Another Sermonette

Driving back from CT Saturday evening, I heard NPR interview a prospective Iowa caucus-goer who had decided to throw her support to Mike Huckabee after hearing him speak. Her rationale was that he was guided by faith, that everything flows from God, and that she knew that he would take his orders from the top.

Lady, we've had that for the past 7 years and as far as I'm concerned, it's long past time for God to shut the fuck up. He relies on faulty intelligence -- actually he cooks it. He hasn't kept up with the latest scientific developments since the Middle Ages. His moral code comes from a society of illiterate bellicose nomads, and it is extremely damaging to modern society which is far more complex, diverse, and dependent on individual creativity and initiative, not to mention scientific accuracy and open-mindedness, than God's thuggish band of marauding goat herders. (You don't like my description of the Chosen People? Read Deuteronomy.*)

I would have thought that the developments of this decade would have completely discredited the nonsensical belief in God and divine guidance once and for all. The fundamental insanity, the intellectual and moral rot at the heart of religion, have become so obvious and so terrifying to anyone with common sense that this finally just has to end, right? And yet we have all the presidential candidates, of both parties, furiously competing to out-flaunt the competition with their piety.

Here's my New Years' resolution: I'm going to dedicate myself to do whatever I can to exterminate the curse of religion from human society. Religion is evil. Religion is delusion. Religion is destructive, and ugly, and deadly to the human spirit. Let it perish. And let those greedy, narcissistic old men in their ludicrous archaic clothing find gainful employment.

I'm in a crotchety mood. On another occasion I might express myself more gently. But I'm not sorry for what I have said.


* Here's a sample for those who would also refuse to look through Galileo's telescope. Read on -- it only gets worse.:

31 The LORD said to me, "See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land."

32 When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, 33 the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. 34 At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed [c] them—men, women and children. We left no survivors. 35 But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves. 36 From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the gorge, even as far as Gilead, not one town was too strong for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them.