Just the other day, one of my right-winged, neo-Nazi, tea-partying, fundamentalist Christian-type colleagues got me off balance, again! I had sworn to never attempt a discussion with this colleague, as he always likes to pull the “God Card” if he’s on the ropes.
But there I was, trying to edjimicate a vacuous, bimbo substitute teacher about 9/11 – when in came the aforementioned colleague and joined the discussion. I had forgotten that such people don’t like to learn OR discuss – they like to debate with their Dick Cheney/Rush/Hannity talking points, and, immediately count the debate won if they can get their opponent to answer one of their questions: it’s tantamount to inviting a vampire into your home.
And get me he did: instead of giving one plausible answer to all of the 9/11 facts I was putting on the table – he kept asking me how many Kurds Saddam had gassed (though he admitted that we gave Saddam the gas to use on Iran…?) – neverminding my protestations of: “Does it matter? How many innocent Iraqi civilians have we killed?”(and it was probably 10 times more than the 100,000 put out there by our military [just ask the international Red Cross]). But he got me to give him a figure – and that was it, I was done for. Case closed. I had answered a Republican talking point. In the immortal words of George Dubya: I’d been “gotcha-ed”!
And so the Keepers of Fairy Tales move on – from one-generation-to-another – making sure that those who listen will believe in “happily ever after” if they obey whomever and whateveritis that the Keepers want them to. As we all know, fairy tales were meant to frighten wayward youth into behaving according to socially accepted parameters. Much like the Big 3 religions are meant to frighten us into mindless submission .
Off hand, I can’t think of any other religions that put-the-fear-of-god in-a-body quite like Judaism; Christianity; and, Islam – and since they each sprang from Abraham – it is not surprising that they preach fire and brimstone and a happy ending only if one behaves according to whomever and whateveritis.
More-and-more of the letters in my beloved Times are complaining about the hypocrisy of Christian standard bearers – and by extension – of Jewish and Islamic standard bearers. I don’t so much see organized religion as Marx’s opiate for the masses as I do propagating might is right.
Growing up Lutheran, my favorite hymn was always “Onward Christian Soldiers” and it goes something like this:
Onward Christian soldiers – marching as to war
With the cross of Jesus – going on before;
Christ the royal master – leads against the foe
Forward into battle – see his banners flow…
Now far removed from the swelling organ and voices in unison – I can see this hymn for exactly what it is: a battle hymn. Oh Constantine – how brilliant you were!
And so, the Keepers of Fairy Tales continue to keep silly little children in check and listening to their Mommies. But as any good therapist will tell you: Love, honor and respect your mother – but never trust her or believe her – because she’ll just tell you her version of things, and Momma’s version, tends to distort the truth.
P.S.
The House of Representatives (or was it Congress?) voted to keep our national mantra: “In God We Trust.” Whichever branch (or both) did the voting – there were only 9 nay voters…we don’t yet have enough communists, er, socialists to vote God out of the crazy proceedings…