Beardy Weirdy
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 9:21AM Imagine a group of ridiculous religious bearded bigots shouting vile insults, throwing stones and human excrement at a group of small girls on their way to school because the little girls aren’t ‘dressed appropriately.’
Why are madcap Muslim fundamentalist, with an emphasis on ‘mentalist,’ so scared of women? In heaven’s name what is their problem? It must be something in their upbringing which marks out Muslim males as being so uniquely terrified of the power of women.
Oh, wait, the beardy weirdy’s throwing stones and shit and little girls aren’t Muslim?
They’re Jewish. Oy Vay!
Surely not, you mean the nodding dudes with the weird hats and the bizarre ringlets, the long black coats, the breeches and leggings and the 19th century shoes? Those beardy weirdy’s?
I have tried to be even handed with my scorn of the beardy weirdy’s of the world, but I do have one very important question.
Why can’t religious fanatics be socialist any more, why do they always have to be ‘ultra-conservative?’
Imagine a mad Mullah or rabid Rabbi, same clothes, same beard, same mad eyes, but instead of throwing shit at little kids or acid in the face of a girl who had the temerity to try and go to school, they sat side by side and ranted at the world for being a free market, right wing, corporate controlled fake democracy that kept people divided, filled them with fear of each other and maintained a state of perpetual war.
Imagine if a religious fundamentalist of any particular sect or cult started saying we needed to change the way we lived and organized our world to make it fairer for everyone, regardless of gender, skin colour or old fashioned belief system. Now that would be weird.
That would need courage and imagination, that would require being tolerant, mature, being fearless of people who are different, that would require something along the lines of universal love for your fellow man.
That’s not religion, that’s a bloody silly idea, universal love for your fellow man! Get real, that’s mad, get back in your ‘spiritual clothes’ and start chucking rocks at kids and don’t think about anything but your own, narrow, bigoted belief structure.
Reader Comments (7)
well, i'm game for being the right kind of raving nutjob if you are. my religion is discordianism, so it sounds like this sort of ranting would be right up my street...
Please don't hate all followers of any god for this.
If you're interested in finding them, please check out Shane Caliborne, Tony Campolo and Rob Bell (one of them even has the beard you need!)
sorry, Claiborne. www.thesimpleway.org
Fundamentalist followers of dogma systems always end up like this. It doesn't really matter what the dogma is - whether Marxists, Maoists, or Jehova's Witnesses. Once you subsume rational decision making informed by a little humanity with a rigid code of conduct, and get faced with awkward real-world issues or those who don't agree, then conflict soon arises.
The Abrahamic faiths do have some deep-rooted issues with the place of women. It shouldn't be forgotten, that the original Old Testament texts were essentially a set of bronze-age tribal fables wrapped up with contemporary social power and social control attitudes. It's not a great basis for modern social thinking. Some Christian fundamentalists have also got a lot of this built into their DNA, and there are clear influences in Islam too (developed in the 6th/7th centuries, but probably not in a very different social environment to that of the Hebrew Bible). Of course revisionist branches of religions re-interpret these to whatever suits their current social views, so they are (almost) infinitely flexible. However, what you can also get then is more schisms and dogmatic branching and yet more causes of conflict.
As far as socialists go - well, this depends what is meant by that term. There were plenty that viewed Marxism as proven and inevitable and that also generated rigid dogma. The scientifically proven bit is a nonsense, but it produced the same sort of pseudo-religious, self-justifying and intolerant dogma of the traditional religions. It also, of course, generated the same viscous schisms. From my old university days, I saw much of this used as power tools, with the proponents soon forgetting basic principles of humanity unless some event happened to suit their purposes.
So, humanity fine. But I value pragmatism and basic principles over dogma. I'm also not too inclined towards these simplistic good and bad classifications that ranters so love. The world is a shade of greys; it's not some stark graphic creation like a cartoon. If you find yourself parroting dogma and justifying your condemnation of others based on some arcane interpretation of some principle guru or other, then you're well on you way to stone throwing; metaphorically, if not literally.
It is a very difficult thing not to rant about these people without using their religion because their excuse for this despicable behaviour *is* their religion.
But let's remember, it's not their religion that causes the behaviour, it's them. The humans that decide that throwing shit and stones at little girls is a good idea. This group of distorted individuals need to be seen for what they are. A bunch of adults throwing shit at little girls. Nothing more, nothing less.
As a fellow human, they are an embarrassment to me, an atheist fundamental, and to every one else on the planet regardless of their religion
<I>Imagine if a religious fundamentalist of any particular sect or cult started saying we needed to change the way we lived and organized our world to make it fairer for everyone, regardless of gender, skin colour or old fashioned belief system. </I>
I think the standard response in this situation is to nail the guy to a tree, isn't it...? Or maybe it's career-specific, so if he's carpenter you nail him up, if he's an electrician you give him the chair, and if he's a geek you drop a computer on him.
Thing is, there have been civilisations that are based on nice things, like the ancient Persians for example. Unfortunately they tend to come into conflict with cruel, expensionist ones, and have to become like their enemies in order to survive. Like the ancient Persians, for instance... check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAgYbZBywnQ
(ps don't forget to watch parts 2, 3, and 4.)