Death of an Opinion

mjs, in a special Opinuary column at Jesus'General:

The Opinion "Eventually, America's politically active conservative Christians will run out of things to be breathtakingly stupid about" has died from complications arising from COPD, congestive heart failure, emphysema, cerebral hypoxia, obstructive bowel disorder, pericardial tamponade, aortic aneurysm, pneumonia, heat exhaustion and acute logorrhea. The Opinion had no exact age, but was believed to be old enough to drink and cry during sex.

Born in the fever dreams of 17th Century Europe's most spastic pilgrims it left home with few material goods and came to the New World, killing natives who had somehow avoided being bored to death by the newcomer's theology, a theology that posited (paraphrased) 'A loving but sometimes moody god has a special covenant with a tribe of Semites, and He gave them rules and miracles and a nice chunk of real estate, and yes, He also killed millions of people from time to time, and then He had a change of heart and had sanitized sexual congress with a virgin, from which union was made a super-baby who grew up to be a blood sacrifice as part of a new covenant, a messiah who will one day return to the earth and beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who doesn't buy this extremely serious historical narrative.' This tale from the Abrahamic Middle East had the beauty of being a sequel that reserved the right to keep the really violent action from the first part in its hip pocket, ready to be wielded at a moment's notice. As a matter of historical fact, it was only due to a rather tricky, last minute maneuver at the Council of Bishops in Nicea, Italy in the 5th Century A.D. that the nascent church was able to ban the consuming of popcorn during Mass, thus burying religion's true function as disposable entertainment.

Be it Rick Santorum's obsessions with bodily fluids, animal sex and the rise of civil rights among uppity human beings who believe and live differently than he does, to Michelle Bachmann's admiration for a belief system that would hold the Dark Ages as spiritually superior to the Renaissance, we have modern day champions of atavism and knuckle-dragging in all their fists-raised, tongue-speaking-and-wagging glory. Want a President who thinks Jesus should run the government? Rick Perry is your man! No jobs, a bloated military budget, banking institutions bludgeoning the nation to its knees? No problem: pray to the offspring of a Bronze Age deity, who will disapprove of whomever you disapprove of--He's that good! Want to have an adult conversation in the United States about the history and role of religion as mythology in world culture? Die, damn you, die!

A Celebration of Complete and Utter Bullshit will be held at the altar of Occluded Reasoning sometime this Fall, as in the Fall of Man. Memorial contributions may be made, because that is the nature of memorial contributions.