Just say no to religious extremism.

This petition, although not truly a petition, simply states that I do not support Jed Smock's right wing religious/political fanaticism despite the Michigan Daily's perpetually posted article to the contrary. (with accompanying photograph of me watching Jed Smock preaching on the Diag).

Although I cannot speak for everyone who is involved with Campus Ministry USA which Jed Smock belongs to, or heads....or whatever, I can say that I do not support his extreme right wing ideology and his style of preaching which seems hateful and accusing.

I do not agree that Mahatma Ghandi is going to, or has gone to hell, as Jed Smock seems to believe.  I love the people, culture and the country of India and would like to travel there someday.

I believe that evolution/natural selection is a valid and true scientific truth and that we are indeed evolved from apes.....and yes, I can believe this and still believe in Jesus.

I also listen to hard rock, heavy metal, rap and punk rock music on occasion and I don't think this is going to cancel out my salvation. I also don't think that Jim Morrison of the Doors was evil as Jed Smock seemed to be implying to the young man who was wearing the Doors t-shirt.

Also when Jed Smock came to Ann Arbor to speak on the Diag I was misquoted by the Michigan Daily reporter who quoted my words out of context saying that I supported Jed and that he was "right on".......what I said was that some of the things that he said were right on but I did not agree with his extreme right wing politics and his slandering of Barack Obama etc.

I tempered my criticism of him because I was trying to be polite.

I was actually debating him on several points while trying to respect his beliefs and not insult him.

I am not a fan of right wing religious political fanatics that parade as Christians but much of the time are simply promoting a form of extreme Republican ideology which often mocks and slanders environmental groups, gay people and people of other faiths. This is not love but a kind of deceit and hatred which turns people away from Christianity.

These groups are very deceptive and clever and I myself was spewing some of their rhetoric for a short time before I came to my senses and woke up.

Many right wing religious/political extremists are also known to be opposed to the United States government and the United Nations. The United Nations is primarily a humanitarian, peacemaking/peacekeeping organization which helps men, women, children in countries where they have few rights and little government support or protection from extremist religious and political ideologies that often treat women and children like cattle.

The U.N. is one of the largest DEMOCRATIC non-profit PEACEKEEPING organizations on earth. The dues paid by U.N. member countries goes to help men, women and children in nearly every nation on earth (regardless of religious beliefs, race or ethnicity) escape poverty, political oppression, religious extremism, malnutrition, disease, parasites/worms (affecting and killing million of children per year and can be cured with simple medication), basic vitamins to prevent blindness and deformity, education for girls and women, teaches sustainable farming and techniques to improve local environments, stop erosion of topsoil, teaches techniques to keep water clean, drills clean water wells, teaches reforestation, helps refugees displaced by war, famine and natural disasters.

The U.N. is made up of approximately 192 nations, a majority of which are democratic.

115 of the U.N. member nations have voting populations which are over 50% Christian.

So this begs the question; why do so many right wing religious/political extremist groups oppose the U.N. and portray the U.N. as well as the governments of  Europe and the United States as evil?. Perhaps some of these right wing extremist religious/political organizations themselves are, or have become evil.

The governments of the United States and Europe have been worldwide leaders in reforming and passing laws/legislation concerning human and civil rights, cleaning up the environment and promoting religious, press and artistic freedoms as well as democratic reforms worldwide.

Extremist right wing religious groups who pose as Christians are often also opposed to International Criminal Courts which are designed to bring genocidal dictators and war criminals to justice who rape, starve and kill women and children to achieve political or economic gain.

Often these right wing and other extreme religious groups, some of them even left leaning, state the belief that the sovereignty of nations trumps human rights and justice. Under these standards the genocidal slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994 was a private sovereign matter that other nations of the world should not have tried to stop because we would have been violating the Hutu dominated Rwandan government's right to hack 800,000 of it's own citizens to death with machetes.

Do these right wing "religious" and other extremist groups think that genocidal raping and murderering dictators should have free will to kill and destroy their own citizens for the sake of sovereignty?

State's rights and soveriegnty were advocated in the early history of the United States by state political leaders and citizens who wanted to continue slavery and the opression, killing and theft of Native American land, water, mineral and other rights without interference from the U.S. federal government.

Although many Christian churches, for the most part, fully support the United Nations and the governments of America, Europe (and many other democratic nations of the world) as a force for good, many others churches do not, and espouse extremely virulent right wing hatred of the United Nations, the United States government and the governments of Europe.

Many of these churches preach this right wing religious extremist ideology every Sunday morning on U.S. television stations which are broadcast around the world, while making millions of dollars selling CD's, books and other paraphanelia concerning the end of the world and the evils of the U.N. and the American and European governments.

Do the people who work in the factories that make all these religious CD's, books and other "religious" products get paid a livable wage and have safe working conditions? Are the chemicals and materials used to make these religious products disposed of safely not polluting rivers and waterways etc. Where does the paper from these products come from? Was it recycled paper?

Many NON-religious right wing political organizations are now even advocating people not pay taxes or that paying taxes, even to democratically elected governemnts, is evil. 

Enormous tax cuts, tax loopholes, trade deficits as well as offshore banking and offshore manufacturing have undermined the funding of the U.S. government in recent years and now schools and government regulatory agencies lack resources to clean our air and water, manage and preserve our natural resources, educate our children and regulate our banks/Wall Street.

Democratically elected governments are the voice of the people in nations where democratic governments exist. Advocating underfunding of our government through not paying taxes and the slandering/discrediting of these governments as evil, is in effect, shutting these governments down. Doing this also shuts down the voice of the people, which is expressed through their democratically elected leaders.

Although constructive criticism of the government and government policy is neccessary and healthy, blanket statements that the U.S. government, the U.N. and the governments of Europe are evil and should be brought down by refusing to pay taxes or telling people not to agree to incremental tax increases when the government is gutted of money and resources.....like it is at the present time, is quite another matter and even borders on advocating anarchy.

I'm pretty sure Jesus would like the U.N. Humanitarian Organization, The International Criminal Court and the democratic nature of the American and European governments, although these nations and their governments are not perfect they are working for the greater good and are continuing to evolve and learn as issues present themselves.

These organizations are designed to promote peace, maintain civil order and rights for women and children and avoid warfare through peacemaking......"blessed are the peacemakers."

Last time that I checked Jesus Christ was a firm proponent of justice for all, especially the poor and the oppressed.

God gets the victory with love and compassion not with scorn and threats and hateful speech.

God is love.

Send a short paragraph or letter to the U.S. Senate and House of Reperesentatives asking them to better regulate religious and political extremist hate speech and profiteering.
 
All 50 U.S. state senate links here:

http://www.theorator.com/senate.html

All 50 state U.S. House of Representative links here:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

We the undersigned agree with the sentiments of this author.