If you’re sick of the Religious Right, check out this video. Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian, takes a look back at Religious Right hypocrisy in 2014. In what is a 4 minute 16 second tour de force you won’t find a lot of details but she hits all the high (or rather, low) points, from Kirk Cameron to Dick Cheney.
She makes the point that if they “discriminate or criticize you, it is #ReligiousFreedom, but that if you return the favor, it’s #Persecution. What is interesting is that there are so many of them and so few of us, yet somehow they are the persecuted ones.
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Of course, it could be worse. Though Bowers doesn’t point to this, they were saying the same thing as they were telling the world to convert or die. Let’s face it, some of them still are, and I would submit to you that any group that feels itself in a position to say Muslims must convert or die (hello, Phil Robertson) is not being persecuted.
Let’s face it: between being outnumbered and logic like that, the deck is stacked against us from the get go, and you can see why the ancient world’s Pagans had no chance at all against these people, and why we will find ourselves in the same boat if we don’t learn from history.
But the “Church Fathers” today are an unsavory bunch, as we see here. Bowers asks, what is the biggest difference between Kirk Cameron and Jesus? “Jesus left while his career was still hot.” And she nailed Dick Cheney by pointing out that for him, rectal feeding “is just eating through his mouth.”
Ouch.
We got to know Kirk Cameron very well this year. We learned that intellectually he is as vapid as his TV show (he thinks Halloween is originally a Christian holiday) and that he only pretended to be intelligent as Mike Seaver. His latest endeavor, Saving Christmas, not only did not put Christ back into Christmas but it did not put Cameron back into a career (or does being dishonest and uninformed count as a career these days? – oh wait, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann…forget I asked)
Bowers took a look at the power of prayer as well, and pointed out that praying is that “easy, free thing you give to people because giving them your time or money is super inconvenient.”
You know, like Mark Sanford (R-SC) back in 2013, who, as was reported here by Sarah Jones, “when South Carolina was suffering under one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates (9.5%)…told the unemployed he would ‘pray’ for them, while he explained that he would be turning down a portion of the stimulus money and cutting programs for the poor.”
Of course, when out of a job himself, Sanford wanted more than prayers. He wanted a job.
It’s a pity these fake Christians can’t see that if prayers aren’t enough for them that they’re not enough for anyone else. But then you remember that Kirk Cameron is representative of the intellectual capacity of these people and you sort of understand.
It’s a shame we can’t do the same for them when their states are torn up by natural disasters and they suddenly realize the federal government is not evil after all. We could turn FEMA into a prayer agency and they could just pray, pray, pray, that everything will be okay for you as you stand next to the ruins of your home.
Bowers says that, “Thanks to the efforts of America’s wealthy, true Christians, millions starved to death this year knowing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” As we have pointed out here, prayers don’t lower gas prices, end droughts, stop abortion, or even, or, as they found out back in 2011, get rid of #Occupy, and they sure don’t fill any bellies.
I find it interesting that with prayers being so cheap and ineffective that they are so determined to ensure that the only prayers heard are their own, and that in South Carolina they felt it necessary to start 2014 by forcing kids to pray in public school. If you want an ineffective education, just send the poor kids to a charter school. That would at least make money for somebody.
It has been a remarkable year in so many ways, with President Obama surmounting every obstacle in his path to restore America’s place in the world and its economy too, but at the same time a dismal year, as the Religious Right continues to make inroads, threatening the very fabric of American society with its attacks on the Constitution, on true religious freedom, and on democracy itself.
Sometimes you have got to laugh or cry, and Betty Bowers at least gives us a reason to laugh. With Stephen Colbert gone mainstream, her satire is more important than ever.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
