People like this Jerry Falwell scare me. But what is even scarier is the fact that people like him are being given a platform, listened to, respected, venerated and chosen as a messiah. Okay, not by Bill Maher, or by you and I'm sure many thousands of intelligent Americans, but still the guy clearly had a lot of followers.
I have a non-committal relationship to religion, kinda like "whatever gets you through the night" attitude. But attributing blame indiscriminately and arbitrarily and passing that off as a fundamental tenet of your religion seems to be as far removed from any religion as I can imagine.
Now if somebody could come up with a religion that truly is a shield against hatred and intolerance, a religion that cannot be hijacked by a few nutters for their own homophobic/misogynist/xenophobic agenda, I might just buy into it.
PS: I've just been to Falwell's Wikipedia article and it's true! He did say that the purple Teletubby was gay! I thought that was a Bill Maher gag! I mean, come on...
Well, Red, as Stagg would say..."only in America".
It's funny, I woke up this morning and I found myself thinking...could a Falwell occur in Canada? Canada just doesn't tend to suffer fools...or politicians or fundamentalists. Oh they exist in Canada...they do. It's just that Canadians don't like anyone or anything that takes itself too seriously. Almost no one is put on a pedestal in Canada...and it's not the same thing as cynicism. It never gets as bitter or burnt out as cynicism.
For example, Canadian Idol is a very different animal than American Idol, the kids on C.I. are always joking around, making fun, more self depricating and good spirits, much less "serious"...but they don't get as famous or wealthy either.
3 comments:
People like this Jerry Falwell scare me. But what is even scarier is the fact that people like him are being given a platform, listened to, respected, venerated and chosen as a messiah. Okay, not by Bill Maher, or by you and I'm sure many thousands of intelligent Americans, but still the guy clearly had a lot of followers.
I have a non-committal relationship to religion, kinda like "whatever gets you through the night" attitude. But attributing blame indiscriminately and arbitrarily and passing that off as a fundamental tenet of your religion seems to be as far removed from any religion as I can imagine.
Now if somebody could come up with a religion that truly is a shield against hatred and intolerance, a religion that cannot be hijacked by a few nutters for their own homophobic/misogynist/xenophobic agenda, I might just buy into it.
PS: I've just been to Falwell's Wikipedia article and it's true! He did say that the purple Teletubby was gay! I thought that was a Bill Maher gag! I mean, come on...
Well, Red, as Stagg would say..."only in America".
It's funny, I woke up this morning and I found myself thinking...could a Falwell occur in Canada? Canada just doesn't tend to suffer fools...or politicians or fundamentalists. Oh they exist in Canada...they do. It's just that Canadians don't like anyone or anything that takes itself too seriously. Almost no one is put on a pedestal in Canada...and it's not the same thing as cynicism. It never gets as bitter or burnt out as cynicism.
For example, Canadian Idol is a very different animal than American Idol, the kids on C.I. are always joking around, making fun, more self depricating and good spirits, much less "serious"...but they don't get as famous or wealthy either.
Isn't he the weirdo a few years back that said tinky winky was gay? how the heck did he come to that conclusion?
I think that's why I don't do well in organized religion.
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