THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE - #227

THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE ©

AN IRREVERENT VIEW


Time Line: December 27, 2007
Date Line: Flemington New Jersey

If I were a praying man, I’d have a lot to ask for. It is amazing how your list of “wants” can grow if someone else is supposed to give them to you. However, I was taught by my Father to zip my pockets up in the company of preachers, and never to ask for something I couldn’t get with my own strength, capital or wits. I also learned the corollary: if you pray for guidance and hear a voice that tells you what do; run, do not walk, to the nearest therapist.

We have had the evangelism of George W. Bush and the prayers of lay preacher Jimmy Carter. Both had lists of “wants” that an Almighty Being was supposed to deliver: However, God was out to lunch in both cases.

If you recall, Carter visited Israel shortly before the Camp David accord and saw the Wailing Wall for the first time. He is said to have had a minor epiphany and asked Beigin, “Is it true that prayers made to the Wall are heard by God?”

Beigin replied, “Mr. President you are a Pastor and religious leader. You can understand our belief that prayers at the Wall are made directly to God.” Carter thought for a moment, looked first at Beigin, then at the Wall. and said, “I pray for the safety of all mankind.” 

Beigin said, “You are talking to God.” Carter than said, “I pray for peace on earth.” Beigin said, “You are talking to God.”

Carter cleared his throat and said, “I pray for Israel to give to the Palestinians the lands they want and the control of Jerusalem.”

Beigin replied, “Mr. Carter, you are talking to the Wall,”


The teachings of that apocryphal story are several-fold:
…. Prayers for miracles are rarely (if ever) fulfilled.
…. Don’t send a God to do a man’s job, and
…. Prayer should be a secret known only to you and your Deity.

It is an invasion of privacy beyond the bounds of good taste, to be forced to listen to a candidate claim that his sanctity is greater that another candidate’s. We have really had a bellyful of that: from Gingrich, to Baker, to Swaggert; to Congressmen and Senators who have assaulted Pages in their employ, and women not their wives, all the while extolling their own virtue.

We are about to elect a leader for the next four years. Some of the aspirants believe that a public show of piety is going to carry them to victory, borne aloft by angels. (Just like the anointing of GW Bush by Archbishop Rove.) No Virginia, I will cast my vote and hope you will too, against anointment. Religious doggerel and cant do not replace intelligence, experience and hard work.

Religion is the least democratic of all the isms we know. Organized religion is exclusionary. Baptist heaven is only for Baptists: if you ain’t with us, you don’t get your wings and you don’t get an apartment in the clouds. Religions and most organized charities are not secular institutions designed to meet the daily needs of citizens. You can get a bowl of soup if you are starving and you can get someone’s cast-offs to keep you from freezing. However, as the citizen of a great country, you are entitled to more than charity.

You are entitled to dignity,

This time around vote for the guaranty of that entitlement, paid for by your taxes and the blood of your sons, daughters and parents. The world has suffered the consequences of a compassionate, evangelical who talks to God nightly. If only he had learned the corollary and gotten to a therapist in time we could have avoided the invasion of Iraq.

The framers of the Constitution were very clear about leaving religion out of Government. They made it known that we were ruled by secular law and that religion was a matter of individual conscience. The Masonic symbols are on the Dollar bill, not the Cross, Star of David or Crescent Moon. Over the years organized religions have chipped away at the guaranty of secular control of government, our bulwark of freedom of thought.

By what Constitutional right did Bush withhold Federal funds from stem cell research? By what right did Congress interfere in the determination of a State that a person had the right to die? Why have we allowed some schools to teach “intelligent design” as science, while the proponents of that foolishness claim that we lag the world in science and math and must outsource our jobs?

Perhaps every candidate should withdraw from the political arena unless he can honestly say. “The secular laws of the United States shall govern my Presidency and religion shall play no part in my decisions.”

Howard Stamer