Comment by darksaints

3 years ago

As a counterpoint, the two architects of the CIA torture program, one of the most evil of things that has ever come out of the CIA (which is a ridiculously high bar), were Mormons. High ranking Mormons in ecclesiastical positions, teaching love on Sunday, and torture on Monday through Saturday. And they probably legitimately thought they were making the world a better place...in a very compartmentalized and thoroughly corrupted way. Religion is a plague on this world...people can be just as easily corrupted by it as they can be elevated by it. I'd prefer to not have any group overrepresented at the CIA.

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darksaints

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lcnPylGDnU4H9OF  3 years ago

It's not exactly the same thing but many (most, I dare say) members of the Ku Klux Klan were religious church-goers. It seems rather valid to point out the corrupting potential of religion.

On this topic I'm often reminded of a line from Killing in the Name by Rage Against The Machine: "Some of those who work forces; they're the same that burn crosses." The song was written in response to the beating of Rodney King[0] by LAPD officers in 1991. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if those officers had considered themselves to be a positive force in the world who just had a lapse in judgement on a bad day.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

  • mrguyorama  3 years ago

    As we can see from more current situations, cops rarely think beating a black guy is wrong at all, so they don't even believe they had a lapse in judgement, they think they were right!

hinkley  3 years ago

As a person who got tricked a lot as a child, I'm still unfortunately very guarded around people who are doing something just out of the goodness of their hearts. What's the catch? As I've done more volunteer work I've come to a better place with this.

But I still wonder sometimes if people are titrating. "I'm such a monster M-F that I'm gonna go hard on righteousness on Sunday"

Or for Mormons, Monday. Mormons make a big deal about having a special night for your family, traditionally on Monday. So these guys came home from a day of torture on Monday to bond with their wife and kids. No Saturday for a buffer there.