I was looking for info on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I found this piece of dung.

June 29, 2000 5:53 PM

I was looking for info on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I found this piece of dung. Why are some people so damn hateful and ignorant? Worse, who do they have websites? (Yes, I know I could have just ignored it, but I think it's a dangerous ideal they preach, and one that people need to be aware of.)
posted by Ezrael (18 comments total)

I went to this site expecting to see something really scary and fanatical. But, really, Dr. Laura is crazier than this site, I think.
posted by Doug at 6:06 PM on June 29, 2000

I can't help but feel like I've stepped into a time warp when I find something like this, but unfortunately, it's all too common. Christian Identity is one of those hate fueled, Bible quoting, ignorance exploiting ideas that never seems to go away, only mutating into new and more hideous forms.

Basically, for those of you who couldn't bear to read too much of it, CIM (The Christian Identity Movement) believes that the Original Sin of Eve was to have conceieved a child with 'the serpent', namely Cain. Cain then grew up to mix with the 'mud people' (they really use that term), African and Asian people, and created the Satanic Jewish Race. The Kingdom of Israel, again according to CIM, is not that of the Jews at all, but is rather descended from Abel (who with is never made clear...either one of his sisters, or with himself, I guess) and today is the true white race, as exemplified by Anglo-Saxons. Jesus, of course, was a big strapping Anglo himself (despite being descended from David, and son of Mary, and all that) who the Satanic Jews killed because he was white. It gets even more absurd fairly quickly, I'm afraid. CIM specializes in recruiting people frustrated with their lot in life, and they preach a message almost indistinguishable from the KKK or Aryan Nations. They also do a lot of End Times predictions involving 'Gog and Magog' and how once Russia and Iran (who are Gog and Magog, in case you somehow thought that the Bible was referring to events that had happened, rather than the future) invade Israel, the world will end and only the happy pure Anglo Saxons will ascended to the Kingdom of Heaven and the New Jerusalem beside Christ and Yahweh.

Guess that leaves me out, not that I'd want to spend eternity with people who mostly talk about how much they hate everyone. CIM was implicated in the death of Alan Berg back in 1984, as the reporter was telling people what assholes they were, and also was a jew. All they needed, I guess.

Sorry to pontificate on this subject, but it terrifies me that these people are getting support and encouragement, and I'd rather people were aware of them so that they don't get blindsided.
posted by Ezrael at 6:07 PM on June 29, 2000

Holy Cow (no pun intended...). The site you linked to was such... well, drivel, I couldn't understand what you were fussing about. Your explanation, though, is scary, in that, "Oh, my God, I hope they're not teaching little children this crap" kind of scary way...
posted by m.polo at 6:15 PM on June 29, 2000

the christian identity movement preaches that one of the greatest things a person can do is kill a white person who is involved in an interracial relationship to prevent that person from bringing a mixed race child into the world. as repugnant as dr. laura is, it terrifies me that someone would would call her crazier than these people.
posted by sudama at 6:31 PM on June 29, 2000

So, *here's* the question...

If you're a teacher, and one of your students asks "but, teacher, what about..." and the question makes it clear that their parents are rabid members of this group and they're feeding the kid propaganda and lies... what do you do?
posted by baylink at 7:14 PM on June 29, 2000

Ok, Dr. Laura isnt crazier than these people. I went to their site, saw seemingly random bible quotes, some mentions of a "christian" race, and an article on people having found the arc of the covenant. Or something. I don't have much patience for these things, as it's overall just a silly site put up by what I can only assume is two married cousins. So, I saw no mention of "mud people" or killing people in interracial relationships. It seems that the only people who found this site disturbing were the ones who knew of the organization previously.

Still think Dr. Laura is scarier, as she has a much broader reach than these people.
posted by Doug at 8:31 PM on June 29, 2000

Well, apparently, you take a team of heavily-armed men out to their cabin, and gun down wife and child in cold blood -- alledgedly.
posted by Paul Dunne at 1:45 AM on June 30, 2000

I had a science class in junior high school with a kind and earnest fellow who seemed to delight in pointing out, every class, "but that's wrong, according to the Bible", particularly during the evolution and geohistory units. Once he even had the temerity to ask our teacher if he believed in God, and if so, how he could believe all the evolutionary nonsense he was teaching.

He answered pretty much as I would today: "I believe that God created the universe and the processes that created the world and life itself."

Anyway, whatever you do in this brain teaser, just keep in mind that it could end with a meeting between you, the parents, and your principal, in which she asks: "Mr. and Mrs. Smith say that you've been teaching their son to think for himself. What do you have to say for yourself?"
posted by dhartung at 3:22 AM on June 30, 2000

"Guilty as charged!"
posted by baylink at 6:48 AM on June 30, 2000

Ezrael... not a comment on the CIM, but on your interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS): If you want a load of information try checking out Brigham Young University. They -- and by a natural extension the LDS Church -- have had a lot to do with the scrolls...

Two links come to mind:

http://dss.byu.edu and http://farms.byu.edu

The first link is a DSS-specific page, the second is a link to the FARMS organization at BYU that publishes a great deal, and (if memory serves) has published a number of DSS-related tomes. I'd have posted the links to the main page, but I'm still new around here, and don't have rights to post there yet.

Best of luck!

PS... RE CIM's site: It's interesting to see how poor design can really hide a multitude of sins. A number of people have noted that they thought the site looked rather innocuous. I thought the same thing just looking at it: it looked like any other half-baked site. Had a professional designer put the site together, the central message of the group would have been much easier to grasp. Ah! The power of design (for good and evil).

posted by silusGROK at 9:00 AM on June 30, 2000

Ezrael - Your original post seems to indicate that you don't think these people should be allowed to have a web site. Is that the case? How do you propose that policy be implimented? What other groups do you think should be banned from the Internet? Who will be in charge of tracking down these "bad" groups and making sure they don't post things like this on the net?
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:38 PM on June 30, 2000

I don't think Ezrael's original post implied censorship. I saw it more as his offerings in the marketplace of ideas. The group in question--lovely people, by the way--sent out one set of ideas, and Ezrael is appalled to see it.

As for what the teacher would say, I'm guessing "Well, some people feel that way" and go on with the lesson. If that didn't work, and the student continued to interrupt, the interruption would have to be dealt with, not the topic.

At least in the case of Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders a gentle rebuff works, mostly. With older kids I don't know, but I imagine I'd make the same point and reinforce it with "but, this is what we're studying today."
posted by mrmorgan at 5:24 PM on June 30, 2000

Nah, I'm not interested in banning this kind of crap. Thought police scare me. I am interested in warning people about what crap these people spew, so that they won't look it over, think it innocuous and miss the deeper message that's being preached. CIM is spooky because of how well they burrow into the landscape, hiding behind Biblical quotations that were never meant to support their deranged message (Does anyone really believe that the Book of Enoch was intended as a slam against Jews? It was written in Hebrew!) of supremacy and control.

As far as I'm concerned, they can have all the websites they want. And I can tell everyone what I think about them. That's fair.
posted by Ezrael at 7:53 PM on June 30, 2000

There's a website out there, and I can't remember the URL cuz I forgot it on purpose.. The objective of the webmaster was to chronicle and bring attention to all the hate sites on the 'Net, monitor their updates and generally create a site which, while bringing some horrendous racist and filthy crap to everyone's attention, happened to also bring horrendous racist and filthy crap to everyone's attention.

Did I just lose you?

Okay. It's good instinct to want to warn people of something potentially dangerous and harmful. It's forcing the insects to crawl out of the woodwork so theoretically it's easier to step on them.

However, it also brings undue free publicity to these hate mongers. It generates hits for them, and maybe some of the people you are trying to protect are just ripe for this. Maybe their life choices have brought them to a place where this hate crap actually somehow appeals to them. However, had you not told them about it, they would have hopefully found something a little less prejudice and ignorant to get involved in, like the SubGenius Church for example.

Okay.. Maybe that wasn't a good example. Us SubGeniuses have been known to have done our own share of hatemongering.

My point is, hate mongers have the right to speak as they like, but that doesn't mean you have to help them be heard.


posted by ZachsMind at 3:53 AM on July 1, 2000

Zach, were you thinking of HateWatch? Looks like we've already been there.
posted by Aaaugh! at 2:22 PM on July 1, 2000

oh yeah i think that was the one. However, had I been able to recall the website at the time I wouldn't have linked to it.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:27 AM on July 2, 2000

Zach, I'm not trying to protect people from this kind of shit...I'm trying to warn them. There is a difference. I'm assuming that we're all capable of making our own decisions here, and don't need to be sheltered from the world. A lot of people were ignorant of the Militia Movement before Oklahoma City, and no matter how often I would tell them "There are a lot of angry, armed people living in paramilitary compounds plotting violence against the US Government" they were still unwilling to believe it. Because my father is ideologically sympathetic to these nutcases (he owns an autographed copy of The Turner Diaries) I was not caught off guard by the attack. I knew it was coming, unlike a friend of mine, whose whole family is in the FBI in one fashion or another.

I'm never worried about people finding information; if they go to this site and are swayed by it, than they would have fallen to something. But by not knowing it exists, you leave yourself open to them. You can't counter an argument you've never heard. I personally have no problem with Hate Mongers speaking all they want, as long as I get to make fun of them while they do it...in that regard, I agree with Molly Ivins.
posted by Ezrael at 2:43 PM on July 2, 2000