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X Games (Part II) Don’t get me wrong. I am very pro-Creator. I have even procreated a couple of times. But this holiday season, we can all share in the joy that comes from hating, to the marrow of our bones, the religious extremists on the other side of the globe who have wreaked havoc on our embassies, our interests, and our way of life. For religious extremists, the laugh has been replaced by the sneer. Reflection by fear. Thought by obedience. Compassion by decree. Compromise by assault. Reason by recital. Cooperation by intimidation. Holiness by holes. Persuasion by persecution. Respect by disdain. Calm by numbness. Ethics by conspiracy. Sermons by diatribes. Love by allegiance. Religious extremists are unhip, uncool, and utterly unable to wing it. They religiously abstain from pulling over to help someone on the side of the road. When you need some basic human assistance, a religious extremist is the last person you will call. They believe children of different denominations playing together have it wrong. They aspire to a perfect world but have destroyed their own families. Like alcoholics, drug addicts, and rapists, they took something good and made it bad. They guard round the clock against fornication, because that’s all they think about. They soothe their Oedipal complex by blowing up a train. Let all the world know—this is what happens when undersexed young men pass most of their waking hours fighting the urge to masturbate. The God thing is just an afterthought. They are working on their own big bang. They just need a fuse, and “God” sounds a lot more noble than “Girl.” If they are so pure, how do they know so much about explosives? Their idea of tolerance is detonating a building during off hours. At their worst, they create bereaved parents. At their best, they die violently at their own hands, alone. Here’s a prayer for you—may your bombs go off early. Way early. Happy New Year. Religious extremists loathe over 90 percent of God’s children but typically reserve their greatest wrath for heretics within their own sect. They stake everything on being right and happen not to be. They forgive no one, with the possible exception of themselves, and then only during self-immolation. Religious extremists are destined for the greatest disappointment death has to offer. Religious extremism in the name of God is indeed a vice. The trait they pride themselves on most, self-discipline, is precisely the trait they sorely lack. The self-discipline required to absorb a personal blow, regroup, make subtle adjustments, and transform the experience into a positive one is perhaps the only form of self-discipline of any real value, and it is absent in them like remorse in Scott Peterson. Religious extremists require a constant stream of easy answers, whether or not they are mere fiction. In their mindless, greedy rush to a refuge they have named “heaven,” there is no room for serious contemplation or discernment. In the formidable game of life, they are Little Leaguers waving blindly at big league fastballs, hoping somehow, just once, to connect. All religious extremists pray to glorified versions of themselves. Their God is not a formless, all-powerful, benign entity radiating wisdom and sustenance to the mass of humanity. Their God is more likely a wiry Wahabi with a turban and an AK-47—basically them without the irrational fear of soap. But they are not just there. They are here too. Here, they are seething in rush hour traffic. Here, their personal problems are attributed to liberals, gays, and the guy whose daughter married an Episcopalian. They go to mosques, churches, synagogues, and congressional subcommittee meetings. They have names like McVeigh and Klebold. But here, most are too enamored of big- screen TVs and bowling night to take that final, irreversible step. Religious extremists on this side despise their religious extremist counterparts on the other side, yet would themselves be rabid and virulent on the other side if not for an accident of birth. They are simply at opposite end zones of the misanthropy Super Bowl. And beneath it all, there is an unspoken, grudging admiration for their opponent: Right attitude, wrong book. Click here to rant back. |