 | ||||||
This is the Eye of Grace. This is where the world is set straight before your simple minds. This is where the shit hits the fan.
You are nothing without me.
Something Rotten in the State of Religion
A couple of things in the media lately made me realize I had to write this article because, obviously, you, and everybody else, just don’t get it. You think you do, but you really have no clue.
I was watching the Glenn Beck Program last night - a show I normally quite enjoy, to tell you the truth – but on this particular show he blatantly epitomized the true naiveté and ignorance of what always becomes America’s downfall. This act of involuntary gospel happened as Glenn was promoting Stephen Baldwin’s new Born Again book, after just having finished raving about the dangers of extreme Islam. One extreme faith is bad, while another is OK. Their intolerance and superiority is bad, while “ours” is all right. Iran – bad. Stephen Baldwin – good. That sort of thing.
This pretty much goes hand in hand with how various media tore into Rosie O’Donnell for saying that radical Christians are as bad as radical Muslims. Both Beck and the general public seem to be entertaining the hypocritical idea that there are such things as good and bad extreme religions. No, they’re all bad.
Let me say it loud and clear so you understand it:
Any person subscribing to any fundamental faith, is a potentially dangerous fuckhead, and should never – I repeat, NEVER – be trusted to make any decisions involving any other people, on any level.
There is virtually no difference between Iran’s president, Usama Bin Laden, Tom Cruise, Stephen Baldwin and David Koresh. These people all let infantile and gravely superstitious beliefs cloud their judgments of others, to the point where the rest of the world end up paying for their self-delusions. The major difference is the influence these people wield. Iran’s president may be a new Hitler, but are his beliefs any less tolerant than those of Tom Cruise or Jerry Falwell? They are just put in another light because of the arena at hand.
With subscribers to radical and fundamental faiths it is never about their morals, but always about everybody else’s. We don’t live up to their high standards, so we are not as good, as worthy or as enlightened as they are. This is what religion teaches, through doctrines and sermons, slowly brainwashing whole slews of people on different levels – no matter the denomination or faith.
Let’s ponder, for a minute, a society ruled by Tom Cruise. Seriously, people… You will obviously only understand through hands-on examples, so let’s do it.
Scientology teaches that we are all old souls, crash-landed here on Earth eons ago, and only through cleansing of our bad thoughts and dirty personas can we achieve full mental status and finally let our souls rejoin the great big spirit mother ship in the sky. Now, this may seem cute and harmless, in a nerdy trekkie kinda way, but what about the impact on a whole society hypothetically ruled by these beliefs? First of all, even though Scientology claims to be fully compatible with any other major religion, people who do not share the scientological beliefs are considered “undesirables”, and should be shunned, “disconnected”, by the true scientologist. This includes family members and close friends. This would create an elite ruling party, excluding all who do not subscribe to the doctrines of Tom Cruise, to make all the decisions for everybody, including the undesirables.
Furthermore, scientologists do not believe in medication. This means that the mortality in Scientology Land would dramatically increase, killing people off at the same rate the plagues of Medieval Europe did. Pneumonias, infections, cancer… all dirty killers when there’s no medical safety net in place. The country would pretty much look like the Village of the Damned, half-empty streets with creepy brainwashed people watching you and making sure you are one of the “desirables”. If not, you are doomed to an existence in the Dark Age Ghetto with the rest of the rejects. Of course, this society would collapse within a few months as Scientologists don’t believe in the violence required to enforce the condition that the grey mass of the population has to work to feed the Elite. Revolution would be inevitable.
Sure… what a silly comparison, right? How does that compare to Iran where people chant for American blood in the streets?
So, let’s drive the point a bit closer to home.
Let’s say the Christian Right came into absolute power in America. OK, they’re a bit off their rocker, but they’re American, right? How bad could it be?
Well, for starters, we wouldn’t be allowed to make decisions concerning our own bodies anymore. Forget it. Our body belongs to God, and abortions, stem cell research, assisted suicide and birth control are thus acts of blasphemy. Teaching sex ed in school is also out of the question. Anything remotely sexual should be put inside a box and stuck in the very far corner of the closet, never to be opened again. Forget same-sex marriages, making out at the prom or divorcing your abusive husband, won’t happen. Considering how abortionists and doctors have been murdered at the hands of fundamental Christian pro-lifers, we could expect the laws to be totally re-written, with severe repercussions for us poor sinners. Maybe they would reinstate stonings for Wiccans and unwed mothers? Freedom of religion would be stricken out of the first amendment, and freedom of speech would only be OK as long as it didn’t slander the good Lord’s name.
Since the Christian faith and prayer would be heavily encouraged in public schools, it would mean that we would have to segregate the infidels and atheists to attend their own schools, bussed there by special busses. Racism would be overshadowed by religionism. Of course, silly notions like Darwinism and science would have to take a permanent backseat to literal bible studies and hymn singing.
Since the Christian Right has no moral qualms about using violence to enforce religious doctrines (the end and the means, kids), we would live in a totalitarian evangelical police state, ruled by a benign Father Figure, spewing righteous gospels from the pulpit, while probably whoring around in his luxurious mansion, off-camera. We would not tolerate nations of opposing extreme faiths to breathe a bad word about our righteous ways, no way, and considering we have the nuclear arsenal to level the Middle East; we would – in a heart beat. (I know… That doesn’t necessarily sound so bad, but it is the matter of tolerance we are discussing here, kids, not the randomly fortunate circumstance.)
All of the above, with the Christian Right, was basically the attitude we had back in the Dark Ages, when the Roman Catholic Church reigned supreme. The crusades and inquisitions should bear some sort of witness to what society we could hope to live in with the right-wing pro-lifers. Yeah, it would be that unforgiving.
As you can see, by these prime examples, it is not which extreme faith influences a culture and governs countries, but the fact that they are extreme faiths, period, that should send shivers down your spine.
Rabid fundamental Christian pro-lifers, detached brainwashed scientologists, self-righteous Born Agains with an agenda, Norwegian goat-fucking Satanists, Jihad embracing Muslim suicide bombers… They are all the same. People of these faiths are the same sort of people that fall into addictions – some are just fuckhead-prone. The common denominator for these fuckhead-prone people is that their leaders are great manipulators, and that they, the followers, are all ignorant and needy.
These twists of faith are all prime examples of why religion and state should be 100% separated and never ever mix. Nothing good (and I mean NOTHING) will ever come out of letting any sort of religion cloud the spirit of the three branches of government; the legislative, the judicial and the executive.
I don’t EVER want to hear that we can’t research on stem-cells because it’s not morally right. I don’t EVER want to hear that gay people can’t get married because “it ain’t right”. I don’t EVER want anybody telling me what I can, and cannot do with my body. If you take religion out of those pictures, those “moral” arguments hold no water, as they shouldn’t in a society where we have freedom of religion and are supposedly not ruled by Christian faith. I don’t EVER want to hear “God” mentioned in any discussion about laws, amendments and social infrastructures. I don’t want God on our side when we build our modern worlds. He’s a ghost in the machine, waving a big old monkey wrench in the face of social progress. He has nothing to do with me. Not a damn thing. We are civilized human beings, for the most part, steeped in an evolving common sense and equipped with a more than moderate intelligence. We don’t need superstitious commandments from the Bronze Age to tell us how to live in peace and interactive fruition in a modern society.
When the hell are we ever going to let go of these ancient delusions that lead us back, through a vicious cycle, into the Dark Ages again? Aren’t we better than that? If you’re religious, then worship away in the privacy of your heart, knock yourself out, but don’t EVER let your self-righteous moralities cloud your judgment when it comes to the world around you. It doesn’t march to your beat, so snap the fuck out of it and get with the times. Just because something works for you, it doesn’t mean it works for me. Sorry to break it to you, but our faiths and belief-systems are not mutually exclusive. Worry about your own morals, instead of judging mine. Worry about your own immortal soul, instead of trying to impose your intolerance upon mine – no matter what faith you cling to.
As long as you let religion guide your social thinking, you are no better than the President of Iran, Jerry Falwell or Tom Cruise.
A religious leader will put his allegiance to God over that of his allegiance to his people, and as such we are all expendable for the greater good of that God. That is not how a modern democracy works. We, the people, elect a representative to unbiasedly lead the country, with no regard to religion or race, through thick and thin, with all our best interest at heart. As soon as religion enters the scene you should be on your toes, ready to stem the tide of intolerance, ignorance, hypocrisy and self-righteousness that inevitably follows in its wake.
God has no place in government – in any size, shape or form. Only common sense does.
~ The Eye of Grace ~
| ||||||
