Most of us were raised to be tolerant of people’s beliefs.  But is there no limit to tolerance?  In one of the books I reviewed on this site, American Fascists, Chris Hedges asks the question, ‘In a tolerant society do we tolerate intolerance?’  Most religious institutions are intolerant to a greater or lesser degree.  Perhaps we should be more clear.  I may be able to tolerate your intolerance if you keep it to yourself.  If it does not infringe on the lives of others then okay be as bigoted as you want to be.  Actually there is no way to stop someone from thinking intolerant thoughts anyway.  But we can, and should, stop the political menace of organized religion.  Believe in the Easter Bunny, believe in Santa Claus or believe in god but don’t translate that into the oppression of other people. 

Some people, I am sure are thinking that I am going overboard.  After all the church does a lot of good doesn’t it.  I don’t know.  Does it?  Ask the gay and lesbian community here whether they believe the church does them a lot of good.  Ask our aboriginal communities what they think of the church after the experience of residential schools.  Or ask the thousands of men and women who lost their innocence in a choir loft to a man of the cloth who told them it was what god wanted.  Maybe we should take off the blinders and lose the guilt trip and look at organized religion in the clear light of the facts. 

What has sent me off here is the recent announcement by the Pope, der Führer of the Roman Catholic Church, who has just enlightened the world that condoms do nothing to help the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Christian Churches, particularly the mainstream Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, have been making great inroads into Africa.  Africa also happens to be where HIV/AIDS is most prevalent for a number of reasons.  These churches reinforce and promote social attitudes that contribute to this prevalence.  Lack of proper medical treatment, including the drugs necessary to keep patients alive, and lack of anything more than symbolic assistance from the wealthy industrialized world is doing enough damage on a continent struggling to overcome the legacies of colonialism and cold war.  We don’t need a bunch of holy rollers encouraging the disempowerment of women in the name of a Jewish revolutionary that DIED 2000 years ago.  As for the silly story of him coming back to life you can read a better version of it in Egyptian mythology, written another 2000 years before he supposedly showed up.  The resurrection story was common among early civilizations.  So pick your favourite but don’t use it to commit mass murder. 

The suffering caused by these institutions is in no way allayed by any positive contribution they make.  They give virtually nothing to society.  Any small assistance those in need receive is accompanied at the very least by a healthy dose of degradation.  Actually that is what the christian church is all about.  Everything human is evil and must be overcome.  We, each of us, individually are worthless.  Only by suppressing our humanity can we hope for salvation.  Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses.  It is kind of like life insurance, you have to die to win.  The more you suffer and endure during your lifetime, the more your reward in heaven is the pitch line.  You know that bit about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven.  But since there is no god there is no heaven and so I don’t think it is noble to suffer here while others enrich themselves.  Actually as I look at the suffering endured by so many people in this world, if there was a god I would personally kill the son of a bitch. 

“God being everything, the real world and man are nothing.  God being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death.  God being master, man is the slave.  Incapable of finding justice, truth, and eternal life by his own effort, he can attain them only through a divine revelation.  ….. Slaves of God, men must also be slaves of Church and State, in so far as the State is consecrated by the Church.  ……

The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice.” 

Michael Bakunin from God and the State

It is time to throw off the shackles and break the political power of religion once and for all.  If we do not, millions will continue to suffer while the religious elite continue to sanctimoniously enrich themselves.  Church leaders should be imprisoned alongside the other drug dealers.  The menacing fairy tale these pushers peddle has claimed more lives than heroine, crack cocaine and all other narcotics combined.