9/11 and the American Empire: How Should Religious People Respond?
repost | 16.05.2005 01:09 | Repression | London | World
"I suggested earlier that seeing the true connections between 9/11 and the global domination project helps us understand how fully this project reflects “fanaticism based on a deeply perverted value system.” This is a value system that is diametrically opposed to the value systems on which all the great religious and moral traditions of the world have been based."
An Address by David Ray Griffin
9/11 and the American Empire:
How Should Religious People Respond?
An Address by David Ray Griffin
Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/ .
Table of Contents
1. Religious People
2. American Empire: Divergent Views
3. 9/11: Four Interpretations
4. 9/11 and the American Empire
5. Evidence for Foreknowledge by US Officials
6. Evidence that US Officials Planned and Executed the Attacks
Fully Facing the Truth about the American Empire
How Should Religious People Respond?
Notes
[Note: This lecture was delivered at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on April 18, 2005, and first broadcast by C-Span2 (BookTV) on April 30. Although this text does not correspond exactly to the lecture as orally delivered, all the differences are trivial except that, of course, the oral presentation had to get along without footnotes. - David Ray Griffin]
I will begin by unpacking the key terms in the title of my talk: “9/11,” “American empire,” and “religious people,” beginning with the last one.
1. Religious People
Although I am a Christian theologian, I am in this talk addressing religious people in general. I am doing so because I believe that religious people should respond to 9/11 and the American empire in a particular way because of moral principles of their religious traditions that are common to all the historic religious traditions.[1] I have in mind principles such as:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors’ oil.
Thou shalt not murder thy neighbors in order to steal their oil.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbors, accusing them of illicitly harboring weapons of mass destruction, in order to justify killing them in order to steal their oil.
This language is, of course, language that we associate with the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But the same basic ideas can be found in other religious traditions.
I turn now to “American empire,” which has been a highly contentious term.
(cont'd)
How Should Religious People Respond?
An Address by David Ray Griffin
Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/ . Table of Contents
1. Religious People
2. American Empire: Divergent Views
3. 9/11: Four Interpretations
4. 9/11 and the American Empire
5. Evidence for Foreknowledge by US Officials
6. Evidence that US Officials Planned and Executed the Attacks
Fully Facing the Truth about the American Empire
How Should Religious People Respond?
Notes
[Note: This lecture was delivered at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on April 18, 2005, and first broadcast by C-Span2 (BookTV) on April 30. Although this text does not correspond exactly to the lecture as orally delivered, all the differences are trivial except that, of course, the oral presentation had to get along without footnotes. - David Ray Griffin]
I will begin by unpacking the key terms in the title of my talk: “9/11,” “American empire,” and “religious people,” beginning with the last one.
1. Religious People
Although I am a Christian theologian, I am in this talk addressing religious people in general. I am doing so because I believe that religious people should respond to 9/11 and the American empire in a particular way because of moral principles of their religious traditions that are common to all the historic religious traditions.[1] I have in mind principles such as:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors’ oil.
Thou shalt not murder thy neighbors in order to steal their oil.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbors, accusing them of illicitly harboring weapons of mass destruction, in order to justify killing them in order to steal their oil.
This language is, of course, language that we associate with the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But the same basic ideas can be found in other religious traditions.
I turn now to “American empire,” which has been a highly contentious term.
(cont'd)
repost
Homepage:
http://911review.com/articles/griffin/madison.html
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Same old story
16.05.2005 08:38
Andy
What's a concipracy?
16.05.2005 09:37
Now we know that the Iraq war was an illegal conspiracy by the neocons in the US admin and that the whole jingoistic farce was pre-planned without the consent of congress, does it not follow that these sort of people would stop at nothing to achieve their aims?
To quote the document (Project for a New American Century) they drew up in the late '90's:-
"The process of transformation, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event "like a new Pearl Harbor." - PNAC document, revised Sept 2000
Now go and examine the FoI released documents pertaining to the real reason Pearl Harbour was 'caught unprepared' and you might find some very startling parallels.
mango
YES IT'S THE SAME OLD STORY
16.05.2005 11:06
not bothered to chheck the facts. If youu believe that Bin London an ex M15 / CIA assett master minded and
carried out the 911 attacks without the help of his buddies from the "intelligence agencies" then your the theorist
cos it's basically impossible.
But fuck religion what should people with minds free of all that shit do ?
To be perfectly honest 90% of the so called activist movement are believers if they don't believe in some form of god they certainly believe in some foorm of politics , mainly the left I s'pose, and that is just about the same as believing in god perhaps worse. Just like "goodies" and "baddies" the lefties are of course the goodies and a the right are of course nazis and fascists, which means the lefties can kick the living shit out of them and behave like raving nazis
against anyone they consider to be against them.. me for instance.
Obviously the people who were behind 911 will have plastered the Internet with disinformation, some of it designed to discredit the people who have researched all the details of what happened on sept 11 2001.
But this is nothìing new they have teams of people working at this and this lone full time everyday of every year.
Santa Puzza
Make It STOP
16.05.2005 11:47
The Voices
This isn't about tragedy
18.05.2005 01:25
No one on here is really talking about the 9/11 tragedy, they're talking about the f--ing cover-up, which is the SOURCE for the public brainwashing on agreeing to destroy every other country in the world for profit.
Take down this lie and a LOT of other stuff comes down with it.
--------------------
As far as the religious aspect . . . the only reason - likely - that C_SPAN aired this talk was because it was about RELIGION and that the hot media topic right now. It suggests that they think exposing the truths & lies of 9/11 is not a threat to them. Lets show them they're wrong.
BTW - This stuff you guys seem to be hosting is load of crap!
Talk about disinfo . . . you'll have the most concentrated disinfo in 9/11 history flying at you at this event, we're talking missiles, holograms, pods . . . personal attacks on other researchers, these are the kings and queens of it. Except for those 'real' researchers and individuals who were likely lured to speak by a free trip to the EU (Rachel Hughes, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, William Rodriguez, Barrie Zwicker), you're looking at the most hardcore disinfo around . . .
To understand disinfo, check out:
why are there bogus 9/11 truth websites?
Much of the bogus evidence about 9/11 was manufactured to support the official conspiracy theory -- 19 guys directed by a dialysis patient in a cave of Afghanistan managed to outwit the largest military and intelligence system in history, a system so incompetent that it needs a massive budget increase to protect the public from a repeat of the attack.
A different kind of bogus evidence -- which makes wild claims about complicity based on poor quality, doctored images -- has become increasingly prominent as the 9/11 Truth Movement has begun to experience long overdue political successes.
This material claims to be investigative journalism but does not present any verifiable evidence.
The 9/11 truth movement has been having long overdue successes in shifting public consciousness. Many more people now understand that 9/11 was not a surprise attack. This is probably why bogus websites and fake films with disproved material have been developed to distract from the best evidence of complicity. These websites promote the idea that blurry photos with illogical and supported claims should be the basis for 9/11 truth outreach efforts, instead of the issues surrounding the failure of the Air Force to intercept the hijacked planes
This site has received threats, harassment, and is the target of a "snitch jacket" campaign (false accusations that activists are actually agents provocateurs) for daring to post this page, but none of the "pod" and "no plane" supporters have offered actual evidence for their extreme claims and ignore the proofs that it is just a hoax. The photos comparing the so-called pod to a real 767 conclusively debunk the "pod" as just a bad joke, but the pod campaign appears impervious to facts, it seems psychological in nature, not evidentiary.
It's impossible to prove that these bogus websites are intentional governmental disinformation, and even if some of them are, all of them probably are not. The best covert operations are those that manage to fool people into participating without realizing they are acting on behalf of a hidden controller. If the most aggressive promoters of the disinformation are truly private citizens without any covert connections, making up these claims without receiving a paycheck from a government agency or military contractor, they are missing a profitable opportunity.
Websites, books and other media efforts that promote these claims with good intentions would benefit by contemplating the difference between an editor and a censor. A politically motivated censor defending the official story would prohibit publication of any claims of complicity in 9/11 (or at least those claims that are relatively accurate), although on the internet, the lack of a central control for what can and cannot be published or read (except in countries like China and Saudi Arabia) makes censorship virtually impossible. The claims debunked on this page could not survive close scrutiny by a careful editor, but an honest editor would still allow the best evidence to be published, even in a peer-reviewed publication. No publication is infinite in size, and no reader has infinite patience to read everything, so any publication by definition must make some editorial decisions to decide what is and is not put into print, broadcast on the air, or posted to a web page. Peer review is not censorship.
"if you don't have anyone attacking you, you probably aren't shaking up the status quo."
reader