Moral Bankruptcy

        Could there be a larger cognitive dissonance than that experienced while observing Christian hate groups, such as Westboro Baptist Church et. al.? On one hand, they rush to defend/mitigate the actions of a Josh Duggar, largely on a sugary premise such as "Who are we to judge?" - let (God's love/grace/ divine wisdom...ad nauseum) sort it out. "God will forgive him if he repents", etc.etc. Of course this us because he (or whomever they are defending) is a member of the cult that is Far Right ultra fundamentalist Christianity, or what might be called the First Church of Huckabee/Santorum. 

     Huckabee rushes to Duggar's defense, even though as a law and order Far Rightist, he should be calling for his arraignment, Santorum calls for rape victims to consider the result of their rape a blessing, to be carried to term, while his actual spouse had an abortion by choice. Disconnect!

        Of course none of this uber forgiveness or tolerance is extended to any person who isn't just like them. While essentially excusing persons whose actions are actually prosecutable under criminal statues, they malign, judge, and persecute many who have committed no crime. The Irish electorate gave us all a lesson in civics recently - referendum, followed by a general consensus, even among the opposition, that the will of the people was clearly shown. Compare this to the Westboro Baptist loud, crude and downright loathsome demonstrations at the funerals of war dead, murdered coeds, etc.

        "Grace" defined is (in Christian belief): "The free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings." So, apparently, the Westboro perception of that is further parsed as applicable only to those who hold precisely the same superstitions as they, and as for the rest - fuck 'em. There are sinners, apparently, and then there are other sinners, and Westboro Baptist Church has been granted special insight to pick and choose.

        Let's assume for a moment that there might have actually been an apocalyptic Jewish preacher named Yeshua bar Josef sometime around the 1-32 AD time frame. Let's further assuming that those who wrote versions of oral tradition regarding his actions more than 70 years after his death got his general attitude regarding mankind sort of right. This is a large set of assumptions some of which are questionable, but humor me for the sake of literary license.

        Yeshua (Latinized  200 years later to" Jesus")  would have kicked Fred Phelps' ass and welcomed any truly loving people to the table. If you need an example regarding the ills visited upon the world by organized religion or more precisely, religiosity, look to Westboro Baptist Church.