Lately I’ve been in one of my periods of stoic acceptance of the religious idiocy in this country. I admire those who can keep the flame of sanity lit for long periods of time. I grow weary quite quickly. As the Republican primaries start to heat up - and with them the religious race by the candidates - I feel compelled to comment.
Each of the candidates, wooing the fundamentalist Christian vote, is now making every effort to prove that he or she is more supportive of wackadoodle fundamentalism than the others. Even Catholic converts (Gingrich) and the Mormon with no Christian fundamentalist cred (Romney) will compete for this vote. It will largely be on the backs of gays with plenty of raw meat for anti-abortionists and other “values voters” (hatred being the key value).
Seeking to be crowned Jesus’s favorite candidate is Rick Perry who will be hosting “The Response” prayer rally at Reliant Stadium in Houston on August 6. He’s called on all U.S. governors to join him. One of the event's biggest sponsors is the execrable American Family Association, declared an honest-to-goodness hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Perry says it’s not about anything but love for God (certainly not about politics!). Here is their version of God's love direct from the official proclamation of theology on the website of “The Response”:
What does The Response believe?
The Response is a non-denominal, apolitical Christian prayer meeting and has adopted the American Family Association statement of faith.
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would encourage my (very few) Republican Jewish and humanist friends to consider what really drives their party. Perry’s deep involvement in this says it all.
As one who was an unthinking Jew and accepted the traditional teachings because my parents sent me to Hebrew School, and it seemed that they endorsed what was taught there. After actually studying the torah and the Talmud as well as the New Testament and the works of leading philosophers, I realized, like Thomas Paine wrote in the Age of Reason, all revealed religions are pure fakery and illogical propaganda. After 9-11 I concluded further that religions are also toxic and separate man from man on the basis of nonsensical drivel that passes for holy words and liturgy. On the other hand, I am not an atheist and believe God speaks to me by the conclusions I draw like a character in a book might hear his author (if a character could think for himself). Therefore, an organized religion is just the rules imposed upon sheep like people by a another person who uses a Bible or similar book like a weapon that scares the sheep. Ironically, the religious leaders all surely must know that the rules, at best are a collection of what some other people imagine that God said to them-or stated otherwise, hearsay.
ReplyDeleteThe followers of religions, rather than focus their concentration on the study what their religions say, take the easy way out and accept what a religious leader says is God's will and plan. That makes the religious leader unaccountable because no mortal can prove or disprove the leader's account of what God wants. If a person can swallow that type of baloney, the person is by definition gullible, and either too lazy or too dumb to analyze what a politician might say, as long as the politician gets the blessing of a religious leader the person respects. I think I have defined the base of the Republican party by this description. By the same token, the Jews who superstitiously support Israel because they were told by a rabbi that God wants them to, are as gullible, dumb and lazy, and as susceptible to propaganda as the fundamentalist Christians; and it is not surprising to see many Orthodox Jews and other adherents of the faith voting Republican.
Paine figured this out in the 18th Century. As a society, we are going backwards.
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