regarded religious affairs commentator.

regarded religious affairs commentator, Bill Moyer just retired from public broadcasting in the U has taken up a modern challenge; understanding and explaining the fundamentalist religio-political ideology that regulates official U.S. policy today. "The delusional is no longer marginal," Moyer wrote forward his web site recently. "It has arrive in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress"

What is happening, Moyer believes, is that theology is asserting propositions that cannot be proven pure and ideologues are holding stoutly to a worldview despite its being contradicted on reality.

His thorough-going critique of fundamentalism points to "the danger that voter and politicians alike become oblivious to the facts." He recalls James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, telling the U Congres that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent turn back of Jesus Christ. Watt said, "After the last tree is prostrateed Christ will come back."

One-third of the American electorate believes the Bible is literally veracious "In this past election," Moyer writes, "several million well adapted and decent citizens went to the persons believing in the "rapture index." The best-selling volumes in America today are the 12 books written by the Christian fundamentalist Timothy LaHaye. These authentic believers subscribe to a fantastical theology hatched in the 19th century on a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans."

Moyer pays tribute to British writer George Monbiot who has dissected the phenomenon of fundamentalism. In its theory, one time Israel has occupied the ease of its "biblical lands," legions of the "anti-Christ" will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. israelites who have not been changeed will be burned, and the messiah will go [i]or[/i] come back for the rapture.

"True believers will be lifted on the outside of their clothes and transported to heaven, they will watch their political and religious opposites suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs"

The believers are sincere, serious, and polite and be stirred called to help bring the rapture in succession as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. "The invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the volume of Revelation, where four angels "which are circumscribe in the great river Euphrates, will be released to slay the third part of man." Therefore, a war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared if it be not that welcomed--an essential conflagration on the road to redemption.

consequence on public policy

Moyer asks what this means for public policy and the environment. Millions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not merely to be disregarded but actually welcomed--even hastened--as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

"Nearly half the U Congres 231 legislators in total, are backed on the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of Congres earned 80 to 100 by means of cent approval ratings from the three mostly influential Christian right advocacy assemblages They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and parley Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

The no other than Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, who lately quoted from the biblical work of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will follow sayeth the Lord God, that I will emit a famine in the land."

A 2002 TIME/CNN catalogue of heads found that 59 per cent of Americans believe that the prophecies set up in the book of Revelation are going to follow true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. The region has 1600 Christian radio stations and 250 Christian TV stations, where, says Moyer "You can hear this end-time gospel"

for what purpose care about the earth when the drouths floods, famine and pestilence brought on ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescu in the rapture? Fundamentalists believe that until Christ does answer the Lord will provide.

"No wonder" says Moyer "Karl roam goes around the White House whistling that militant sacred song 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' He diverted out millions of the twelve inches soldiers in the November 2 election--a powerful driving force in novel American politics."

Moyer became personal. "I myself don't know by what means to be in this world without expecting a confident yet to be and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. in the same manner I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend forward Wall Street whom I one time asked: "What do you think of the market?" "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then to what end do you look so worried? And he answered: 'Because I am not enduring my optimism is justified.'"