The Problem with Catholics

You may have seen that in several recent Catholic newsletters it was announced that a vote for a Democrat would secure a permanent place in hell.  Oh wow. Where do I start?

So, invading the new world and causing genocide among the indigenous people wasn’t enough, the Crusades weren’t enough, the Inquisition wasn’t enough, and the child sex abuse scandals weren’t enough now they damn Democratic voters.  Really?  The unmitigated gall of any group with so much blood on its hands and so much interference in both the legal system and now the voting system is beyond belief.  Rather than beg for forgiveness for their past sins, they are proclaiming that others are going to hell?

I propose we turn this around.  For all the harm the Catholic Church has done to fellow human beings in the past 2000 years it should be clear that members of this church are going to hell.  It should also be obvious that their interference in the progress of women’s reproductive rights that they should all go to jail.  But that is not all.

For promoting false advertising and fraud, the members of the church should all go to jail for bilking their parishioners of billions of dollars by performing fraudulent magical acts including ringing a bell to turn wine and crackers to flesh and blood.  If they insist their magic is real, then they should all go to jail for practicing cannibalism.  For interfering in the operations of the state, the Catholic Church should lose its tax exempt status.  For requiring unhealthy lifestyles for all their clergy they should suffer the categorization of a cult. 

The only real defense the Catholics could offer is that this is all in jest, it is just mythology.  There really is no hell, so threatening to send someone there is a joke.  In fact anyone who would take seriously the notion that the mother of a deity is also a deity is obviously confused about the transitive property and genetics.  And the notion that a mortal is capable of granting forgiveness on behalf of an immortal is absurd.  If any of these myths are true they should be required to present evidence of the existence of hell by its location, they should submit the cracker and wine to analysis after the bell has rung and evidence that there is a deity, their clergy can talk with such a deity and lay people cannot talk to such a deity.  There would be no evidence of truth in these myths thus announcing once and for all that Catholicism is a mythology much like the Roman pantheon of gods.

And, while we are at it, let’s start collecting tax dollars from the church.  Let’s start arresting them for fraud.  Let’s start arresting them for cannibalism, and let’s start arresting them for interfering with women’s rights.  If they want to damn me to hell and have it scare me, they are going to have to convince me there is such a place and that a so-called loving god would send anyone there.  Permanent time-out is not a notion that fits with the “our father in heaven” model.

And finally, it appears to me that the totally uncharitable Republican Party platform is more like hell than anything the Democrats have proposed.  If one could be arrested for being selfish and stupid this would qualify as well.