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The Pot Calling the Kettle Black


Good Ol' Pat!  Pat Robertson:  preacher, TV evangelist, would-be President, fugitive from some other reality.  

 You remember Pat!  Of course you do!  Pat is the guy who said that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by a pact between the Island and the devil.  When tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, Pat said it was because people had not prayed enough.  

 (Well, let us stop right here and agree that President Obama is on the wrong track when it comes to climate change.  As Marco Rubio says, government cannot change the weather.  Prayer changes the weather!  It always has.  It makes it overcast.)

 But back to Pat!  Now Pat says that Islam is not a religion.  It is, he says, ". . . more of--well, it's an economic and political system with a religious veneer."

 And Popes do not s**t in the woods, and bears are not Catholic.  (I am pretty sure about the "bears" part.)  

 But to say that Islam is not a religion is like saying that Jesus was not a Jew, or that water is not wet.  If Islam is not a religion, then Pat Robertson is not religious, either.  

 (Let us take a moment and try to think our way through this:  it is tempting.)

 Pat doesn't say it this way, but he is obviously referring to the fact that religions are not just prayer factories, blowing tornadoes away.  Religions--all religions--while they often purport only to cultivate a relationship with tooth fairies, or leprechauns, or angels and demons and gods, are fiercely interested in how life is to be lived here on earth.  People should not swear, or have abortions, or have more than four wives, or eat pigs, or shave their beards, or allow women to drive cars, or walk around naked or covet their neighbor's ass or sheep.   And how do they know that?  Why are they so intent on those things?  Because they have learned those truths from their contacts in that other reality.  It is in a holy book, or it came in a vision, or their highest holy man told them so, or maybe they just remember it having been said on Sunday.  

 Jews do want to organize ordinary life in certain ways.  So do Muhammedans.  Catholics spend a lot of energy trying to keep women in their place.  Buddhists, and Sikhs, and Baptists and Lutherans can tell you how they would like people to live.  It is by their nature that religions want to shape society.  

 Jews want to tell us how to cut our hair and what not to do on the Sabbath.  Catholics are sure and certain about women, although a little confused about the sexual activity of celibate men.  Muslims can tell you what to eat, and how to pray, and what makes for a wholesome harem.  Whether it is how to eat cassava or when to plant potatoes, or how to be a man, or whether a loan should draw interest, some religion will tell you exactly how to do it; what is moral, and what ought to be outlawed.  

 So, in his own ignorant way, Pat Robertson is right about what Islam wants to do.  He does not seem aware that he just has a different idea of what ought to be done.  But, like adherents of other religions, Mr. Robertson is confident of what it is his god wants.  The Pope knows, too.  

 Ahh!  So many gods!  So many priests and prophets!  So much certainty!  So much ignorance and confusion!  

 I will tell you what is not the solution.  The solution is not to look for the one, true, holy, and absolute truth.  Everybody claims to have that.  Nobody does.

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