Red Cow Crazy

If you want to be on the cutting edge of Fundamentalism, consider Jerry Falwell's red cow.

According to one interpretation of Revelations, a red cow will be a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

So Falwell has engaged cattle breeders to come up with the best red cow they can muster. Does this include genetic modification? Does this mean "fire engine red"? Does this mean ginger-red, like human redheads? I'm sure some Christian fanatic will let us know exactly what God wants, but until then, Falwell can only approximate.

Luckily for us, his lunacy remains in the realm of magic and fantasy. No apocalypse is coming, at least nothing resembling Revelations. Whatever catastrophes we humans produce will begin and end with our own stupidity. No winged lions will fly through the sky, no dragons will be slain. Those fantastic prophesies spring from the childish minds of ancient scribes who hoped to control society by force of fear and magic. Revelations is no more real nor true than the tooth fairy.

But fearful, insecure megalomaniacs like Falwell still use the imagery of myth to manipulate believers who can't think or reason for themselves.

It's easy to believe that Jesus was an extraordinary thinker and rebel. It is lunacy to believe that he was the creator of the universe, or that the Bible was somehow written by the creator of the universe. Those notions were created by people who wanted to control others. And sadly, those notions remain part of our cultural dysfunction.