Sadly, religion is often more of a horror than a comedy. Here in America it is dangerous to disparage religion. Neither a politician nor anyone in the media can take that step without being fired. That leaves it up to little squeaks from little websites and half a dozen larger voices outside our borders to shed some light on that dark comedy.
Of course even Doubting Thomas’s, Agnostics and Atheists like myself tend to pull back on the issue as we do understand that faith in flying invisible friends is a way for children, the poor, the stupid, convicts, addicts, the lonely, losers, morons and all those ugly people no one likes t,o deal with their less than stellar lives. We understand it is necessary to throw the dogs a bone or they may dye their hair red and start shooting.
Found out this morning that 65% of Americans say religion is a large part of their daily life. You know, like buying a new assault rifle, kicking some fags around, denying basic rights to women, taking food away from poor children and such… It’s so beautiful, especially here in America.
There is no argument that the more ignorant and poverty stricken a people are, the more religion plays in their lives. The poorest nations with the highest illiteracy rate are up there at 99%. This article from Gallup, Religiosity Highest in World’s Poorest Nations, shows the list and an explanation. It is pretty straight forward.
The rest of the civilized world is a good notch below 50%, with the most successful nations at around 25%. Recently we found that Australia is the happiest nation on Earth and has the lowest rate of religious belief. Socialist bastards!
An interesting article today on this by Nigel Barber who explains why this is such a problem here in the United States, Why Religion Rules American Politics.
This corrupt form of Christianity that permeates American society is why we are so far behind the rest of the civilized world in so many aspects of our lives. Though belief here is not so much about poverty and ignorance – though it is a factor along with immigration from poor countries – here in the States it reflects our insecurity in so many matters of daily life. For unlike most civilized nations we have shed the social contract with each other.
We are afraid of getting sick because it will cost us our home. We are afraid of being attacked by gun wielding crazies, gangs and criminals. We are afraid we cannot afford to send our kids to college, afraid we will lose our job, our car our house and end up under a bridge. Instead of civilized people where everyone enjoys some sort of basic protections when the die roll poorly, we turn to Jesus instead. Who is in the NRA and loves the wealthy who smoke Camels and will pass through the eye of a needle into Heaven because they are job creators for India and China and who will once in awhile take notice of us and tinkle down on us once in a while.
There are also studies, mostly off shore, that show the propensity to belief is a genetic condition. We also find that just by clicking the TV remote there is as much belief in Bigfoot, UFOs, Ancient Astronauts, ghosts, planet Kolo and magic underwear as their is in God. Another pointer to genetic disposition is that some of us from a very early age found we could not swallow any of it. It’s just beyond our comprehension. It isn’t THERE. It was never THERE. It will never be THERE for us. I was in a fox hole getting shot at a few times. It wasn’t there. I didn’t see it in anyone else either. The words I heard from the dying were mostly HOME, MOM and the F word.
The sad bottom line is all that bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance that religion celebrates is what drives American politics. That and race of course.