attitude underlays their politics and is the source of their weakness towards all things military.
As far as I'm concerned, just like Anthony Quinn is the one and only Zorba the Greek, Andy Whitfield is the one and only Spartacus
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Invention