Category: 
…”goat”, of course, being a euphemism for “anything that pisses me off.”
regular readers of this blog (all 3.1 of you per month*, on average, i believe) will likely recall that i’m usually nicer over here. sorry for the bursting of certain bubbles and all that, but today i have a rant. i haven’t exactly read everything that’s available though the Blogswarm Against Theocracy, but i’ve read a lot of it. and a lot of it pisses me off. of course, a lot of other things piss me off, too, and the read can decide whether or not that’s the product of a mild form of Tourette’s syndrome, or having children, or this upcoming move, or what. regardless, i’m about to rant. Happy Easter.
WHAT REALLY GETS MY GOAT.
- Atheists who position their arguments seemingly from the stance that Atheism is a religion. yeah, that’s right, i started with “us” first. why? because when we talk like we deserve the same recognition as organized religion, non-profit churches, and government-sanctioned endeavors to help those in need, we simply obviate how much we fail to understand about society and government. Atheism is not a religion. it’s bad enough that the fundamentalists keep trying to fit us in that box. let us not do so as well.
- Christian fundamentalists who promote methods by which their special brand of intolerance can be inflicted on the general public. and by that i mean everything from anti-abortion legislation to protesting funerals of Iraq war veterans.
- School systems which require, as a portion of the graded curriculum, the attendance of middle-school (junior high) children in abstinence-only education. this is, in fact, one of the most subtly nefarious blurring of that already-compromised line between Church and State.
- Agnostics who spend 3/4 of whatever it is that they say or write in the communication of obtuse caveats in the vain hope that whatever eventually becomes the point of their message will not offend anyone. seriously, we understand that the point of agnosticism is largely to leave all options open so that with your last dying breath you can suddenly become Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever and thus be “saved”, no matter what. we don’t need to be told that you find every religious teaching to be beneficial and worthwhile and respectable and “neat” every time you open your mouth. jump into whatever pool it is you chose with both feet and get yourself wet. because right now all you’re doing is wandering aimlessly with a lukewarm drink in your hand and getting sunburned.
- Intelligent Designers who fail to understand the inherent irony in that title, considering the fact that its ideals are largely spouted by some of the most willfully ignorant people in the world, for whom “intelligence” is but a dim, fading light at the end of a tunnel that they don’t even realize they’re standing in, and yet forcibly desire to inflict their petulant myopia on the world at large.
- School systems and governments who cave in to the Intelligent Designers.
- Fundamentalists who seek to destroy everything they cannot understand, including Art and people who “shockingly” have different perspectives and beliefs.
- “News” people who have compromised any sense of common decency, let alone journalistic integrity, to “report” the “news” that they are fed from the Bush Administration and its Congressional sycophants.
- The people of this community who now look at me askance and pretend as if i’m suddenly not trustworthy just because i’ve admitted, within their hearing, that i do not hold any particular belief in their god. there’s surprisingly fewer of them than i thought there would be, but seriously, your lips, my sphincter. enjoy.
what does all that have to do with the separation of Church and State? well, some of that is inherently obvious. the rest of it exists in our society as a by-product of the intolerance which naturally springs from a semi-religious governmental status quo. as i noted in this post (also here), the public’s view on politics is largely that politicians should show some form of allegiance to some form of religion. which, in light of the fact that what people want is the confidence that their leaders have a spiritual side, is quite ironic, because religion often has incredibly little to do with spirituality. but before i digress too much, let me point out that this is the same thing the public generally wants of itself as well. a person’s spiritual shortcomings, moral turpitude, lack of common decency—all can and will be overlooked provided they attend church regularly and at least pretend to drink the religious Kool-Aid.
which, of course, merely underscores the lack of common sense that exists on quite a large scale.
and it’s having to deal with that lack of common sense on a perpetual basis that really gets my goat.
* this number, by the way, is completely made up and full of shit, in case you were wondering. since it’s my blog, i steadfastly refuse to apologize for making up certain metrics relating to the blog itself, or to the numbers of individuals, in part or in whole, who give a flying shit about anything i write.
