Eve of Destruction

I just watched a documentary called The Doomsday Code. It’s narrated by Tony Robinson, better known as Baldric in Blackadder, and it investigates a group of people known as end-timers. These people are evangelical christians who take a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation. They believe that the return of Israel to the Jews has started the countdown to Armageddon. All through this documentary I found myself getting angry. It seems that these people, convinced as they are of the impending rapture, take a distinct and perverse pleasure in what they call signs of the end-time. They absolutely look forward to the world disappearing in a mushroom cloud and actively work to make it happen.

According to the documentary these people are not just religious kooks, but a powerful group people with a lot of influence in US politics. It even alludes to George Bush’s evangelical ties and how this group of people exert real influence over his international policies; especially those concerning the Middle East. If true, the implications of this are truly frightening. The films contention is not that the end-time prophesy is real, but that belief in end-time prophesy is actually motivating people to act in ways that bring it about.

The part that made me particularly angry was that fact that these evangelicals don’t just contain their madness to the US. They actively work in third-world countries like Uganda. These affluent Americans travel to these countries to proselytise to the poor and preach about their end-time fantasies. These evangelicals are teaching the Ugandans that they need to give no thought for tomorrow. Just like Jesus, meek and mild. It is destroying their lives. It is exactly the opposite of what they need to hear and what they need to be doing. They're being told, 'Don't plant your crops, don't improve your government or economy, don't educate yourselves, don’t practice safe-sex, just abstain and wait for Jesus to rapture you into heaven.' It's then that these despicable, overweight, spoiled brats of the first world fly back to their homes and live comfortable lives of opulence while waiting for their god to come; leaving misery and death as they cut a righteous swath through the third world.

Why wont christian evangelicals take responsibility for their actions? Why are they acting like children who are waiting for an angry parent to come home? I cannot help but think that religion is predicated on madness. These people have never grown out of their child ego-state. It as though they have no understanding of the real consequences of their actions and just live out a childish fantasy, expecting that an invisible and omnipotent father figure will take care of everything. Father knows best and never you mind about the particulars.

Fundies say the darndest things

I'm back to thinking about the religion thing again, after watching that horrible documentary last night. When I say horrible I mean the subject matter, not the actual documentary. The documentary itself was very well made.

I was just reading the top 20 "Fundies say the darndest things" list, where one true believer says that teaching evolution encourages rape, murder, theft, etc. His reasoning is that any belief which holds that god does not see our actions, necessarily leads to humans acting violently and immorally. This is a very telling admission from this particular Believer. He is in effect telling us that if he believed his god was not watching him or that his god was not real at all, he would in fact act in the very immoral fashion he so eloquently described in his tirade. If a belief in an invisible sky daddy and going to church is what keeps this asshat from raping and murdering, I want him to continue believing. I want him in church every Sunday. I want him to park his arse in a pew, pick up his hymn book and sing praise to Jesus every week, because obviously his faculty of critical and reasonable thinking has been irreversibly damaged. And if a belief in god is the only thing that keeps him from acting anti-socially then, Praise Jesus, let him have at it. I can only pray that this modern day prophet will be kept out of the gene pool by his own social ineptitude and the world can be free of such a gross and obtuse world-view.

Fundies say the darndest things Website

Jesus Camp

I just watched the documentary Jesus Camp. It was simply the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. It has truly made me despair. While I was watching that vile lumpy troglodyte of a woman stalking around scaring the crap out of young children, I kept thinking of how she was creating cripples. Much like the myth that Amazonians would quarterize breast tissue of female children with a red hot brand to prevent growth, so that they might more efficiently use a bow, Becky Fischer was quarterizing the faculty of reason in these children's minds before it ever had the chance to develop. The difference being that this mental quarterization does not allow for the efficient use of anything, except maybe a scourge. I was almost reduced to tears at the thought that these poor children were having the one function that sets us apart from other animals, namely the function of reason, systematically destroyed in the name of a bronze-age myth.

I try very hard to remain optimistic about the future of humanity and the world, but documentaries like this just about destroy me. I really wish I had never seen it. I'm about ready to go bush, live in a cave and say to hell with the human race. Maybe I'll feel differently in the morning.

Good Therapy

As usual I find myself way behind the trend line and starting this, my first blog, many years after it became popular to do so. But hey I'm cool with that, no one is likely to be reading this and I'm happy to throw my thoughts out to the general indifference of the world. Well, maybe not happy but meh. I like to write, and since discussion forums are not a forgiving place to hash unformed ideas out, a blog might be a better place to tetris my ideas together. If someone happens to read it, better still. If not, cool too. I'm going to think of this as a personal diary.

I start seeing a psychologist this Tuesday and I've heard that diary writing can be therapeutic, at least so I'm told be all the other crazy people I've spoken to who have been shrinked at some point in their lives. I don't really know what to expect. I have general images or impressions from having watched far too many movies about what therapy actually is that I'm having trouble separating bad cliches from the reality of it. Such is the malaise of an inhabitant of the first mass media generation. Life imitating art imitating life and all that stuff.

Well short intros are the best. Time to go.