WARNING: RUDE LANGUAGE AHEAD. What Thers said, obviously:
In short, if your God is all about how you shouldn’t have to pay taxes, but is all right with the state letting corporations sell you salmonella, permitting torture, starting stupid wars, and making kids bring toilet paper to school with them along with their pencils and notebooks, well, your God can blow it out his ass, quite frankly, I say with as much courtesy as I can at present muster.
Yes, yes, this is all very rude. I am exaggerating for comic effect, as is Thers. I think.
In any event, while not everyone can afford to be so blunt, the point is still valid. There comes a time when you have to point out that you disagree with a particular understanding of the divine, especially when that understanding is used for no better reason that to, say, discredit a sitting president and submarine his policy agenda.
The alternative is to try to argue from within a false unity, which leaves you flailing to articulate the elusive commonality of the faith rather than pointing out the obvious: that attacks on the president’s faith are a distraction from small pesky items like getting the effing economy back on track.
In short, the dialogue should proceed as follows:
Q.: Is the President really a Christian? I mean, does his really really for reals love him some Jesus?
A.: Listen, pinhead: the official unemployment rate is almost 10%. The real rate is more like 17%. I don’t care if the President worships a goat.
This seems utterly simple. It can also be deployed against the pretensions of certain media figures of being “spiritual leaders.” Yet no one bothers to do it. Why?
