Which lies are better: religious or political?

In this space, we often make a big deal about replacing religion-fueled politics with secular-based politics. We want the clerics and preachers to quit telling people how to vote from their pulpits and go back to science-based reasoning for our governance. We somehow feel that this is a big part of the answer for what is wrong with the world. And we may be right.

But did you see the recent Obama-Romney debate? Did you get the feeling, later verified by objective investigation, that neither of the parties were telling the truth most of the time? And, taking into consideration that we are asking the religious element to give up beliefs that we consider fantasy, do we have any right to make that request given the way secular governance “works?”

I, for one, am hard put to see much of a difference, except in subject matter, between the lies of Jerry Falwell and the lies of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I believe that the religious are self-delusional about pure faith, miracles, and self-serving commandments. However, it is also plain to see that the secular part of our society is self-delusional about its leaders and poliicies.

If there is a common thread here, it is the nauseating grasping for power and money, a thread shared equally by religious organizations and political organizations. Religions want to own you, and to bend all of your thinking to match theirs, even if it is transparent fantasy. Political parties want you to believe their equally transparent lies, foisted upon them by big business and big corporation.

The souls of preachers everywhere have been bought by Big Religion, telling them what to think and turning them into mere salesmen for the home office.

The souls of politicians have been bought by Big Business, turning them into bald-faced liars at the beck and call of the rich and powerful.

It seems to me that we of the secular persuasion might want to do something to get our own house in order before we intimate that we can do any better than the vote-crazy preachers in their pulpits.

About Michael W. Jones

Michael has been an Atheist since an epiphany in a Baptist church at age 12, was a Unitarian until they became a christian denomination, spent most of his life developing software, and is now earning almost no living at all as a writer. :) He lives in Williams Township, PA and is contemplating what's next after Tucker the Weird Dawg. Michael is a co-founder and the managing editor of The Eloquent Atheist on-line magazine.

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