The Reactionary Utopian
                      May 24, 2007


AMERICAN IDOLS
by Joe Sobran

     How can this country survive much longer, when the 
younger generation is so appallingly ignorant? Only half 
of them can name the first book of the Bible, or any of 
the four Gospels.

     Worse yet, in a way, I'm not sure they can even read 
the NEW YORK POST! They all know who the current American 
Idol is, but a shocking number are unable to identify Amy 
Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco. No use trying to converse 
intelligently with such people about Antony and 
Cleopatra.

     I have my own problem with the POST. My eyes are so 
weak now that without my reading glasses I can't tell 
whether it still supports Israel. I'll have to start 
getting the Braille edition, I guess.

     Today's atheists baffle me too. If they don't 
believe God exists, why do they hate him so much? That 
doesn't figure for me.

     I mean, I don't believe in Zeus, myself. But for 
that very reason, I don't hate him. (Or, to be safe, Him 
-- some people in this multicultural society of ours are 
pretty sensitive about capitalizing pronouns.)

     I've always found it hard to hold grudges against 
deities that don't even exist. When, as a kid, I didn't 
believe, I couldn't even work up a head of steam against 
the one wise people tried to tell me did exist.

     A tolerant fellow Christian just told me he thinks 
atheists are entitled to their opinions. I told him I 
think they're entitled to my opinions; I've heard enough 
of theirs! Don't even get me started on the subject of 
that fool Darwin. The world would be a lot better off if 
he'd taken up astrology, like Attila the Hun.

     At least astrology is a science with a long and 
respectable pedigree. Not that it can't do a lot of harm 
in the wrong hands, I suppose. But so can physics. It 
wasn't astrologers who gave the world the atomic bomb.

     Why don't the atheists get angry at Zoroastrians, by 
the way? Talk about troublemakers. I used to live next 
door to one of those people. Never again. Of course, with 
the Internet, you can't get away from them now. And they 
always seem to know how to find Yours Truly. I guess 
that's what I get for answering their messages.

     One of the pretty clear lessons of history is that 
Zoroastrianism tends to lead to war in the Middle East. 
It's so obvious that I'm surprised that the atheists 
still haven't caught on to it. Why do they always give 
Ahura Mazda a pass when they're inveighing against gentle 
Jesus? Do they assume nobody will notice? Well, some of 
us are keeping score.

     They accuse us Christians of being Manicheans, for 
example, but they seldom say a word against the actual 
Manicheans. How fair is that? If you ask me, it's the 
same old tired story: atheism talks, polytheism walks. 
Watch the treatment of the Catholic Church on public 
television, and you'll see what I mean. I've had it up to 
here with these people.

     I wish I could say I don't have a god in this fight, 
but I do: the only one today's atheists seem to care 
about, the only one they can never forgive. Read the 
Psalms, listen to Handel: he is the king of glory. The 
hatred of the atheists bears perverse witness to him. So 
does their persecution of his believers, which is so 
unlike their indifference to the old pagan gods and 
idols.

     Atheism is tolerant, they say. Maybe I'm missing 
something. We never seem to hear about the sins of 
organized irreligion, still active in China and Cuba. In 
the West it's called "separation of church and state."

     As Charles Baudelaire observed, "Satan's cleverest 
wile is to make us think he doesn't exist." It has come 
to sound quaint to speak of the diabolical, no matter how 
evident it is.

     Most atheists now prefer to call themselves 
agnostics, meaning that even if there is a bare 
possibility that some sort of God exists, he can't speak 
to his own creatures, so we should ignore any messages 
from him.

     And religion is all right, they say, as long as it 
makes you feel good. Just don't try to impose it on 
others by acting as if it's really true.

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