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Monday, September 14, 2009

Religous Right-The Nightmare of Christianity

A story in the Nation caught my eye:

"On December 8, 2007 a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray suited up in black military fatigues, gathered two automatic rifles, three semiautomatic pistols and 1,000 rounds of ammo, jumped in his car and drove to two far right Christian religious institutions, one a missionary complex where he had once been a student, and the other the New Life Church parking lot where his "family values minister" Ted Haggard preached Christianity while secretly groveling in pornography and gay sex.

Murray had concluded that, "Christianity is one big lie."

So he gunned down in cold blood four people. So much for a good Christian upbringing.

"All four of Murray's victims were youthful, mostly home-schooled and extremely idealistic.

Why did he do it?

"Murray had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents, pastors and other religious leaders in his Colorado community.

"The mainstream media made little effort to analyze the trauma-wracked mentality that drove Murray to violence, and attempts to assess the impact that Murray's religious indoctrination had had in shaping his destructive behavior were brushed aside.

"By failing to explore the roots of Murray's violence, the mainstream media allowed the far right to seize the narrative and blame Murray's actions on "Two words: DEMONIC POSSESSION."

"They also blamed pornography saying that not only does pornography dehumanize, but like any addiction, increasing amounts are needed to be satisfied--a deadly recipe for those prone to violence."

"However, if porn breeds violence, then why had Ted Haggard, the once pastor of the New Life Church, and an avid porn consumer, never engaged in any act of physical brutality beyond lightly spanking the buttocks of a gay bodybuilder?

The answer is that it is not pornography or demonic possession that haunted Matthew Murray; it was the repressive, far right, hypocritical, religious upbringing that turned Matthew Murray into deeply disturbed young man he became.

Region of all shades, Christianity as well as Islam, taken to fundamentalist extremes, has caused and continues to cause much of the ill fortune and tragedy which befalls human kind on this planet.

I'm sick of it.

Read Max Blumenthal's story for more of this, including the impact of Christian madras religious schools, the far right politicians including republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee who support them (Huckabee once earmarked state funds to distribute the hate literature from the founder of the school where Murray studied) and how it twists and distorts basic human beings into killers; it will sicken you too.

Fred Roswold

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