​Cult of the Ideoidiots

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Christianity Has Fallen Off the Cross

Corky and I have classified ourselves as faithful Christians for nearly ninety years, but we both have reached the point where a solid majority of “Christians” no longer seems to agree with the teachings of Jesus Christ. The good Christians who are left, wherever they are, aren’t trying to save their brothers and sisters from religious suicide or euthanasia. Consequently, Corky and I are withdrawing our affiliation with all “Christian” churches until they get their act together.

We were married at the old wood-carved altar of Fargo’s St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1954 after Corky converted. We became members of the largest religious group in the United States in 1959, ex-Roman Catholics, when we could no longer support the 2,000-year-old plunge to ideoidiotic teachings of the Vatican regarding homo sapiens sex, celibacy, abortion, the use of contraceptives, Vatican Roulette, and its “intrinsically disordered” ideas about the LBGTQ+ community.

Today we are ruled by Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court of the land from a city where most of the Catholic churches have empty pews and the area archdiocese teeters on bankruptcy because its teachings about sex from contraceptives to abortion to abstinence are proving to be bankrupt.

This is a big change since we attended a Catholic church in Washington in 1954-55. Washington area Catholic parishes are each several millions in operating debt, and retirement funds for priests and workers have unfunded liabilities of tens of millions of dollars. Many churches are maintained by volunteers, not trained maintenance workers, because they cannot afford them

Fact: The World Will Have Abortions Until Babies Are Hatched From Bottles

In Aldous Huxley’s book of the future Brave New World (in 632. After Ford), no human females become pregnant because contraceptives, always available and personally carried in a pouch, are 100% effective. It is against the law to use the uterus as a birth point. If a woman violates the law, she is sent into exile.

Society has five stratified intelligence levels of ability to handle the menial tasks in BNW. Alphas are the top dogs, intellectually superior to all. The brain-damaged Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are used to do the menial work of society, from raising food to maintaining elevators and operating them. The number of workers at each level is maintained by controlled chemicals and oxygen levels in the birthing bottles.

Will we ever have 100% effective contraceptives? The average female today could have more than 30 babies in her lifetime during her child-bearing years. None of our contraceptives are 100% effective. Only a few asexuals in our society do not desire or need sex.

Fact: humans are not going to stop having sex, passionate or not. Records of 300,000 years prove that. Sex is hormone-driven and exceptionally enjoyable, whether heterosexual or homosexual. For most of its 2,000-year life, the Vatican has made the wrong moves about sex. Why does it always reject facts, science, and overwhelming evidence?

The Vatican created the stupefying idea of celibacy so priests would not have a family to eat up profits that would normally go to the churches. Many archdioceses have gone bankrupt because of priests sexually assaulting children and adults. The Vatican is liable for about $8 billion so far for sexual abuse payouts.

The Vatican has preached abstinence. When a society uses sex to sell avocadoes, automobiles, aspirins, and adventure, I can only say: good luck with “Don’t Do That.”. The Vatican has opposed the use of contraceptives while promoting Vatican Roulette with thermometers and calendars. That’s another complete and stupid failure to understand human behavior.

How did all those Roman Catholic couples have only a son and daughter? I have always wanted to ask Catholics: of the two times you have had sex, which one was better?

To the Roman Catholic Bishops: Why Do You Think Catholic Women Get Abortions?

Polls have indicated for many years that Catholic women use contraceptives and have abortions at the same rate as all other American women. Evidence points out that over the decades we generally have about the same number of abortions, whether legal or illegal.

The evidence that really counts is: how many women have died from illegal, botched abortions compared to those who have had safe, legal abortions from trained providers?

Trumplicans, Republicans, Roman Catholics, the Vatican, and Franklin Graham and his fundamentalist “Christians” know the answer. They are willing to sacrifice thousands of women to keep white power and control of all women. Men lead the Vatican and men lead the Southern Baptists because they want the White male to command the government—and the family.

With the fractured antics of the Alito-Thomas Court, one of the most common and safe medical procedures on Planet Earth will be banned or sharply limited in about half of the U.S. One in four American women will have an abortion in their lifetime. One in five pregnancies end in abortion—and we haven’t counted miscarriages yet. Miscarriages can account for as many as 20% of pregnancies.

Research by the most reliable of abortion facts, the Guttmacher Institute, states that a minimum of 22,800 women are dying of botched abortions each year. And 2 to 7 million in the world suffer long-term damage such as infections, bleeding, and diseases because of low immunity, sepsis, and another thousand reasons.

In the U.S. itself, more than 75% of those seeking abortions are poor, 50% are below the prescribed poverty level, 75% are women who already have children, and 55% are unmarried and do not live with the father. Half of the population can’t come up with $400 to cover the cost of an emergency.

The average cost of a vaginal birth in the U.S. is $13,024 and a cesarean operation runs $22,646. To raise a baby to 18 years has been estimated to run $250,000. Well, “Justice” Amy Coen Barrett, supporting member of the Catholic cult People of Praise, get out your checkbook. Does your dominating husband in that cult tell you how to vote on the Supreme Court schedule? Are you dominated by the five men on the Court?

Religion Suffers From Three Great Plagues: Arrogance, Ignorance, and Stupidity

Before I discuss the difference between Democrats and Trumplicans, Republicans, and the rest of the so-called Religious Right, I want to tell you why I admire former President Harry Truman, only a high school graduate. He self-educated diligently all his life. In 1948 Harry was in the middle of a whistle-stop campaign for the presidency where he often addressed crowds from the last car of the train. His wife Bess had given him a rather expensive pair of gloves he admired. During one stop he was ending his speech when he dropped one glove on the tracks below as the train started to move. He immediately took off the other glove and threw it to the tracks. Harry said to an aide: “At least some poor person in this town will have warm gloves for the coming winter.” Can you imagine Calvin Coolidge, George W. Bush, or Donald Trump doing the same thing?

In another incident which shows the character of Truman, during the Korean war a young Army officer who had fought in Europe near the end of World War II joined the OSS-CIA team that briefed the president on the progress of the war. This young man had been detailed to carry a large flag, too big for the president’s desk, to show the progress of the Korean War. Truman usually talked to the youngest briefers first to put them at ease. As the young officer struggled with the flag, Harry said: “Put it on the floor.” The president of the United States then got on his knees on the floor and followed the young officer, also on his knees, around the large flag as he explained the wins and losses. Harry asked him many questions. I repeat; Can you imagine cautious Coolidge, dubious Dubya, and King Donald on knees in the Oval Office?

This is why almost all of the members of our Christian Taliban have a tremendous political advantage over progressive Democrats. They have no empathy for poor Whites and poor Blacks, Browns, Yellows, Native Americans, average citizens, and women born without boots, straps, and six-inch heels.

The Religious Right are victims of three permanent plagues that have savaged homo sapiens since our tardy development over three million years. There are no vaccines to control these plagues. The only cure for arrogance, ignorance, and stupidity is education. Science, reason, and logic hopefully will continue to overwhelm the voodoo vortex of religions that reject science and critical facts.

The Heads Are Not out of The Canal Yet, So Quit Yelling Murder At Fetuses

We can all agree that life begins at conception, but murder of a living homo sapiens does not take place until the head appears from the birth canal and starts breathing. With today’s genetics and medical knowledge, a healthy fetus has maybe a 75% chance of seeing daylight.

Pro-lifers love to yell “murder!” when an abortion is performed. But the perfect God in the Big Sky, who, according to the Bible, checks us out in the womb, misses a lot of stuff. There are imperfections that can cause up to 20% to 50% of pregnancies to be miscarried. Sometimes organs and body parts such as brains and arms are missing or are growing large in very dangerous spots. Sometimes twins are conjoined and are inseparable. If you aren’t perfect, evidently, it’s extremely difficult to measure the proper doses of testosterone and estrogen to billions of fetuses.

If God permits members of the LBGTQ+ community to slide out of the birth canal, why should the old boys in the Vatican, some of whom are gay, say that millions of gay members are “intrinsically disordered” and are under the command of that old devil Satan?

In 2020 about one in five pregnancies ended in abortion, mainly because of economics and family planning. Other fetuses of the 930,000 aborted that year were aborted because of the crimes of incest, rape, and thousands of complex medical reasons. We must remember that having a baby is 14 times more dangerous than having an abortion. Some states are trying to pass laws forcing a 12-year-old rape or incest victim to carry a fetus to term and birth. Try to convince me that is what God wants.

In many of the pro-life letters published in the Forum, mainly by cultish Roman Catholics, we see the term “unborn children” but we don’t see figures about the tens of thousands of dollars needed just for the birth—and certainly no mention of the $250,000 estimate needed to raise a child to the age of 18.

But the thing that galls me the most is the intense Trumplican pro-life pressure to keep the fetus alive to birth with comments about murder and personhood—and then comes the anti-baby politics after the birth, denying mothers and babies housing, food stamps, nutrition aids, and post-natal care.

Legally, there’s no such thing as an unborn child. If there is, the world is going to need millions of lawyers so unborn children can sue their mothers for neglect or pain. Pro-lifers say an aborted fetus might be another Einstein or a gay Leonardo da Vinci. It also could be a serial killer, or God forbid, another malignant psychopathic Trump.

Is This What You Want?

From a leaked video in a Brazil court hearing: The 10-year-old was pregnant from a rape and was asking the court for an abortion while sitting under a crucifix. The judge and prosecutor urged her to continue the pregnancy. Could she be pregnant “a little longer?” Did she want to name the baby? The prosecutor: “Would you consider an adoption instead of letting him die in agony?” The judge then ordered the girl taken from her parents in order to protect the fetus.