More Catholic Tyranny

I’m surprised it took religious radicals this long to turn on The DaVinci Code. The book was never the object of organized derision, but the power of film seems to have prompted Catholic officials to call for a boycott of the movie.

Which is yet another example of a religious sect organized around the principle of tyranny. The ossified Vatican can’t entertain opinions contradicting their longstanding superstitions and edicts (even when those edicts were flawed or errant to begin with). The popularity of The DaVinci Code has become a huge, corrosive threat to their religious mythology.

Sadly, it seems more important to maintain the power and authority of the Pope and Church than to assist people in deepening their connection with the mystery of creation. But then, the Vatican has always been a shining outpost of fundamentalism, claiming to know with absolute certainty the truth of creation and the creator.

As I've said before, anyone who claims to know with absolute certainty the nature and will of God is dangerous and deluded. Nothing could be more frightening or corrupting than a group who has chosen superstition over common sense, logic, reason and science. “Seventy virgins in paradise” is no more or less crazy than “He was born of a virgin.”

Birds of a feather, crazy together.

I'll be sure to see The DaVinci Code. I suspect it will be highly entertaining.

Hallucinating Bush

The next time we choose a President, it might be a good idea to elect someone who isn't being directed by the voice of God.

In the White House rose garden today, Bush lost his cool when asked by a reporter about the status of his embattled Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Bush snapped, “I’m a decider,” and he has decided that Rummy is doing “a fine job.”

That fine job included invading Iraq without a plan for securing the peace, ignoring long-developed military plans and advice, disbanding the Iraqi Army, and not committing enough troops to secure weapons stockpiles that were looted by insurgents and used against our troops.

Aside from keeping Rummy, the horrendous stream of other bad decisions flowing from Bush (botching Katrina, failing to reform Social Security, lacking an Oil Policy, supporting torture) brings me to one conclusion:

Whatever half-baked God might be talking to Bush is not any kind of God I’m interested in following.

Bush has proven himself completely incompetent. He is inept, and incapable of changing course because he is so arrogantly certain that his course is always right. How can it be wrong if God is directing me?

Next time around, let’s elect someone who has confidence in his or her own intellect, reason and common sense, instead of some hocus pocus magical nonsense. Recall that when the Son of Sam killer confessed that a talking dog told him to murder, we tossed him in jail and threw away the key. So the next time a politician claims to be receiving the advice of God, we should take that person to the funny farm. The less superstition in government, the better for all of us.

Evangelical Assault On Pluralism

When Christian evangelicals complain about a growing assault on Christianity, what they really object to is a growing assault on their assault on pluralism.

Christian evangelicals, like all fundamentalists, want the United States to be an explicitly Christian nation, with their literal interpretation of the Bible codified into law and imposed on all the non-fundamentalists around them.

They are only interested in Democracy as long as it serves their aims. But the minute it doesn’t, they turn their backs on Democracy in favor of the Bible--a conglomeration of hand-picked fables from a variety of scribes written over several centuries, ending roughly two thousand years ago.

When non-fanatic citizens try to limit or criticize such objectives, they are accused of assaulting Christianity. Listening to fundamentalists in recent months, one gets the impression that they are a tiny, beleaguered minority being oppressed. But of course, 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian. And anywhere from 30 to 50% consider themselves evangelical or born-again, which is to say, fundamentalists.

Notice that when they try to mandate prayer in schools, they’re not leaving room for meditation or prostration or any other non-Christian form of worship. When they try to get the Ten Commandments installed in a public building, they aren’t also making space for the Precepts of Buddhism, the Sutras of Patanjali or the wisdom of any other worldview.

Contrary to their claim that they aren’t against other religions, their vision of public religion doesn’t include a beautiful rainbow of other ways of thinking. It isn’t about more religion in the public square, it’s about more Christianity.

After all, they point out, this nation was founded by Christians. But they miss the fact that this nation was founded by a variety of profoundly different Christian factions, most of whom disagreed with each other about the nature and expression of faith.

So of our “founding fathers,” whose Christianity would we follow? Fundamentalists don’t want to ask that question. They want people to embrace only one kind of worship--theirs. To them, other forms of worship--Progressive Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.--are irrelevant and illegitimate.

So the next time you hear someone assert that Christianity is under attack, keep in mind that they are complaining about the constraints being placed on their sectarian dream of a slow, methodical spread.