The religious violence that afflicts so much of the world has finally arrived in New Zealand, a country whose name is almost an idiomatic invocation of peaceable friendliness, as in “To hell with all this, I’m moving to New Zealand.”
No more. Even there, the creeping sickness that is the strange reactionary pastiche of conservative Christianity with white nationalism and fascism has made an appearance; this time, on the order of 50-Muslims were killed while peacefully worshiping.
Aeons ago — like, 2-database crashes ago — I wrote a blog post entitled “The End of Deference” in which I argued that it was time to stop deferring to Holy Men, to stop pretending that they possess special cosmic knowledge, to stop pretending that they are the keepers of virtue — to face the reality that they are at best no better than idiots and in the main no better than cynical parasites whose life’s work is the degradation and exploitation of others.
I was not wrong then, and I am not wrong now. Niagaras of bloodshed is enough.
Enough. Enough, enough, enough. It is time past for the decent, educated grown-ups of the world to call an end to the goddam fraud of religion.