A quick Friday night bonus comic. I read an article today on another government’s efforts to block “blasphemous’ materials on the internet. This may be an entirely American bias, but I just can’t understand things like this. It’s 2010, and there are still governments that feel the need to prevent their citizens from being exposed to ideas that are considered religious blasphemy?!? How does this happen? I get that I am spoiled by the concept of a separation between church and government, but if it’s truly about someone’s soul, where’s the benefit? Do they really believe that God would see value in forcing people to live their lives in a dark room so that they can see no evil, with earplugs so that they can hear no evil and a gun to their heads so that they can do no evil? Is God a 13-year old with such low self-esteem that simply going through the motions of living a “godly” life is good enough? Would not a God want his or her people to see the world as it is, to be exposed to temptations and to choose to live a good life? There can’t be value if there isn’t a choice. I can’t believe that any government that would rob its people of their right to choose what to believe is actually thinking of or working for God. What do you think?
Time to climb down from the soapbox and go to bed…
It has nothing to do with God. It has to do with Power and complacency. If everyone has one set of beliefs there isn’t any arguments about it. The more different areas of your life I can control to be in step with me…the more power I have over you.
Oh, I understand that, but the naive part of me says we should have moved beyond that by now…
I think there is another element. Most of the time, such governments are actually run by the religious establishment. Even if they aren’t, the real power tends to be in the religious strongholds by virtue of their hold over the people/sheep. As such, the people/sheep and/or the “church” see such blasphemous things and get all offended and thus want someone to do something. Who is that someone with the mechanisms in place to do something? The government. So any way you slice it, something is going to be done. In the internet age such material can’t be burned, so it is banned. And if you think such things don’t still happen in the good old USA, think again. There are examples of books getting banned and book burning occuring with frightening regularity and it often involves public schools and/or local/state governments. Just try finding evolution in some states. Silly, and scary at the same time…
Well, indeed. I’ve done at least one previous strip on book burnings. Theocratic rule, by an large, is going to cause a lot more problems before it gets better, but one likes to think that “Hey, if we can get out from under this, then so can you.” Easy to say when the gun is currently pointed at one’s own head.
And no, the US isn’t perfect either, but there are mechanisms to slow this crappola down and, eventually, root it out of the system.
I mean, I’m a big fan of God, but the necessities of government are not those of church and vice versa.