For all the daily talk on the Daily Kos that conservatives are dictatorial, their cast of bloggers isn't without grand designs for social control. Take this post: "Time to begin working for the death of religion (a rant)." The diarist "BlueMoon" expressed no attempt to disrupt free speech, but the "end of organized religion" must be attempted:
However, the time has come to begin work to actively disrupt official organized religion of all stripes. Yes, I know there are many good christians. But when I hear of another moral pronouncement coming out of the Roman Catholic church, I am ready to splutter.
The church of pedophiles that brought you Cardnal Law and the current head, Ratzinger dares open its filthy mouth again? To preach about morality?
The Reverend Phelps dares picket servicemen's funerals? And tell us all that "Heath [is] in Hell?" And call Lady Gaga a "proud whore"?
A variety of crazy wackos calling themselves the "Tea party" peddle vicious racism masquerading as christian faith.
It is time to stop taking all this sitting down. It is time to begin working actively to bring about the end of organized religion. At the beginning of the 21st century, it is a wonder that a group of ignorant, bigoted and hateful men (yes, mostly men) can preach against scientific progress and try to take this country and the world a few centuries back. It is time to face the truth -- THERE IS NO GOD.
I don't begrudge the faith to those who believe -- but I am not out there trying to impose vegetarianism or red uniforms on anyone. So, please, keep your religion out of my face. Humanity may have needed to believe in rocks or celestial bodies when we barely could walk upright. At the beginning of the 21st century, it is finally time to dispense with the crutch. Religion in general and chirstianity [sic] in particular are EVIL.
So if one takes legal means to "dispense with the crutch" of churches because they are "organized" for "ignorance," how does that leave any freedom of association? "BlueMoon" doesn't want to say you can't practice a religion, but once your church is an "institution," it should be legally harassed out of existence:
It is time to organize and take legal action against religious intitutions. There are many avenues available to pursue lawsuits against churches and such. It is time to turn up the heat in the media and the blogsphere against this unnecessary and harmful atavism of the past.
UPDATE: Please, do not confuse -- accidentally or on purpose -- my position that we need to end ORGANIZED, INSTUTIONALIZED religion with my already stated belief that everyone has the right to believe in the big polka-dotted betentacled glamgrum from Aldebaran if you want. Belief is a personal choice and I am regarding it as such. However, institutions with a vested interest in ignorance whose last check on reality was during Nero's time (if then), have to be fought tooth and nail.
Was the "reality check" of Nero's time being slaughtered in the Coliseum for an audience? The lions certainly fought those first Christians "tooth and nail."
There's one last passage worth recounting: "BlueMoon" is convinced that Catholic priests have been forever pedophiles, and that the abuse of even one child is unacceptable. And then....he mourns the death of late-term abortionist George Tiller. What? It's right there, in wacky black and white:
I am now convinced the church harbored pedophiles throughout its history. It is in all the books of the past centuries -- read Bocaccio's Decameron, read Mandragola by Macchiavelli... read any honest writer -- the priest is always portrayed as the sexual opportunist, enabler and predator. It is only because contemporary media finally dared lift the curtain that we have finally gotten a glimpse of the true face of the church -- a criminal, predatory instution that needs to be attacked with lawsuits and any legal means unto death.
And don't play the victim because there are real victims - the countless abused children. The abuse of even one child is UNACCEPTABLE. That there are thousdands of them is so unconscionable that I am still overwhelmed at the thought of the self-righteousness of priests. HAVE YOU NO SHAME!!!!!!! And then let me not even start on the assassination of Dr Tiller. So believe what you want, please. But your church does not simply belong on the garbage dump... it belongs in jail.. together with Ratzinger.
In fact, this is not the first time "BlueMoon" argued this way. Soon after Dr. Tiller's killing in 2009, he/she wrote: "In the wake of Dr Tiller's killing, I think we need a well reasoned strategy for bankrupting and thereby eliminating any and all vestiges of the Church in this society...I suggest the establishment of a legal fund with the special purpose of de-funding and bankrupting churches in the US....Let them be unable to fart without a lawsuit."
Earlier: Barrett Brown on the Daily Kos Says 'Stalin Was a Piker' Compared to 'the Christian God'
Daily Kos: 'All Religions Pale' In Comparison to Environmentalism
[Hat tip: Oyster Jam]