I was listening to the self-titled CD by Amanda Marshall, recently. (Great stuff, by the way.) On her song, "Last Exit to Eden," there's a line that goes, "Some fool is raging overhead, preaching the gospel according to Johnny Walker Red."
It's a good line, one I've heard dozens of times before, but on this day it made me think about the fact that many people under the influence of alcohol do tend to get all righteous and preachy. And I wondered why.
Now, I've been around a lot of intoxicated people in my time. I went to college, after all. But I never encountered any drunken college students who raved about sin and repentance. Not one. Oh, we had those people. They were on street corners, and on the steps of certain buildings on campus. Whether they were drunk or not, I couldn't say. But they were under the influence of something.
The alcoholic personality is an interesting case study, and not too dissimilar to the zealot personality. I'm certainly not the first person to point out that both are addiction disorders. For some, it's a chemical dependency; for others, it's the dependency on religion.
But is there more to it than this? I think so.
I think part of it is a desperate frustration, an inability to deal with the rigors of everyday existence. Some people turn to mind-altering substances to help take the edge off the world. Of course, sometimes the plan backfires and the individual becomes even more intimidated or morose.
Ditto with religion. For some, it helps them, as any crutch will do. Their faith gives them something to hope for, something to give their lives purpose. But for others, religion gives a reason to be afraid. They read of the wrath of God, of the (perpetually) imminent final days, of hell and damnation. They see wickedness wherever they look and blame it for what they feel is our impending destruction.
Hey, I know it's rough. For example, I subscribe to the email newsletter that Austin sends out as part of his role as guide for About.com's site on Agnosticism/Atheism. One of the recent ones was loaded with things that just depressed the bejeebies out of me. Even more than usual, that is.
Of course, the things that have that effect on me aren't the same ones that cause people to turn to religion. They're the things that are caused by religion, atrocities all over the world. I get frustrated, too, sometimes so much that I want nothing more than to vanish to some obscure island or mountain in the middle of nowhere. I want to wash my hands of the madness I see around me.
For what I see is a world under the influence of religion. To me, that's madness. I don't like to be around drunk people, whether or not they're proselytizing. And what I see now is a society intoxicated on intolerance, blitzed on bigotry, stoned on stupidity, shit-faced on faith.
I don't want to be around this society, but I have little choice. (Hiding out in the wilds would get a trifle boring in short order, I think.)
So I try, in my own limited way, to make this world a better place. I run my freethought group, write my articles, and my letters to the editor. And throughout it all, I maintain the hope that someday society will eventually wake up and smell the reason, kick the addictions, and walk without crutches.
