Ilya Shambat

Ilya Shambat
Location
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Birthday
November 21
Title
Partner
Company
Adda Enterprises
Bio
Born in Russia, family moved to America when I was 12. Got a degree from University of Virginia at 18. Worked for Oracle, translated four books of classical Russian poety, was part of San Francisco and Washington, DC poetry and music scene. Good friends with San Francisco's own Persephone's Bees and acquainted with Patch Adams. Currently married with children, residing in Australia and working on a clean energy technology implementation.

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Salon.com
SEPTEMBER 5, 2012 6:18AM

Christianity and Disinformation

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Having been around serious Christians for a number of years, I have developed respect for a creed that I originally saw as being thoroughly wrong. That respect however does not extend to deception that passes in many places as Christian teachings or Christian values.

One of these stances is opposition to science. Science is at the root of everything that today's Christians have, from their cars and trucks to their TVs and electronics. God did not create these things. Scientists and engineers created these things. And for as long as a person is using any of these things, he has no business attacking science.

Another of these stances is the claim that American representative democracy came from God.  If that had been true, then representative democracy would have existed for as long as did humanity, or at least Christianity; and that likewise has not been the case. Most of the history of Christianity has been one of monarchy, not democracy. American representative democracy is a human, not divine, invention, and one that is based on the works of French and English 18th century intellectuals. And it is an invention that was in militancy against most Christian thought of the time.

There is a line in the Bible that says "there is nothing new under the sun." A lot of things are new. Cars and trucks are about a century old, and computers and cell phones have existed for only a few decades. American democracy is also a recent invention given the length of history. Neither of these things can be attributed to God, because God, according to the Bible, has existed longer than has humanity; and if God were to have anything to do with the matter then these things would have existed for all of history as well. 

I have nothing against people practicing their religion; but when these people are engaged in lying and disinformation on factual matters, then the line must be drawn. No ideology, divine or secular, should be allowed to lie on matters of fact and reality. When Christianity is used for conmanship then Christianity is profaned. Further, the leaders who make fraudulent claims have no business insisting that they have Christian values or principle. It is one thing to believe in Christ. It is quite another to deceive people. And people who take their faith seriously will be outraged to see their faith being used for conmanship and deception.  Honesty is a Christian value, and failure to practice it is violation of Christianity.

Attack must be targeted not on Christianity itself, but on the Christian-affiliated conmen.  Christ is not the enemy; Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and Fox News are. These people have created a liar media that has been doing nothing except lying to people and have shaped the Republican political strategy into one of absolute deception and dishonesty. None of these people would bear the approval of Christ, and it is important that American Christians understand this.

Thomas Jefferson said that if something seditious were to transpire in a church, it should be dealt with in the same manner as if it had happened in a market. Whenever we see someone using Christianity to attack science or to claim America's democracy to be God-given, we are seeing sedition as much as we are seeing conmanship. There is no possibility that people  engaged in such practices deserve to claim to speak for Christianity, and there is no possibility that people engaged in such practices deserve to claim themselves American patriots. 

Both Christianity and America deserve much better than that.

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You certainly are correct and it has been a battle long engaged between the CHURCH and the faith. The CHURCH (in all its forms) must set and enforce doctrine which has difficulty/reluctance in adapting to changes in worldview and knowledge- no one, or very few believe in the Divine Right of Kings which has implications to the Divine Leadership of Church authority; the conception belief of Aristotle are amusement now but tragedy as still part of Church Doctrine- the spirit flowing from man into the empty vessel that is woman.

Faith simply accepts the concept of the unworldly and events in this world are not to be ignored but simply accepted.