Thursday, December 21, 2006

Muslim Congressman a Threat?

If you're going to start down the road of pointing out the thousands of silly, dangerous, oppressive, preposterous, contradictory and totally unbelieveable things found in the texts of the world's popular religions, I'm with you all the way brother. Ready to pile on, but let's not exclude the majority religion of the USA. Here are a few passages from the King James version of the Christian Bible that most Congressmen take the oath on:

"He that blasphemeth the Lord must be killed." Leviticus 24:16

"There are many whose mouths must be stopped." Titus 1:10,11

"Whoever does any work on the Sabbath will be killed." Exodus 31:15

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." Luke 19:27

"The Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones. He will bring the people of the world to judgment. He will convict the ungodly of all the evil things they have done in rebellion and of all the insults godless sinners have spoken against him." Jude 14, 15

"False prophets are also to be executed." Deuteronomy 13:1-5

Consider your boy Romney, potential US presidential candidate. In addition to having a closet full of special Mormon undies, as a church elder he has pledged that he believes that Joseph Smith, directed by the angel Moroni, unearthed a book of golden plates buried in a hillside in Western New York in 1827. The plates were inscribed in "reformed" Egyptian hieroglyphics — a nonexistent version of the ancient language that had yet to be decoded. Smith was able to dictate his "translation" of the Book of Mormon first by looking through diamond-encrusted decoder glasses and then by burying his face in a hat with a brown rock at the bottom of it. He was an obvious con man and it sounds to me like he had found a good patch of mushrooms. Some people might say this belief makes Romney insane, dangerous, and unfit for pubic office. But because I think every citizen in this country gets to believe in whatever they want, I do not care (I just would not vote for a fanatic). I don't hold Mormons, Muslims, or Methodists personally accountable for the literal words in their holy book of choice.
I do agree with Goode that our immigration policy needs fixing, but I am not seeing how that issue has anything to do with an American citizen exercising their freedom of religion. I don't give a crap which collection of superstitions a democratically elected US congressman wants to put his dirty hand on. If the Muslim congressman lies about something important I have no doubt he will lose his job or go to jail. Swearing to uphold the constitution is the only mandatory part of taking office - the traditional oath on the Bible that comes after it is an elective photo opportunity and means less than nothing to me. GOD FORBID there is ever a godless atheist elected to congress with no ability to judge right from wrong. I would take the oath on a copy of Cycle World and vote for immediate and retroactive beer subsidies.

No comments: