I have noticed since beginning to live in America that almost everything is done to the extreme. No middle ground. No grey. Everything has to be black and white. And I’m not talking race here either.

Whenever an American religious or political leader persuades the people to be afraid of some other people and gives them the name ‘enemy’ then it seems to follow immediately that anyone who has anything true to say in praise of the ‘enemy’ is either unpatriotic, a heretic, or a traitor, or all three.

As someone recently said, “He who is not for us is against us.” That piece of nonsense is typical of the attitude I’m talking about. There are a thousand million people in India who know nothing about what is going on in my village politics. Are they for the village president or against him? This attitude springs from a tiny mental universe and a closed mind full of fear.

This behavior is not confined to Americans of course. They simply seem to do it best.
I have mentioned before that my uncle Tom was killed just before WWII when the British were having what were called skirmishes with the French in Syria. Tom was the last casualty on the British side. He was killed by a single shot fired from a hill about a mile away.

I admired the skill of the sniper involved. My family could not divest themselves of the evil Frenchman idea enough to see my point of view. Of course I wasn’t pleased to know that uncle Tom had gone for ever. But facts are facts. The fact that he was gone did not alter the other fact that the shot was an amazing tribute to the skill of the French soldier across terrain with heat mirages, varying air densities and rogue wind currents. There were at least two facts, not one.

During WWII I remember very famous conductors having harsh words said about them in the tabloids because they were performing music by Beethoven and Bach, who were German. I suppose that was news to some people who probably didn’t ever listen to the music of either. I didn’t get that attitude of guilt by association. The gift of a talented artist is to the world. I certainly would not have been a friend of Beethoven. His abrasive personality would have turned me off. But his music is a different matter.

The tabloids did not criticize our inventors for using the mathematics and physics invented or discovered by the German Carl Gauss to design our fighter aircraft or the bouncing bomb. Gauss was one of my heroes when I was young. The Nazis did not refuse to use the theory of relativity and Einstein’s famous equation on grounds that it was Jewish. Politics and religion seem to be the two areas where this behavior is paramount.

People who think that praise of an enemy is treachery or that criticism of a friend means enmity would not understand the point of my previous posting about the stupidity of believing any version of the Bible as inerrant, without error.

My pointing out the sexually explicit content of the Word of God would make some of them think that I must be an atheist or something equally bad from their viewpoint. One point was that I have read it and many of the faithful have not. Indeed, I have studied it, not just read it. The post was to counter balance the ridiculous awe in which that particular book is held by the ignorant, and also to point out that using it to hammer alleged sexual sinners is hypocritical considering some of its content.

And then there is the cherry picking aspect of the matter. Fundamentalists co-opt the high moral ground as a matter of course. That is irritating to sensible people. The Moral Majority is neither. And then, though some of them can converse almost normally, there often comes a point in the conversation or discussion when they quote a verse from scripture and stop talking. As far as they are concerned their cherry picked verse counters all arguments. God talking. Case closed.

But fundamentalists always choose some commandment or judgment from their Word of God that suits their purpose. Other people are supposed treat this commandment or judgment with great respect because of its divine origin. Yet they do not quote other commandments or judgments of equal scriptural value. In a word, they are HYPOCRITES, in caps as I have written. Let’s look at the stuff they leave out.

Let’s suppose that I really want to obey the commandments of the paranoid Lord of the Old Testament and that their King James Bible tells me exactly what they are. This is fantasy of course. I despise their way of thinking, but as an example of what a devout believer needs to do let’s give it a try. I shall of course be trying to obey ALL the laws not just the ones the fundamentalist uses as a jackhammer.

I open the Bible at Exodus 21 and speed read it. Looks like quite a few holy rules there. Look at verse 7. It tells me what should happen if I sell my daughter to be a maidservant, which means selling her into slavery. Oh wow! What a turn up for the books. We haven’t been getting on well since January and I thought I was stuck with her for good. Now that’s a convenient custom. I didn’t know that I could sell my daughter. But it raises issues though it's in the Word of God. I must ask my local fundamentalist.

In the current financial situation I find the idea of cutting down expenses, i.e. feeding and clothing and educating my daughter, and getting cash back at the same time rather appealing. A sort of divine stimulus package. So, what should I charge for her? What is the going rate for daughters? I need guidance from an expert fundamentalist seller of daughters. They are the only people who know what God really wants or means.

Say I have one youngest daughter, let’s hope she’s still a virgin at fourteen. Should I ask more for her as a virgin than for her elder sister who is twenty and definitely not a virgin. Let’s have clarity. It’s in the Bible that I can do it, and probably should. But I need guidance.

What was the verse they always quote to end any argument about gays? Leviticus 18:22
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.” That has the virtue of clarity. But if the fundamentalist must obey this one and tells me I must too, then he or she should also obey the other commandments in Leviticus. They shouldn’t just pick and choose to beat up on people they don’t like. Let’s look further at other commandments I must follow that have the same end of argument authority, the Bible.

Turning back to the beginning of Leviticus so I don’t miss any important commandments let’s check chapter one. That whole chapter is about how to go about pleasing the Lord, pretty much a commandment in itself, by sacrificing my cattle, sheep and fowls to make a sweet savor for the Lord, who apparently loves the smell of burning flesh.

Supposing I really want to do this but my neighbor objects because she doesn’t like the smell of burning flesh. Should I stone her to death? I need clarity. It’s in the Bible so no doubt I’m supposed to do it. Alan spilled the fuel on the blazing grill and steaks of my barbecue on the first sunny day last week. Does that count as a burnt offering, or must I buy a whole animal and start again.

I’m watching out of my window as some young men are throwing a football about. I’ve seen them before and happen to know that this ball is made of pigskin. In Leviticus 11:6-8 I just find out that even touching such a skin is an abomination. I didn’t know that before. Should I warn them, buy them gloves or stone them. It’s in the same set of rules as the homosexuality thing. An order not a suggestion.

A little further down on verse 10 it points out that eating shellfish is an abomination too. I know a shop in the village that actually sells shellfish and that obviously tempts people to break the law. Shall I report him to the authorities? Is he an accomplice in crime?

That’s several abominations already. Are there degrees of abomination? Is the pig skin thing a worse abomination than homosexuality? I need a fundamentalist expert so I don’t accidentally do something wrong.

In chapter 15:19-24 it tells me that everything my wife touches during her period is unclean. If she sits on something it becomes unclean. If I even touch the bed she uses I have to wash all over. And having sex with her is a total no-no. This happens every month. Please tell me how to obey all these restrictions and still live with the woman. Is this why the patriarchs had so many wives?

And if my eldest son is moving round the village and meets a girl who interests him how does he find out beforehand if she is actually unclean? Does he ask? What would he say? What would she say? There must be experts I can consult on such awkward social circumstances. We wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing to a pretty woman would we?

We have some organic truck farmers close by and they have several crops growing in the same field and mingling together. I didn’t know till I read chapter 19 verse 19 that the Lord forbade this practice. Should we inform them and hope they repent or just stone them and get it over. There’s so much to do to obey these laws and I must make up for lost time.

Incidentally, the daughter I might be selling is always wearing mixtures of cotton and wool, not to mention rayon and nylon. I didn’t realize until reading verse 19 that she too was sinning against the Lord. Shall I tell her and hope she repents before I sell her, or shall I just have her stoned and take a loss?

My barber is Roman Catholic and continually breaks the law in verse 27. He cuts hair from around the temples and trims beards. I don’t think he does it deliberately to break the law of the Lord. But who am I to judge? Should I report him as an unrepentant sinner. He uses a different Bible in which psalm 23 ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ is screwed up in translation and is printed as psalm 22. Can he be blamed since he uses a different Bible or is that an additional offense, or shall we stone the printer?

We have some complex family arrangements due to lack of housing in the village. Some people we know are sleeping with their in-laws. I know from Leviticus 20:14 that this is evil in the sight of the Lord and they should all be burned. But apart from lawful barbecue grills the village policy allows no open fires. Should we take them to unincorporated property to fulfill the law?

Now this one really hurts me personally. In Leviticus 21:20 I have found out that I must not approach the altar of the Lord with damaged testicles or a vision problem. Well, my stones aren’t damaged but my vision is very poor. If I get spectacles and a good correction might I be allowed to approach the altar? Should I find a Jewish ophthalmologist who may have an inside edge to help my case? Is there any wiggle room here?

And now I find something that I could do with the divine stimulus package I will get from selling my daughters. I didn’t know until reading Leviticus 25:44 that it’s OK for me to buy slaves from neighboring countries. So now I have another problem. Slaves from Mexico are probably cheaper than slaves from Canada, but then I’d have to learn more Spanish. What is the financially prudent thing to do. I need help from experienced slave owning fundamentalists.

On the way out of my research on sinning the Bible opened again at Exodus and I find in 35:2 that anyone who does work on the Sabbath must be executed. Since we must obey all the commandments in the Bible we need help here. Is the Sabbath on Friday, Saturday or Sunday? All those days are mosque, synagogue or church days for the Abraham based religions. And do we burn, stone, or just cut off the heads of the offenders? Doing the right thing can be so complicated.

I could go on and on. My point is clear I hope. Fundamentalists do NOT obey the rules in their own Bible and they carefully choose the ones they want to report, which is probably an offense to the Lord. They hardly ever quote the New Testament which is not full of the same stuff that is total nonsense in an urban society in the twenty first century.

They call themselves Christians, which would lead most people to think that perhaps they intend to follow the teachings of Jesus. They don’t. They prefer the rules and regulations of an obsolete tribal god so that they can make other people wrong and themselves right.

According to the Bible I read most Jesus said “God is love.” Fundamentalists say “Jesus hates fags.” There’s a disconnect, particularly since the Secret Gospel of Mark indicates that Jesus certainly didn't hate fags.

Matt 7 starts of with “Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged.” And goes on about reaming the man with a speck of sawdust in his eye while you have a plank in your own. Typical fundamentalist behavior.

I always took the ‘Judge not’ commandment seriously. It seems to me to mean that if your judgment is based on facts known to you then it is not the kind of judgment Jesus warned against. It is an observation not a judgment. When a Jew had definite opinions about a Samaritan whom he had never met, then that’s the kind of judgment coming from programming. Bad news. Like the judgments of the fundamentalists about gays and lesbians they have never met.

Fundamentalists are always quoting the Ten Commandments. Some of their leaders as we know have found it impossible to obey the one about adultery. But Jesus gave two commandments that he said contained all the others. In one of the first things I learned by heart in Matt 22:37 Jesus said flatly “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. It’s also in Luke 10. Surely the Bible quoters have seen it in one place or the other.

I hope you noticed too that Jesus said, “Thou shalt…” The fundamentalists prefer commandments that begin with, “Thou shalt not. It’s a clue about the different mind set they have from the Lord they pretend to follow.

Fundamentalists obviously do not love their neighbors, unless they are other fundamentalists. And even then not always, particularly if they attend a different church. Because of the infinitely stupid dogma that a new born baby is already a sinner they end up hating themselves. And those that hate themselves cannot love anyone else, and are pretty dangerous as citizens to those who are tolerant of one another's foibles.

The great weakness of a democracy is that to some extent it must allow, because of freedom of speech, some activities that are calculated to destroy it. Allowing fundamentalists to get into positions of power undermines every other freedom. Keep the church, any church out of politics or disaster will follow. A theocracy is the worst kind of dictatorship. And that’s what the people who wave their Bible at you, and insist that you are a sinner are trying to bring about.