h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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That disgusting sect in Texas might claim to be protected by the First Amendment, but Supreme Court precedent would clearly show that their actions are not. The Free Exercise Clause only protects people who are engaging in religious activities which are not outlawed for society as a whole. So a cult preaching pedophilia, drug use or human sacrifice could be stopped in these actions. The first amendment would only protect religious activities against government if drug usage (for example) was otherwise legal, but was illegal for a religious group by a government law. Since that sect's activities are pretty much illegal everywhere, they would have no legal standing to claim that they are in any way protected by the First Amendment.

I like what you say here-
"The First Amendment to the US Constitution is a great necessity, but needs to be re-dicovered over and over again,by every generation"

That's very true.

Posting one re-written;



Freedom to speech and religion.
Sadly, it remains a very hot item; then and now, anno 2008


As we know, there were severe clashes between protestants and Roman Catholics, from 16th centuries and further on in Europe.
Very violent periods. Many did escape to other countries like (what is now) U.S.A., others were killed.

When I did research about my ancestors around 2000 , I suddenly found a document about the family of my far ancestors in Brussels, written in 1820 about a woman called “Anneken” and she was described as ‘housekeeper”.
She was protestant, and joined the “Anabaptists” They refused to wear any weapons, did not want to participate in any armies, did baptize only adults and for the rest there wasn’t that much difference with protestants like Luther etc.


Some descendants of these “Anna Baptists”(“wederdopers”) in the U.S.A. are groups like The Quakers and also more conventional "Baptists".
Pacifism and adult-baptism were their real “extra” items.

In terms of theology, they were and are not sectarian (while Mormons and Jeh.witnesses are = change in fundamental biblical dogma’s.)

So, I had found the name "Anneke van den Hove" and some comments about her as a "martyr". Later on, I discovered a “book of martyrs" written in the Dutch language. Indeed, I did find "Anneken van den Hove in "Martelaers spiegel der werelose christenen t'zedert Ao. 1524". Calvinists, Ana Baptists and Roman Catholics, they áll had their own "book of martyrs".
This Book was printed in Holland in 1631 and at page 932 and 933 "Anneken van den Hoven" is fully described as one of the martyrs Anno 1597".

Quotes from the Book of martyrs;

Quote;
"At Brussels, under the reign of the archduke Albert, there was apprehended for her faith and following Christ, a young maiden named Anneken van den Hove, .
She was imprisoned two years and seven months,and after that burried alive". End quote.

Quote;
"In the meantime they continued to throw earth and up to her throat; but not withstanding all their asking, threatening, or promising to release her and take her out of the pit, if she would recant, it was all in vain, and she would not hearken to it".
End Quote.

Read for yourself;
http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/martyrs159.htm#1093 =English print.

Middle of the page; "Anneken van den Hoven", who was burried alive in 1597

http://www.bethelks.edu/mla/holdings/scans/martyrsmirror/mm%20bk2%20p793.jpg

(picture in the same book about Anneken van den Hove)


I am not a christian anymore, but I am still deeply impressed and inspired by the attitude of that woman in 1597, sitting in jail and realizing, that pushing her own inner self aside would make her free from prison the same day.

She was not a fanatic, she did stay in contact with the peoples around her.She respected some doubt in herself, because she told her guards many times; “I did pray to God, that if I’m wrong in doing what I’m doing, He’ll show me and I never got any sign, so to me there’s no reason to change my believe”.
To be able to say that at people that will persecute you, it takes a lot of inner maturity.

To me,this brave woman was not alone in that pit. As she did from the very beginning, she was fully backing herself and she remained faithfull to her own deepest emotions, thoughts and convictions.
What a woman! 47 years old. Burried alive. She backed herself till the very end.

In this way I can see the very need of the The First Amendment to the US Constitution.




The other side of the freedom of speech/religion is, what we can see these days in the ex-Mormon sect in Texas (April 2008), surrounded by fences with guards with weapons.

I saw at U-Tube some video's about the Mormon sect that's been visited by the police in the USA these days.
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=MPs66I2to04&feature=related

A woman could only get into heaven, if she married a mormon man at the very compound ,who have a total different "agenda" than the brainwashed women.
Young boys at the campus at the age of 12 must leave the compound without care,just to make it possible for the older men to “marry” the new girls that grew up in the camp. No one knows where these boys are now.

Women could only leave the compound, with specific permission of their “husband” and in the few succesful attempts, local police brought the women back into the compound. That did happen, according to the testimony of Carolyn Jessop.

It is so sick. Women and children in the madness of the safe haven of a sect dominated by manipulating old "fathers"/"husbands".

Only a few women left the guarded(!) compound and took the long and winding road of sectarian-detox.
One woman at a video wrote a book about her specific life in that specific compound. Carolyn Jessop.

http://www.amazon.ca/Escape-Carolyn-Jessop/dp/0767927567

To see and hear her gave me hope.
http://fora.tv/2007/12/05/Carolyn_Jessop_on_her_Escape_from_the_FLDS


Religion and familylife as shelter for rape and incest.
Women oppressed by all dogma's of the true and only religion.
I happen to know, what incest caused in my own life.
Leaving the “shelter” took me almost a life time.

The “shelter” of sectarian religion, or the “shelter” of “an exclusive destination” within a family can make a human being so small, that he/she doesn’t have the slightest idea of the content of “I”, or “Me”.



Isolation is the devils playgarden.
Isolation creates isolation that creates isolation.
It’s a strangling chain that takes a life on its own and most never experience freedom. Some who left the sect returned later on. They did not know how to live on their own for themselves.


Most to blaim around the world?
Men of my age, about 50 or older. Old enough to be a leader, experienced enough to be able to manipulate groups of peoples.
Manipulating a younger generation by black and white thinking and a clear highway to heaven?! it still works and alsways will.


"Don't you want to become a hero like Bin Laden?!" an old man said to a boy of nine years old who wanted to travel back to his parents and not remain at the campus for religious education in Indonesia 2006
"I just want to go home" the boy said.
The man took control over him and the boy did stay.
I'm sure that a couples of years later the boy does not have the slightst idea of the word "I" who wanted to go home..........


The First Amendment to the US Constitution is a great necessity, but needs to be re-dicovered over and over again,by every generation, also in The Netherlands these days, because it implies a very delicate balance. There's a hot debate about it going on here.


Greetings from Amsterdam.


P.S.
A lot of The Founding fathers, where calvinists who lived in the South East of The Netherlands. Province is "Zeeland" = a group of large Islands. Of of them appeared to be an ancestor of the Bush family, as researchers found out, before George Bush senior visited The Netherlands in the ninetees. He was very surprised.

There were three waves in time of fugitives;

First wave ended in the North of France.
Second wave ended in The Netherlands/Amsterdam
Third wave ended in what's now the U.S.A.

Europe, the place to be.
Colonizing, slavery, two worldwars and a holocaust.