American Heathen®

(This is a transcript of Al Stefanelli’s “Voice Of Reason” segment on my American Heathen® Internet Radio Show)

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” - Blaise Paschal

So, believers want me to be tolerant. Well, tolerant of what, exactly? If they are referring to their right to believe, then sure, I am tolerant – even accepting sometimes. After all, everyone has a right to believe whatever he or she wants. But when that belief becomes twisted in the mind of the religious sociopaths we know as fundamentalists, then we’ve got a problem.

Fundamentalists – particularly evangelical fundamentalists – are a breed apart because they have managed to convince themselves that their God requires them to act in a way that has serious ramifications on other human beings who have done nothing other than not believe or believe differently. That is a line, my friends, that when crossed, does not allow me the luxury of being tolerant, nor does my conscience allow me to be silent.

Why? Because this would mean being tolerant of bigotry, hatred, discrimination, bullying, harassment, assaults, beatings, honor killings, bombings, burnings, stonings and all the other anti-social behaviors that are part and parcel to these religious sociopaths.

Twists And Turns…

How could any person of reason stand by and do or say nothing when these psychotic wackos and their twisted doctrines make life miserable for everyone else? Their tortious interfering of businesses, their meddling stupidity and impunity toward the rights of those they consider their enemies is insolent. That I should be tolerant of these people is an insult to humanity and I find no good reason to cut these douchebags any slack, whatsoever.

Every day my news feeds reveal a multitude of stories from all around the world that that make you want to cry, scream and everything in between. Almost without exception, all of these acts, actions and reactions are exclusively generated by fundamental religious belief, indoctrination, dogma and superstition.

As well, whenever I do comment on these mindless lemmings and their inhumane, immoral and unethical acts, the inevitable flurry of email from the religious moderates fills my inbox with “No True Scotsman” fallacies, telling me that those who behave badly are not “True Christians” or “True Muslims,” and is usually followed up by admonitions for my “sweeping generalizations.” Ironically, the writers of these emails then profess that real <Christianity/Islam> is a religion of love and peace that promotes tolerance and understanding, which is, of course, a sweeping generalization.

Moderately Speaking…

The scope of those who I hold responsible for the proliferation of the commission of these acts of asshattery are not always limited to the radicals and extremists, but runs deep into the moderates, as well. Yes, it takes a special kind of asshole to commit murders, physical assaults, bombings, burnings, and the other heinous acts I mentioned.

However, the moderate parents and clergy remain busy instilling the ideals of bigotry, discrimination and hatred as often as possible. Christianity and Islam have often proven to be very adept at denigrating and condemning unbelieving or other-believing human beings through the use of their scripture; and this condemnation is fortified in weekly worship services and when believers congregate to study the bible or Koran. These venues are extremely successful at passing on the batshittery of religious belief because, first and foremost, they are often designed to ward off any vestiges of reasoned and rational thought.

Consequently, parents and other guardians of our youth who regularly fall hook, line and sinker for all the bigotry that is continually hammered into their malleable brains every week pass it right on down the line, effectively scaring the shit out the next generation and perpetuating the religious mindset that infects the human condition, thereby allowing the development of a whole new crop of bigots.

Lemmings…

The sad part about this is that parents willingly allow their children to be mentally mind-fucked without even giving it a second thought. This only works with religion, and if you don’t believe me, approach a parent who is with a young child in the supermarket and in full earshot of the parents, tell the kid that if they do not behave themselves they will be tortured and burned to the brink of death and kept in severe and writhing pain for a length of time that would incomprehensible to their young age.

Observe, then, what the parents do… See if some of them don’t cold-cock you right on the spot. Then, take the same kid and throw their ass in a Sunday school class where the teacher tells the child that if they don’t accept Christ, or profess Muhammad, they will be tortured and burned to the brink of death and kept in severe and writhing pain for a length of time incomprehensible to their young age.

Observe what the parents do… See if they don’t smile approvingly at the wisdom of God that has been bestowed. See if they don’t thank their God that their Church or Mosque has such wonderful teachers who instruct their young about the dangers that will befall them if they do not believe.

From the kid’s point of view, the result is the same. They’ll be scared shitless. The fact is that both of these scenarios are equally abusive. Even sadder is that this also works on adults – who should know better. Gotta love cognitive dissonance…

Suffering Fools…

Religion is a pox on humanity. It does not make us better people. It only serves to add more narrow-minded, ignorant, bigoted, discriminatory and hateful people to the world by scrubbing the mind of reason and coating it with a fairy tale so dark and dangerous it would scare the living fuck out the Brothers Grimm.

As I said, I do not feel obliged to tolerate these people, their bullshit religions or their bullshit doctrines. They are immoral, willfully ignorant and dangerously zealous in their efforts to drag our species back to the stone age, and as I am concerned, they can all go pound sand up their ass.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2012 at 9:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.