Fools For Jesus

According to some, if God were allowed in US schools the mass shooting of children and teachers would not have occurred. Really? In 1938 a crazed bomber blew up 38 children in a school, long before any bans on prayer were in place. Once again we come face to face with the mental health illness more commonly referred to as religion. So confident and aloof, so quick to claim that if only we doffed our caps and bowed the knee to the divine our lives would somehow be on more solid ground. Like a parasite religious belief infects and curdles the brain, rendering it mushy and credulous, capable of justifying the obscene as well as ignoring the blatantly obvious. It saddens me how it's victims are often kindly and decent, just seeking to give meaning to lives that otherwise seem bereft of it. I understand the need for meaning and I understand our need to overcome mortality, yet I often wonder at what cost this comes? Let's just take a step back for a second. If we're allowing state sanctioned prayed for Christianity in schools, shouldn't we also offer the same privileges for Islam, for Hinduism, for Zoroastrianism, or any of the other world religions? Should we not recognise our multicultural society and just open the flood gates. No. If you want to pray then fine. Do it at home, or on the bus, or on the toilet, or frankly wherever you want. But don't demand that your religion be given special treatment, especially in an age when it's strength is in decline. I once said that I would gladly kick Christianity's fetid carcass into the nearest open grave, and on occasion I've wondered if this was too harsh. Truth is, wider society is already doing it without my help, as the latest census figures prove. At the end of the day believing in the unknowable isn't going to protect our children; this is lazy thinking and an abdication of personal responsibility. If we wish to make this world better, our lives richer, our legacy stronger, we have to do the thinking, the reasoning, and the hard graft. God cannot help you. God is imaginary. But we can help ourselves and each other, and I suggest this is a more productive use of our time.