An American Hostage in Imperial Jesusland

[Anonymous]

Today I was sitting through the last round of presentations for my speech class this quarter, when a fellow classmate of mine, we'll call him Vince, stepped up to the podium to present his speech. He was dressed in suit and tie, and starting setting up a projector.

While I'm not close friends with this person, we share a couple classes and have talked a number of times, most of our conversations have revolved around his military service as a ranger in Afghanistan, current events, or maybe politics. He was an interesting acquaintance to talk to, because sometimes it was possible to get him to share his first hand experiences as to just how messed up some of our "foreign policy" could be... He had been discharged for an injury to his knees, but would mention how many friends he had learned had died in Iraq, and he continued to worry about them, as well as the direction the nation overall was going (or hell, has been going for a *long* time, but that's another story). I was aware that he wasn't particularly "religious", nor would I have thought such a thing would happen to him. Anyway, he wasn't exactly a fluffy typical college-variety liberal (knew too much of what he was talking about to be one of them), nor was he in any way a fan of El Presidente G.W., he was just what I would consider to be a rational person who I just happened to agree with on quite a few issues.

Then, he begins his presentation... a persuasive speech in favor of fundamentalist, literal, Biblical creationism. He mentioned how last month he had "turned his life around and had regained a personal relationship with God" and all that sort of thing. Throughout his speech, most of his support were dependent on literal biblical scripture, and what little "scientific" evidence he tried to use to validate himself, came from very questionable sourses and we're pitifully flimsy on even first glance.

I was surprised.... and a bit confused. I wondered for a second if he could possibly be joking, as if maybe he was trying some sort of bizzare Devil's Advocate sort of approach to his presentation topic.... then, I looked around the hall, trying to see what kind of reactions the rest of the audience were having.... well, as he listed websites, book titles, and scripture, most people seemed to be taking notes, smiling and nodding in what seemed to be authentic agreement. The professor seemed unusually pleased by it, also nodded her head and making several supportive gestures. It was a bit hard to believe... five years ago, a person trying to make a stand for biblical creationism in a supposedly "liberal" college campus, probably would have been a laughing stock. Instead, everyone was taking notes, and sharing resources, and some were excitedly and curiously expressing interest and belief.

Vince continued talking, and displaying slides, one of which used a bar graph to show how supporting evolutionary theory would eventually and inevitably "be inclined to homosexual behavior" and "killing babies" .... (yes, he put it just that way, too).  He put up a whole bunch of books on display for the class with such titles as "Did Adam Have a Belly Button? And Other Tricky Questions", as well as a variety of creationist material for  use on kids.

Now, I can admit much of science is based on hypothesis, and not everything that we accept generally as truth is neccesarily that, but... how does that automatically make fundamentalist Christianity, and their ancient creation myth the "only obviously correct answer"?!?

I was earlier chosen to be an evaluator of speeches, and I gave Vince a high grade, because he was an excellent speaker, by such criteria as the grading was done, I'm of course not going to alter his grade because I disagreed with him, but.... still... I could help feeling both a bit afraid, and deeply disappointed that he would succumb to Christianity.

Here's my dillemma: What I internally, honestly, impulsively want, is... I don't want to see Christianity spread. At all. I want to see it disappear into history, and be remembered by future generations as something similar to Kim Jong Il's Juche.

I try to have an open mind, but not so open that my fucking brain falls out.

Unfortunately, I'm increasingly feeling like I'm living in Imperial Jesusland,
and there will be no escape for godless scum such as myself.

The problem is, these sort of feelings lower me to the level of *them*.... wanting to manipulate and crush ideas, taking pleasure when one of them loses their faith, and sometimes secretly wishing in an underhanded way that the whole idea would just go away, and enough people will come to more or less agree with me so that one day, that tool of suppression will become "mythology" (...nobody ever believed any of that stuff, it's SOO *obviously* not true, it dosen't make any sense), and a historical footnote.
 
Now, I know damn well that suppression of other peoples right to thought is wrong, and exactly what I'm opposed to, but I so, so badly don't want to see another friend standing in front of people wearing a tie with little Jesus-fishies trying to tell me that I'm a babykiller..... so, so badly.

It's extremely emotionally painful to stand out of line with tradition, to stand out of line with the authorities, the "people", culture, whatever.... it's been 'proven' in psychology.... are these people just confusing the comforting relief of conformity and resignation, with the comfort of "faith"??

Vince had snapped.

There were other presentations during the day, during one of which, the speaker was some guy who works for a local credit card company, talking about how all guns should have location tracking devices implanted in them, much like his nifty cell phone! ....... What the hell is going on in America, why does it just keep getting worse???

As much as I disagreed at the time with TGRR's "Get out while you still can." post, similar thoughts keep increasingly resonating in my mind.

[Cephrin]

The above, was me.....

[East Coast Hustle]

interesting. and well spoken.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The above, was me.....

...and you are 100% correct.

And doomed.

[Ben]

I've been reading the bible lately.  A lot of it's diabolical.  I don't know why so many people like and revere Christianity, unless maybe that they get some kind of wicked revelry out of it, like kids during Halloween.  But they act like Christianity is about being good.  Most of the bible is just about slaughter of anything that is foreign or anything that doesn't slave for and worship the "Lord".  It scares me that so many people abide in it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It scares me that so many people abide in it.

People live in the bible, now?  

THANKS A LOT, BUSH!



TGRR,
Had no idea the economy was THAT bad.

[Ben]

er... abide by
1. to behave in accordance with; adhere to, as a promise of rule

[gnimbley]

Well, I know what the title of my next play is:


CREATIONISM
THE MUSICAL


(P.S. neo-con-xianity is just a fad. the truth shall set them free.)

[agent compassion]

There's only one solution for this.

We need to wrap the White House in tinfoil.

::shakes head sadly::

If there was a solution for your dilemma, Cephrin, there would be a lot less grief on this planet.

[Cephrin]

In case in one was curious, I thought I'd present this link.... this organization was the one most quoted during the presentation.... and, I spent much of the evening reading through it (yes, I am entirely aware that I have a great deal of free time), associated websites, and critiques of it.... but, for those who prefer to know their enemy.... www.answersingenesis.org

This stuff is nasty, ultra-fundamentalist Christianity at it's finest, and I have to admit, these people are a bit more scary than laughable. The propagandizing quality is admittedly *very* professional.

These people and their ilk are out to make the Christian Bible the "ultimate authority" in *YOUR* life. Just be aware.

[Cephrin]

(P.S. neo-con-xianity is just a fad. the truth shall set them free.)

I certainly hope so.... but paranoid instincts want to tell me otherwise... of course, I could be wrong.

And doomed.

We're all doomed in some sense or another. And that's acceptable. We don't have much choice. There's many things we can do in the meantime, depending on how we're approaching life. Can't guarantee it means anything, but there's a lot of opportunity to try *something*. And if all else fails, they'll kill me. Whatever, I'll deal.  

[Sepia]

I have a tinfoil hat.

I bought it off one insanely drunk man for a bottle of tequila.

It even says "Protects against invasions of all kinds, including stupidity"

[Cain]

In case in one was curious, I thought I'd present this link.... this organization was the one most quoted during the presentation.... and, I spent much of the evening reading through it (yes, I am entirely aware that I have a great deal of free time), associated websites, and critiques of it.... but, for those who prefer to know their enemy.... www.answersingenesis.org

This stuff is nasty, ultra-fundamentalist Christianity at it's finest, and I have to admit, these people are a bit more scary than laughable. The propagandizing quality is admittedly *very* professional.

These people and their ilk are out to make the Christian Bible the "ultimate authority" in *YOUR* life. Just be aware.

According to that website, the Bible is a time machine.  OK, maybe not exactly what they said, but lets face it, they twist the scientific arguments, so I can twist what they say.

[gnimbley]

In case in one was curious, I thought I'd present this link.... this organization was the one most quoted during the presentation.... and, I spent much of the evening reading through it (yes, I am entirely aware that I have a great deal of free time), associated websites, and critiques of it.... but, for those who prefer to know their enemy.... www.answersingenesis.org

This stuff is nasty, ultra-fundamentalist Christianity at it's finest, and I have to admit, these people are a bit more scary than laughable. The propagandizing quality is admittedly *very* professional.

These people and their ilk are out to make the Christian Bible the "ultimate authority" in *YOUR* life. Just be aware.

Okay, I filed a bookmark to that site under "fantasy." I'll go back to it
later when I start doing research for my musical.

[LMNO]

gnimbley, feel free to use me as a consultant when you start writing this thing.  I'd be happy to offer what biblical and/or musical knowledge I have towards the creation of said epic.

But only if I get to play drums, or be Lot.