Klamath Basin Water new church and state john martinez 112106

Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.

A‘new’ church and state

• Redefining Church to fit the concept of church and state

By John Martinez

For the Pioneer Press

Published November 30, 2005

Page A1

The separation of church and state ensures freedom from religious tyranny and allows us to live in a country where the government can not force a religion upon us. Separation of church and state keeps the fist of religious tyranny from getting a tight grip over the reins of governmental power. The separation of church and state ensures that the government does not officially endorse or sanction a religious doctrine.

Religion is the belief in and reverence of a “supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe,” according to the American Heritage dictionary. It is a “set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.” Worship, practices, institutions and spiritual leadership taken together as a continuous process create a clear method by which to identify religion and religious practice.

A global religious movement is the worship of the Goddess Gaia – the Great Cosmic Goddess of Wicca. In other words, it is the worship of “Mother Earth,” the powersource – the worshiped deity – for the religious practice of Wicca.

Wicca is the practice of white magic.

The worship of the earth goddess dates back to the origins of human civilization.

"The spiritual sense of our place in nature predates Native American cultures; increasingly it can be traced to the origins of human civilization. A growing number of anthropologists and archaeomythologists, such as Marija Gimbutas and Riane Esler argue that the prevailing ideology of belief in prehistoric Europe and much of the world was based on the worship of a single earth goddess, who was assumed to be the fount of all life and who radiated harmony among all living things,” states Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance. “Much of the evidence for the existence of this primitive religion comes from the many thousands of artifacts uncovered in ceremonial sites.”

The worship of the Goddess Gaia is the rally cry of environmental religion, as its living deity is Mother Earth.

Environmentalism is rooted deeply in the belief of supernatural power. Philosophies originating from Earth worship form the backbone of environmentalism.

“Our desire to protect wilderness comes from passion, from an emotional identification with wilderness. It's a sense of expanding the concept of the self to include the landscape around us and identifying with that landscape,” states David Foreman, the founder of EarthFirst! His religious zeal and that of his followers fits within the dictionary’s definition of religion.

One of our local, Native American spiritual leaders is Leaf Hillman, the vice-chairman of the Karuk Tribe.

In his essay “Environmental Management: American Indian Knowledge & The Problem of Sustainability,” he states that “traditional Karuk environmental values may be best understood through an examination of specific cultural practices or institutional arrangements. The first salmon ceremony was an event in which the Medicine Man, a spiritual and ritual leader, cooked and ate the first salmon in the yearly fall run.”

The spectra of environmental religion continues in Hillman’s seminary piece of environmental religious expression: “The prohibition on individuals taking salmon before this ceremony was of such gravity and was so strict that bad luck resulted from infractions as subtle as even viewing the smoke from the fire which cooked the first salmon. A person who raised his/her head and looked at the smoke might also view the medicine man at his tasks and this was said to have repercussions such as being bitten by a rattlesnake in the year to follow.”

Clearly, salmon is a spiritual artifact within the Karuk’s religious identity movement. Hillman’s entire paper may be found at http://www.magickriver.net/karuk.htm .

Bureaucracies, state agencies and the courts working in concert with environmental religious advocates have violated, perhaps knowingly and maliciously, the separation of church and state.

Legislation and policy on a continuous and sustained basis have been based on environmental religion. Basing religious doctrine to fashion, influence and form public policy is a clear violation of church and state. The religion is Wicca and the legal front supporting its doctrine is environmentalism.

As environmental religion increasingly becomes law, the slippery slope of church and state becomes ever steeper. Eventually the slippery slope will become religious tyranny - this tyrannical form of religious policy has claimed countless thousands of jobs and created untold human hardship.

The shattered economies of rural America serve as the first step in a protracted religious war against America’s economic security. The environmental movement as a front has penetrated our nation’s legal system converting religious doctrine into law.

Wicca is our government’s first official state-sponsored religion.