Source article by Max Blumenthal

“Clear all your sins
Get Born Again
Just repeat a couple lines…”

-Alice in Chains

I wish the second and third pages of that article would load. The larger source material is about how evangelicals combined with neocons kneecapped the Republican party. As it stands, this is a frightening opener to a compelling tale. This is a story about Matthew Murray, a real life Carrie (Stephen King) who had quite dogmatic Pentecostal parents. It destroyed him. He was essentially a prisoner in his own home, the warden(s) convinced they were doing the right thing for their child and really only servicing themselves (again) Didn’t I already call this type of behavior out? Just to confirm: your children will become rational adults eventually. They are your offspring, for you to guide, but they are not currency or weapons or tape recorders. (editor’s note: as you can see, food escaped the ‘bad list’) It is irresponsible of you to live vicariously through your children or to govern over their lives in a dictatorial fashion.

Let’s take a look at Mr. Murray’s situation:

“Pastors would always come and interrogate me over video games or TV watching or other things. There were NO FRIENDS outside the church and family and even then only family members who were in the church. You could not trust anyone at all because anyone might be a spy.”
“We couldn’t have ANY christian or non-christian music at all except for a few charismatic worship CDs. There was physical abuse in my home. My mother although used psychotropic drugs…”

A few compelling notes about his “escape from Egypt” as it were, into the secular world:

1. After such an upbringing, he still sought a religious experience. Somewhat unfortunately, he couldn’t embrace the concept of Secular Humanism because of its lack of divine presence. He resorted to a quite metal choice of Satanism, Aleister Crowley’s own texts and screeds. While worshipping the opposite force is a significant change, it was still monotheistic and was fairly predictable in terms of dogma.
2. The confused and angry young man searched for meaning in the darkest corners of perversion and drug abuse. Spiraling out of control, akin to a woman wearing neck rings finally cut free. He plunged deep into reality and probably found shit on a few occasions. This state of absolute rebellion was freeing but it was a zero sum solution. Now he was distancing himself from the herd in the opposite direction. Driven to the brink of insanity by personal struggle.
3. The story I’m able to access ends on a cynical young man possibly entering a Post-Pentecostal treatment camp, because it’s such a fucking problem that people need support groups to feel normal.

WHAT THE FUCK MAN? These parents turn their children into animals! Under the guise of ‘god’s plan,’ they force their children into tiny tiny boxes with no escape. (Not saying this doesn’t happen in secular families.)

“Murray’s mind became crowded with thoughts of death, destruction, and the killings he would soon carry out in the name of avenging what he called his “nightmare of Christianity.”

…

Shocking stuff! And all the more shocking that Republicans would get swept under by a pack of vicious sex perverts and criminals. Good lord, politics is a dirty game and when an entire party fashions itself around a “moral agenda,” then they get busted jerking off in the bathroom, leaking out of their mistresses, popping pills, popping prostitutes, popping gay prostitutes… What I’m saying is, it’s hard to get behind this “Moral Majority.”

As a wise man (ex-roommate of mine) once said, “I would never vote for Sarah Palin, cause I wouldn’t vote for someone who I know has been fucked in the ass.” My associate has also made it known he did not vote for the Clintons (either of them) due to the same rationale.

And the Republicans didn’t seem too bothered by this usurping. The abusive neoconservative movement, the byproduct of hegemonic arrogance and warmongering.. more a direct result of people who were deeply invested in the military industrial complex, deeply invested period. It comes from people who intuit the correct path instead of studying it. Hope in the absence of effort. And it got a lot of ‘Merica on its side because it kept invoking the name of jesus, and the cause of god’s will.

Let me speak directly to every pretentious human on Earth who is ‘in touch’ with god’s will: You insignificant maggot, you don’t have the cognitive ability to comprehend One One-Trillionth of one percent of a divine plan or wisdom. Don’t pretend to even be cognizant of it at work or that it exists in a form you would ever be able to possibly understand. You are HUMAN. You are an ANIMAL with the RIGHT TO DREAM but that does not make it FACTUAL.

The appropriate metaphor is a butterfly meteorologist. It would be absurd to go to a butterfly for a forecast, because it lacks the ability to comprehend or think critically. However, the butterfly could shape weather events theoretically by flapping its wings, so it would be appropriate to consider it a factor in the weather, but it generally comes down to a guessing game and if you guess correctly you’re doing pretty well.

The message in all of this is: You can be a rational person. A helpful person. A Civilian. You don’t need religion to make you decent. It was helpful 2000 years ago, but through the correct socializations, you can make good with the absence of god. It doesn’t require extensive homeschooling invented by bastards, it doesn’t take the destruction of secular productions (like Mr. Murray earlier, he had some $900 of personal property destroyed by men doing ‘god’s will’) or a war against nonbelievers.

If you strive to take the Bible literally, there are some pretty serious changes that need to be made.

(Here’s an Amazon link to the book that’s referenced in the above article about absurd Biblical rules)