Zeus' Meddling Never Worked, Either

Rev. Wright. "Disbelief" in evolution. Mormons. Rev. Parsley. Muslims. Rev. Hagee.

The unConstitutional influence of religion - and religion's most ludicrous content - on the 2008 Presidential campaign leads me to suggest that we add one more requirement to the list of minimum qualifications for President:

Only atheists need apply.

As a review in The Nation reveals, two new books on religion and government fail to shed light on the issue because they fail to acknowledge, much less address, the central obstacle to any solution: the extreme political power wielded by, and the accompanying refusal to compromise on the part of, the Xian dominionists.

More worrisome are those liberal defenders of religious equality such as Nussbaum and Waldman, who actually do know better and yet strengthen the hand of the theocons by underestimating and even minimalizing the scope of the Christian nationalist challenge. "At this point," Nussbaum writes, "school authorities know that they have to permit an exception for any child who conscientiously objects to participating" in the pledge. That's unlikely in a nation where explicitly religious--and often scientifically inaccurate--ideas about a matter as personal as sex are taught to millions of public school children.

But it's actually far worse. The "religious equality" propounded by "liberal defenders" of religion is not any form of equality that would be recognized by the authors of the Constitution. It is nothing less than permanent primacy for religion at the expense of secularism.

Those well-intended liberal christians, jews, muslims and others working so hard to find a middle ground with the freakazoids remind me a lot of the leftists and socialists of the 1930s. They were so sure of the essential good embodied in communist philosophy that they deliberately ignored the horrific crimes against humanity committed in communism's name.

Christian apologists in particular drive me crazy with their insistence that real Christians are liberals and pacifists. They endlessly quote New Testament passages about Jesus' compassion for the poor, the sick, the condemned.

True, but irrelevant. If the Xians who have the political power and influence in this country are the Xians who effectively reject Jesus and the New Testament in favor of the murderous, racist, misogynist, vicious, hateful, war-mongering god of the Old Testament, then that is the "Christian" view that prevails.

If you think this is all a debate among religious types about angels dancing on pinheads with no effect on your life, read Chris Hedges on American Fascists and their quite serious and well-advanced plans for theocracy.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.