A while ago I posted an article on Why I'm an Atheist and a large part of the post was dedicated to promoting tolerance of others religious beliefs. I argued that while we don’t have to accept each other’s beliefs, we should tolerate them. That is after all, one of the principles that this great country was founded on, freedom of religion.
Screw that. It’s one thing to believe in a silly fairy tale, it’s quite another when you take your illogical, unfounded, stupid belief system that goes against EVERYTHING we know about the world around us, and start jamming it down the throats of people who don’t believe the same things as you, and even worse, force-indoctrinating our children into your world of gods and spirits and make believe.
Today a friend accused me of being in danger of becoming a cranky old man, because I let things upset me. That particular conversation was around the TV show “Medium” where my argument was that the show was a danger because it was supposed to be based on the real life events of the so-called Psychic Investigator Allison Dubious, who by the way is an outright fraud. I pointed out that many people believe these events actually took place. She countered by saying that nobody believes that it’s real because nobody could be that psychic. I hope you didn’t miss my point there.
But she’s right, in the grand scheme of things, that is a little thing to get upset about. There are so many more things, so many more important things that are bringing this country to a level of stupidity that it hasn’t seen in 120 years.
The real danger to this society are the Fundamental Conservatives (who from this point forward I will just label the “fundacons” because I’m lazy and I like the sound of it. update: I just realized that this wasn't as original as I had imagined it to be, I think I got the idea from Pandagon where several people refer to these people as theocons, or Theocratic Conservatives. Damn, and I thought I was so clever.). These fundacons have managed through this administration, to take a powerful and dangerous position in the policy making decisions of our government, and their influence is rippling through every corner of our nation. In just the last few months there have been countless cases of religious infiltration into places where it just doesn’t belong. So here are some examples of why I get so upset, and why everyone who values education and human rights should be upset as well.
We of course have the recent Terri Shiavo case, which is so over-done, I’m not going to go into it any more except to say, that there’s a much deeper agenda behind it for the religious right than just saving Terri’s life. It’s a spearhead to taking away people’s rights to choose at all. If you can’t choose your own right to life, why should you be able to choose over the right to life for that fetus growing inside you, or choose to prevent conception at all. Call me crazy now, but it’s all part of the same agenda.
There are pharmacists who, based on their insane fundamental Christian beliefs, are refusing to give women not only morning after pills, but even birth control, and there's a push to get more of these misogynist bastards into these positions. There are people vehemently opposing a bill in Colorado that would make it mandatory for hospital employees to inform rape victims of their option to take emergency contraception, because it would violate their religious rights. What about the rights of the poor woman who has just been violated!
We have school boards deciding that they don’t want to teach sex education anymore. They are promoting abstinence as the ONLY sexual education, despite research that proves an abstinence-only approach could actually puts kids at higher risk for sexually-transmitted disease.
Additionally we have school boards deciding that they don’t want to teach evolution anymore. One Pastor complains "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture". Umm…. And that makes you what? The problem is that there’s this crazy new “theory” called Intelligent Design, that in all it’s technical mumbo jumbo is a load of horse-shit and a not so cleverly disguised attempt at bringing Creationism back into schools. These people want to make our Public schools into Bible schools!
We have Science Museums afraid to show IMAX films that even hint at the topic of Evolution because they are afraid of Christian backlash.
We have our God-fearing President making National and International policy decisions based on his faith. This administration has stood in the way of good science throughout it’s entire course, banning government funded stem-cell research, banning any kind of human cloning, even at just the cellular level which wouldn’t result in a full human form, but could be used to help all sorts of medical ailments. They’ve funded environmental research, and then fudged the results to fit their needs. He spends government money on faith-based organizations, which on the surface may seem helpful and humanitarian until you realize that these halfway houses and institutions are really just fronts for Christian ministries, and require as part of rehabilitation that those in need accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. The government funding of these operations is only a small part of the destruction this administration is doing to the Constitutional Separation of Church and State.
The hypocrisy of this administration is absolutely astounding. They claim all sorts of moral grounds when it fit’s their needs and garners votes from the unintelligent, uneducated segment of our culture, yet when held to scrutiny, hold no right to moral authority at all!
President Bush passed a law in Texas while still governor there, that allows hospitals to make the decision to terminate life support, even if only for reasons of funding, regardless of the individuals or family’s wishes. During this whole Schiavo fiasco, a 6 month old boy was removed from assisted breathing, against his parent's wishes. Tom Delay, hard-core Christian, and Schiavo grandstander, took his own father off of life support 16 ago, years after only a few days of vegetative state!
They have relegated Americans to second-class citizenry merely because of they’re sexual orientation, and are now taking this "sanctity of marraige" to a whole new level, discriminating against unmarried heterosexual cohabitators. They’ve taken away bankruptcy, the only financial refuge for people in real trouble, while leaving huge gaps and loopholes for people who don’t need it.
The fundacons have vilified war heroes, senior citizens, gays, liberals, and nearly anyone of a non-Christian sect or religion.
The list goes on and on. There is so much to be upset about, so much at stake if these fundacons succeed in what they’re trying to do, which make no mistake, is to turn this country into a bona-fide Theocracy. I can't be tolerant anymore. The term “One Nation Under God” has never before been so chilling.
Note: I will link to more of my claims above as I find them, just so that you don't think I'm spewing out unfounded opinions.
Posted
Mar 29 2005, 04:32 PM
by
michael