This past week shocked for many. I am astounded by just how wrong I was about this election cycle in the total underestimation of Republican domination. I will not make that mistake again! Having spent the last few days ruminating on this loss, I find myself falling back to my core vision of the social, political, and economic woes of this country — Christianity.
I never cared much for politics, having viewed it as low brow as a fist fight over the title of Fry Guy at a fast food restaurant. Government leadership should be a mundane administrative task concerned with infrastructure issues and budget allocations. Don’t get me wrong! I have great respect for leaders like Kamala Harris, AOC, Joe Biden, and many others. They deal with other countries, trade agreements, and host of domestic and global issues, and with the most ineffective congress I have ever witnessed. Consider for a moment how inefficient and completely doomed for failure any company or organization would be if it spent all its time fighting over what is morally correct? The conservative strategy to resist anything by democrats has almost halted daily administration by moralizing every issue for the last decade. How have they done this you ask? You guessed it — Christianity.
Not that I care, but if it makes them feel better and listen, I’ll use the term ‘religion’ so as not to offend the Christians. The fact, I and everyone else in the US, must generalize ‘religion’ should speak volumes since Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, groups like immigrants (legal or illegal), and other single digit percentages of population lack voting power over social problems and cannot demand to be genericized into single term like religion. Still, this is America, and what the majority says, goes. If they say those peoples’ religion, culture, or ideology is the problem, well, it must be an issue, or a much more serious problem exists in America.
Religion Puts People In The Know
As an atheist, I consider myself objective. Now, religious people scoff because I reject religion, therefore making me biased in their view. However, objectivity is not defined by entertaining nonsense. I don’t need to consider a myth of elves secretly living in my basement when making decisions about how to renovate the house. Similarly, when evaluating lawmaking, I don’t need to reference a two thousand year-old book about a god who crucified his son after forcing a woman to give that son birth so everyone could somehow be saved from sin. Again, this is America, and if the majority says we need to give credence to the God, His son, and the Good Book when making decisions, well, then they must be correct or else the majority of Americans have been rendered irrational by their own beliefs.
No, a state of mass delusion or irrationality could not exist because the majority says otherwise. Clearly, the religious people are in the know with a 20/10 vision of the future based on a desire for Jesus infused lawmaking and policies. They see where this new era of Republicanism and bottom-line thinking is headed because their leaders are honest and caring people. More than that, these religious people have a strategy to make things better.
Don’t worry, I am not going to recite a litany of lies, corruption, and outright immorality. We have endured a lifetime of that, and more importantly, listing facts did nothing to dissuade conservatives from making the wrong decision. More than a useless act, arguing facts likely led to this election outcome because the deluded mind will always twist reality to fit their fantasy. No other reason for the majority of religious people, who believe they are fighting a moral war, explains their electing a repugnant, habitual liar, and convicted felon to be their champion.
Now as I was saying, these religious people are in the know and see through all the facts to the true reality. As I also stated, I believe myself to be objective and going by what the MAGA/religious believe, I must be the deluded one living in a fantasy world. So if I am a deluded progressive atheist, then I am sure that the religious majority can prove this by showing me how ‘in the know’ they are compared to me.
For example, their champion told them his plans to deregulate crypto, and more importantly, to create a digital reserve like gold and other assets the US holds, so the faithful could benefit from buying Bitcoin prior to the election he was sure to win. Surely, all his devotees profited from their hero as I did. He did tell them!
Yes, unbelievably, I managed to eke out some benefit from this election, but I did it the ass-backward way of thinking things through with my biased thought process. See, on election night, I realized early the race was not going as hoped and decided to watch the crypto exchange because if the election went south for my candidate, it would mean a windfall from crypto.
I needed to invest!
How did I know this outcome awaited? Well, because the religious, God-fearing hero told everyone he would make America the “bitcoin and cryptocurrency capital of the world”. I somehow deduced a price rise in bitcoin from knowing what he said, the fact that he dabbles in selling digital goods, the likelihood that he owns crypto (rumored $5 million dollars worth), and the belief that he is a selfish narcissist who only thinks about himself. Amazingly, my inane thinking led to the same conclusions that all those new religious crypto investors already knew.
Obviously, the religious knew about this option since their hero stated he would do it, and obviously they invested, otherwise, they somehow missed a vital economic boost, which seems unlikely considering the economy and cost of living were their primary voting concerns, right? Yes, all those religious people are now just a little more affluent in the days after the election, evidenced by their joy for their win.
Sadly, most of the religious did not invest for having a total unawareness of their champion.
Even sadder is the conservative theology that guides the success of adherents that professes the profound claims:
If any of these religious people did not make money, well its their fault for not listening to their leader.
Its their fault for not having enough investment capital, even if it is as little as $25 a month.
It is their fault for not praying hard enough or having enough faith in Jesus.
It is just another vicious, deliberate act of the liberals. Biden did it!
Yes it must be the liberals who stole this investment opportunity, not the total obliviousness of the religious follower to their reality.
In the election’s aftermath, accusations hurl between Democrats, even the sitting President in cognitive decline is targeted. They blame branding, money spent wrongly, not enough money, the voters, the nonvoters… the list goes on in a battle to blame the Fry Guy, but maybe, just maybe the fault resides in the thing no one is blaming. Maybe, just maybe, religion’s obvious presence in the media, both parties, and in the key issues exposes its pretzel logic that knots one’s worldview in faulty decision making and oversimplifications, such as blaming the immigrant for stealing nonexistent jobs and the President for inflating the cost of milk, not the cost of a global pandemic. This election defeat should inform everyone that religion is not just a problem but that religion is not progressive and you cannot be progressive if you are religious.
As with the crypto investment staring you in the face, religion blinds you to the obvious. People argue, “I don’t understand crypto.” “It’s too technical.”
Do you really believe a guy who thinks bleach cures COVID understands the tech behind crypto? Of course not, and, I cannot emphasize this point enough — doesn’t need to understand.
Now emerges another obvious idea from religion’s labyrinth: the least important factor of financial success is intelligence. While hard work helps, almost every success traces to single or multiple strokes of luck that propel the person to affluence. If you don’t know or believe this fact, you may be suffering the pretzel brain of religion, but more importantly, you miss the next obvious deduction: if being rich is not based on intellect, maybe, just maybe, choosing leaders based on their affluence by trading your values for thirty pieces of silver — you are unlikely to get — is a tragically bad idea.
Too many tragically bad ideas exist in the religious mind’s void, making our path clear as progressives.
The Progressive Path
This election cycle expanded my view of progressive thinking beyond political, religious, and societal leanings. To be progressive now seems more intrinsic than extrinsic in the failure to awaken conservatives to their self-destructive dogma. To accuse religious people of being regressive steals the severity of their backwardness. Even if these individuals were to quit their religion, they would likely spend years still believing many fallacies and myths.
Correcting people’s thoughts for the rest of my life holds no appeal.
To be truly progressive is to find new solutions, not to get others to join a political bandwagon. In fact, politics is not the tool of engagement needed because as progressives — we know already who to vote for that best reflects our values since we possess a strong grasp of morality and lack the dissonance of trying to reconcile beliefs with a nonsensical foundation of thought. As individuals we need to adapt and change or perish in the regressive thinking retarding over half our country. Showing religion’s damage alone does not solve the problems it has inflicted. We need answers. Following this progressive path means reprioritizing efforts to provide others with the tools they need to critically think, prosper, be more creative, and to live in peace. To this end, bringing new innovations, wisdom, and actionable alternatives to the individual will be the goal.
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