Whole Darn World's Gone Crazy

Janeane Garofalo used to do this comedy routine about the absurd arguments between different religions all based on the word of a book, and how it was as if people had declared "The Bridges of Madison County" sacred ground on which nobody builds. It's disturbing just how accurate an interpretation that is.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour did a three-part special report entitled "God's Warriors" where she looked at extremists in the three major monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The impression you come away with can only be described as appalled disbelief. You normally assume that people turn to religion to find peace and satisfaction. But instead, many of these people couldn't be more miserable. Everything angers them, everything hurts them, and they are constantly dissatisfied with everything. Not only that, but when peace and accomodation become possible, they often provoke conflict where there was none.

It's maddening, and it's enough to make a rational person think that the whole lot of them are completely insane from start to finish. Jewish settlers who are surprised when Arabs are mad that they've been kicked off the land they own, and blame the Arabs for the atrocities of Germans. Muslim women who are angry when Westerners question the fact that they have to be covered head-to-toe, and yet act surprised when they aren't allowed to run for public office in the theocracies they defend so vehemently. And Christians...oh those American Christians.

I can't speak as authoritatively on other religions because while I've read a lot, I've never lived them. Christianity, though...I've had an insiders look, and sometimes it's terrifying. There's a distinct difference between "Christianity": the philosophical belief that promotes charity, humility, love, and moral behavior; and the special brand of Christianity that we think of when we see television evangilists, Republican Senators, and homeschool documentaries. They talk about abortion and gay marriage as though Jesus and Moses had reached down from Heaven and personally written a whole new book of the bible about them. Yet greed and gluttony, which are mentioned in the same book as being worse sins than sleeping with a man, are given a pass. Did they get a special Bible decoder ring that the rest of us didn't, which tells them which sins god really cares about, and which ones he was just kidding about? It's okay to be fat, and materialistic, and step over homeless people on the street...but don't even think about telling someone of the same sex that you love them, cause that's just wrong.

In all the religions, the broader themes of the religions - things like love, good works, introspection, peace - are overlooked in favor of minutae. Things like dress codes, holy sites, and ritual take precedence over actual substance and real character. The worst part is that whole new generations of young people are being privately schooled away from any differing viewpoints, indoctrinated and brainwashed, and left with an even more narrow, watered down, unwaveringly selective view of these faiths. Like the kids in Teen Mania (seriously, that name alone is telling) who blame popular music and Paris Hilton for the fact that their parents abandoned them and that they liked drinking and having sex in high school. If listening to music makes you do bad things, it's not because of the music, it's because you're an idiot. Playing violent video games doesn't make you commit violence - being a poorly raised psychopath who thinks Grand Theft Auto is tame does.

And if your faith makes you want to fight other people, it's not because god wants you to, it's because you're a jerk.