The coming end of the black velvet Jesus

This part 3.  Part 1 is here.  And here is Part 2.

Imagine what the country would be like if Liberals could work their wills like magic.

Ok, that's enough fun. Come back down to earth.  What did you see?  Besides the fact the Dick Cheney would be in jail, the word hummer would only be a synonym for oral sex, Barack Obama would be president, the Mets would have decent middle relief, peace, goodness, truth, and beauty would rule the day, and in short there'd simply not be a more congenial spot for happily ever after-ing than here in Camelot?

Ok, the bit about the Mets is mine.  But if the rest were all to come to pass, it would happen, assuming magic wasn't involved, through all the things the book Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!  warns of:  higher taxation,  lots of broccoli eating, and the disappearance of pictures of Jesus from the walls of a great many homes---symbolically.

The picture of Jesus the boys in the book have to remove from their lemonade stand is as symbolic as the broccoli the evil Liberals force them to serve their customers with every glass of lemonade.  But while the broccoli symbolizes Liberal efforts to improve people, the picture of Jesus symbolizes...

Well, Jesus.  Not the historical person.  Not the son of God and Savior that all Christians believe in.  Jesus the best pal and personal Get into Heaven Free ticket of Conservative Christians.  The Jesus of John 3:16, as opposed to the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount.

This has nothing to do with prayer in the schools, or separation of church and state rulings by the Supreme Court, or running con artists and mountebanks like Pat Robertson and James Dobson out of town.

It has do with one thing.  Intelligent Design.

Just think about this.  If Liberals had their way, what would all school children learn in their science classes?

Right.

Science.

They would be taught not just that the universe was billions of years old, that the earth wasn't created in seven days, that life appeared as an apparent accident, and that all creatures great and small, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moveth upon the earth, including that two legged monstrosity that's supposed to have dominion over all the others, are a result of that accident somehow, impossibly, surviving its first second of existence and making its way out of the primordial soup.

It isn't just that they would learn about evolution, and the meaning of the word theory.  They would learn the scientific cast of thought that allows us to make sense of the physical universe.  And the first lesson that follows from that is that the universe is constructed in such a way that God doesn't have to be at the controls every second.  Things happen in ways that don't require Him to be here.  They happen in ways that don't require Him to ever have been here at all.

That doesn't mean there isn't a God.  But it does suggest that there might not be.  And that suggestion, just the suggestion, taken seriously by a young mind, is the end of the Right Wing Christian religion.

You can argue with them until you're blue in the face that it doesn't necessarily mean the end of religion, or even the end of Christianity.  They know you're lying.  You're lying because to them the only religion is their religion; the only Christianity is their Christianity, and it depends on the existence not of God but of a God who is right here, right now, directing their every move---which is to say approving their every move.

As much a deal as they make over Him, and over His Son, both are really secondary characters in their religion.  God the Father is merely the enforcer of their will.  God the Son is merely the guaranteer of their rightness and authority.

The Fundies warn and frighten each other with the tale of godless Liberals coming to pull their pictures of Jesus off their walls and tear their bibles out of their hands.  They have literalized the symbol.  If and when Liberals win the culture wars, those pictures might as well be removed and replaced by black velvet Elvises and Dogs Playing Poker, because when they look at Jesus, he won't look back with the same old reassuring smile of personal approval and congratulation. 

And they might as well tear up their Bibles and toss them away, because if the Liberals win, instead of holding in their hands the literal word of God, they will own only a beautiful anthology of poems, fairy tales, history lessons, philosophy, and prayer.

Theirs is an authoritarian religion---not God's authoritarianism, their own.  Jesus the Personal Savior and a literal and unquestionable Scripture are the tools of that authoritarianism.   They use them to bully, shame, bribe, and gull others into accepting their authority---and the prime subjects of their authority are their children.

Blue Girl very helpfully found an an approving review of Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed! and posted it in the comments here.  (I picture her walking bravely into whatever Right Wing site she plucked it off of wearing a pith helmet with a heavy veil and long thick gloves that reach up past her elbow.)  What jumped out at me from the review was the writer's absolute stupidity about how children think.

My eight year old daughter got hold of the book from off my desk. I generally get heavy tomes in the mail and she ignores them. But when she saw me produce this book from a USPS package she simply had to have a look at it. She read it once. She read it again. Then I read it to her and explained some of the nuances. She quickly grasped the terrible error of leftist ideas.

Of course she was excited.  Kids love mail and they love books.  She'd have been just as excited if the book had been something truly worthwhile, a book actually written for children, as opposed to one written for their parents to use to lecture them with.  If the book had been Mercer Mayer's There's An Alligator Under My Bed she'd have read it and read it again---and I'd bet read it again a few dozen more times than she'd re-read Help! Mom! if it wasn't, as I suspect it is, typical all the other books her parents allow her to read.

And of course she quickly grasped the terrible error of leftist ideas, the same as she'd quickly grasp why the little boy in Mayer's book doesn't like the idea of an alligator under his bed---things under your bed are threatening and scary, which is why the author of the books put the Liberals under the bed with all the other monsters, so the kids would know they were monsters and be scared.

What a surprise, the book works as the heavy handed propaganda it was designed to be!

But you can also see what the reviewer likes most about the book.  The reviewer got to explain the "nuances."  The book presents parents with a golden opportunity to exercise their authority and control their children's thinking.

It's not about entertaining kids.  It's about binding them to their parents' wills.

The review is written in what is meant to be a jolly just between us Moms and Dads tone, but it contains a lot of the same eliminationist rhetoric as a tirade by Rush Limbaugh.  This is war, folks.  They are in a struggle to preserve their culture.  If they lose the culture wars, their culture dies.

They practice an authoritarian religion and their lives revolve around and are shaped by and depend on that religion.  As soon as their authority is taken from them, their religion goes with it, and with their religion their culture.

And we Liberals are just fine with that.
___________________________________________

Related Fundy-baiting bloggage:  The Viscount LaCarte wonders why a lot of relgious folks need him to share their beliefs.

Ask a religious person, “Are you certain there is a God?” In my experience, most of them will emphatically state that they are certain. If you then ask them, “Do you believe in gravity,” while you might get a quizzical look or sarcastic comment, if you press them they will admit that yes, they believe in gravity.

Tell them, “I think gravity is superstition. There is no evidence that there is a gravitational force attracting objects to each other.” Does this anger them? Does it create doubt in their minds?

Not usually. They walk away shaking their heads, thinking, “what a nut!”

However, if you tell them you think their religion is superstition and there is no evidence to support their beliefs, many of them get angry. Why?

You've probably guessed that the Viscount goes on to answer his own question, quite neatly, right here:  Who is certain?

Comments

[Michael]

Here in Obama land we have a different view. So far he's been voting the wrong side on things fairly consistently. He may be black on the outside, but his core Daley Democrat.

[Greg]

Michael, are you politically dim or intentionally dirtying Obama?

Obama:
"You asked if anything I've seen or read give me pause. My response was what I've read in the newspaper gives me huge pause. We don't like to read about people who are getting paid for not doing work or enjoying favoritism as a consequence of doctored-up test scores. I don't think that's anything I could defend or the mayor could defend. There's strong expectation on the part of taxpayers that this will be cleaned up."

Obama's public reservations about Daley come in stark contrast to the stance taken by his colleague in the Illinois congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). Emanuel has rallied to Daley's side, scheduling a sold-out appearance before the City Club later this month to defend the mayor's 16-year record.

Although both Obama and Emanuel employ Chicago political consultant David Axelrod, who also works for Daley, Emanuel was elected to Congress with Daley's unequivocal endorsement. Obama was elected without the mayor's support, though he has maintained a cordial relationship with Daley.

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), a frequent critic of and possible challenger to the mayor, was an early and strong supporter of Obama.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-obama05.html

[KathyF]

In my fantasy, Russ Feingold is president and there's broccoli rabe on every plate.

That book sounds a bit like Ayn Rand for the younger set. Has anyone taken a stab at writing the counterpoint, Help! Mom! There are Wingnuts Under My Bed, and They Won't Stop Watching What I'm Doing in There!

[Michael]

I don't pay much attention to what Obama says, nor do I care, since it doesn't mean anything--I just watch how he votes.

[Michael]

Let me clarify, though: I'm not saying he's as bad as a Republican: I'm just saying that like Dick Durbin, he's voted the safe way on some of the most important issues rather than taking the stand that would make him dream President material. To me, given the promise he had, that's a sell-out.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

the word hummer would only be a synonym for oral sex

LOL. Especially because, given my druthers, I'd rather buy it Garp style than the otherwise cooler James Dean.

[carla]

They practice an authoritarian religion and their lives revolve around and are shaped by and depend on that religion. As soon as their authority is taken from them, their religion goes with it, and with their religion their culture.

And we Liberals are just fine with that.

To be fair, not all Christians practice this way. Unfortunately it's the ones with the big ass megaphones (and big ass bucks) who enjoy the current limelight.

Kevin at PK is a Christian. He's one of those cult Christians (as my fundy dad would say) who was raised Adventist. Adventists are big on the seperation doctrine. They're also big on shunning the pharisetical (is that a real word?) type shit that permeates the current group of Justice Sunday asshats.

Kev is the greatest guy I know. He's got the Jesus part of Christianity all sorted out..while being able to leave behind (pun intended) the American Taliban bullshit.

[Lance]

Carla,

I should have made it clearer that I was talking about that particular brand of conservative Christians who showed up for Justice Sunday. Thanks for coming to the defense of all the other Christians.

Kathy,

I think the job of writing that book has fallen to you.

[KathyF]

I think I knew you'd say that.

[GRUMPY OLD MAN]

Great post(s)

These slimebags leave no stone unturned do they. Have not seen the actual book and I have no real desire to do so but was the word "Assination" used any place? Seems this is big on the asshat circuit at the moment.

[blue girl]

Lance, you are not as cynical as me. I didn't believe for one minute that the reviewer's 8 year old daughter had the described experience with this book. The line: "She quickly grasped the terrible error of leftist ideas." especially made me feel this way.

I think he made it up to make his review more convincing.

Now, I have no scientific proof to back this up -- it's just something that I strongly believe.

:)

[Kevin Wolf]

Ha, BG, that was funny.

Lance, I think you were very clear on the "type" of Christian you were discussing. No need for all stripes to take offense. Though if a few others do - perhaps the shoe fits?

[harry near indy]

if .. . if ... it comes to that, we'd have the evangelical protestant version of franco's spain.

the silence of the middle-of-the-road christians about their hard-cord brothers in christ -- i feel angry about it.

reason # 7,336 on why i'm not a christian.

[david bandel]

Oh yes. The whole "liberals are for science not religion" argument. Very cute.

I'm an atheist but I've seen nothing from liberals but BAD science and lies to push their hypocricy further into the trendy limelight.

Global warming? Natural cycle that the earth goes through on a geologically time-scaled wavelength or man-induced trauma to "mother (yes the personification attempt to appeal to liberal's dim-witted bleeding hearts) earth?" Yes. Liberals really understand science.

The idea that the ozone layer is a brick wall and not a gas layer. You see when you poke your finger in a cloud of gas and pull it out, does the hole stay there? If you keep your finger there, does the gas fill back in the new hole? See any kind of logical fallacy here on the part of the liberals? Couple that with how incredibly rapidly easy O3 replenishes itself and you have yet another bit of proof that liberals are quite stupid.

Do liberals use lies to push equality and tolerance on the mainstream? Yes! Do blacks have smaller brains? Yes... because a test of brain SIZE can't have bias. Do their lower scores on standardized tests corelate PERFECTLY with the brain size difference? Yes! Do liberals claim that it's all based on poverty and bias in testing? Yes!

Do liberals try to say the Bell Curve is racist? Yes! And this is the most hilarious of all because the Bell Curve is just a DISTRIBUTION. It arises in nature and pretty much in everything. The bell curve is the shape of the curve.. which is a direct result of summing up huge amounts of random variables with flat individual distributions. If it DIDN'T occur everywhere, mathematicians and scientists would be CONRUSED. Because it's a natural logical result of the most fundamental operations in statistics. But just because the bell curve is innocently the SHAPE of the graph of IQ distribution, the liberals call the curve itself.. the formula for the curve itself.. racist.

Liberals are a joke when it comes to math, science, logic, and rationality. Telling yourself that you are anything else is a farce. An outright lie to the masses and to yourselves.

[Syckls]

^^ Please be a troll.

[Quietus]

"Besides the fact the Dick Cheney would be in jail, the word hummer would only be a synonym for oral sex, Barack Obama would be president,"

One out of three ain't bad!

It's great to think that when this article was written all these happenings seemed equally improbable.