IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, A RELIGION BASED ON LOVE, PEACE, NON-JUDGEMENTALISM, LACK OF GUILT, ACCEPTANCE OF ALL, AND A WIKI APPROACH TO DOGMA. NOVEL CONCEPT, HUH?

As most regular readers to this page are aware, I, the LIB in the above-mentioned caption, am not a fan of organized religion. This goes for all of the major spiritual food groups: Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

There is something about their structure that intimidates me. But more so, I am offended by their effectiveness at turning otherwise kind, rational people into adroidish lemmings, easily controlled and all too willing to buy into false realities, such as the ones portrayed in Brave New World, 1984 and the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

Now I understand that my position robs me of the camaraderie that organized religion offers, but as I see it, it is a small tradeoff when the alternative would rob me of one of my most treasured assets, the ability to think and decide for myself, to claim my own victories and to own my own failures.

There I’ve said it; I like life in all of its flavors, fresh, brutal and uncensored. Many of you regular readers to this website are like me. But then, there are the others, the ones who not only prefer LIFE LITE, but could not function without it.

So I guess there is a need for religion.

Then there is the financial aspect…

Religion is a good, recession-proof business. So for this reason you will notice that the Pundit and I, always in pursuit of a newer and better sources of cash flow, have in recent weeks taken to devoting more than the usual column space to organized religion; space normally reserved for bashing crazy conservatives, corrupt neo-cons, and the war-mongering schmuck in the White House.

This is our way of testing the waters.

But, for what, you might ask?

Tell us Lib, what gives?

Ok, here it is.

What we are contemplating, the Pundit and I, is the formation of our own church. A church, which would address man’s need for direction, but do so in a guilt- free environment, devoid of the mind games, deprivation, hyprocacy, and suffering all too often prevalent in organized religion today.

Where our as yet unamed church would differ from most of the rest of the flock is that our church would be virtual, a web portal rather than traditional bricks and mortar.

This is for two reasons. The first being the time element. Operating virtually means that we could open our doors in a matter of days and would not need to spend months and perhaps years, not oo mention millions of dollars, on infrastructure, as most traditional faiths do.

But more than mere expediency alone, operating virtually would free us from the embarrassment which we would feel seeing money that could be funneled to helping humanity, wasted on million plus dollar prayer palaces, and other unnecessary accoutrements of man’s devotion.

What is decided, and I know that I speak for the Pundit here, is that an agency fee of 10% could be directed into retirement plans for the church’s founders, the Pundit and myself.

This would not only go a long way toward freeing us from crass financial worries but would allow us to devote our all to growing our new belief system to where it could assume its rightful position as an agent for change.

All would be welcome to our church; gays, straights, blacks, whites and any combination or variation thereof. It is shameful, no disgusting, the way traditional churches justify discrimination over something so silly as one’s race, ethnic origin and/or sexual preference.

One can only wonder how many millions of people have been marginalized throughout history on account of the ridiculous idea than any one group would or could be more “chosen” than another?

Our church will have none of that.

Nor for that matter will we make moral judgments about people who have proven that they are incapable of, or otherwise unwilling to live their entire life with just one mate.

The idea that so- called religious people can discriminate so easily is just plain offensive. In short, Rudy Giuliani would be welcome to worship at our church. We wouldn’t vote for him, but that is a different matter.

Another concept that has outlived its usefulness is that religion is about killing and war, or that any person or groups of people are infidels because of the way that they choose to worship their, for lack of a better term, higher power.

To combat this, we will build our church around love, an easy concept to accept, because, afterall, isn’t love what it is all about, anyway?

I can see a key chapter in our version of a holy book, being dedicated to the words of John Lennon; specifically, “And in the End, The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love That You Make”.

This line, while often forgotten in the intervening years since it was sang thirty plus years ago, is worthy of a book all to itself. One of these days, perhaps, we will write this book, or else, as they say in the trade, cause it to be written.

As to the rest of our dogma, and this word, to be honest, gives me the creeps, I can see a Wiki approach, where any of the faithful, so inspired, are encouraged to share their thoughts with the group, who will then decide what to keep and what to retool.

This way our holy book will be a living breathing document, subject to constant updating and perfecting, unlike the Bible, the Torah or the Koran.

We feel that this will work better than the rote memorization of any thousand plus year old treatise, that may or may not be accurate, but which surely has been edited to fit the needs of the brand over the intervening years.

So what do we have so far: love, peace, non-judgementalism, lack of guilt, acceptance of all and a Wiki approach to dogma. What have I forgotten?

Staying the fuck out of politics, that’s what?

The last thing our nation needs is any other self important so-called man of God who thinks he knows better than the rest of us how we should act. There are already too many of this ilk criss crossing America spewing their messages of hate and fear. You know the sort, and if you don’t, I’ll make it easy for you. Their names are Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and that Ted fellow. You remember Ted, he’s the who fell from grace late last year when it was reported that he was filling the time between preaching hate for gays and lesbians having an illicit relationship with a gay prostitute. Oh yes, and snorting meth.

It’s rare that a week goes by that one of this bunch isn’t out there promoting some form of abomination or perversion of the truth in the lord’s name.

Take for example, the comments of one of the more offensive of this bunch, the Reverend Jerry Falwell.

Falwell, the man who saw gay conspiracies in Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbies doll, and who on September 11th, 2001 shocked even equally offensive, Pat Robertson, when he claimed that the terrorist attacks were “God’s judgment on America for “throwing God out of the public square”, has once again raised that which he calls religion to the level of the absurd.

This he did on a recent Sunday when he labeled the debate over global warming, “a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the gospel”.

I don’t know which part or Rev. Fallwell’s comments that I find most offensive; the fact that he still thinks that there is any debate about global warming, or that people will hear him and buy into the potentially fatal flaw in his logic.

Hey, Jerr…, there is no debate, here. Global warming is fact, a fact, do you hear me? Not to mention, if global warming is allowed to continue unchecked, it has the potential to be the single largest threat to man’s survival that we, as a people, have ever had to deal with.

But I guess, to attempt to crawl inside Falwell’s less than lucid brain for a second, when selling fantasies of rapture is what you do, then protecting said fantasies, and not worrying if the polls melt and the world as we know it is overrun by disease in the interim, isn’t all that important.

But I have got to give him praise for knowing his market.

In this, no matter how brain addled he may or may not be, he is a pro. He is well aware that his and the followers of the other previously mentioned religious charlatans, are perhaps, the only people in this world that are still this easily led, and he is going to lead them, all the way to the end of this very flat earth.

Of this I am jealous.

But I cannot allow so base an emotion to interfere in the formation of the Pundit and my new church.

While I realize that pursuing this course of action will cause the floodgates to open and unleash the furor of all of the morally correct idiots in this world, I feel that the good things that can be accomplished will make the furor worth the grief.

Besides, as I see it, what is to be feared from people addicted to believing, what for the most part, is just so much superstitious nonsense? I do, however, feel better knowing that when we appear to our world wide throng of parishioners, if you will, it will be by web cam from a undisclosed remote location, far from the range of sniper riffles and the wacko’s who use them in the course of their daily religious practice.

There are many abortion doctors who wish they could say the same.

For the record, it is tough to speak for truth and freedom, and to do so intelligently, which I feel that we do quite admirably here at LIB. This is especially the case for what we get paid.

Let’s face it; there is not all that much money in blogs, particularly ones that speak the truth. But, churches, now that’s another matter.

Abuse is one thing. But abuse hurled by idiots who think, or more than likely have been told by another little bit smarter idiot, and they are just repeating it verbatim, that heaven is a private club and they are its chosen people, that is, if they can flagellate and demean themselves sufficiently to gain entrance, is more than any self respecting person should be forced to endure.

Then, to have to take this shit for bupkiss in the pay envelope, no way, no effin’ way.

With our church, the Pundit and I will solve all of these problems with one fell swoop.

I like the sound of that.

Denis Donovan - Editor