30 Days – Day 19 – “Religion & Politics”

What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

As I’m a bit of an unemployed jake, I’ll have a go at both or them, but in case you’re running late for something I’ll stick the tl;dr version right here at the top: Everyone’s a cunt.

I try(ed) to trod along with a live and let live attitude, and that extended to what people believed and thought. We might not really agree, but fuck it. If they really want to think that an invisible man in the sky watches them all the time, that he’s loving and forgiving but will burn us for all eternity if we don’t do as we’re told, then that’s fair enough. And if they truly believe that his son was apparently the only ginger joiner in the whole Middle East 2000 years ago and he turned a load of council juice into a good night out in Coatbridge, who am I to argue? I’m knowingly throwing together a few different views on the same religion together there, because it seems that people can’t agree on how exactly the one singular true God thinks or wishes to be worshipped. Now, people are more than free to live by whatever doctrine they like, that’s their choice. The problem is though, few are willing to simply leave it at that, suddenly they want you to change how you live your life to please them. Or certain kinds of people are discriminated against just because (knew I could work that in) of what’s said in a book.

And what a book it is. The word of the big yin, interpreted by his not insignificantly flawed creations, with different versions here there and everywhere through more than a couple of languages and even more centuries. Depending on what flavour of Christian you ask, the books on tape version might be your best bet into heaven, while others would say that you’d be better off reading the (in)complete works instead. Shit’s all fractured, yo. There isn’t a definitive version, bits have been revised, omitted, deleted, or quietly forgotten in favour of other sections when the need arises. It’s a dense, contradictory work that can and is interpreted a million different ways. That’s not to mention that until recently the majority couldn’t even read the fucking thing, literacy rates weren’t anywhere near the 99% they are now. And for centuries before the invention of the printing press, bibles were copied painstakingly by hand. Fallible, corruptible hands. Not to mention the abuses of power by various churches throughout history. I simply can’t accept that what people are reading now is the true word of God, because it isn’t.

And what God is it? There’s so many to choose from after all. Jesus and Mohammed are arm wrestling for my heart, Buddha is over by the buffet table, there’s a rabbi writing a screenplay and some funny looking Chinese dudes nobody knows because they’ve yet to cause any drama west of the Gobi Desert. Each and every one believes they’re right. Which to me simply proves they’re all wrong. I’m talking mainly of Christianity as that’s the dominant religion where I’m from, but it applies to every one. The further in you go the more hateful and isolationist things become. On the surface everyone politely agrees that while they believe one thing, others can think as they like too. But if you dig a little deeper, you always find that when things come down to it, whoever isn’t on your team is wrong. Suddenly they’ll be going to hell no matter what, or they’re just bad people. There’s a rotten core at the centre of it all that becomes a matter of us versus them.

The kind of people I know my age who are most religious, who go to the church youth groups and live their lives according to what other people want for them are the misfits. They’re the miserable maladjusted victims of life. The sad acts, the bullied, the socially incapable. Soon they become the righteous, the correct, the superior. They look down on people in feigned moral outrage because they’re too scared to do what everyone else does. They’re the controlled, the submissive, and the depressed. And they’re the hypocrites. It’s the 24-year-old youth leader preaching purity while taking the virginity of the 16-year-old girl he’s going out with. They’re the people who try to stigmatise the things they really want but are incapable of getting. And they’re the ones who make themselves more miserable by shutting themselves off from the big bad world, fighting against every urge that might bring them pleasure by calling it impure, starting the circle of misery again.

Maybe I’m just pissed off because they don’t like me. Someone once said I was evil you see, what with the swearing, shagging, drinking, drugging, rocking and rolling and general unchurchliness of my demeanour. Now I’ve got to ask, does that make me a bad person? I know I’m not to everyone’s taste. But just because I use fuck as a piece of punctuation, like a drink and a little smoke of green, and don’t mind the odd casual ride in the slightest, am I really horrible as a result? Here was me thinking I was a fairly alright guy! The idea seems to be that because I don’t believe in God I’m somehow morally deficient, and always will be until I do as I’m bloody well told and find Jesus. I find this particularly insulting to be honest. I don’t beat people senseless for fun, I don’t steal, I’m not cruel to animals or people, and am generally a peaceable big lump. I’ve got a clean driving licence for fuck’s sake. You don’t have to be religious to be good.

As for politics, just no. I can’t stand the people on either side of the fence. The Right is driven but ignorant fear-mongering and hatred, the Left by juvenile idealism without regard to the real world or the nature of man. Politicians as a whole I don’t trust, benefits to the public being only side-effect of cunts trying to grab more votes and power. Again there’s a load of hypocrites: Labour politicians lining their pockets from big business while making it harder for people to get ahead in life, Tories trying to tell the average person that it’s good to suffer for the actions of a greedy few. All of them spending their expenses on shit and toeing the party line. Individuality isn’t something for Westminster.

Then there’s the likes of the Unionist parties screaming from the rooftops about how there would never be a strong government with any change being made towards proportional representation in the voting system. Ironically on the very fucking day the referendum was held on the matter the elections in the Scottish Parliament, using PR, gave the SNP the majority of seats. The reason they used that system in the first place was because that while it was fairer, they always thought that it would prevent the SNP leading a majority government. They too are undoubtedly wankers, though slightly more honest in their intentions to show how shit things are as part of the UK and highlight the idiocy of other politicians. Alex Salmond is essentially trying to troll his way to an independent Scotland.

I’ve got nothing but disdain for the lot of them, the system they created and equally creates them, and the hypocrisy of their complaints about “Broken Britain” compared to how they all conducts themselves privately. I’m not too young to not have learned what a rent boy was from overhearing snippets of news in the 90s. I wish I could be idealistic about it, I wish there would be a party or even a person that I could identify with and trust to fight my corner, but there never will be. At the end of the day, regardless of political alignment, race, religion, background or gender, all they are is another fucking politician.

I’ve ranted enough, I’m half asleep and making little sense. To summarise: I don’t believe in God, and I don’t believe in politicians. Goodnight.