You’re either with us or against us
by Steve, July 14th, 2006
Religious fundamentalists are consolidating power in this world, and it’s time to draw the line. Who benefits from the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing “long war”? These guys.
Who suffers? Normal people. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandmas and grandpas. Tiny little babies and toddlers are dying for these bastards’ holy war. Three thousand normal working people died in the US on 9/11. Upwards of 43,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the killing fields we’ve created in the ashes of Iraq. Lebanon and the re-occupied Gaza strip are under attack and in flames. What little control exists in Somalia has fallen into the hands of Taliban-like fundamentalists. The actual Taliban in Afghanistan are staging a strong comeback. Our own fundamentalist leader was twice barely elected only with overwhelming support of Christian fundamentalists.
Sam Harris, author of “The End of Faith,” has this to say in an interview on Salon:
The person who’s sure that Elvis is still alive and expresses this belief candidly does not wind up in the Oval Office or in our nation’s boardrooms. And that’s a very good thing. But when the conversation changes to Jesus being born of a virgin or Mohammed flying to heaven on a winged horse, then these beliefs not only do not exclude you from holding power in society; you could not possibly hold power, in a political sense, without endorsing this kind of thinking.
It should be terrifying to us because many of these beliefs are not just quaint and curious, like beliefs in Elvis. These are beliefs about the end of history, about the utility of trying to create a sustainable civilization for ourselves — specifically, beliefs in eschatology. These are maladaptive. For instance, if a mushroom cloud replaced the city of New York tomorrow morning, something like half the American people would see a silver lining in that cloud because it would presage to them that the end of days are upon us.
It is time for a new enlightenment, where the rule of law prevails, and law is based not on literal interpretations of mythical stories but on rational thought.
