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Mike Tiabbi's Rolling Stone article. My take.

2008-04-30

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I've thought about this post for a couple of days, and, as usual, it won't get through to anyone who needs to understand what I'll write here... Maybe if I start it out as though it carried great weight. Maybe if I plagiarize a half a line or so....

When in the course of human events, it is discovered that a wrong is being perpetrated on the people, it is the responsibility of any and all to point it out to both the folks on whom the wrong is being perpetrated as well as the rest of the populace.

So, how is it that wrongs are discovered within a largely closed mini-society? Well, in the case of the polygamist bunch in Texas we've seen so much about in the news of late, it was brought to the attention of the outside world and the authorities - though to my way of thinking, it's hard to understand how no one in authority knew about the situation long before - by a poor young girl, a victim, who made a phone call herself to complain about what was going on there.

Meanwhile, because it took so long, hundreds of other children were also victimized for YEARS by people who held sincere beliefs that their way of life, and what they believed, were no one in the outside world's business.

I'm sure millions of people in this country, would conclude that since these people did what they did out of religious conviction - and as I mentioned before, I don't doubt for a second that their convictions WERE, in fact, sincere - that the state had no business interfering, ESPECIALLY since the way they lived was entirely based on their faith. I'm sure that had any reporter infiltrated the little closed society and written a piece about it - a piece that surely would have cast aspersions on the thinking and actions of those same sincere believers - evidently, some silly folks would have considered the reporter dishonest, and that, I'll guess, that a disservice had been done to our precious freedoms.

After all, they'll say, where's the harm? What's the problem?

The problem is, for example, there is no such thing as speaking in tongues. It's a sham. Oh, I'm SURE there are people who are convinced they do it all the time, but it's simply not real. There's also no such thing as a philosophy demon. There's not even such a thing as a demon of alcohol, or lust, or any of the other demons that the preacher Mike Tiabbi describes in his article claims to have helped the folks, (those who attended the weekend getaway his article focuses on), rid themselves of. No matter what they claim, it's pure hogwash, and only fools will conclude otherwise. Am I calling those who believe it to be so fools? Alas. I suppose I am. I'm not calling them hypocrites, mind you, that's not my point. Yes, I think they're plain silly people, however, I think they're sincere as can be.

In fact, I don't doubt for a second that the preacher who led the weekend retreat is himself sincere, or that that he thinks he is indeed doing the Lord's work when he engages in this sort of "instruction", OR that many of the people who attend churches that encourage this sort of behavior feel far better about themselves after having attended such shindigs. They FEEL the spirit; they FEEL the demons - often demons they didn't even know they had - exiting their bodies.

They FEEL that they've found out something new and wonderful and uplifting. Fine. I have no problems with it, at least on it's face. It's meant to make them feel better about themselves, and because of the way our psyches work, it does just that. What I do have problems with is that just because all this stuff makes them FEEL what they feel, doesn't mean what they feel has any basis in reality, (hence, by the way, the need for constant reinforcement and repetition of the same sorts of events over and over again; hence the deliberate shutting out, to whatever extent is possible, the "world.")

Why do I care? I care because people who either don't or, more often aren't able to understand (or care) that what they've come to feel is so easily explainable (given any sort of desire to explore the phenomenon), probably won't question much else they're told either - which is, of course, the simple explanation for why it's so easy for the leaders of the religious right to motivate (read "manipulate") the faithful into such a powerful, and largely monolithic, voting block; a voting block that could very well sway elections in this country for the foreseeable future, and may very well, in time, turn our wonderful - if flawed - country into a place that is dangerous for not only free-thinking and truly thoughtful people, but, once it's too late, even dangerous even for those who think "all we need to do is to create one big happy Nation 'fer Jesus".

They'll deny it of course - pshaw, they'll say - as we all say goodbye to habeas corpus; as we, for the first time in our history, actually engage in a national debate as to whether we ought treat torture as a necessary evil, or as we long have, treat it as something to be avoided at all costs simply because it's wrong and evil; as we allow these folks to rewrite history, turning our Founding Fathers into a single group of born-again 20th century evangelical Christians, instead of the diverse rag-tag bunch of men from more than a dozen religious backgrounds, (and remember, back then, even two churches of the same denomination situated right down the lane from each other, were often as different as they could possibly be, because of the lack of organization within the various denominations, which in turn explains why those same dozen or so denominations would split into well over two hundred over the next century and a half); as we justify killing thousands and thousands of other people - nothing new about this one, of course - in the name of, or supposedly, with the tacit approval of Jesus, whom, these folks will tell you sincerely, was far more concerned with racking up large numbers of "saved souls" than he was about our loving one another, (despite his own words to the contrary); even as we actually debate whether it's good and proper for one person to tell another what they can do to and with their own bodies.

Mike Tiabbi did the piece on this church because its leader and founder has said some pretty scary things, one about an entire group of people, claiming Old Testament wrath had been shown to an entire city because the city hosted a Gay Pride parade. He was probably simply unintentionally wrong because he believes foolish things. After all, I doubt he lied intentionally. Either way, what he said was hateful, hurt people and was patently "dishonest." It's important to have such people "outed" and to keep the people who think like them from ever getting a chance to make policy for the rest of us.

Remember, this is important. Just because charismatic leaders, by their very nature, have the ability to convince people to believe something - 'til their followers eventually hold those beliefs with all their heart - doesn't mean those leaders have the right to pass out killer kool-aid, or make their followers think that when they off themselves they're going to meet a big comet in the sky - or that they can have demons cast from their bodies by holding their mouths open while a list is read, or create communities where incest and pedophilia run rampant. So here's the thing: since it's impossible for anyone to know anyway, never trust ANYONE who tries to tell you they have a clue about what God wants, no matter what authority they claim, especially when they claim Jesus or God as that authority. You hear that from anyone, run fast, but yell out to everyone while you're running too.

Here's why:

You show me a defender of any religion's right to unfettered practice - without occasional oversight from the outside - or someone who uses the Bible as their authority to claim they have even the slightest clue about what God wants with regard to any specific situation, and I'll show you someone of whom any thinking person ought be very, very wary.


Be good to everyone.

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