Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours - Stephen Roberts
Sometimes when sitting flicking though the channels at night I end up with those hateful religious evangelicals venting their biblical bile from the screen reminding us of all the horrors that await us if we don’t share their opinion. It reminds me of zombie movies, although nowhere near as viewable, where the lead zombie works the stupefied mob into a torpid trance. There is a collective lip movement accompanied by unintelligible mumbling and then they all go off to hate happily ever after: their pockets lighter and the wallets of their preachers bulging. I find few things in life as genuinely phoney as evangelicals professing to be brimming with something called Christian love. Love and televangelism seem a chalk and cheese combination. Ted Haggard and Christian love? Nah, Ted Haggard and boy love has a more authentic ring to it.
Whatever motivates the shower of hate blusterers it is not love. Although I think they are much more representative of their god than the other sickly sweet lot who run around with false faces and ersatz smiles, blessing people with the sign of the cross and offering forgiveness. The evangelical lot seem more at one with a god that hates with a perfect hate, the only type of god that could exist given the hatred he seems to inspire. As has been said, you always know god is on your side when he hates the same people you do. To people like me, the idea of a god of love is incomprehensible. It would make more sense if believers were to tell me ‘god exists and he hates us all; he is the god of hunger, hate, war, poverty, natural disaster, child rape and genocide.’ I could sort of make sense of that without conceding the existence of a deity. But when they tell me he loves me and he will burn me in hell if I don’t love him, I tend not to get it.
The hate is howled and the venom spat while I sit scorning them. Whatever the bible bashing merchants of Hate TV believe in I have no interest in listening to them spout it so the channels are flicked through rapidly. Money features a lot, with their buckets bigger than bibles. As George Carlin was fond of saying, the one thing god can’t manage is money; always a dollar or two short and forever in need of a little top up. No loaves and fishes equivalent there.
Last night my five year old son asked if I was watching ‘the mad’ again. He likes to watch ‘the mad’ probably because he enjoys my reaction to them, and would on occasion ask me to turn the mad channel on. I asked him if he liked ‘the mad.’ He replied ‘they are always shouting.’ At home here we still laugh from the time when he said to his mother ‘mammy, daddy is watching the bastards.’ Can’t blame a five year old for copying what he hears shouted at the television whenever the holy creeps appear.
At least I can honestly claim to have given him a good start.
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
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