UNDER THE CHRISTIAN GOD
By Peter Fredson
The question "Do You Believe in God?" is much asked today in government circles. The President of all the people in the United States openly and frequently declares that he believes in God, loves Jesus and thinks Jesus is his favorite philosopher. The President of All the People and his cabinet hold frequent meetings at which exclusive praise to their Christian God is offered. When they mention God, they mean only the Christian God, who wrote both the Old and New Testaments with his finger on stone tablets, to cite all the commandments which are for True Believers the basis of every law and every system of morals in the universe. They do NOT mean any of the other 10,000 intangible invisible omnipresent omniscient omni-terrific entities ever worshipped by gullible humans. Certainly not Zeus, nor Wodin, nor Quetzalcoatl. And definitely NOT Allah!
(But they tactfully do not mention this when speaking to Muslim voters.)
Congress is opened by professional Christian God Praisers. Presidential Candidates declare themselves, openly and frequently, in favor of the Christian God. Congressmen pass declarations in favor of a Christian God, the Bible, the Ten Commandments, Pledges Under God, constant prayer, Creationism, Religious School Vouchers, and sometimes assert that the Christian Bible should be the Law Textbook of the Nation. Oh, they really LOVE their religion and their God. They carry Bibles, swear on Bibles, quote extensively from Bibles, and some even thump Bibles. Yes Sirree. But they never carry Korans, Torahs, Rig Vedahs, or Popul Vuhs. Oh, lordy, NO.
Congressional leaders declare periodically that school children should be allowed, perhaps even encouraged, to pray frequently and openly to the Christian God, that Republicans know the appropriate Christian prayers to be said, and that Professional Christian God Praisers and Christian Do Gooders be allowed free access to government resources. Politicians often mention that Christian views such as Intelligent Design should be given equal time with evolution in science classrooms, but they never seem to want equal time for evolution in church classrooms.
Belief in the Christian God is the prime requisite for candidates aspiring to be Federal Judges. There are other requisites such as being opposed to Population Control, Abortion Rights, the Use of Condoms, homosexual activity, environmental controls, and a whole host of conditions that constitute an unwritten litmus test for most government positions. Mostly though, they have to love God and Jesus, not Allah, Krishna or Buddha. You might be allowed to be dog-catcher, but not a member of a town council unless you are a professing Christian. Even gays, though they are despised and condemned, if they swear they love Jesus they can nevertheless be allowed to participate in restricted activities.
It is doubtful if anyone who is even suspected of being agnostic, atheist, humanist, secularist, or of a non-Christian religion (except possibly some ambiguous Jew), such as Buddhist, Shintoist, Islamite, Hindu, Sikh, etc., could even be allowed to be a candidate for high office. George I said that atheists could not be considered as being citizens.
Certainly the conspiracy of religious denominations, gathered together in systematic political forces such as The Christian Coalition, the Moral Majority, Dominionists, Reconstructionists, Army of Goddists, Promise Keepers, and a hundred other such organized semi-fascist institutions, work day and night, and offer money, votes, and labor to any candidate who will grant them free access to governmental institutions, including the Budget and public schools.
Church-political organizations have people behaving like fanatics, refusing to recognize anyone not holding their religious beliefs, and pledging their best to defeat with all their might, power and force anyone who they suspect will try to limit their access to a monopoly of power. They intend to make the United States a Theocracy. Ronald Reagan and the Bush Family have taken more than first steps in this direction.
The President of the Supreme Court, a Christian True Believer, openly said that the separation of church and state is a bad metaphor. Recent appointments to high Federal Judgeships augurs the worst possible fate to democracy, to the disappearance of free opinion, freedom of religion, and freedom of press. We are certain to see an unfettered proliferation of Christian signs, symbols, monuments, statues, icons, and slogans posted and plastered in every public building in the United States. The Goddists are in charge of this nation now, and they see no difficulty in imposing favorite Biblical passages and dogma into law. The Oval Office seems to be an extension of the Far Right elite, and is exultant about it.
The religious right owns probably the major of newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, Cable Networks and they absolutely control much of the news that is aired or published. We are not far from being another fundamentalist Iran, not far from having our own home-grown Taliban in the United States. Churches own huge tracts of land and real estate, tax free, and are given more by the "generous" Congress and President. The priests, preachers, reverends, parsons and other professional God Praisers are free to challenge freedom, except applied only to themselves. Any negative views of religion or its practitioners is censored at the root. No journalist is permitted to express doubt of the efficacy of prayer, or mock the miraculous appearances of virgins and Jesus on fence posts or in soup dishes. On the contrary, the tired speeches of popes and priests regarding the birth of the Baby Jesus or recitation of any of the biblical myths is reported solemnly as news. Major publications have huge spreads on religious illusions as though they were actually news.
They agitate endlessly to make their version of religion the dominant version, and would further proceed to make it an absolute monopoly, with obligatory church attendance, tithing, and the accompanying version of whatever a modern Inquisition might be like.
You might think it improbable that any church people would burn people at the stake for holding unpopular religious beliefs, or that they would drown people suspected of being witches, or would go on a "crusade" against any country that does not adopt the Christian Coalition version of absolute truth, or would abuse and torture anyone for their beliefs. After all, those nice sincere religious folk who did all the burning, crusading, torturing and murdering in the past said "Oops, we're sorry." What more could you possibly ask?
