In their relentless omni-quest to suppress, demonize, and vilify homosexuals, conservative Christians, which are at the heart of nearly every bigoted attempt to subjugate in some way some being, have this time lost it. 'It' necessarily refers to clear-sighted sanity, i.e. rationality, which is so disgustingly visible I feel somewhat silly even typing this short diatribe.
The last tally was 47 million, 9 million of which are children, citizens of the most abhorrently wealthy nation in history do not have healthcare. Infants and 5 year olds are dying daily from vaccinable diseases merely because we're so infatuated with the idea of private enterprise that we can't pull our heads out of capitalism's ass long enough to see that the trivial gain in revenue comes at the expense of some child's life -who's only crime was being born to poor parents.
The planet is warming, which is the overall consensus of scientists world-wide, minus those in the "faith-based" offices set up by Bush to edit scientific documents, and by the by, what exactly is a "faith-based" office anyway? Is that some corner of the white house where religious zealots go to pray away the "evils" of the world? It seems quite convenient if so, for after all, forcing Big Oil out of business with all this 'global warming is a direct result of humans burning fossil fuels' business would sure have a nice alternative if we just left the remedy up to some guy in a black robe with cult like followers praying to an imaginary friend.
And what of, statistically, the 1/3 of women who read this, in America, that have been physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives? Or what of the 1/4 of women that have been raped or physically assaulted? It's staggering, before this day is over another 3 or more women in this country will have been murdered by their husband or boyfriend. And what about perhaps the most egregious: that the number one cause of death of pregnant or recently pregnant women is homicide by their intimate partner.
Yet, here we are, a gruesomely, disgustingly Christian nation worried about boys kissing; or so it seems, as politicians are debating to let Blacks serve as openly Black in the military, oops, I mean debating to let homosexuals serve as openly homosexual in the military (is there really any difference though between these two bigoted stances?), as is evidenced by the Pentagon's top general, Peter Pace, when he uttered the most retarded thing I, in my short 22 years, have ever heard: "I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well-served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."
And then, to cap it "all" off, presidential candidate Senator Sam Brownback, ad hoc leader of Bigots United (which is better known under it's pseudonym, the Republican party), came out in full support of good ole boy Pace by saying "We should not expect someone as qualified, accomplished and articulate as General Pace to lack personal views on important moral issues. In fact, we should expect that anyone entrusted with such great responsibility will have strong moral views."
Moral of the story: forget the estimated 65,000 homosexual soldiers of imperialism who serve side by side with their heterosexual counterparts, piss on 47 million people and their health problems, eff global warming and the liberals who ring the alarmist bells, and screw abused women who wouldn't have been abused in the first place if they had just stayed home barefoot and pregnant with their mouths shut; we're the Christian right and not only are we in the right, but we're here to save the world from its most grave threat: the most evil, morally sinful and repugnant abomination man was ever seduced into, queerdom.
Any of these facts I've cited can be independently researched at www.endabuse.org/resources/facts or through the New York Times archive database.
Michael Griffin
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Another beautifully written article by Sam Harris. This one was in yesterday's LA Times
God's dupes
Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics -- and are every bit as delusional.
By Sam Harris, SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
March 15, 2007
PETE STARK, a California Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn't believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population thinks that the Bible is the literal or "inspired" word of the creator of the universe, this took political courage.
Of course, one can imagine that Cicero's handlers in the 1st century BC lost some sleep when he likened the traditional accounts of the Greco-Roman gods to the "dreams of madmen" and to the "insane mythology of Egypt."
Mythology is where all gods go to die, and it seems that Stark has secured a place in American history simply by admitting that a fresh grave should be dug for the God of Abraham — the jealous, genocidal, priggish and self-contradictory tyrant of the Bible and the Koran. Stark is the first of our leaders to display a level of intellectual honesty befitting a consul of ancient Rome. Bravo.
The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things. As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and low — sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the validity of prophecy, etc. — continue to divide our world and subvert our national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources.
Of course, no religion is monolithic. Within every faith one can see people arranged along a spectrum of belief. Picture concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers — the Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death.
Outside this sphere of maniacs, one finds millions more who share their views but lack their zeal. Beyond them, one encounters pious multitudes who respect the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small points of doctrine — of course the world is going to end in glory and Jesus will appear in the sky like a superhero, but we can't be sure it will happen in our lifetime.
Out further still, one meets religious moderates and liberals of diverse hues — people who remain supportive of the basic scheme that has balkanized our world into Christians, Muslims and Jews, but who are less willing to profess certainty about any article of faith. Is Jesus really the son of God? Will we all meet our grannies again in heaven? Moderates and liberals are none too sure.
Those on this spectrum view the people further toward the center as too rigid, dogmatic and hostile to doubt, and they generally view those outside as corrupted by sin, weak-willed or unchurched.
The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.
People of all faiths — and none — regularly change their lives for the better, for good and bad reasons. And yet such transformations are regularly put forward as evidence in support of a specific religious creed. President Bush has cited his own sobriety as suggestive of the divinity of Jesus. No doubt Christians do get sober from time to time — but Hindus (polytheists) and atheists do as well. How, therefore, can any thinking person imagine that his experience of sobriety lends credence to the idea that a supreme being is watching over our world and that Jesus is his son?
There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.
Let us hope that Stark's candor inspires others in our government to admit their doubts about God. Indeed, it is time we broke this spell en masse. Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain — from cosmology to psychology to economics — has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.
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