Wounded, Old, and Dangerous

I have a fundamental problem with the religiously deluded- far too many of them aren’t willing to leave me alone. It isn’t just me, you understand. There’s a minority among religious types in this country- almost exclusively some flavor of christian- which is incapable of keeping their puritan noses out of everyone else’s business.

I honestly don’t care much if you worship some god or -ess. Zeus, Yahweh, Buddha, Hubbard, Flying Spaghetti Monster- all of these are equally nonsensical in my eyes. You can worship any god or conglomeration of gods to your heart’s content until such time as that worship infringes on the rights of another person. You may deeply believe that everyone not belonging to your own special version of god-bothering is going to be devoured by the Great Green Arkelseizure at the end of time and be denied the companionship of the Winslow in the afterlife, and I will support your right to believe it- even if I think it’s a load of dingo’s kidneys. You can even feel smug and superior about the fact that you have a ticket to the forever beer party at the Pirate Volcano with the blessings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all us lesser mortals will miss out. Your privilege. Where I draw the line is when you try to get your mythology codified into law, or force others to act and believe as you do. I am not willing to live in a theocracy, and I refuse to stand by while a bunch of fanatics do their utmost to turn my country into one.

The fanatics in question happen to be a particularly virulent strain of evangelical christianity which has been working for decades to get fellow-believers elected or appointed to positions of authority in hundreds of school districts, county commissions, and other local offices across the country. From these seemingly-minor vantage points, the neo-puritans have been carefully trying to make their mythology the law of the land. As small-time officials in various local political organizations, these pernicious god-botherers have been making policy for schools, city and county ordinances, and local election boards. As the numbers of fellow believers has grown in these seemingly minor positions, a host of deeply un-American legislative excesses have begun appearing in the national spotlight. One need only look at Super-Puritan Rick Santorum’s baffling rise to prominence to see how far their power goes. In a rational world, Santorum would have been laughed off the stage at the first political rally. The fact that he actually made it into the primary process is a demonstration of the power of the religiously deluded over our political processes.

But wait! There’s more.:

Oklahoma doctor refuses to provide rape victim with emergency contraception due to his religious beliefs.

Pregnancy Begins 2 Weeks Before Conception’ Now The Law In Arizona

Wisconsin State Senator wants to outlaw divorce

Kansas passes bill allowing doctors to lie about life-threatening conditions if it would prevent abortion

Indiana lawmaker claims Girl Scouts are a front organization for militant lesbians

New Hampshire lawmaker wants married couples to practice abstinence in lieu of using birth control

Tennessee wants to protect anti-gay bullies from “persecution”

And of course, there’s Kitzmiller v Dover

What do all of these documented examples of public idiocy have in common? The idiots pushing these agenda items are all firmly convinced that they have the moral authority and duty to force their version of their religion onto the rest of us. It’s telling that in Kitzmiller, the evangelical judge lambasted several members of the Dover school board for resorting to  misrepresentations and outright lies in their crass attempt to force every student in their district to submit to their mythology.

It’s always helpful to use their own words against them. Here is the source for this image.  Those quotes from Phillip Johnson, one of the founders of the so-called “intelligent design” movement, reveal the extent of the god-botherer’s willful refusal to allow anyone to have an opinion or belief contrary to his own. The unstated meaning of those quotes is that most of the US is not stupid enough to fall for their bullshit, so the fanatics have to sneak around and try to brainwash the children to perpetuate their religious delusions.

Allow me to repeat that: Fanatical christians are forced to resort to trying to subvert the children of America because the adults aren’t quite stupid enough to fall for it.

That brings me to the headline for this post. Every time the religious fanatics have tried to stand up in the public eye, they have been soundly smacked down by the courts. Even in Mississippi, where education is often more fundamental than scholarly, these pernicious fanatics failed to get a majority of voters to approve their bullshit legislation. Evangelical leaders have long been calling for increased recruiting, as the bulk of their followers are largely elderly, but traditional recruiting has not been keeping up with the number of fundamentalist loons who’ve been dying or otherwise losing their usefulness. They’re old, and getting older. The bulk of America’s youth don’t care about most of the evangelical core issues, and the leaders of the evangelical movement are starting to face the real possibility that their free ride at the expense of their gullible followers may be coming to an end.

The evangelical movement never did have a majority among American christianity. If you separated all the protestant denominations individually, the largest christian group in the US would be catholics. Even granting that most Americans self-identify as christian of some flavor or another, this means that the fundamentalist evangelical movement is- at best- a tiny minority of the US population. All of the major religious groups are shrinking, mostly due to a seemingly-endless string of scandals involving senior leaders of various denominations. There is also, of course, the fact that the core tenets of their mythology are often profoundly unpleasant to everyone except puritans.  By far the fastest-growing philosophical demographic in the US are agnostics and atheists. This does not bode well for the fundie-loonies.

Realizing that they’re on the wrong side of the demographic bulge, the fanatics are growing desperate. They’ve tried and failed to get their mythology turned into public policy, their membership is dwindling and/or growing less useful due to age, and the new generation of Americans think that they’re a bunch of hypocritical fuckwits. They’re like a wounded animal, and fanatics rarely just go quietly into the night. Perhaps that is why the recent flood of extremist legislation coming from various states has a feel of desperation to it. Instead of realizing their dreams of power to punish the unbelievers, the religiously deluded fanatics are starting to realize that they’ve only managed to piss off everyone outside their particular circle of fellow believers- specifically including the more tolerant christians who make up the overwhelming majority of American christianity.

What will these imbeciles do when their already-tenuous grip on authority is finally sundered? If we are all very lucky, they’ll slink back into the shadows and dream up some new long-term conspiracy to somehow convince and persuade the rest of the country to let them have the reins of power. We can deal with that pretty easily by bringing up their own statements and previous failures whenever one of these nutballs pokes his or her nose into public. Some of these fanatics have actually complained that they’re being “persecuted” whenever their own words are used against them, which ought to show you how divorced from reality they are.

What I worry about is the possibility that they’ll decide to go down fighting. Even thought they’re only a tiny minority of Americans, and only a fraction of those might be willing to use violence against their neighbors, this has a lot of recent precedent in other countries. Our version of religious fanatics are often referred to as “American Taliban” for a reason.

They wouldn’t win any such contest, of course, but they could do a lot of damage before we put the last one in prison. The best way to help prevent this troubling possibility is for the rest of the christians in America to deal with their fellow religionists. Cut them off from their support network- the mild sympathy one naturally feels for those who have something in common with you. Unless you are a rabid christian dominionist, it is highly unlikely that most christians share any philosophical traits with their fanatical brethren. When someone tries to use their understanding of scripture to justify atrocities (like the “Good News Clubs” teaching children why unbelievers should be exterminated), feel free to tell them to fuck off. Pay attention to what the fringe worshippers of your religion are saying and doing, and make it clear to the rest of the world that those violent shitheads don’t speak for you. Staying silent only creates the impression that you are fine with what the fanatics are doing. This distresses everyone with functional logic systems and encourages the fanatics.

My religious philosophy is pretty simple:

Current status: Disgusted

Current music: Some Nights by fun

Fundie Mental

There’s a very scary article over at AlterNet about the blind spot Americans seem to have for the christian extremists in this country. These so-called christians routinely say and do things so far removed from the principles of their religion’s founder that they are philosophically closer to the fundamentalist muslims they claim to abhor. Less extreme christians airily dismiss their radical fellow believers “as not representative of christianity“, or “they’re just a fringe group“. Very few moderate christians loudly and publicly denounce their more violent brethren, putting them in exactly the same position as moderate muslims in the wake of atrocities by islamic extremists.

Make no mistake, these home-grown christian taliban are a deadly threat to our Republic. Like the mujahedin of Afghanistan, these christian extremists see themselves as god’s army, and their goal is to impose strict religious law over their home country. They are willing- even eager- to kill their perceived enemies in furtherance of this goal. Unlike the mujahedin, however, these christian fundamentalist loons are a serious threat to the security of the United States because they are already here. Worse, the willful refusal to decry their actions by their co-religionists allows them to operate with little or no checks on their behavior. One need only look at Eric Rudolph for confirmation of this statement. After committing violent terrorist acts against American citizens, American christians sheltered and aided him to evade the police.

Many of these so-called christian fundamentalists are thinly-disguised (at best) racists and xenophobes. One of the founders of the christian reconstruction movement, Rousas John Rushdoony, was outspoken about making mixed-race marriage illegal. He also claimed that slavery practiced in the American south was inherently benign and that slavery was the natural state for “some people”. Christian dominionism/christian reconstructionism is predicated on the idea that all laws must be limited by the laws of the christian god. For those who think that this idea has no following among mainstream christians, I suggest you examine the public speeches of Mike Huckabee- who was at one time a contender for the presidency.

The fact that this sort of sectarian garbage is popular enough to propel a bible-thumper like Huckabee to national prominence should be a warning sign of trouble in the future. Despite Huckabee’s absence from the current presidential contender field, the same sort of batshit-loonie christian fundamentalism is profoundly present in the persons of several of the republicans seeking the nomination. No religion- not even the christianity tepidly followed by an overwhelming majority of Americans- should be permitted to have political power. Granting priests political power invariably results in pogroms, witch-hunts, jihads, and crusades. In every age, the priest (however defined) has always been hostile to liberty. Despite these historic truths, a large and vocal minority are actively working to create a christian theonomy or theocracy in the United States.

The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant – baptism and holy communion – must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel. The way to achieve this political goal is through successful mass evangelism followed by constitutional revision. – Gary North

We believe that the whole Word of God must be applied to all of life. It is not only our duty as individuals, families and churches to be Christian, but it is also the duty of the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere to be under Christ the King. Nothing is exempt from His dominion. We must live by His Word, not our own. – Mark Rushdoony

Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost, as the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors — in short, over every aspect and institution of human society. – Dr. James Kennedy

The goal of America’s Providential History is to equip Christians to be able to introduce Biblical principles into the public affairs of America, and every nation in the world, and in so doing bring Godly change throughout the world. We will be learning how to establish a Biblical form (and power) of government in America and we will see how our present governmental structures must be changed. Since the principles we will be learning are valid in every society and in any time in history, they will be able to be applied throughout the world and not just in America. As we learn to operate nations on Biblical principles, we will be bringing liberty to the nations of the world and hence fulfilling part of God’s plan for the nations. – From America’s Providential History (a history textbook for christian home-schoolers) by Mark A. Beliles and Stephen K. McDowell.

We believe that institutionally Christianity should be the official religion of the country, that its laws should be specifically Christian. – Rev. David Chilton, Church of the Redeemer, Placerville, CA.

Civil Officials must acknowledge the lordship of Christ, and obey his rules for civil governments. – Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart

These creatures are publicly stating their intentions to destroy our Republic in the name of their god, and yet there is no public outcry. Supposedly moderate christians do not denounce and distance themselves from their rabid fellow believers. Why not? Those same “moderate” christians were very public about wanting muslims to denounce islamic fundamentalists. Are they completely blind to their own hypocrisy?

I have repeatedly said that I care not what god or gods you may worship. If you want to believe that there is only one true god named Orgo who lives in a lake, be my guest. If you want to sacrifice a tenth of your income to your church/temple/mosque, I say- go for it. If you want to pray to the Giant Space Goblin or Ymir or Zeus, that is your business. More power to you. Where I draw the line is when you try to force anyone else to live by your religion’s rules. If you want to live that way, feel free. Your right to believe what you wish stops where that belief intrudes on the rights of other people to believe what they wish. If your god or gods are unhappy with the existence of unbelievers, they can miracle the infidels away. As soon as you try to help your deity of choice with this project, you become my enemy, and the enemy-general of all men, to be dealt with as wolves are.

Current status: profoundly irked

Current music: Young Turks by Rod Stewart

Lest Darkness Fall

For those of you who aren’t in touch with the wing-nut segment of our society, there are a bunch of billboards and posters showing up in various places around the US claiming that the world will end on the 21st of May (this coming Saturday). Some dotty whackjob claims to have deciphered texts in the Bible which tell him the date of Christ’s return. Note that he made the same claims about a date in the mid-90’s. When the apocalypse didn’t happen as he had foretold, he claimed that further study had revealed the “true” date. He’s managed to convince a bunch of weak-minded imbeciles that he has the straight dope, and these people are the ones paying for the billboards and posters.

Why do I bring this up? A couple of reasons, really. First, I make a point of heaping scorn upon the inexcusably stupid. This nutjob and his feeble-minded followers certainly qualify. Some of them have been spending their life savings in the belief that they won’t need money after May 21st, 2011. These simpletons are throwing away their future on the say-so of a religious huckster who doesn’t even understand his own religious texts. I’ve tried to work up some sympathy for these witless idiots, but I honestly can’t manage it. If they’re dumb enough to fall for this scam artist’s lies, they deserve to be bankrupt and homeless when the rapture doesn’t go off on schedule and their prophet moves the goalposts again.

Second, this is yet another example of the danger religious fuckwits pose to civilized society. Granted that these particular idiots are pretty far out there, even for Christians, they aren’t very far removed from the Christian Dominionists who are deeply involved in our political system. Part of the reason why so many politicians are unwilling to rein in the environmental excesses of various corporations is their religious belief that humans have been given a mandate by god to do with the planet as we wish. Some prominent political figures in the US government have been recorded saying that they needn’t worry about the long-term consequences of their political actions, because they are convinced that the rapture and Armageddon will occur in their lifetimes.

Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founders’ than any other agency in the world. – Richard Le Gallienne

A group of supposedly christian people from the US have been doing their best to spread their interpretation of the Bible to the far corners of the Earth- usually to the detriment of the people living in those corners. In Uganda, for one horrible example, christian dominionists from the US managed to convince the Ugandan government to make homosexuality a capital crime. Christian dominionist ministers have gone on record as stating that the United States should be governed by the laws of the Bible, and not by the Constitution. One of them ran for election as President in 2008.

When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. – Sinclair Lewis

These cabals of the religiously deluded all share several ideals which are an anathema to a civilized society. They despise homosexuals, relegate women to second-class citizenship (at best), are largely condescending (at best) or outright hostile (at worst) to anyone whose skin is not lily-white, and they universally make overt attempts to destroy or drive out any religion or sect they deem to be not sufficiently similar to their own. To further their agenda, these so-called “christians” vigorously campaign to remove Constitutional protections from all groups and individuals whit whom they disagree. As evidence, I need only point out the dozen or so state legislatures which have passed or are considering laws banning the practice of “sharia law” (despite the fact that none of these legislators have a clue what sharia law is). Several states have had legislation introduced which denies Constitutional protections to atheists, as well. To date, I don’t believe any have passed, but the fact that an elected official was willing to put his or her name to such stupidity is astonishing- and not a little frightening.

An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. – Robert Ingersoll

One has to wonder what these deluded zealots are so afraid of. Why the sheer hysteria at the possibility that two men might want to get married? What does it hurt the christian dominionists if their neighbor is an atheist- or a buddhist, muslim, jew, or pastafarian, for that matter? Is their faith so weak that mere exposure to the presence of unbelievers can shake it?

Christian fundamentalism:  the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life. – Andrew Lias

Here’s an idea- rather than try to force the whole planet into the warped template of your version of religion, try reading the words in that book you like so much. Granted that it was translated from Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then into English, and doubtless enjoyed many interesting linguistic adventures along the way, there are still a lot of stories in there which you can use as examples in your own lives. You’ll have the smug satisfaction of being “saved” amongst the heathen (if that’s what turns your crank), and the rest of us won’t have to put up with you while you’re reading it. If you have to use any means to convert others to your cause other than showing a good example, perhaps your message isn’t that appealing. If the mere existence of other faiths threatens your belief system, maybe your belief system isn’t that healthy to begin with.

I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do.  – D. Dale Gulledge

As for me, I care not what you believe or don’t believe- provided you don’t try forcing your beliefs on anyone else. If your god doesn’t like the way I live, let him tell me. Anything you might tell me has exactly the same weight as the rantings of the homeless guy on the corner wearing the tin-foil hat. Anyone who cannot live by this simple rule shall be confronted at every turn, to be exposed as the hypocritical authoritarians they are. It is incumbent upon all Americans to call out these theonomists among us, before they destroy the country in their pursuit of religious purity.

Current status: Annoyed

Current music: For the First Time by the Scripts