The Battle of the Century

[Mythsaje]

"In this corner, wearing the red, white, and blue trunks, stands the Master of Disaster, the God of Abraham, the Bearded Wonder, the Author of the Holy Bible, Destroyer of Babylon, Sodom, and Gammorah, weighing in at 400,000 tons (or nothing, depending on his preference), The Almighty Yewah!

"And in this corner, wearing tan trunks and the ever-present turban, stands the Lord of All, the Great One, the Majestic and Mighty, Adversary of All that is Evil, weighing in at whatever he wants to, the one, the only, the Magnificent Allah!"

Okay, so ignoring that these two alleged deities are arguably two versions of the same God, we're supposed to assume that everyone who worships the one over the other is evil, and the ones who worship the first one is good. Or something to that effect.

Bleh.

How is it that these religions have come to this? Pawing at the ground and growling at one another in some sort of obscene display of testosterone driven madness that threatens to drag the whole human race into the pit with them? Because, make no mistake, if the next several decades are dedicated to war between the rabid followers of one deity against the rabid followers of the other, the WHOLE human race will suffer.

We have more important things to do. Like save our asses. Like save our PLANET. Or, at the very least, save our planet for our future use. Like maybe, just maybe, haul our stupid asses into space and set about collecting our resources from somewhere other than the poor abused world we've been mangling with such fierce abandon for the past several centuries?

If only we could plant all these freaky bastards on some distant island, or, better yet, some far-flung planet in another solar system and let them slug it out with rocks and sticks, leaving the rest of us out of it entirely.

The problem isn't Islam, or Christianity. It's the mindset possessed by a small fraction of those who follow either path who can't seem to get it through their skulls that they're making everyone else MISERABLE. Hell, we're not so much scared any more as simply pissed as hell. They don't have the right to drag us into their battles. We didn't sign up for that.

The conservatives occasionally say that we don't make enough effort to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers and perhaps, just perhaps, they have a point. We should make an effort to recognize who our enemies truly are.

Unfortunately, most, if not all, of those "conservatives" are just as much our enemies as are any number of suicide bombers. They're the ones interested in perpetuating an ever-growing cycle of violence.

They tell us "they hate us for our freedoms." Ummm...okay. Honestly, how much hate would it take for someone to strap a bomb to his ass and blow us up because we do things he doesn't like? The mind boggles at it.

Maybe, just maybe, it's more like they hate us because we have this inherent inability to mind our own fucking business? Because OUR versions of THEIR crazy bastards are just as fucked in the head and just as prone to killing innocents to get their point across? Suicide bombers or air-to-surface missiles--what difference does it make?

We kill them, they kill us, and round and round and round it goes. If that isn't the STUPIDEST way to go about something, I don't know what is. Nineteen wild-eyed fanatics crashed two planes into the WTC and killed three thousand odd Americans and foreign visitors (funny how little mention THEY get in all of this) and in response we blow up hundreds of thousands of THEIR people. So they start blowing up our soldiers. And so it goes.

Somebody stop this merry-go-round. I want off. Hell, anyone with half a brain wants off. Maybe we should just seriously considering killing ANYONE who even hints at wanting a war. Anywhere. Drastic measure, I know, but it could only improve the species. "Buddy, you want to fight that loser, strap on some boxing gloves and go to it. You try to involve ANYONE else, and we'll shoot you ourselves."

Killing people is wrong, unless, well, you can rationalize it away. If you have the political, religious, or social capital to convince others you're doing it for all the right reasons.

"At least we got rid of Hussein," they say.

Oh, yeah. And what they've got to look forward to now is SUCH an improvement. Crazy ass religious leaders who hate women and anyone who doesn't think EXACTLY the way they do. Damn, people, if the War On Drugs was as effective as your so-called War On Terror, we'd all be hitched up against a brick wall in some alley somewhere with a needle in our arm. You ever stop to think that everything you do is just MAKING THINGS WORSE?

Nah. That would take some introspection, some consideration of the reality of the situation. Someone would have to drill a hole in their skulls to let some of the ideological pressure seep out.

God and Allah and every other possible deity on the Earth and elsewhere save us from fanatics of all stripes. Infected with diseases of ideology, they threaten to destroy us all in the name of nothing but pure and unadulterated hubris. Taking the name of "God" in vanity.

Personally I don't agree with atheists. Sorry, but there you have it. It's just impossible for me to see sentience as some happy accident. I can't help but feel there's something more to it. But I'm as disdainful of revealed religion as any one of them. As Thomas Paine suggested, second hand revelation is worthless.

Believers are trying to kill us all. Not your average believers, but the really wacked out ones--those for whom religion is like some powerful hullucigenic drug, bending their realities in ways the rest of us cannot understand.

It would be quite the happy accident if a disease suddenly came into being that sought out the very thing that makes them all as twisty as they are and rendered them all sterile in one fell swoop. Sure, just killing them dead would be more convenient, but I'd settle for sterile. Stopping the maniacs from breeding would be a miracle of the first order. And might even convince me that God (as some kind of anthropomorphic super-being) actually existed.

All in all, this is OUR world...those of us who AREN'T driven mad by belief. Oh, many of us are believers in one thing or another, but we're not bat-shit crazy about it. We're the ones who deserve to inherit the Earth, and eventually the stars.

The only thing THOSE assholes deserve to inherit, when you get right down to it, is a 7 foot by 3 foot by 6 foot block of earth.