The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I read a letter to the editor recently from a newly minted graduate of our school system railing about that same school system as mostly purveyors of communist propaganda. It forced him to learn about Islam but didn’t teach the Bible. It taught him Egyptian history but never, not once, mentioned Moses parting the Red Sea. Apparently his science teachers wouldn’t touch it either, afraid, probably it would subvert the shaky foundations of rationalism.

I’ve lived here long enough to remember when those commies used to bring in Creationist speakers and when evolution was fairly taboo, days our Graduate would like to bring back. Religion, I’ve learned the hard way, is a tough subject to tiptoe around. Any religion. Just not an amusing topic for the True Believer. So mostly I just pick a safer target and hope not too many toes are stepped on.

But I hafta say, in a country that vents mightily about the Taliban or extreme Muslimism, it is troubling to realize the folks who hate the false gods and beliefs of others would gladly set up their own religious schools and maybe make 2nd class citizens of their Jewish classmates or their Sikh or Hindu or B”hai or Buddhist or Catholic or …. Well, anybody but their particular sect. They want freedom of religion all right. Theirs, not yours.

I wish religion WAS the opiate of the masses, but sadly, it’s the testosterone. Maybe if we didn’t have religious beliefs to fight about, we’d wage wars over scientific dogma instead. The Big Bangers vs. the Multi-Dimensionalists. Eat this theory, blasphemer!!

Facts, though, don’t seem to matter, just fervent faith. I can’t prove it … so what? I believe it so it’s true. Obama’s a Muslim, evolution is a fraud, the moon landing was hoax, God is a Christian, the universe sits on the back of a tortoise, aliens are among us, the world banking system is controlled by Zionists, the Stanwoodopolis school system is a communist conspiracy.

It’s nice to know that our taxes have done a fine job educating our children. I think they’ll be ready to take their place in society. Sometimes, honest to your God, even on the South End, there’s no place to hide from these people.

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The Donald hosted a dinner for a group of prominent evangelicals at the White House the other day and warned that if they don’t get out and vote for Republicans, there will be blood. There will be violence. There will be a return to the Dark Ages of integration. Dark times, indeed! The good and righteous reverend of one of the largest Southern Baptist megachurches in the country, Bob Jeffress, when interviewed and asked how a good Christian could vote for Trump, a philanderer, a serial liar, a bully President, answered first that Trump was more moral than Hillary Clinton and second he was, like all of us, a sinner. And if we’re all sinners, where’s the moral line?

I’m glad I’m not a member of this guy’s flock. If everyone is equally a sinner (except of course Hillary Clinton, who is a huge sinner), how do we judge the differences between, say, a serial killer and a shoplifter? Forgiveness, no doubt. Repentance and forgiveness. Not that the Donald is repentant or asking Rev. Jeffress for forgiveness, much less the Lord God Almighty.

Now, I’m all for forgiveness. Say you’re sorry and apologize for those murders, it’s okay from now on. But golly gee, don’t ask me to vote for you as President. Not when you keep doing all the things you say you didn’t do and refuse to stop, much less apologize for. And Reverend, one more thing: some of us aren’t serial transgressors. Some of us are pretty decent human beings. Some of us don’t quite fit the category of Sinner. Not that I would be the right one to cast the first stone….

I guess what the evangelicals really believe is the End justifies the Means. And if Donald J. Trump is the vehicle to put the Christian God back in the courthouse and our schoolrooms, well, sir, he must be an instrument of the Lord who, as we have too often been told, works in mysterious ways. The Path of Righteousness for these folks is a 10 lane interstate if you want prayer back in our courthouses and the 10 commandments in stone out front at the entrance. And don’t forget the Nativity Scene at Christmas. This is what the Lord wants. He wants a state religion, not the perversion of a polytheologic universe where we have the right to believe what we want without persecution.

The Christian Taliban think otherwise. And now they have their crusader in the White House. Fine. We’ll weigh in on that next election. In the meantime, don’t hand me that nonsense about all of us being sinners. Hypocrisy may not be a sin, but it doesn’t feel compatible with what we used to call Truth.

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I read a letter to the editor recently from a newly minted graduate of our school system railing about that same school system as mostly purveyors of communist propaganda. It forced him to learn about Islam, he complained, but didn’t teach the Bible. It taught him Egyptian history but never, not once, mentioned Moses parting the Red Sea. Apparently his science teachers wouldn’t touch it either, afraid, probably it would subvert the shaky foundations of rationalism.

I’ve lived here long enough to remember when those commies used to bring in Creationist speakers and when evolution was fairly taboo, days our Graduate would like to bring back. Religion, I’ve learned the hard way, is a tough subject to tiptoe around. Any religion. Just not an amusing topic for the True Believer. So mostly I just pick a safer target and hope not too many toes are stepped on.

But I hafta say, in a country that vents mightily about the Taliban or extreme Muslimism, it is troubling to realize the folks who hate the false gods and beliefs of others would gladly set up their own religious schools and maybe make 2nd class citizens of their Jewish classmates or their Sikh or Hindu or B’hai or Buddhist or Catholic or …. well, anybody but their particular sect. They want freedom of religion all right. Theirs, not yours.

I wish religion WAS the opiate of the masses, but sadly, it’s the testosterone. Maybe if we didn’t have religious beliefs to fight about, we’d wage wars over scientific dogma instead. The Big Bangers vs. the Multi-Dimensionalists. Eat this theory, blasphemer!!

Facts, though, don’t seem to matter, just fervent faith. I can’t prove it … so what? I believe it so it’s true. Obama’s a Muslim, evolution is a fraud, the moon landing was hoax, God is a Christian, the universe sits on the back of a tortoise, aliens are among us, the world banking system is controlled by Zionists, the Stanwoodopolis school system is a communist conspiracy.

It’s nice to know that our taxes have done a fine job educating our children. I think they’ll be more than ready to take their place in society. Sometimes, honest to your God, even on the South End, there’s no place to hide from these people.

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