Religion is the Meth of the Masses
February 9, 2010Henry Baum No Comments »Here’s Stephen Fry’s extraordinary speech about the Catholic Church. To summarize, the Catholic Church is to sex what anorexics are to food – i.e. dangerously obsessed and unhealthy.
I’ve spent the last week feeling paranoid, and moreso sad, about Sarah Palin’s reemergence and her triumph of ignorance. The media could so easily be complicit in her rise because she is entertaining to watch. Even when she fails, it’s fun to report, and seems to have no impact on her standing with those who are duped by slogan-selling demagogues.
Interesting to me that Sarah Palin seems to combine the themes from all of my novels. The book about evolution/religion/and consciousness actually does have something to do with the two novels about Hollywood, because fame can comes before thought in this country. That Paris Hilton can be given five minutes of attention is dangerous. Be certain of it, she paved the way for Sarah Palin. Because once you start thinking that Paris Hilton matters, for any reason, Sarah Palin can be acceptable. Paris Hilton lies for a living, duping people into thinking she matters. Sarah Palin does the same. And so when she very literally lies, almost with every word, it stops mattering.
More than anything, this quote from Sarah Palin bothered me recently,
“They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh,” she said, when read a quote of Limbaugh calling liberal groups “retards.” “Rush Limbaugh was using satire … . I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards,’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there.”
Nevermind that Limbaugh and Rahm Emmanuel were talking about the same group of people. It’s that she can exhibit this kind of outright hypocrisy and it doesn’t matter. People online keep saying, “You mock what you fear,” about Sarah Palin. No shit: Sarah Palin is terrifying. She’s scary because she can get away with being dishonest. In fact, it’s her dishonesty that gives her strength. She is effortlessly, guiltlessly dishonest, and people love her for that.
Like Stephen Fry in the video, I’m not against religion outright. I am a person of some faith, but Christianist fundamentalism is something else. Once you start believing that dinosaurs walked the earth 6000 years ago, you can let in any number of incongruities. Increased faith seems to lead to increased delusion, like believing Sarah Palin is intelligent and honest – i.e. the opposite of what is actually true. You believe what you want to believe.
“Religion is the opiate of the masses” doesn’t really seem to apply. An opiate is a pain killer, it’s a downer. If anything, an opiate decreases your paranoia. It doesn’t make you hallucinate. I think a better term for the present is: religion is the meth of the masses.
So watching Stephen Fry was refreshing: a mind, an intellectual. There are still some left.
via disinfo.
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