I'm going to have to make this a brief as I dare, since I'm strung out on four different medications and tears of exhaustion are dripping onto my pants.
Religion Poisons Everything
I could go on at length about how the Bible in general, and the Old Testament specifically is a load of crap. On one level, it's a bunch of shit gurgled out by a pack of ignorant desert-dwelling barbarians who hadn't developed any sort of knowledge as a society. Their maths were garbage, their medicine was non-existent, and their science was founded on fear, superstition, and arrogance based on cultural insularity.Slavery, rape, genocide, and barbarous cruelty aside, I want to briefly touch on the bit that I feel is highly apropos at the moment. Not to trivialize the fates of the Midianites or the Hazorites, but they're no longer around to complain, are they?
One of the sneaky little divine admonitions of the Bible is not to wear clothing of different threads sewn together. Chapter 22 of Deuteronomy basically says not to wear a material of wool mixed with linen. That's pretty stupid. One can brush it off as being as comparably stupid as the other forbidden things like pork and shellfish. Food we can understand. People in a desert that can't understand parasites or bacteria could interpret trichinosis as God's will not to eat swine, and spoiled oysters as the angels of the firmament directing people away from sea creatures without gills or fins.
"See?' one may cry, "They're just ignorant. They didn't know any better, so maybe one of the high priests got a rash from his wool/polyester blend bell-bottoms, and decided God was speaking to him again, like the time God asked Abraham to slay Isaac or killed all of Job's kine."
Things get a more sinister when you compare Deuteronomy ("The Book of Really Bad Ideas") 22:11 with Leviticus ("Another Book with Really Bad Ideas") 19:19, which says,
"Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee."It rambles off to talk about scourging women that lieth with men, etc., but the damage is done here. Don't mix breeds of cattle; don't mix seeds in a field; don't mix threads in a fabric. This is no longer blind ignorance and stupid superstition. This is the foundation of racial purity ideals. When people run around, shrieking about "taking back their birthright" or "reclaiming their country," that sense of entitlement is not rooted in historical fact - it's rooted in revelatory scripture.
The fact that white supremacists have submitted to DNA tests that overwhelmingly point out that their genetic purity is utter bunk is irrelevant. Science is irrelevant when God the tyrannical totalitarian is in the house.
The bottom line here is that white nationalists would have no traction without being given legitimacy by religious scripture. It's not hard to extend this statement to slavery under the Confederate States of America, an institution only made possible under the auspices of "muscular Christianity." As Robert E. Lee wrote:
"The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."Right. I'll wind up quickly with my last playlist from my iPod Nano.
Shower Showcase
- Overland, by Stereophonics
- Suddenly Monday, by Melanie Chisholm
- Heart Refuse to Pound, by Big Sugar
- Teacher, by Jethro Tull
- Lucille, written by Albert Collins and Little Richard; performed by Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1974
- Cartoon Heroes, by Aqua
I again yield the floor to anyone who can draw some sort of thematic conclusion from these disparate components.
My surgery is on Monday, and I suspect that my next post will likely be after I'm released from hospital. Until that point, I must bid my adieus.
Good night England and the colonies,
—mARKUS
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