Second-Hand Safety
by Velda Ann Schauung,
president,
Canadians Organized to Reinforce Protection of Security Everywhere
May 31, 2006
We've all heard about the dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke, and our governments are ever vigilant to protect us against it. Ontario and Quebec, for example, have just started enforcing stricter laws against smoking in public. Now a leaked report suggests that the European Union will soon be undertaking a campaign against second-hand drinking, by which is meant the collateral damage associated with drinking alcohol – murder, assault, traffic deaths, and so on. So we can probably look forward to booze bottles being decorated with labels reading something like:
CAUTION: Do not drink if you feel like murdering someone..Well, however the labels read, no doubt this is just the thin edge of the wedge. As an article on our sister site points out, once something's been successful in one place it ends up being used every place, regardless of whether or not it continues to work. Soon we will be being warned about the second-hand dangers of hundreds of everyday items. Eventually the warnings will be so common that we'll start ignoring them, so we at CORPSE believe that the next area in which we fight second-hand dangers should be an important one.Specifically, we believe we should be fighting the dangers of second-hand religion. An initiative in this domain should be successful, given that at the moment the religious racketeers are under no control whatever.
For example, when was the last time you saw a church with this posted on the door:
WARNING: Exposure of your children to the clergy in this building may result in the exposure of the clergy in this building to your childrenor this:WARNING: If God was all-powerful, would He really need to take a collection?Mosques could come with something like this:WARNING: Advocating or exercising the values of a pluralistic society in the presence of members of this congregation may result in worldwide orgies of property damage and murder.And wouldn't it be nice if, every time 700 Club came on, we read "WARNING: If the host of this show disagrees with you he may advocate your assassination to his followers."?
I know what many of you are thinking – "Why, fighting the dangers of second-hand religion would be a great idea if only it weren't for that pesky notion of freedom of religion! Surely people must be allowed to practise their religion without restriction!"
Well, first of all, no one's advocating that we restrict religion. The last time I checked, child abuse, arson, and murder were not sanctioned by the supposed tenets of Christianity or Islam or any other major religion. Secondly, no one is advocating that we restrict the religious, just that the rest of us be given fair warning of what the religious might get up to so we can keep an eye open. Finally, we already restrict the religious – Muslims aren't allowed to have more than one wife, for example, although their religion allows them to.
Nothing advocated here would prevent the religious from promoting their fantastic delusions or practising their strange rites. In fact, we will probably go on giving the religious more leeway than we do other people. For example, if a psychic surgeon charges you a fee to remove diseased organs without making an incision, he's charged with fraud or with practising medicine without a licence. When an evangelist says that if he lays his hands on you, you'll be cured of whatever ails you, he's considered a spiritual leader. A priest who charges you a fee to pray for the soul of a dead relative can't prove that your relative's soul is in purgatory, he can't prove that if your dead relative's soul is in purgatory that praying for it will result in its moving to heaven, and he can't prove that either purgatory or heaven exists. But the priest is considered not only an upright citizen but a moral exemplar.
And there's this guy in Rome who claims to be incapable of error when he makes a decision about faith or morals. If you or I claimed that people would laugh in our faces, but once again government and the press act as if this kook is a spiritual leader.
Once we are protected against second-hand religion, the religious will be as free as ever to practise their strange blend of superstition, wishful thinking, credulousness, ignorance, and hypocrisy. It's just that while they're practising it they will no longer pose a deadly threat to decent ungodly people.
Second-Hand Safety © John FitzGerald, 2006
Click the banner or click here for ACTUAL ANALYSIS
Commentary | Home