Note: This was originally written in the aftermath of 9/11. I've updated it periodically over the years with relevant current events, but the basic messege below remains as pressing as ever.
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Don’t get me wrong… I’m all for religious diversity. The U.S. Constitution brilliantly gives all Americans the freedom to practice any religion we choose, while at the same time guaranteeing us the right to be free from religion if we desire. Religion can be a good thing if it leads you to benefit humanity with self-evident acts of love, courage, and justice. But if your religion leads you to evil – murder, hatred, divisiveness, discrimination – then your religion SUCKS!
If your religion causes you to believe that you have a place reserved for you in heaven if you hijack a plane and fly it into a skyscraper, killing thousands of innocent people, then your religion SUCKS!
If your religion issues a fatwa requiring all its followers to engage in a “holy war”, then your religion SUCKS! No war is holy.
If your religion leads you to believe that “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and the lesbians, and the ACLU” have made God angry and vengeful towards America, and thus are to blame for the bombing of the World Trade Center, as Christian clerics Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson decreed on national television after 9/11, then your religion not only SUCKS, it’s STUPID because it pits people AGAINST each other with bigotry instead of bringing them together in love!
If your religion causes you to believe, each time you sing that god-damned song, that America is a nation favored by God, more blessed than any other country, then your religion SUCKS! God is not a nationalist.
If your religion causes you to denigrate women in any way, whether by denying them the right to vote, forcing them to cover nearly every square inch of their bodies, making them walk 10 paces behind you, refusing to ordain them as priests, taking away their right to do as they choose with their own bodies, or believing it’s “God’s Plan” that a woman’s place is in the home, then your religion SUCKS!
If you’re obsessed with controlling the behavior of people who don’t believe in your religion, your religion SUCKS! Focus on your own damn family! (One of my favorite bumper stickers: “If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one!”)
If your religion teaches that the Bible is “God’s Word” and every word of it is literally true, then your religion is directly responsible for the person who reads Leviticus 20:10-16 and decides to go out and murder some faggots in Jesus’ name (which has happened again and again and again and again). And that makes your religion SUCK!
Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees: “Your religion SUCKS!”
If your religion causes you to believe that two people of the same sex who love each other and want to commit their lives to each other should not have the same civil right to marry as you have, then your religion SUCKS! Jesus’ one and only commandment was to love one another, and God knows that ALL love is beautiful, good and holy. Not to mention that unequal treatment in the eyes of the law is morally wrong and violates the U. S. Constitution.
And if you happen to be a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, if your religious beliefs prohibit you from reasonably interpreting the Constitution and applying the law equally and fairly to all citizens, your religion SUCKS and automatically disqualifies you for the job, not because of your religious beliefs per se, but because the effect they have on your ability to do the job.
People have been doing evil in the name of religion throughout history. Stop tolerating it! We’ve become too unwilling to criticize people’s religious beliefs, even when logic, reason and democracy demand that we must. People can be judged by their actions, and the role that religion plays in creating bigotry and divisiveness must be exposed and condemned. Don’t just “not say anything” out of political correctness when you hear people cloak their ignorance, bigotry and hatred in their seemingly unassailable religion. Call them on their crap!
People have been doing evil in the name of religion throughout history. Stop tolerating it! We’ve become too unwilling to criticize people’s religious beliefs, even when logic, reason and democracy demand that we must. People can be judged by their actions, and the role that religion plays in creating bigotry and divisiveness must be exposed and condemned. Don’t just “not say anything” out of political correctness when you hear people cloak their ignorance, bigotry and hatred in their seemingly unassailable religion. Call them on their crap!
