Bizarro World Lives!!

Back when I was an avid comic book aficionado DC Comics ruled my literary world. Superman was one of my favorite characters and I looked forward each month to his latest exploits and feats of daring do. This is where I came to learn of Bizarro World.

Bizarro World was an imaginary planet in another galaxy that on the surface paralleled Earth... but in the opposite. The planet was a cube, not a sphere and philosophically everything was backwards. Pretty was scorned, ugly was admired; perfection was evil, imperfection / distortion was good; intelligence was condemned and ridiculed, while backwardness/ignorance was praised. It made for some interesting stories.

I didn’t know it then but Bizarro World wasn’t a complete fiction or an imaginary planet. It may well be that the writer who developed this strange venue was commenting on civilization and foretelling the future, much as Orwell did with Animal Farm and 1984. If so he was frighteningly on target.

• Recently the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said that capital punishment is “pro-life”; by deduction then being anti-death penalty must be assessed as being “pro-death.”



• The Bible preaches that life is tribulation and pain - a curse caused by Original Sin in the Garden of Eden; true happiness and ones “reward” comes when you die.



• For centuries the church has deemed thinking, questioning, and reason the great evil, the enemy of faith; it encourages unquestioning blind faith and the acceptance of ancient fable devoid of evidence deserved of praise.



• The preponderance of scientific proofs for ancient Earth, the Big Bang, and evolutionary theory is all “deception”; while the deception, promoted by shaman, of the scriptural myths devoid of evidence is “truth.”



• The pope condemns condom use and blames it for contributing to the spread of AIDS in the Third World; while he asserts that only belief in Jesus as ones savior curtails the spread of the disease.



• To Mother Teresa the physical suffering of the terminally ill was good. She told tortured sufferers and the soon to be dead that pain was “Jesus kissing you”; all the while she withheld pain relieving medications. Painful death good, comfortable death bad.



• Their man-god deemed praying in public to be avoided as a great hypocrisy; mass pray- ins, praying at graduation ceremonies, football games, and at legislative sessions are promoted by politicians and shaman.



• The bible preaches that the rich cannot enter heaven; while millionaire preachers accumulate luxury cars and mega mansions with the contributions of millions of their often impoverished followers.



• To Evangelicals war and unrest in Middle East is to be welcomed as part of God’s ultimate plan; anyone who promotes peace in the region is The Anti-Christ.



• Christians tout Jesus as the “Prince of Peace,” Muslims claim the “Religion of Peace”; yet the most devout among them are pro-war, seek to suppress or kill gays, and perform acts of terrorism across the globe.
  
  

The list of bizarre contradictions promoted by a segment of our population in complete contrast and diametrically opposed to a civilized society continues on. You can probably add to this brief list of Bizarro like codes if you think about it. Bizarro World lives! Not on some distant planet, but here, now, on Earth. But its name is Religion World.