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The Gadfly has made many personal pursuits his missions in life, of which the most esoteric revolve around a motorcycle road trip to an notorious annual gathering spot where bikes, booze and semi-nude floozies rule society for a couple of weeks. But The Gadfly digresses.
One of the other long time Gadfly missions in life has been to maintain a firm wall of separation between his presently healthy mind and soul, and any and all organized religions - and expecially their zealous recruiters.
The Gadfly, long ago, after much outward analysis and inward thinking on the subject of what role religion would play in his life, arrived at the conclusion that immersing his spiritual self in religion (speaking primarily of his birth religion - Christianity - all though all religions apply at this juncture) would only, at some point down the line, result in colossal disappointment and disillusionment for The Gadfly. And as it simply made no sense for The Gadfly to set himself up for such a deeply personal and devastating spiritual downfall, The Gadfly decided it was best to endeavor to follow a righteous and moral path as a human being, unencumbered by all of the moral mischief (
see Paine, Thomas - Age of Reason) baggage that comes with devotion to an organized religion and an officially sanctioned and approved version of that organized religion's chosen deity.
And now that The Gadfly is approaching his 6th decade of life on this plane of existence, he is deeply grateful to his younger self for making that momentous life decision and sticking by it over the years.
For you see dear readers, it's not that The Gadfly isn't cognizant of the fact that there are some very good and decent people who are deeply faithful Christians and who actually do understand the very liberal and humane teachings of the one called Jesus Christ. No - the problem is that those kinds of Christians, at least in America in this day and age, are far and few between - and worse yet, whether out of fear of speaking out or fear of being attacked (or both), they allow "Christians" like this ignorant, hateful old asshole to be their public spokespeople:
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA - Torrential downpours in South Carolina have caused flooding throughout the state. The state's governor, Republican Nikki Haley, said South Carolina hasn't "seen this level of rain in the low country in a thousand years." Many proponents of climate change action are pointing to the flooding in the state as the latest in a series of crippling storms, including Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, that have been increasing in frequency and devastation as a reason to expedite governmental action to try to mitigate the damage down by climate change, but televangelist Pat Robertson said on his podcast Monday morning that he has an alternate theory for why the flooding has occurred in the Palmetto State so hard, and it has to do with "the gays getting married."
Robertson was speaking on his Monday morning podcast, "Wake Up With Jesus," when a caller asked him if he felt that the South Carolina flooding was in any way a message from God. "Well, you know," the octogenarian preacher told the caller, "that's a mighty fine question. We all know that God's main weapon of choice for the mass culling of the human race is a flood, so yes, I do think God's hand is at work in South Carolina." Robertson said that if he lived in the state he'd consider building an ark, like that of Moses, and he'd start putting his and his neighbors pets in the ark, two-by-two.
"I may not have been too sure about the Texas flooding earlier this year," Robertson told his podcast audience, "but I know for a fact that God was so angry about the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision, that he deliberately waited for almost four months and then flooded South Carolina as a warning to the rest of us."
It really isn't that complicated to understand where exactly The Gadfly stands on the idea that a truly "loving" and "merciful" god would willingly inflict misery and even death upon randomly chosen groups of humans simply out of the uniquely human behavioral trait of spite -- as a reaction to some humans, who happen to be of the same gender, wanting the same rights and respect for the love that they have for their partners, for which the rest of society demands and already has for their social bonds.
Pat Robertson's postulation that his God maliciously manipulated the weather to flood South Carolina (odd that a deeply red, conservative, bible state was chosen btw) and destroy property, livelihoods and lives, is horrifying and is just as morally offensive to The Gadfly's senses as is the equally sickening behavior from the extremist nutballs in that other organized religion who behead people on a whim in the name of their own officially sanctioned and approved deity. Once again The Gadfly would refer you dear readers to
Thomas Paine's blunt observation that belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man.
The Gadfly, based on his own analysis, years ago as a young man, arrived at the view in his own mind that organized religion has had the single most devastating impact on the ability of civilization to advance, to improve the human condition, and to realize our full potential as a species - not only on this planet, but likely as well in our quest to expand our presence in the universe through interplanetary exploration and colonization -- an activity by the way, in The Gadfly's humble opinion, should not even be undertaken until such time the human race grows up and moves on from this competitive religion asshattery.
Honestly though, The Gadfly doesn't have a great deal of hope in that occurring. In fact, it has gotten to the point that The Gadfly has resigned himself to the all too real prospect that the end of the human race will in all likelihood take place on this planet -- and at the center of that ignominious end, unsurprisingly, none other than our old friend organized religion will be playing a major, if not decisive role in such an outcome.
In summation, the point that The Gadfly is really attempting to make here is that if the decent, thoughtful, caring Christians in America would collectively stand up to the wingnut extremists like Robertson and his ilk and drown out their hateful, selfish, greedy, and ultimately, un-Christian views, then maybe, just maybe, there might be a sliver of hope for this nation's, and by proxy, humanity's future.
That's all.
----TFG
