The new Olympic champion, still breathing hard after winning her race, was asked by the television interviewer, “How does it feel to be Olympic champion?”
“A dream come true,” said the runner. “I just have to thank God for this win. I give Him all the glory.”
I wondered to myself if she thought that God didn’t like the other racers as much as He liked her, so He helped her win; and I wondered why she would think that. I remember just a few months ago seeing several different Grammy winners accept their trophies with similar words of approbation, such as “Thank you God for this award,” and having the same thoughts then.
It has become patently obvious to me that these seemingly harmless tributes to God are actually indicative of a new American societal zeitgeist, not so harmless, and in fact reminiscent of medieval times; where an elitist few dominated through the church and humanity was led blindfolded into the Dark Ages.
Now, the new ruling elite uses “family values” religious dogma to make bold promises that “if you work hard and pray you will be rewarded.” This sophist supplication of false promises and religious lies deceives those looking for more purpose in their life into thinking that simply praising God and working hard is all they have to do to achieve it.
So, even Olympians and famous musicians, hard workers all, can fall prey to these Bible beseechers and attribute their success to God mindlessly, instead of attributing it to their own tireless efforts. They do this at peril of excluding all other efforts as being insufficient to gain God’s favor; i.e., the runner-up in the race just didn’t pray hard enough, or they just didn’t have enough faith.
This fundamentalist Dark Ages doctrine leads to a separation of society into the elites (those whom God has blessed for their faithful entreaties to Him) and everybody else (presumably those that can’t be bothered to worship God or who through a lack of hard work, or by a lack of faith, or having the wrong faith, are not worthy).
The elites, then, do not have to care about everyone else because they are not worth caring about. Furthermore, and this is where the propaganda really gets piled high and deep, these elites will have you believe that if you work hard and know God, you, too, can become one of them, and who wouldn’t want that? Thus, the medieval power of religious dictatorship is with us again because the fear of being a non-elite, and never being able to achieve elite status, is a powerful and ever present fear.
This fear and its concomitant behavioral manifestations is so prevalent in American society now that what was once radical religious canon is now considered mainstream, and its elitist “I am better than you” precepts are now accepted by a large portion of the electorate. Not only is it desirable for us to pray, our political leaders must also do so. Not only must we be good enough for God to want to help us win a race, our leaders must be blessed as well.
The manifest destiny of the elite is to turn our democracy into some kind of theocracy, all while claiming fealty to the Constitution they hope to usurp. Eventually, the citizens of this country are going to have to wake up, smell the “In God we trust” roses, and save our democracy. How about instead of having a belief system where God likes certain people better than others we place our emphasis on “E Pluribus, Unum”, letting the people of the world know that Americans consider all humans to be equal and worthy of respect.
Let’s stop honoring and admiring the elites and dismissing everyone else. Furthermore, let’s renounce any and all religious zealotry and elitism and keep any manifestations of religious hegemony resulting from them out of the laws that govern us all, while spurning politicians who use such devices to solicit voters.
We can turn away religious elitism at the polling booth and keep religion out of government. By so doing, we can begin to stop clouding the minds of Olympians and Grammy winners and anyone else who thinks that God somehow likes them better than most everyone else.
Otherwise, there is little hope for the democracy that is the United States of America.
Bob Fay is an adjunct professor of mathematics.
