Godless And Free

by Pat Condell

  33.

  Hook, Line and Rapture

  January 8, 2008

  Hi everyone. We all know that it doesn’t have to make sense to make dollars and cents, and nobody knows this better than Mr Pat Robertson, the well-known televangelist, who for a while now has been broadcasting to Britain his familiar Christian message: Send us your money in Jesus’ name.

  With a personal fortune estimated at between two hundred million and one billion dollars, this guy wants you to send your money to help him do God’s work. And no, he’s not joking.

  I understand that Mr Robertson doesn’t particularly like to be called a televangelist, although when you consider some of the names he could be called I think he’s getting away quite lightly with televangelist, don’t you?

  You may remember seeing him on television shortly after 9/11 agreeing with Jerry Falwell that the attack was caused by abortionists and lesbians, among others.

  Or perhaps you saw him publicly urge the assassination of the Venezuelan president, and although I’m sure we’d all agree that Mr Chavez has his faults, surely anyone that Pat Robertson wants dead can’t be all bad.

  But this is the kind of individual we’re talking about, a real man of Christ, and a former Republican presidential candidate, too, as so many men of Christ seem to be these days.

  But Mr Robertson is not just an ordinary religious wacko. To call him that would be to do him an injustice, because he’s a very special kind of wacko.

  Once a year he goes away to a prayer retreat where he talks to God, and yes, you’ve guessed it, God talks back to him.

  Now there was a time when this kind of thing would have been regarded as schizophrenia. I dunno, I guess I’m just old fashioned that way. But this is what he does, he gets these messages from God which he then passes on to the lucky viewers of his television show. A bit like Moses coming down from the mountain, I suppose, because this guy obviously wants to be a prophet so bad, I wonder if he walks around at home dressed up in a bedsheet and talking Aramaic, maybe parting the waters in the bathtub occasionally just to keep in practice.

  Last year’s message from God was actually quite a serious one. It was a prediction by God that America would suffer a major atrocity in 2007, and he didn’t mean that Fox News would be starting up a new channel.

  No, it would be terrorism, but not intellectual terrorism.

  And it might be nuclear. Or maybe even nucular, depending on your IQ.

  Well, here we are in 2008 and of course we’re all delighted that nothing like this has happened. I guess the abortionists and lesbians just couldn’t get their act together this time around.

  But it does beg a rather important question, and that is: If God got this prediction wrong, does this mean that God is fallible, or is he a liar? Because either one would render him imperfect, which is of course impossible, so we’re left to conclude, however uncomfortably, that it’s Mr Robertson himself who is either lying or delusional, or maybe even both. Because, you see, I happen to know for a fact that God does not exist, because he came to me recently in a dream and told me so.

  Oh yes. You believe in divine revelation, don’t you? Because I certainly do, now.

  Initially I was sceptical. Surprisingly, I even heard myself saying: “But God, if you don’t exist, how come you’re talking to me now?”

  And he said: “This is a dream, you prick.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with that, obviously. So I said: “Fair enough, but do you think I could at least have it in writing?”

  He said: “Yeah, why not? You can take this copy of the Bible.”

  I said: “What Bible? That’s just a blank piece of paper.”

  He said: “This is the non-fiction version.”

  And this is a true story, by the way. I know some of you are going to be sceptical about this, but please let me assure you that this is absolutely true. Well, when I say it’s true, it’s not true in the literal sense, obviously, but it would be if it were, which is, I think, the most important thing.

  It is true in another sense, in what we call the biblical sense. In other words it’s fantastically improbable and impossible to verify, so naturally I intend to live my life henceforth in strict accordance with it to the detriment of everyone around me, and I’d like everyone to respect that.

  I’d also like to preach this message high and low throughout the land to everyone who wants to hear it, and to everyone who doesn’t. And I’d like to continue preaching it at them over and over again whether they like it or not.

  I’d like to raise large amounts of revenue on the back of this activity, on which I would like to pay no tax.

  I’d like to see my views forced into the educational curriculum, disproportionately represented in the law of the land, and displayed prominently outside every court house, if that’s not too much trouble.

  And if anyone would like to join my organisation, because it will be an organisation by this stage, it will only cost them ten percent of everything they earn for the rest of their life.

  Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, for he has revealed the truth to me, that he is a figment of our imagination, and furthermore that Christianity is nothing but a primitive death cult masquerading as a religion.

  Everything about Christnity is stolen from earlier cultures, earlier belief systems. Nothing about it is real, except for its obsession with death. Christianity worships death as the ultimate sacrament. It revels in death. You might as well have death up there on the altar grinning down at you like a Halloween pumpkin, because that’s what you’re celebrating, not life. You could say that Christianity makes death worth living, which I think makes it the greatest con trick that’s ever been perpetrated on mankind, and there have been a few.

  And like all great cons, the sucker still thinks he’s going to take the big prize even while he’s standing there with his dick in his hand. Which is why there are Christians on this planet who have bought into this cult of death so completely that they actually want this world to end. They welcome things like global warming as a sign of approaching end times. Whenever there’s a natural disaster they sing hallelujah. They literally can’t wait to die.

  And in the meantime, millionaire men of Christ like Mr Robertson will be on hand to pray for their gullible souls all the way to the bank. Everyone’s a winner.

  Peace, and a happy rapture to one and all.

  34.

  O Dhimmi Canada

  January 19, 2008

  Well, once again free speech is under attack from a small group of Muslim fanatics, this time in Canada, where Maclean’s magazine is being hauled before a couple of laughably named “human rights commissions” for printing an article about the threat of militant Islam to our freedom in the West, and our bone-headed complacency in the face of it.

  A group of law students saw an opportunity to be offended by this, because they’ve been waiting for just such an opportunity, of course, and they pounced on it like pigs on truffles

  And they don’t want justice here, because they know that justice would tell them to go and screw themselves. What they want is legal victory, a completely different thing. And they’ve got that before the case is even heard, because even if it’s thrown out it will still incur great expense, for the defendants, for the magazine, not the plaintiffs – it will cost them precisely nothing.

  And, if precedent is anything to go by, it will be decided, not on whether there was any truth in the article, but on whether anyone’s precious feelings were hurt, or might have been hurt, and how certain members of the unelected commission feel about that.

  This case is important to all of us in the West, because if this is tolerated it will start to happen everywhere. Newspapers and magazines that are even mildly critical of political Islam will be under pressure to censor themselves or face another expensive law suit, brought at no cost, and with the complacent connivance of a guilt-ridden patronising liberal establishment of self-haters and hand-wringers who are so ashamed of thei
r own culture they can’t stop apologising for it, and who, in doing so, give us every reason to be ashamed.

  So what if a few fanatics are offended? It won’t do them any harm. It will give them a idea of how the rests feel when we are confronted with cases like this.

  On the other hand (and let’s face it, there’s always another hand, unless you’re a Saudi Arabian shoplifter, of course) hurt feelings can be quite traumatic. I’ve heard that it can take seconds, sometimes even minutes, to get over it. So I’m not a bit surprised that Canadians are sympathetic, because they’re a very warm and welcoming people, and I know this because I lived and worked there for several years.

  So I also know that they’re not fools, and they can see they’re being taken for a ride here, that their well-meant humanitarian laws are being twisted and used against them by people to whom the very idea of human rights is blasphemy.

  They can see that bringing this case is nothing but an act of legal terrorism, a lowdown dirty little stunt with no moral weight whatsoever, and that those who indulge it and who connive with it are not only making fools of themselves, they’re making a fool of their country, when they’d be far better employed focussing on the genuine human rights of young girls shipped off to forced marriages, or murdered for refusing to go.

  Do you want my opinion? No? Good. Here it is anyway.

  I think this cynical stunt will backfire. Far from intimidating people into silence, I think this will encourage free speech and make those of us who care about it doubly determined to speak out.

  Look what happened with the cartoons. The famous one with the turban bomb, that’s all over the internet now, and it will always be all over the internet. It will never go away. If they hadn’t made a fuss it would have been forgotten long ago.

  Every incident like this will simply put a little more steel into people’s resolve not to accommodate political Islam.

  We already know in our hearts there’s no reason why we should have to accommodate this repressive medieval ideology which most of us in the West frankly don’t want anywhere near our society, and we should be entitled to say that openly and freely without fear of persecution.

  Free speech is not negotiable. If we allow it to be compromised even slightly here they’ll continue to chip away at it by whining and complaining and suing until they’ve worn it right down. You know they will, and so do they. And if we let that happen our children will never forgive us.

  Some say that the western world is already well on its way to hell in a handbasket. Well, maybe not quite in a handbasket; we’ll have to wait and see if we can stretch the budget that far after Halliburton and Blackwater have taken their cut. But we are on a slippery slope. Freedom is cheap to us now, because we’re governed mainly by people of my generation who have never had to fight for the liberty they abuse in such a cavalier manner and take so much for granted.

  They don’t value it for themselves, because they don’t know its true value, and they certainly don’t value it for the likes of you and me.

  So, if you’re happy about that, and you’re content for your freedom to be filtered through other people’s narrow beliefs and prejudices, then you can roll over and go back to sleep now.

  But if, like me, you’re not happy about it and you hear somebody demanding special privileges based on their faith, then you’re entitled to let them know exactly what you think about their demands. You’ve got as much right to be offended as they have.

  The dhimmi human rights Stalinists will try to shut you up, of course, because free speech puts them out of a job. But if enough people speak out they can’t drag us all in front of their poxy commissions, their preposterous toytown star chambers. They can’t turn us all into criminals for having a free opinion in a free country.

  It’s utterly ridiculous that we should have to trip over other people’s unprovable beliefs every time we turn around. We treat the religious with more consideration than we treat the disabled. How long before the women on these absurd commissions start wearing headscarves out of respect? It can only be a matter of time.

  You know, I think ordinary Muslims in Canada who just want a peaceful life (as I know most of them do), I think they could argue that by taking on this bullshit case and giving it publicity it doesn’t deserve, the human rights commissions have themselves unnecessarily increased tensions and resentment towards Muslims and perhaps even made it more likely that they’ll be abused. And I think any Muslim who took that one on and who sued these unelected self-righteous nonentities right back into the cosy PC universe they live in would become an instant national hero. Ain’t that the truth, O Canada? Peace, eh?

  35.

  God the Psycho

  February 2, 2008

  I just had an e-mail from somebody who said: “I hope you find God in 2008”, which is a very positive sentiment, and thank you very much for that. However, I hope you’re wrong about it because from what I’ve heard about God and the way he likes to do things – particularly the kind of people he tends to attract – well, all these things have combined to make me hope he stays as far away from me as humanly, or inhumanly, possible.

  We are talking, of course, about the god of the desert, the god of death. And we know that all three desert dogmas are variations on the same death cult, and they all worship this same god of supposed love and benevolent mercy, which is presumably why they hate each other with such a violent passion. I don’t know, you’d have to ask them that.

  Collectively they’re known as the children of Abraham because Abraham is the original patriarch to whom they all trace themselves back. In fact, without Abraham’s influence there’s a chance that none of these dogmas would even exist today, which makes me wish there was some way that I could travel back in time and give him a severe talking to.

  “You stupid idiot,” I’d say. “Couldn’t you foresee what would happen? Some prophet you turned out to be.”

  Abraham is the person who originally decided that there would only be one god from here on in. One size fits all, that was his message. And this would have had quite a devastating effect on the god community at the time. All the gods of the rivers and the mountains and the woods and so on – the local small specialised gods that had served people so well for generations for g they would have found themselves squeezed out of the picture, or forcibly amalgamated into one giant elemental conglomerate with centralised control, a narrow moral code, and righteous vengeance in its heart.

  Even to this day it’s a matter of some conjecture whether this was the right direction for the human race to take at that particular time. The debate goes on.

  Appropriately, given the religions he spawned, Abraham was not particularly noted for his mental stability. He was famously prepared to kill his own son because he heard God telling him to.

  Fortunately, God intervened at the last second and stayed his hand, proving what a just and merciful god he is, if you ignore the severe psychological trauma he has just inflicted on these two unfortunate people. Scarred both of them for life, no question about that.

  But that’s pretty much par for the course, isn’t it, for the Old Testament. Everyone ends up scarred mentally, physically. Hardly anyone comes out in one piece.

  Look at the treatment dished out to Adam and Eve, the very first people on the planet. They were punished for being true to their nature, the very nature that God endowed them with. He knew they were curious, he knew they had to be curious to survive, so he knew that they would eat the apple.

  A cynical person might start to suspect that God only created us in the first place in order to punish us, because this is the first lesson we learn in Genesis – that being human is a sin. We were punished and driven from paradise for the sin of being true to our nature.

  But we pulled ourselves together and we started on the Tower of Babel,* because we wanted to get up to heaven and have a look round. We were being curious, doing what comes naturally. But God didn’t like that much either, so he punished us by dest
roying our language.

  So here we are, we’re barely a few pages into the Bible and already we’ve taken two massive body blows from our loving and merciful god.

  Shortly after this he floods the entire planet because somebody must have looked at him the wrong way. He does tip off one person to build a boat, because obviously he doesn’t want everybody wiped out, otherwise there’d be nobody left to punish.

  Now I can understand somebody would read the Bible for pleasure because it’s arguably a great work of literature; it’s certainly an interesting cultural artifact, but it’s not the word of God, and it’s really time that we stopped pretending that it is, or even that it might be.

  God is the main character in the book, and if you read it you’ll quickly see this. He’s an interesting personality, if a little crudely drawn. He’s basically an attempt to put a human face on the creative life force, but unfortunately we’ve saddled him with all our petty prejudices and made him a bit too human for our own good. Because one thing I’ve noticed is that being human really only works for humans. It doesn’t transfer at all well to deities. Human gods tend to be wilful, violent and unpredictable in a shallow ego-driven kind of way. The only thing boundless about them is their eagerness to take offence, like so many of the sensitive souls who worship them.

  But if you’re loog for offence, well then look no further than the Bible, surely one of the most offensive books that you could read, unless you believe that adulterers should be killed, or that it’s OK to sell your daughter into slavery, or that anyone who works on the Sabbath should be stoned to death on the spot.

  Maybe you’re fine with all that. Or with the fact that God repeatedly advocates mass murder. Granted, he doesn’t specifically mention cluster bombs and cruise missiles, but no doubt this is where the fine art of biblical interpretation comes in.

  This guy’s got a track record that would make Saddam look like Gandhi. In Deuteronomy 13, according to God, if you hear of a city where another god is worshipped you must kill everybody in that city; men, women, children, babies, even cattle. And then you must burn that city to the ground. Oh, and by the way, thou shalt not kill.