Posts Tagged ‘religion’

I had a conversation with someone today. It’s my usual holiday conversation about the existence of Christ. As a gratefully recovering Catholic and now proud atheist, I did my usual dance of trying to be considerate and polite and changing the subject. As is often the case, my friend continued on undeterred with great curiosity about how I cannot believe in any god and what that might mean. I obliged by quickly employing the word delusional and said that I see no difference between one fairy tale and another. Predictably, we finished up pretty quickly after that.

MEXICO: God, the supreme being, maker of all things, the divine creator of all – has been found…here on Earth. Apparently, God has been here for the last 27 years, living in poverty in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. God, known around the world by many names, (Yaweh, Allah, Krisha, Zeus, etc.), is known locally as Cora, is a single mother of two children, eking out a living as a prostitute in a brothel.

During the Reagan years, I dated a woman that had two children from a previous marriage. They adopted a cat and went through this lengthy process of naming the animal. I really didn’t want to get involved, so I figured that I would offer a suggestion so bad that they’d just leave me alone.

“How about Separation of Church and State” I said.

Crickets.

(Image courtesy of thinkvegan.net)

Sexism is the ‘gateway ‘ism”, that makes all other ‘isms’ possible.  It precedes all other forms of discrimination, setting the example that there are some people that view others as inferior and they use brutality upon them.  What I mean by that is that because our family and society models are built around the model of inequality, injustice and brutality – we accept that behavior as normal.  So, too is racism, classism, speciesism and any other oppression by one group toward another.  The behaviors of sexism are the behaviors of bullying, injustice, intolerance and cruelty.

This is about my friends, how amazing they are to me.  

My new friend:

I recently posted about a community whose rights are routinely ignored, stripped and abused.  I took a risk in writing it because I know very little about the community.  I spoke about what I do know; about my belief that the law works for everyone or it works for no one.  I have no friends, no family, no coworkers in this group of people.  Yet, as a human being, a father and a citizen I have reached a point where I can no longer sit by while others are bullied simply because they are different and fewer in numbers.  So, I spoke out from my heart that how we the large groups treat the smaller, how the strong treat the weak yields a foul harvest for all of us. 

(Image courtesy of indiesocial.com)

I walked onto the train platform in downtown Chicago today.  A woman had just finished shopping at Macy’s and had several red shopping bags.  She was trying to put everything into one bag.  The wind picked up and blew some of the empty bags down the platform.  I took off running and stopped them from blowing out onto the street. 

Then, she yells to me that: "It’s OK!  They’re empty."  Then she sits down and waits for the train with her two bags full of stuff.  The 5 empty big red bags are just out there on the platform and she makes no effort to pick them up.  I told her that I didn’t want litter for a Christmas present, picked them all up and threw them in the trash (no recycling on CTA platforms…dammit!).

Religious institutions have been attacking the Constitution and the people of the United States long enough.  I don’t want their money, but it is the only way to get their goddamn mitts off of my government.

Hit ‘em where it hurts!  Tax the power hungry bastards.  They cannot stop themselves and it’s up to the rest of us to do it.  Believe me, if they had to pay taxes in order to infiltrate government and tell the rest of us what to do:

• They would leave Washington and state capitals overnight.
• They would stop funding anti-gay legislation.
• We would not hear about Intelligent Design.
• They would stop trying to force regulation of women’s bodies.

These mega-churches, the LDS, Focus on Family, Pat Robertson and other charlatans would clam up in a hurry if they had to pay taxes.

The larger, politically active religions would face pressure from smaller churches and other religions that do not interfere with the lives of others.  They would ask for a separate status for their churches, but I suggest that we lump them all together.

The new rule is: even if you talk about God, you pay taxes.  That’ll stop them dead in their tracks.  Because, no matter what they tell you on Sunday…it’s all about the ‘benjamins’.

The extra benefit for the taxpayer – we can regulate them into a living hell.

bwahahahahaha….

-gadfly