Sunday 6 May 2012

Religious Wrong


There's No Such Thing As The Religious Right.

I always find the religious right a laughable bunch of toss-wits. I'm referring of course to the american religious right. Sorry America but outside of the Middle-East no-one else has a religious right and the Middle-Eastern religious right isn't anything approaching amusing. The american religious right is however incredibly amusing. Firstly there's the fact that right-wing politics are inherently amusing... losing side of every major historical argument from freeing the slaves through women's suffrage all the way up to gay marriage. Secondly there's the fact that religious types are inherently laughable and foolish... especially the creationists. What's that? the earth is 4000 years old? Yes, of course it is you fucking idiot. However that's not why I find the religious right such a laughable bunch. The reason I find them so amusing is because there is absolutely no logical reason why they exist.

In a post apocalyptic wasteland infested with
vampires maybe but not in the real world.

You see the views of mainstream american religion are fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the policies of the Republican party. “But Eddie," I hear you say, "they both hate the gays more than anyone without issues about their own sexuality ever should, and fundamentally despise all other relgions” and yes you are absolutely correct. However that's not enough of a reason for these two groups to have joined forces. Let's have a quick run through of the key points of the christian faith shall we... Now the christian faith has handily organised it's key views into a list they like to call the "10 Commandments."

I never said religion isn't entertaining

Do Not Worship Other Gods
There is no-one in the republican party who wants to curtail religious freedom. This is the first commandment so we can assume God takes it pretty seriously but no-one in any, sorry, either forgot Americans don't have a real choice, of the major political parties in the US wants to enforce it. So tat ones a tie for both the reds and the blues.

Do Not Make Idols
Again no-one is dealing with this... but the Republicans are the ones who want to ban flag burning. That seems a lot like idolatry to me. Not actually joking there. That is the american right-wing in clear violation of a commandment.

Do Not Take The Lords Name In Vain
It's the right-wing that always argue for having Gods name on the money. Now I'm pretty certain that's not the what God would consider a proper use of his name, money is the root of all evil after all and it was Jesus who turned over the money-lenders tables in the temple... but more on that later.

Keep Holy The Sabbath
Stopping people working on any day is government intervention, the right-wing would never even consider restricting that kind of bullshit.

Honour Your Mother And Your Father
To be fair at least George Bush respected his father enough to launch a massively pointless war costing millions of lives, before you question that figure I'm including both sides of the conflict, to kill a guy who used to give his dad funny looks.

Do Not Kill
The right are in favour of the death penalty. The commandment isn't though shall not murder it's kill. So killing a killer is still wrong in the eyes of the bible, furthermore the two insane wars launched as part of the dead-arabs-to-the-gallon oil program killed an unnecessary fuck-ton of people.

Do Not Commit Adultery
Newt Gingrich is a republican senator. I'm not entirely sure I have anything further to add on that one. I'm not saying Democrats don't cheat on their wives, I'm just saying as a Christian you should vote for anyone who does.

Do Not Steal
This is a startlingly clear line for the bible which is usually filled with all sorts of nonsensical mumbo and/or jumbo. It doesn't say that stealing is OK if you come up with a clever way to do it that is not strictly speaking illegal, so once again Republican support for the banking and financial district is in direct disagreement with the word of the bible

Do Not Lie
You shouldn't be voting for any politicians according to this one really.

Do Not Covet
All politicians want power. Again this commandment pretty much rules out any engagement in the political process. It is also the basis for the entire world economy that all Republicans are intent on preserving

This is the religious right.

So having a quick run through of those you're looking at either not voting for anyone or voting for someone on the left-hand side of the political spectrum. That's just the commandments though. Other notable differences between the views of the religious and the Republican party spring up when it comes to helping the sick and poor. I don't recall any part of the bible that reads...

… and lo the lepers came unto Jesus, and Jesus spake thusly “Begone filthy lepers I'm not covered by your HMO” and the lepers were humbled and fucked off and died.

No Paul, I worked hard to get where I am why should
I help out people who can't be bothered to work.

Then there's energy policy. Let's pretend for a few seconds that Global Warming isn't a scientific fact. Then the current industrial state of the developed world is still killing animals, destroying habitats and polluting the air. According to the bible mankind, the species not Mick Foley... that would've been a much better bible, was left stewardship of the earth and all it's creatures. The Republicans have no intention of giving a fuck about that. How's about neither a lender nor a borrower be. Yet you vote for the guys who are friends with the Enron people. Were Jesus both alive today and not a fictional character then he'd be occupying the living fuck out of some Wall Street.

He's not calling them 'job-creators'

Now I'm not saying that the big Venn diagram of Republicans and christians has no overlap what so ever there's still the little 'hate gays, hate abortion' ellipse, but if that's all your religious belief boils down to then you are hate-filled spite-monkey and there is no plain of existence that requires your presence.

Should have seen this one coming when I googled evil monkey

Those who call themselves members of the religious right, are neither religious nor right they are simply fans of doing what they are told be it a weekly trip to church or a less regular trip to the ballot box. I'm not normally one to defend religion but I respect the early christians, true believers who risked pain, death and worse to spread what they believed to be true just so years later a bunch unthinking quimsicles could do exactly what they are told by the people who say that they're are christians rather than those that behave like them.

eddie <I actually rather like JC as philosopher>

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