Jackass - The Moviemaker

I'm cranky today, and convinced that Christopher Hitchens was right - religion DOES poison everything. Although I suspect that I would differ from Hitchens in the understanding that religion in and of itself, is non-toxic. But when you add people to the mix (And how can you not?), you wind up with random samplings of pure, unadulterated venom.

When you give people the idea that the Universe itself thinks that they are more special than other people, you're bound to end up with some jackass (including people like one "Sam Bacile") who think that gives them license to set out to mock and denigrate others. Of course, you're also bound to end up with a bunch of jackasses (including a whole lot of people down through history) who think that being the most special people in the Universe gives them carte blanche to assault, murder, rape et cetera those who are less special than themselves.

In the end, it's really simply a corollary to the idea that any group large enough to have a place in the social consciousness is too large to not have any jackasses in it. Because, well, we're a species of jackasses, and the larger and more diverse we become, the simple inequality that this state of affairs produces means that anger and bitterness provide ample fertilizer for our inner jackasses to assert themselves. Of course, this means that doing away with religion wouldn't put an end to jackassery. Neither would the sincere conversion of the entire planet to a single religion. Jackassery will always find a way.