Heads Down for the Rapture

I have been known to make the occasional passing remark about why religious loonies have been disastrous for the only planet we have to live on. There are all kinds of problems ranging from a belief in the 'Rapture' to a feeling of separation from, and dominance over, the natural world.

But another one struck me just the other day. When you watch young children playing they are so busy. Games of imagination creating imaginary towns or roads or cars or planes or trains, people with imaginary heroes and villains and friends and enemies. They sit on the carpet or on the grass and are totally engrossed -- too busy to eat, or listen to you, or do homework, or get ready for bed. Sometimes look up, think it might be a bit late, but then go back to the game that is so addictive. Busy busy busy.

And that is how the fundies strike me -- busy busy busy running off to church and praying and getting up protests on gay marriage and stopping teens thinking abut sex and reading the bible and preventing biology being taught and all that. They seem to have scarcely time to go to work or to do anything around the house. Imaginary friends and worlds are just so time consuming. Certainly no time to actually look up and around and realise that it is getting late, that the planet is in trouble, that the neocons, having made use of their votes (always find time to vote, it is a religious duty to vote for the right kind of people, and against the wrong kind), are taking the country in all kinds of directions incompatible with the new testament.

Still not to worry, only here for a brief spell, and then there is eternity spent with the right kind of people just like themselves. So heads down to play again, who cares what is happening in the real world when the imaginary world is so engrossing?