Round Three of Some Random Irreligious Thoughts

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a third potpourri of thoughts that won’t exactly put me in a favourable light with any deities (if any) that are too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* Despite anti gay, anti same-sex unions, anti marriage equality sentiments vehemently expressed ad nausea by extremists from the religious Far Right Wing, and endlessly going on and on and on about how the Bible states or defines marriage as between one man and one woman and thus the constitutional legality of gay marriage is a violation of God’s law, I fail to find any such Biblical reference or conformation. It’s certainly not one of the Ten Commandments!

I fail to spot in Genesis where Adam and Eve were actually married, or for that matter even in love. Adam and Eve were living in sin right under God’s righteous nose! Well one could suggest that Genesis 2: 21-24 suggests marriage since the word “wife” is used in the last verse, but that was a generality statement that is apparently nonsense since that same verse also uses the term “mother” and “father” before there ever was such a thing as parents or parenting. There is no place that says Adam and Eve were married or were husband and wife. There’s a sort of rehash in Mark 10: 6-9; Matthew 19: 4-6; and Ephesians 5: 31 whereby if you take the generality phrase, one not referring to any specific pair or twain of individuals, that phrase “one flesh” might be a synonym for “marriage”. However, since the Bible makes ample use of the word “marriage”, well it should just come right out and say “marriage is between one man and one woman” – but it doesn’t. 

Overall, marriage as defined between one male and one female might be implied in the Bible, but it is never specifically stated. However, that didn’t stop a lot of the upper crust patriarchs from practicing polygamy (Genesis 29: 15-30). 

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* Of all the various worldviews people possess, they seem most inclined to fight over their concept of God, not over country, not over politics, but over their religion. It’s been said there many times that while good people do good things and bad people do bad things, it takes God and religion to make good people do bad things.

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* Anyone who has made more than a cursory examination of the ‘ancient astronaut’ theory knows how incredibly popular the concept is. Ancient alien (was God as astronaut) books like Von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” (and film) are bestsellers. In fact I understand that the History Channel’s documentary TV series “Ancient Aliens” is their most viewed and the best selling DVD they have put out. Then there have been sci-fi movies and TV series like “Stargate” that have picked up on the theme, as well as countless documentaries, websites, and articles. Collectively, all of this testifies that the idea has hit a very responsive neve indeed. People perhaps realise that there is something highly unusual, even anomalous about the human species, the origins of humanity and our ancient history that traditional religions and supernatural deities inadequately come to terms with, fail with plausible explanations, fail entirely with respect to these hundreds of enigmas. 

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* If Islam is the religion of peace, how come so many Muslims kill other Muslims (Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)? Not that that is a bad thing, mind you. That in fact should be applauded even encouraged. The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, IMHO.

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* Of all the follies that humanity has ever embraced, belief in a supernatural deity ranks head-and-shoulders above anything else. Never have so many have spent so much time on absolutely nothing. It boggles the mind. It would be absolutely hilarious were it not for the massive degree of death and suffering religious belief has inflicted on the relatively helpless. It’s a pity that all those true believers will never have any coming to terms with their delusions since once they snuff it, there’s no resurrection or afterlife to bask in.

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* Name the most evil thing Satan or Lucifer did (past tense) in the Bible. Now name the most evil thing God did (past tense) as related in the Bible. Now ask yourself, who is the more evil of the two? Who most approximates Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Saddam Hussein, and those of a similar ilk? If you should spell that entity’s name backwards, you should get a K9. 

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* It’s been claimed by those Right Wing religious fundamentalist types that whenever God is pissed off, He sends His wrath via a ‘natural’ disaster. So, any tornado or hurricane or blizzard or earthquake or wildfire, etc. isn’t really ‘natural’, rather its an Act of God’s punishment. However, it’s rather amazing that tornados tend to happen in roughly the same areas at roughly the same time of year; ditto hurricanes; ditto blizzards; ditto wildfires; ditto floods. You don’t tend to get massive earthquakes other than in well known fault zones and thus earthquake prone areas. You don’t get volcanoes erupting in areas not known to be tectonically active. Now if ‘natural’ disasters were really Acts of God, you might expect God to produce the occasional blizzard in Southern California in July; or how about 40 straight days and nights of rain in Death Valley; New York City becoming ground zero for a massive earthquake or volcanic eruption; a tornado outbreak in Alaska in January; or wildfires in areas of high rainfall and high humidity. If ‘natural’ disasters are Acts of God, why doesn’t God have an asteroid striking Chicago or a comet spanking Las Vegas or for that matter institute a massive solar flare or coronal mass ejection to blanket the entire US of A?  Even more central, why does God have to hide behind Mother Nature’s skirts in the first damn place? Why doesn’t God take a leaf out of His earlier wrath-filled up-yours and smite the first born?

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* If Hell is here on Earth, then you’d think the fire and brimstone must have been extinguished when Noah had to sail the really, really, really high seas!

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* I find it quite amazing that so-called Christian, God-loving, God-fearing, God-believing nations will at the drop of a bible wade into the internal affairs of other nations for their perceived wrongdoings and crimes against humanity. Most recently, Syria comes to mind, along with Afghanistan and Iraq, but right back through WWII and WWI and so on and so forth also springs to mind. The oddity is that while professing to believe in an all-powerful, all-wise, all-seeing, Almighty God of justice, they have absolutely no faith or belief that that very deity will actually strut His stuff and deal with the situation at hand. What makes that even odder is that’s exactly what God did historically – Exodus anyone? So, these goody-two-shoes Christian nations while believing in a just and a righteous God don’t believe that just and righteous God will do bo-diddily squat to give modern truth to that belief, and so take matters into their own hands.

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* The attraction of virtual reality (the simulated universe) or of ancient astronauts, is that you have a ‘creator god’ without having to resort to a supernatural universe, force and/or deity as an explanation for life, the universe and everything (virtual reality) or the ‘creation’ via artificial selection of the human species (ancient astronauts).

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* Contrary to everyone’s opinion, the human species is not God’s favourite creation. By the numbers, it would appear that God loves beetles most of all; thousands of times over that of the lone human species, maybe because beetles toe the line!



Philosophies of the Religious Right: Part Two

The majority of churches, religious institutions and prominent religious individuals, though deluded IMHO, are for the most part, most of the time, middle-of-the-road and live-and-let-live. But as any probability statistician can relate to, there will be minorities on either side of that road. One side of that religious road, the Right side, are not only in your face but hold opinions (usually stated as facts) and philosophies that are anything but the normal mainstream. In fact they are extreme.

The Religious Right aren’t going to pay any attention to this, but no matter, here goes.

What are some more issues the extreme Religious Right are frothing at the mouth about and is it cosmically significant?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

A Woman’s Place

Their Point of View: In the Bible, men and women are not created equal. Therefore, marriage between a man and a woman is not an equal partnership. Women just gotta know their place, which is in the home, barefoot and pregnant, cooking and sewing and providing sex on demand! That’s obvious since in some churches or religious institutions equal opportunity/affirmative action is denied the female of the species. Last I heard the position of Pope was open to men only!

My Point of View: I have no trouble with the concept of the ‘house husband’ or the wife being the ‘breadwinner’. Hubby can cook and wash the dishes; the wife can instigate or demand sex on even days of the month; vice versa on odd days. Further, a woman should be given every opportunity to prove that she’s as dumb as the male of the species. Let’s hear it for Pope Mavis the First.

Church and State

Their Point of View: Church and State should be one and the same, with of course Christianity being the sum total of both and the be-all-and-end-all of all things.

My Point of View: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and IMHO, the current American separation of Church and State ain’t broke.

War on Christmas

Their Point of View: Christ is the spirit, meaning and embodiment of Christmas and therefore the two cannot be separated.

My Point of View: The Religious Right object here since in their POV the War on Christmas is the removing of Christ from Christmas. Well, so it should be too, for two reasons – there’s in all probability no connection between the birth of Jesus and the 25^th of December; there is no reason to believe that Christ actually ever existed. You cannot have a Christ in Christmas if Christ does not exist and nobody has ever proved that Christ ever existed, in the same way as say Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc or Henry the Eighth have been proved to have existed. Further, there are many with worldviews that exclude Christ (real or otherwise) from their belief systems and who resent having a Christ in Christmas shoved down their throats. And besides, anybody who is anybody and who lives in the real world is fully aware (thanks to January bills) that the spirit, meaning and embodiment of all things Christmas is consumerism and the more of that the better.

Cause and Effect

Their Point of View: The Religious Right Wing tends to make a lot of cause-and-effect assertions which they could never ever in a month-of-Sundays (and then some) prove in any court of law, yet they go on and on and on making these assertions as if these statements were absolute fact. For example:

* Disasters like Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, a massive killer tornado outbreak, or any other ‘natural’ act causing death and/or destruction are the direct result of God’s wrath because America (or any other Christian nation) is wicked and has turned her back on the Almighty.

* American soldiers and police officers killed in the line of duty died because God hates fags and America is a fag-loving society, or at least accepts them into society, into the police force and into the military.

* Mass shootings in schools are the direct result of prayer that has been banned from these public institutions.  

My Point of View: As I said above, none of this can be proved and ultimately has as much substance and significance to the population as any other fantasy statement presented as fact.

Some Other Looney Points of View

I picked up most of these one-off Religious Right Wing bits throughout 2012.

Their Point of View:

* Church attendance should be as close to compulsory as makes no odds and an atheist tax imposed on those not attending church.

* Belief in manmade global warming/climate change is an insult to God because He provided us with the gifts of fossil fuels which He intended for us to use.

* Gays, atheists, Muslims, and other undesirables shouldn’t be allowed to hold any positions of authority.

* All undesirables should be deported.

* Gays should be put to death; in fact any punishments for any Biblical sins should be carried out in the ways the Bible dictates, like executions that require stoning to death.

* Religious instruction and prayer should be made mandatory in all public schools, as well as the Ten Commandments displayed prominently.

* All elected officials must take an oath affirming their belief in God and the literal Bible.

My Point of View: Very loud raspberries for each and every dot point. Actually I think the extreme Religious Right Wing should be deported as undesirables, starting with the membership of the Westboro Baptist Church. 

Conclusions

Their Point of View: The extreme Religious Right Wing are not happy campers and they keep threatening all and sundry that we’re a collective Sodom, Gomorrah and Babylon all rolled into one wicked society; God is pissed; God’s wrath is upon us; God’s gonna kick our ass sooner rather than later; and in fact it’s just gloom and doom times ahead. The end is nigh. Hell is gonna become very crowded very quickly unless we repent, Repent and REPENT!

My Point of View: We’ve been hearing that sad and sorry tale for generations, and then some. It is high time for the Religious Right Wing to put up or shut up. Prove God exists and has all those wrathful traits you assign Him. A Sherlock Holmes story reads as being perfectly plausible, but you cannot use that story and therefore conclude that Sherlock Holmes exists or existed. And so by the way, you cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible, anymore than you can use a textbook that says it is true as proof that it is true. You need independent verification, for the existence of Sherlock Holmes or the truth of the Bible. And that’s where the Religious Right collapses in a heap of rubble. There is no independent source. Maybe the Religious Right can make God show His face for the first time in way over 2000 years, but if they can’t back up all their huffing and puffing then they should just exit, stage left, from society, for good. Never have so few spouted off so much hellfire and brimstone hot air over so long a time frame and have so little to show for it. And here you probably thought just politicians were the real huff-and-puffers. Not even close, unless of course they are associated with the Right Wing of the GOP/Tea Party!

People Kill: God Doesn’t Care: Part Two

Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Religious Element

I personally find it amazing, even astounding that in the aftermath of a mass murder episode, people flock to churches and pray and hold candlelight prayer vigils, and express total faith in the Almighty the He will look after the slain innocents. I’d of thought people, especially religious people, should be taking to the streets with raised fists screaming in pure rage and outrage against the alleged loving, compassionate, merciful, all-knowing, all-powerful God for standing by on the sidelines and not lifting a godly digit to prevent the tragedy in the first place.

Of course the obvious answer is that God gave us free will, and a person who slaughters the innocent is just exercising God’s free will gift and therefore God is not going to interfere. God does not want to get involved in the petty daily affairs of humankind.

Or, some might suggest that God works in mysterious ways and that the slaughter of the innocents is part of God’s plan, part of the Almighty’s Big Picture which us mortals can’t comprehend. Well, if mass murder is part of God’s plan, do we really want any part of God?

Some suggest that God doesn’t work in mysterious ways and this is just pure and simple another example of God’s wrath. While that would be keeping within God’s actions and reactions in the Old Testament, I somehow find it hard to believe that God would need to employ a middleman. Further, by employing a middleman, God would lose the benefit of letting all and sundry know that He was pissed off and this was an example of His wrath. So, sorry ‘bout that Westboro Baptist Church but God did not ‘send the shooter’ as per one of your favourite phrases – this time or ever. We do not need God’s help to kill.

Some, especially the extreme Right Wing Fundamentalists, suggest that humans have turned their back on God and therefore God has turned His back on us. That sort of spitting the dummy doesn’t quite ring true with those godly attributes of compassion, etc. I mean a child might in a hissy fit turn their back on Mum & Dad, but Mum & Dad aren’t as likely to reciprocate.

Of course the final answer as to why God ignores us, and allows extreme evil, is that there is no God in the first damn place, and this (mass murder of the innocents) is just part of that evidence.

In conclusion, in one sense, such mass murder episodes are in a strange way ‘good news’ stories for they should re-re-re-reinforce the concept that, sorry Virginia, there is no God, or if there is He does not give a DAMN about the sorry affairs of mankind. He does not want to get His godly hands dirty. So all the vigils, and all the prayers, and all the church attendances, all of which may be psychological comforting responses, in the long and short term, well these actions are absolutely meaningless and a waste of time, effort, energy and tears. Ultimately, it amounts to another nail in God’s coffin. 

P.S. - In a Darwinian sense, when you have a global population of over seven billion and increasing, well, life is cheap. The mass shooting of millions in one day would be of no lasting consequence to the human species; just the opposite, it might improve things – slightly.

Religious Hatred: The Westboro Baptist Church: Part Three

One tends to associate religious intolerance for other religions with bloodshed. The phrase ‘holy wars’ comes to the fore. However, the peace movement has come to religious hatred as well as in all other manner of protest movements. The most famous, or infamous, of the peaceful religious haters is probably the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). I’m sure many of the recipients of their hate would prefer the days of bloodshed so they could dish a bit something back in return.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

I also wonder if these idiots have a death or suicide wish. It’s not the best of ideas to Thank God for dead cops and soldiers when you reside in America’s heartland. The Ku-Klux-Klan isn’t exactly partial to the WBC either. And no doubt the Taliban wouldn’t mind showing the WBC some Islamic hospitality either. Friends come and friends go, but enemies accumulate. Accidents can happen when backs are turned.

The resident inmates of the WBC asylum apparently think God also hates those who mock Him. So I won’t mock Him, rather all the loonies who put their faith in the Holy Trinity equivalent of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, most notably God Himself. Those who I identify as loonies quite obviously include those wacko members at the WBC.

Now there’s a category of people and organizations well represented in say the “Guinness Book of Records” or “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”. That category is those who have achieved their moment of fame and glory in the sunshine. Publicity seekers abound everywhere. There’s certainly a share of loony tunes – certified nut cases; there’s skilled daredevils and not so skilled risk takers. Many people like to do really crazy but relatively harmless things just for the hell of it and many do likewise as a means of raising money for various charities and other worthy causes. Thus they need all the PR they can get for their cause. But the bottom line is getting noticed, and you don’t get noticed if you’re part of the crowd. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd; dare to be different.  

But not all PR hounds are deliberately silly or daring or charitable. Shock-jocks shock to keep up their ratings. They also shock to keep up earning their multi-million dollar salaries, for example, a top shock-jock like Rush Limbaugh. Now Rush Limbaugh comes across as a total idiot; but total idiots don’t command huge listening audiences and vast, nearly obscene monetary rewards. So I strongly suspect that shock-jocks shock just because that’s part of their job description, not because they always actually believe the B.S. they spout off. But that’s their trade secret and they have to live with their often probably deliberate lies, hoping, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, the listening public can see through their charades.

America has more than her fair share of shock-jocks, including that especially one infamous name, Rush Limbaugh. Listeners tune in to see if their favorite shock-jock can outdo him or herself and top his or her previous outrageous rant with something even more outrageous. I’m sure they know this and deliberately stir the pot, though some like Limbaugh often cross the invisible line of what is and is not acceptable. 

The WBC is, IMHO, the religious equivalent of the radio shock-jock. In fact, my theory – I’m not alone here – Is that the WBC has bugger-all to do with religion and everything to do with keeping all of them the front-and-centre of attention. Your moment in the sun becomes a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade. This is getting publicity for the sake of publicity – lots of newspaper headlines and evening TV news coverage – and they don’t care who they psychologically hurt in the process. No amount of pleading will get the WBC to change their tactics, but they will call off their picket line hounds in exchange for extra free airtime. They have got attention-grabbing down to a fine art, and religious intolerance and extreme picketing and outrageous slogans are sure ways of getting attention. 

Their shock-jock tactics do have some rather chilling facets to them. First of these is their use of very young children who the WBC have carry their full-of-hate placards. The children are way too young to remotely comprehend the issues; they just parrot what the adults tell them too without such comprehension. Secondly, if you view their videos, you’ll notice, especially at the end, the narrator’s shit-eating-grin (SEG) expression - “You’re going to hell” (SEG); “Thank God for 9/11” (SEG), etc. The third chilling thing is that all of the numerous spokespersons come across as total believers in the nonsense they’re spouting off. Total sincerity or so it would seem. They have either been coached very well or totally brainwashed. You can just about imagine that bowl of tainted Kool-Aid in the WBC fridge waiting for the appropriate moment to ‘celebrate’ and go to their heavenly reward while everyone else has headed in the opposite direction.

In conclusion, the WBC membership is collectively just a bunch of PR hungry loonies who use religious themes (way out of context by the way) and outrageous tactics to attract attention and publicity as long as they stay ever so barely on the right side of the law while not caring who suffers emotional stress via their rants, raves, pickets, chants, songs, etc. Of course they deny that – it’s all about preaching “God’s hate” – but then again, such a theology is just bound to attract the sort of PR that they in fact, constantly get.

However, as my final wrap-up, there is some good news. Many WBC members, especially some high profile family members of the WBC leading lights, have decided to vote with their feet against the WBC and their version of God and pack it up and leave. Maybe there is a God after all! For details, see the BBC’s follow-up documentary “America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis” (2011).

The other good news trend is that the ungodly great unwashed, all those picketed and consigned to hell by the WBC, are fed up. Counter-pickets and wall-to-wall people blockades to prevent the WBC from strutting their picketing funerals stuff are becoming ever more frequent and so it is coming to pass that the members of the WBC are now tending to be outnumbered by ratios of dozens to one. When some of the counter demonstrators are hell-bent-for-leather motorcyclists, the sort that look as if they’d shoot first and ask questions later, it’s no wonder that it’s further coming to pass that the WBC frequently announces their picket but that’s equally followed by a no-show!   

By the by, if God is really on the side of WBC, you’d think He would have given them heavenly voices with which to sing their hatred songs. Let’s just say if you hear the WBC ‘choir’ sing their picket line songs, you’ll appreciate rap and hip-hop and even ethnic chanting (or is that wailing) in preference. WBC singers – don’t give up your day jobs! But, as an afterthought, perhaps instead WBC should picket with bagpipes a-blowing! That would show the world how much God hates ‘em!

While I’ve presented the above in a slightly less than a pure shock, horror manner, I’ve tried to keep things slightly light-hearted, there’s nothing light-hearted about the way the WBC have treated their victims. The WBC deserves no less than the severest condemnation that all feeling members of civilized society can muster against them. 

Religious Hatred: The Westboro Baptist Church: Part Two

One tends to associate religious intolerance for other religions with bloodshed. The phrase ‘holy wars’ comes to the fore. However, the peace movement has come to religious hatred as well as in all other manner of protest movements. The most famous, or infamous, of the peaceful religious haters is probably the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). I’m sure many of the recipients of their hate would prefer the days of bloodshed so they could dish a bit something back in return.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

To give you an idea of exactly what direction the WBC is coming from, here are some of their philosophies (in my own words) that appear to be central to the WBC worldview.

*Harking back to my introductory remarks, it would seem as if the WBC has set itself up as the authority on all that’s holy and godly. In fact, according to them, faith in any other religion is akin to devil worship. Tell that one to the pope; he could always use a good laugh given all the strife his organization is in. Of course it’s that very strife, sexual child abuse, that give the WBC the God-given right to state that the Catholic religion is a false religion, and by-God is the WBC position an example of anti-Catholicism.

*Whatever transpired in the Bible is the absolute literal truth. All events in the Bible panned out because God willed it so. So Noah’s riding the flood wave crests and Sodom & Gomorrah were literal disasters and practice sessions – God’s warm-ups to the coming of God’s Big Crunch against the modern world (presumably as outlined in the Book of Revelation).

*If the Bible says it’s a no-no, then it’s a no-no, and if the USA doesn’t endorse and enforce Biblical no-no’s then God’s going to boot and continue to boot America in the privates! Since America doesn’t endorse and enforce God’s Holy Word, well, anything and everything that’s nasty that befalls America is a sign God is pissed! God hates America! When America gets kicked in the privates, from the untimely death in combat of one soldier to the demise of hundreds in a hurricane – you know who is responsible!

*The Old Testament notwithstanding, God hates the Jews, because the Jews killed Jesus and the Jews support abortion and homosexuality (Biblical no-no’s), so in the opinion of the WBC, God sent the holocaust and thus the Jews got their just deserts.

*Homosexuality (“fags”) is sin number one. It’s the prime target of the WBC. God hates fags! If you’re gay, if you support the gay community, if you condone gay activities, God’s gonna get you! In fact, the entire gay community, all those who aren’t 100% heterosexual, should be put to death in accordance with Old Testament doctrine and practices.

*At least the WBC gets one brownie point since they do not support racism because the Bible doesn’t support racism. The Ku-Klux-Klan is not amused!

*President Obama is the antichrist. [He’s just one of hundreds so identified over the millennia so don’t put too much faith in that procrastination.]

*Any disaster, natural or otherwise (like 9/11), is a direct expression of God’s wrath, and that applies not just to America but anywhere and everywhere else in the world. When an earthquake hits China, or a tsunami hits Japan, or tornadoes rip across the U.S.A., it’s “Thank God” according to the WBC. Cop that you devil worshiping bastards! And that includes Islam. Mohammed gets the Big Finger from the WBC too. 

*There are no innocents. The child in the womb who died in the womb goes straight to hell too.

*You must “Thank God” for everything that happens, because everything that happens happens because God wills it to happen and anything God wills to happen must be for a good reason and thus God should be thanked for bringing you the benefits of His infinite goodness. That includes anything and everything that you may not personally think of as good. So if you’re seriously injured in a car crash, and your child is killed (and who is now in hell), you are to “Thank God” for that because God willed your injury and death and damnation of your child for a good reason (which is that God hates the both of you). Now aren’t you grateful?

*The WBC exists not to spread the word about God’s love, but about “God’s hate”.

*The WBC wants everyone (excepting themselves of course) to die horribly and burn in hell.

*Only the WBC – repeat, ONLY the WBC understands all of this; thus their warnings via those pickets and placards. In their hearts they know their messages will be unheeded, but that’s okay since that leaves them to become the be all and end all of God’s chosen few.

I had a quick check on an online Bible site to see if the Bible (King James Version) used the phrase anywhere that “God hates” – No. I guess the WBC likes putting words in God’s mouth!

I wonder in turn if the God of the Old Testament hates the WBC. He probably does since they’re not doing their full bit to contribute to the terrestrial quota of blood and guts that He likes spilled on His behalf. Actions speak louder than words, and when you come down to the nitty-gritty, the WBC are just spouting off words; lots of hot air. They huff and they puff and though they like dead cops and dead soldiers and dead fags, they won’t pull the trigger themselves. They don’t put their money where their mouths are. They should. It would give them real credibility and of course they could (and would) always claim that God made them do it. Still, the membership of the WBC gets to picket another day if they mind their peaceful ways. You can’t picket from a prison cell.

WBC logic screw-up number one: If in fact, as the WBC says, “God hates everybody” and “God hates America” then of necessity God hates all those members of the WBC since they collectively are part of “everyone” and they reside in America. So there! Though somehow I rather suspect they’d try to wiggle out of that logic somehow.

There’s another facet that shows up how screwy their logic is. Since all of these deaths by 1000 cuts (Katrina, 9/11, the war in Iraq, homicides, etc.) have been going on, and on, and on and on, it appears that God’s wrath is going to be exhibited as the nickel-and-dime-the-world approach to a long dragged out Armageddon. But for every 5 & 10 God’s wrath devours and deposits in hell, another 100 are born. Those births too must be “Thank God” events.  It’s self defeating. My reading is that if God were really that pissed, He wouldn’t toy with us via death by a thousand cuts – a cop here, a soldier there, a mass shooting the day after that with a now and again 9/11 type event thrown into the mix. God would just ring up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and bring on the Book of Revelation scenario and just sort of nuke us and be done with it. WBC is a few nickels-and-dimes short of a dollar!

Yet another flaw in the WBC version of what passes for logic is their “Thank God for Dead…” The dead of course are those prematurely deceased human beings who are now in hell. But equally the WBC should “Thank God” for their births since of course by their logic God must have been the driving force behind their conceptions in the first bloody place. So that “Thank God for Dead…” makes no Godly sense whatsoever, unless it’s God’s plan to have people born only to be prematurely killed just to thus satisfy the theology of the WBC and give them a reason to picket and keep on preaching their hate. No, something screwy somewhere, like the mindset of the WBC, since when it comes to God and the WBC, logic is damned.  

This entire “Thank God for…” slogan can easily bite the WBC on the ass. Most of the leading lights at the WBC are well educated university graduates. You’d think that maybe they would hold up a sign that says “Thank God for education and academics” and protest that there should be more funding for education and teachers, etc. That would be constructive, but that’s not the way of the WBC – to be constructive that is.

By WBC logic, if you Thank God for dead cops and soldiers, because that’s God’s way, then you must also Thank God for live cops and live soldiers since they presumably are alive because that too is God’s will. Of course you won’t get the WBC to admit to that. If you Thank God for a tornado that kills, you need to Thank God for the rain that grows the crops that feeds all those that God’s wrath hasn’t yet consigned to a place where rain doesn’t fall. If you Thank God for anything that kills the human species, you have to Thank God for all that which doesn’t kill. But there’s no WBC placards that reads Thank God for flowers or baseball or Vietnam Veterans or holidays in Australia. Sorry WBC, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  

To be continued…

Religious Hatred: The Westboro Baptist Church: Part One

One tends to associate religious intolerance for other religions with bloodshed. The phrase ‘holy wars’ comes to the fore. However, the peace movement has come to religious hatred as well as in all other manner of protest movements. The most famous, or infamous, of the peaceful religious haters is probably the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). I’m sure many of the recipients of their hate would prefer the days of bloodshed so they could dish a bit something back in return.

All monotheistic religions – and there are many of them – all have as a core value that theirs is the one true religion that represents the one true God and that all other monotheistic religions are false religions and represent a false version of God. That alone immediately leads me to the conclusion that they all are just full of B.S. and that there is no such animal as the one true religion and the one true God. But that’s not my overriding theme here.

Rivalry  between various monotheistic faiths have of course given rise to much inter-religious hatred and stemming from that, much violence and bloodshed. Methinks the God of the Old Testament, a serious fan of blood and gore, would be Lord Almighty pleased!

Anyway, religious hatred come violence has spanned the range from all out warfare, to terrorism, to more localized conflicts. Across the generations, so it has been and so it is now and no doubt so it will be way into the future (if humans don’t breed themselves out of existence first). A definitive list of monotheistic religious conflicts is way too extensive to give here, but Northern Ireland, the Crusades; and 9/11 all come to the mind as examples.   

At least when the holy bombs explode and the holy bullets fly and the holy swords slash away, you know what you’re up against and can strike back accordingly or as best you can.

But there’s religious hatred and violence, and then there’s religious HATRED that replaces physical violence with psychological warfare. No holy bombs, bullets or swords. Violence is replaced with the picket line, the placards, the chants, the songs. This now becomes the new (and improved?) non-violent version of bombs, bullets and swords. But make no doubt, the religious hatred, or in some cases, to make it clear, the HATRED, remains – in spades. To the best of my knowledge organized religious hatred of the peaceful kind is uniquely American. I’d like to say only in America, but I’d probably be corrected quick-smart. Still, God’s own country is awash in religious hatred without a bomb, bullet or sword anywhere in sight.

And so you can express your religious hatreds and carry out those messages and shed not one drop of actual blood and thus stay inside the law since the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech as long as such speech causes no actual or potential physical harm to others. For example there's no incitement to cause a panic, or to induce a riot or stir up the masses and cause a lynching. Still, what it lacks in doing physical damage is more than made up for in psychological trauma that these picketers direct their “God hates” placards against.  

Now what do civilized people, Americans or otherwise, make of religious picketers that carry placards that have as a central message “God hates…” and variations on the theme. Here are some actual examples of messages written on picket placards: it’s a representative, but hardly exhaustive list:

“America is Doomed; Fag Flag [the Stars & Stripes]; Fag Lover Obama; Fag Soldier in Hell; Fag Troops; Fags Are Beasts; Fags Are Violent; Fags Are Worthy of Death; Fags Die, God Laughs; Fags Doom Nations; Fear God; God Blew Up the Troops; God Hates America; God Hates Divorce; God Hates Fags; God Hates India; God Hates Jews; God Hates Obama; God Hates You; God Is Angry Everyday; God Is Your Enemy; God Killed Your Cops; God Killed Your Sons; God Sent the Shooter [various lone gunman massacres] ; God: USA’s Terrorist; Pray for More Dead Soldiers; Prepare to Meet Thy God; Remember Lot’s Wife; Thank God for 9/11; Thank God for AIDS; Thank God for Dead Cops; Thank God for Dead Soldiers; Thank God for [Hurricane] Katrina; Thank God for IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices]; The Siege Is Coming; The World is Doomed; USA = Fag Nation; Your Sons Are In Hell; You’re Going to Hell”.

Then there’s a picket chant: “1, 2, 3, 4, God Hates the Marine Corps”.

And their song title: “God Hates the World”.

Pretty disgusting wouldn’t you say? Well, all those and more are brought to you, if not in person, then via your TV or Internet screen, courtesy of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), with a home base in Topeka, Kansas, which must be insulting to real Baptists since the WBC has no actual affiliation with any official Baptist organization. They’re a rouge organization, and for all practical purposes, an extended family organization. Well the BBC in a documentary on the WBC called them “The Most Hated Family in America” (2007).

Ah, but what does the WBC picket and why? Well their usual target is funerals and the higher the celebrity profiles of the funeral (victim or attendees) the better. But the funeral has got to have some sort of connection with, in their twisted logic, sins against God. So as long as the funeral has something to which, in their convoluted form of ‘sins against God’ religious logic, they can claim that “God hates” that something back in return. If “God hates” that something, and since the WBC stands shoulder-to-shoulder with God, then the WBC hates that something too and by God are they going to let the world know it!

Funerals are of course especially emotionally-charged occasions; military (killed in action) funerals all the more-so, which of course ramps up the impact the WBC will have, so military (killed in action) funerals are just about Target Number One.

The WBC also pickets other churches, since those churches, obviously, advocates a false religion or theology or god and thus are evil in the sight of the WBC God; and thus the call to arms and person the picket line. As long as something has a connection to something the WBC perceives that their God is against; then the WBC stands ready to picket! Apparently God can’t defend Himself adequately enough against false religions and needs additional moral support!

I spotted in one of their numerous extremist videos the statement that if you took on the WBC, any challenge to them at all, well God would get you for that since a slap in the face to the WBC was a slap in the face to God Almighty. Okay, I’ll take up and swallow their bait. I’m not afraid of their (non-existent) Big Bad God.

To be continued…