Saturday, June 18, 2016

Low Self-Esteem, brought to you by... Religion!



If you raise someone to be self-loathing, you can manipulate them to your ends.


When I heard on Sunday morning that some guy shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando, two thoughts went through my head.  First, why did it take three hours to storm the club?  I don't mean to second-guess the Police, but a lot of people "bled out" during that time, and I thought after Paris, the Police realized that rapid intervention was the key, not calling the SWAT team and trying to "negotiate".   But I wasn't there, so maybe there were circumstances.

But the second and more important thought was, the guy was likely a closeted homosexual.   And as events are unfolding, this turns out to be the case.   Conservatives want to blame this on ISIS or "Radical Islam" because it fits their political narrative.   Donald Trump wants to protect Gays and Lesbians from Muslim extremists - but who protects us from Donald Trump and his followers?   Until Sunday morning, anyone on Reddit's the_Donald who disagreed with Trump was called a "Faggot" or worse.   Trump is no friend to Gays - or any other minority for that matter.

But why did I assume the shooter was a closet homosexual even before this was reported?   Well, I have some experience in this area.   If you want to spot a closeted homosexual, just look for the guy shouting "Faggot!" the loudest.   Yes, this includes the late founder of the Westboro Baptist Church.   People who are obsessed with homosexuality are themselves conflicted about their own feelings.

It is like the well-established theory that many policemen join the force because they really want to be criminals, but their upbringing prevents them from being law-breakers.  Being the guy who busts law-breakers is the next best thing.   It is a theory, anyway.  And maybe it explains why some cops end up going rogue.

The problem is religion.   Religion is a very neatly planned little psychological experiment that preys upon the minds of the faithful.   By making you feel guilty for your own natural urges, they can get you to do whatever they want you to do, simply by calling you a "sinner" or "unholy" and getting you to suppress your urges - which warps your mind in a number of ways.

Our brains are programmed from the get-go to do a number of things.  We breathe.  We drink.  We eat.   And if we want the species to survive we have sex, which is probably a more powerful drive than anything except perhaps breathing.   Sex is pleasurable, so we seek it out as humans.   And often as humans, who we are attracted to has less to do with having babies than with having fun.

But religion tells us that sex is bad.  Unless you are making babies in a marriage, just forget about it!   Even heterosexual sex is a sin, outside of marriage and if not for making babies.

So the religious faithful are conflicted.  They have these urges and are told they are bad.  And to even have such urges makes them horrible people who deserve little more than death.   

But the joke is, of course, everybody has these urges in one form or another.   Oh, sure there are a few people who claim to be asexual but even then, I'm not buying it.   I think a lot of those folks are just trying to get attention.

And the really sick joke is, the people who run these religions often indulge themselves in whatever form of sexual deviance they desire while at the same time decrying even the most innocent sex acts in their parishioners.   The Catholic Church is not some outlier or anomaly.

Muslims claim that homosexuality is sin.  Yet in Afghanistan, a favorite sport among wealthy Muslims is "Boy Play" or "Bachi Bazi".  Imams who run madrassas where young men are indoctrinated into Islam are routinely accused of molesting their followers.   Homosexuality is suppressed in the Middle-East, and yet it also flourishes.   They just live in more denial than even Catholics.

Sadly, this creates a cognitive dissonance in the mind of young men.  Left unchecked, it leads to full-blown schizophrenia.  They live in two worlds - their own mind, with its "unclean" urges and impulses, and then in their religious world, where they are one of God's own chosen few.

And as it turns out, this shooter in Orlando grew up in the house of crazy, with a Dad who claimed to be President of Afghanistan, making hour-long YouTube videos, claiming to fight for the rights of the Pashtun, even if he didn't speak their language.

And of course, crazy if often hereditary.   So Dad tells his son that being gay is bad.  Son meanwhile wants to date men.   Schizophrenia sets it.   He sees his urges as evil.   What's more, it angers him that other people are apparently happy and carefree about their own urges.   Why should they be allowed to have fun, when he has to obey his religion and his Dad?

Now, a more rational person might say, "you  know, fuck religion.  And Dad's crazy.  Fuck him, too.  I'm moving out of this town, getting place of my own, preferably in a State far away, and living my own life, happily ever after!"

A rational person might do that.   A lot of other people feel "obligated" to do what their parents say, even well into their 30's or 40's.  They believe that their birth family is everything in the world and that forming their own family and their own relationships is secondary to worshiping their Father and Mother.

Funny thing, too, religion reinforces this crazy notion, probably because it keeps people closer to religion and closer to the indoctrination.

But we do have choices in this world.   And parents and religions can be crazy and pointless.   It is sad that this young man could not stand up for himself and say, "This is who I am, not who my crazy Father thinks I should be!" and then go live his own life.   

And since he couldn't do this, he was angry, at himself, his wives, and the world.   But this anger was totally unnecessary.   Living in America, you can re-invent yourself to be whoever you want to be.   You don't have to live the life your parents or your religion says you have to.

Now, some Conservatives will say that the fellow "pledged his life to ISIS" during the shooting.   But this was just a cover story, so as to explain the gay away.   He had no real connection to ISIS or radical Islam.   He was a closet homosexual.

And closeted homosexuals are thus prized in many Muslim countries where terrorism is breeding.   If you are a young gay or lesbian in, say, the West Bank, you have two choices in life.   If you come out as Gay, you will be beaten or stoned to death and your family will be shamed.   However, if you strap on a suicide vest and blow up a bunch of Jews, your family will be honored, given money and a new home, and you will be remembered as a "martyr".

It is a compelling recruitment technique.   And it is one reason religion wants you to feel bad about yourself and your natural sexual urges.   By telling you that you are inherently "bad" - and getting you to believe it - they get you to believe that your life is worthless, and that you should surrender yourself to their machinations, even sacrificing your own life in the process.

This fellow who shot up the nightclub wasn't an Islamic terrorist bent on avenging Islam.   He was something far, far worse.

He was one of our own.