Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

Holy Daze: one man's take on organized religion

According to a recent issue of the Brattleboro Reformer, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns has apologized "profusely" for holding the town fair on Yom Kippur. Rabbi Joshua Chasan of Ohavi Zedk synagogue in Burlington said he was satisfied with the League's apology but saw big problems with Vermont's school systems.

"Year after year there are football games and homecomings on Yom Kippur" he said.

Now that the holy man has secured his groveling apology from town officials, he is going after the schools. How predictable.

Everyone thinks that the tenets of their religion have spilled from the lips of God Himself. Not only should we excuse Jews and Christians from societal responsibilities on their holy days, we should pretty much put society on hold while they observe them.

Vermont's Secretary of State, Deborah Morkowitz, has the arrogance to say "Yom Kippur, is the one holiday that, to the Jewish people, is non-negotiable."

The implication is clear: "Don't you dare hold a public event on my holy day."

Well, fine. I don't care if you dress up as a giant matzo ball and dance 'til dawn. But why do I have to observe your holy day? Was there ever a better argument for the separation of church and state?

Well, maybe we should just respect the sacred days of others too, right? How about the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, the Heaven's Gate crackpots, the Shintoists, Scientologists, Hindus, Asparagus worshippers and, of course, the Muslims. Where does it end?

Organized religion is humankind's most enduring curse. It teaches us to hate one another. It flourishes among the ignorant and it has led us to our current seething cauldron of hatred and death. Islam means peace, my great Aunt Fanny.

All I can say is that the hoards of Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians that are running riot in the streets, celebrating the murder of our citizens, are not acting in a particularly peaceful way.

Religion is a disgrace to our intellect. It spits in the face of logic and the masses eat it up like cheerios. Religion is at war with humankind. Again.

There is one reason why men and women conjured up religion. They were scared. They saw that when things die, they rot. They didn't want to rot like so much roadkill so they made up a fairy tale that says: if you are a good Christian or Muslim or Scientologist, you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven when you die. There you will have your way with virgins and feast at the Right Hand of the Almighty.

The problem is that the high priests thought they would throw in a wrinkle or two. Like, maybe if you strap dynamite to yourself and blow up a Jewish daycare center you'll go to heaven by express. Christian fanatics kill abortion doctors as their ticket to heaven. Heaven's Gate adherents kill themselves, which is an improvement of sorts over the other two.

Our so-called pluralist society took a real shot when the Bush administration ushered in their new theology for America.

Lawyer Alan Dershowitz has pointed out the following:

"The very first act of the new Bush administration was to have a Protestant Evangelist minister officially dedicate the inauguration to Jesus Christ, who he declared to be 'our savior.' Invoking 'the Father, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ' and 'the Holy Spirit,' Billy Graham's son, the man selected by President George W. Bush to bless his presidency, excluded the tens of millions of Americans who are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics, and atheists from his blessing by his particularistic and parochial language."

Tolerance of others is anathema to religionists. We people of earth have painted ourselves into a corner.

The Muslim fanatics hate us because we are influencing their children with our movies and fashions. Their children, they believe, will go to hell if they don't kill all of us and stop our evil influence.

Christians believe that the Muslims are going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus Christ.

Now we must kill their fanatics before they kill us. All this in the Name of God.