Rant Warning

Various iterations of this post have been rattling around in my brain for about a year or two. My feelings regarding the following subject are very strong and are becoming increasingly well-developed the more I come to understand. They came to a head when I happened to discover the blog of a fundamentalist woman who, through attractive, enticing, "religious" words of love and sacrifice, "encourages" others to take up her twisted fantasy in the name of God.

I find few things more vile than a patriarchical social order driven by fear and backed by human-written, human-interpreted religious text. Rape and murder and slavery are right up there with it. Fundamentalism is synonymous with abuse. It ordains, no - GLORIFIES denial of the basic rights of living beings. Ahh, it's so atrocious that I can't find the words to describe the horror and disgust and downright FEAR roiling inside me when I read fundamentalist tracts. Under the florid language and holy words, warning sirens are wailing and my every instinct screams EVIL, RUN AWAY. I fear that someday one of these slavemasters will attain a position of power and threaten me and the people I love. I will do everything in my power to prevent them from hurting others, from poisoning the minds of any children I may choose to have, and from enacting laws and regulations that take away our governance of our own bodies, minds and destinies.

Until threatened, all I can do is ignore these cults. We speak completely different languages and are unable to argue our cases, but I didn't build the barrier between us.

Why have I read their tracts? A combination of "know thy enemy," curiosity regarding the interactions of history, psychology, biology and theology, morbid curiosity and amazement that these people actually exist and truly uphold these views. Only in adulthood have I been truly exposed to fundamentalist beliefs. I'm appalled that these men force the wasting of the intellects of their counterparts and instill the same beliefs in impressionable young minds. It's horrific that women are chained and fettered, and shocking when they believe their chains and fetters to be divine.

The very nature of fundamentalism fuels its existence and its rejection of all other belief systems, a vicious cycle of pastel, petaled terrorism. It doesn't allow for questions. Truth is quashed, science and statistics twisted, absolute conclusions pulled from ambiguous, dated words, lies formulated to entice the fearful, the passive, the power-hungry and the abusive. Fear underlies all actions and motivations. Can love truly exist in a structure built upon this foundation?

I am so incredibly thankful that I was not raised a slave to this cult. Thankful to know and understand that love, kindness, honor, respect, and other benevolent actions, emotions and attitudes are just as powerful and sincere without an undercurrent of fear. Imagine a world in which over half of all extant intellectual, societal, scientific, creative potential remains dormant, undeveloped, unnurtured, hidden away and exploited by fear. I don't want to be a part of that world.

Fundamentalists, stay away from me! Don't judge me, don't pray for me, don't even think about me. You are poisonous.