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Faith
Based or Faith Debased?
April 6, 2002
By Bob Thorn
"I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing
to lose." —S.I. Hayakawa
I have always felt that the things gone wrong within organized
religions are the organizers.
For all of you people who believe that on Easter Sunday in
Crawford, Texas, there was a great revelation revealed by
the Reverend Michael Taylor when he talks about the election
and George Bush; that it was God who intervened on George's
behalf and that it was God who wanted George to become president!
Yes, in so many words, now we have God running our elections!
Well, for all of you free thinkers out there, I have a different
scenario to this Easter Sunday story. I, too, was brought
up around organized religion and people, it does have a business
side. There are bills to pay! And, in a town the size of Crawford,
Texas, the scrapings must be pretty thin; then one day, you
hit the bingo pot! Looking down on the front pew, gazing up
at the Reverend is a row of millionaires! How often do you
think this happens in Crawford, Texas?
I tried to put myself into the Reverend Taylor's shoes when
he was preparing his Easter Sunday Service. You see, it was
the Reverend Taylor who really saw the light that day.
Hmmm, I can spend about 2 minutes talking about George Bush,
the election and God; time is of the essence so I will leave
out all of the crimes committed in Florida by Republicans
regarding the counting of the votes. I won't talk about the
felonious five Supremes who actually appointed George to be
president. That narrows it down to two minutes about God and
his intervention on George's behalf against two weeks under
a tent with an evangelist preacher sometime in the future.
Yes sir, I think this will pay the rent! And there you have
it. A sound monetary decision on the part of the Reverend
Taylor.
And I'll give odds that the collection plate last Easter
Sunday glowed with all of the glory of God in Crawford, Texas.
The press told us that there were giggles and guffaws coming
from the first row in the church where the Bush family was
enjoying the hell, fire, and brimstone out of this service
too!
"The gods too are fond of a joke." —Aristotle
Why then good people am I not laughing? All the while this
good fun and anointment of Bush as being chosen by God to
lead this Nation was going on in Crawford, Texas, the Middle
East was burning! People were dying! Faith-based or faith-debased?
The mixture of religion and politics is a modern Molotov cocktail
that can and does kill innocent men, women, and children!
God doesn't need to intervene. We do! We need to intervene!
The Christian Right Wing of the Republican Party, as stated
before, is looking forward to Armageddon, because they believe
that will force the coming of Christ. Through history, people
have been predicting 'the end of the world,' and people
have committed suicide. It never lets up! I'll remind you
of a true story that happened this year outside the city of
Little Rock, Arkansas. A man and his wife were traveling along
a highway when his wife looked up and saw things that looked
like bodies, people floating up towards the clouds and down
from that, alongside a car on the highway, stood a male figure
dressed in a toga or robe and he had long hair. Her husband
said she started yelling, he's coming, he's coming; please
take me with you and before the husband could stop the car,
his wife jumped out and was not injured; she killed herself!
She wanted to go to heaven so badly that she jumped out of
the car and expected to be carried to heaven with these floating
figures.
It turns out that the figures were plastic figures let loose
when the car they were in was hit and the figure by the car,
stood shocked and stunned by what happened to this woman!
He was going to a party or something. It was a mistake! She
killed herself over a mistake! Because of this belief, that
poor woman died. A true and sad story. This fanatical belief
that Armageddon will bring Christ and people can't wait to
die and go to heaven could be partly responsible for the policies
in the Middle East. What if it is? What if it is a mistake?
Should the fanatical belief system of one group of people
be the policy for millions of others? I think NOT!
Life is a truly wonderful gift from God. Instead of exploring
it with all the gusto and curiosity, as I think was intended
for us to do, people spend the whole of their life looking
for death. I don't pretend to be a theology major, but religion,
faith, is very deep and very personal with every individual
and should never be used to invoke public policy. Faith at
its best and faith at its worst, we need to tread very carefully
in the Middle East. Alea iacta est, the die is cast.
We cannot afford to make a mistake!
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