The atrocities of September 11 have created a maelstrom of emotions inside me. Like most Americans, I'm pretty darn angry. Actually, I'm angry about several things. Many of them have nothing to do with the subjects appropriate to this forum, so I'll save those rants for other pages of this site. But there are a few things that are perfectly fitting for this page.
The President decreed that Friday, September 14, would be a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance. This came as no surprise to anyone. As my readers know, I would normally be up in arms about the government proclaiming an official day of prayer, since such a thing is in violation of the Constitution, not to mention utterly inappropriate for the more than fifty million Americans who do not pray. But this was different, I initially told myself. People are going to pray, they're going to turn to their religion because of the sheer enormity of all this. This proclamation wasn't something I was going to ridicule, beyond saying something pithy like, "Of course Bush would do such a thing."
And when the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an organization I've belonged to for most of a decade, immediately issued a statement on the inappropriateness of this proclamation, I thought maybe they should've just let it go. It's one thing to protest an arbitrary National Day of Prayer, or National Bible Week, and quite another to make a fuss over such a proclamation during a time of unimaginable public grief. It was, I told myself, petty.
But as time wore on, and Friday approached, I came to realize just how wrong I was. This is exactly the sort of thing I should be speaking out against. For the only thing worse than arbitrarily proclaiming a National Day of Prayer is using a national tragedy as an excuse to do so. And that is exactly what Bush has done.
It's no secret that injecting religion into government is one of his primary goals. Although it's entirely likely that Bush never gave any thought to the fact that he could just as easily have proclaimed a National Day of Remembrance without inserting the word "prayer" in there. The effect would have been absolutely identical. After all, people don't need to be told to pray. They don't need to be told to "remember," either, for that matter, but at least this minor change in the proclamation wouldn't run the risk of offending a large chunk of the population, not to mention totally ignoring that whole "separation of church and state" thing.
I hesitate to say that this was a deliberate manipulation on the part of the President. Rather, I think such a thing was just automatic for him. Religion is so much a part of his life, so much a part of his plan for America, that he simply did it without thinking. But that's the point here. It's his job to consider such things. As President, he represents all Americans, not just religious Americans. And, of course, he has an obligation to support the law of the land... including that whole "separation of church and state" thing.
But let's look at this more cynically for a moment...
The fact is, as FFRF's statement said, that prayer had its chance. I could be wrong, but I suspect that quite a lot of people on those four jetliners were praying for God to save them. I'm guessing that most of the thousands of people still missing in the rubble of the World Trade Center probably did a lot of praying after the jets hit. That's an awful lot of praying going on.
And yet, God did nothing to prevent this atrocity, even though it was certainly within his alleged abilities. Even though he allegedly knew ahead of time that it was going to happen. He just allowed it to happen.
So why exactly are we supposed to pray now? For what purpose? Are we expecting him to change his mind and maybe have a lot of survivors? I hate to say it, folks, but many of those thousands of bodies were pulverized beyond hope of identification. If the force of those buildings collapsing could turn concrete, glass, and steel to dust… what do you think it did to frail flesh and bone?
But what about those maybe in pockets within the rubble, or even lying underground in the adjacent subway caverns or sub-basements? Sure, there could be some. But as I write this, it's been five days since the towers' collapse. Five days without water. And it will be a lot longer before the rubble is cleared away even close to the lower areas.
No… God isn't going to perform any miracles. And as I've said before, prayer only helps the one doing the praying, and even that is pretty superficial.
What really bothers me most about the whole situation, I think, is that very few people will actually stop and look at this objectively. Very few will look at the mass destruction and horrific loss of life and realize that if there is a God, he sure has an odd way of displaying his infinite love, mercy, and compassion. Very few will look at this and realize the truth. Rather, they'll continue to pray, even though at the end of all the praying, thousands of people will still be dead. All this will still be horribly real.
But wait! There's more religious crap to offend you!
In light of the terrorist attacks, Jerry Falwell said this on The 700 Club:
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."
Naturally, there was an outrage by people in these groups, and Falwell later issued an apology. In a phone call to CNN, he said, "I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize." He issued a similar apology on his website.
Jerry Falwell is a liar, as well as an asshole. He meant every single word in his blame game. Frankly, I'm amazed that he didn't include atheists, but he probably thinks even worse thoughts about us. Falwell's apology is empty, because anyone who knows anything about the man knows he didn't mean it. He constantly uses his hate-filled rhetoric to defame all the above groups. As Lorri L. Jean, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said: Falwell, like so many other right-wing religious lunatics, "preach[es] hate against those who do not think, live, or love in the exact same way he does."
Well said, Lorri.
And finally...
I couldn't in good conscience finish this article without mentioning the fact that this entire situation is bathed in religion. Osama bin Laden is a fundamentalist Muslim. He has issued fatwahs (holy edicts) against America and its people. The Taliban is now preparing for a "holy war" against the United States.
While it is true, unquestionably, that the Taliban and bin Laden are not typical examples of Muslims, no more than Falwell is a typical example of a Christian, the point is that it is easy to twist "that old time religion" to support actions that are atrocious. Both the Old Testament and the Koran are books that contain clear examples of committing unspeakable acts in the name of God. And that's essentially what's been done here.
Yes, the terrorists' motives were politically inspired. But they were religiously justified. Were they capable of destroying our entire nation, every last one of us, they could still easily justify this genocide using their "holy" books.
Because the Koran, like the Bible, is a man-made book of atrocity after atrocity in the name of deity, sprinkled here and there with warm-fuzzy-inducing niceties. And the gullible followers of these faiths will focus on those niceties and somehow rationalize away all the atrocities.
And when these atrocities are brought into present day, as they were on September 11th, they will blame them on what? The devil? Human sinning? Megalomania?
Some will blame Islam, of course. But Timothy McVeigh was a devout Christian. That didn't stop him from committing mass murder. And he could justify his actions just as easily with the Bible as these terrorists can using the Koran.
Religion is not the main culprit, here. But it certainly added fuel to the fire of fanaticism.
