Posted by Sir Four at 2:40pm Dec 29 '04Not mine; found on kuro5hin.org, on the topic of barring religious symbols from public display:
christianity is a religion like any other, with radical political interpretations, and mundane daily cultural elements
like parades and holidays and funny provincial styles of clothing
and, like any other religion in history, it's violent bloody downfall is precipitated by emphasizing its radical political interpretations... and its continued peaceful existence is achieved through emphasizing it's mundane daily cultural elements
christianity is not special as compared to any other religion lke judaism or islam: it's a spectrum of ideology from inflammatory to banal, just like any other religion
it's just that right now in the world, there certainly are a lot of motherfuckers on the inflammatory end of things who wish nonbelievers to be dead and are willing to die for the cause
they will of course therefore, die, and burn themselves out, leaving the banal harmless elements of islam and christianity and judaism to continue existing
so all that remains for us infidels to do is make sure they take out as few of us as possible as they realize their death wish
so how do you do this? well, for one, stop fucking overreacting: let the more peaceful side of their religion have their funny parades and holidays... enjoy them even, they are enjoyable in a sort of tourist in a foreign land sort of way... when in the future religion has been completely pacified and becomes just another funny provincial cultural source of expression, what you see in terms of parades and floats and funny dress is exactly what religion will be: so why fight that?
so again: don't fight the floats, fuck the floats, they mean nothing... they are symbolic of something greater only if you insist harmless displays of culture are actually ominous shows of religious imperialism... wrong, they are not, it's a red herring, ignore it, you only waste your energies fighting that... and, in fact, by inflating the signifiance of such banal meaningless things, you actually lose the fight against fundamentalist inotlerance: you look as fascist as the religious bigots with your emphasis on opposing minor details and nitpicks... and what is the point of replacing religious fundamentalism with some sort of secular humanist fundamentalism?
the point is to get all controlling assholes out of our daily lives, not replace one ancient form of controlling assholes with a new sect of controlling assholes, no matter what "god" of godlessness is professed by the fascist kind of secular humanist... that's funny, because even as the fascist flavor of secular humanism declares their godlessness as loudly and fetishlistically in devotion, they sound more and more like a fundamentalist religion
so what do you do? again, ignore the banal cultural displays please, but: do fight the anti-gay legislation, fight the radical political ideological side of fundamentalist christianity in your society, and in muslim and jewish societies abroad (all human beings should be cared for equally, not just those who live next door... fighting the fundie christian while falling silent on the fundie muslim, or visa versa, is not moral or just)
beat the politically active, fascist imperial fundie chirstians and fundie moslems and fundie jews with a stick... because this side of religion will kill our societies, will make us poor, will reduce us to a permanent state of war
so: ignore the fucking floats my friends, that is a red herring, but please increase the fight on the fucking political fundies.