The Unitarian Jihad

Jon Carroll at SFGate got this in the mail:

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

Billmon suggests:

For the record, I should note that church members generally refer to themselves as Unitarian Universalists, although some of the more wacked-out splinter sects prefer the term Universalist Unitarian. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Clearly, Unitarian Jihad has undergone some kind of savage internal purge. (By majority vote, no doubt, with minority views fully noted for the record.) That would also explain the wild rhetoric about "calm" and "moderation," and the ominous hints of future symbolic protest actions. What we have here is a ticking time bomb of thoughtful dissent, which could explode at any time.

I know, because I myself am a "rainbow diaper" baby, raised in a family of softcore Unitarian Universalists. I can see now that my parents were actually agents of a foreign power (reality) who should have been executed as traitors and spies. But for many years I was also a semi-hardened moderate activist, dedicated to the cause of world evolution.

Second thoughts (plus a generous grant from the Sarah Scaife Foundation) eventually led me to see the church for what it really is: a non-dogmatic, non-authoritarian institution sincerely, if politely, opposed to those traditional moral values -- hatred, intolerance, cruelty -- that have helped make Bush Country what it is today.

The closer I looked, the more I realized what a threat "UUism" posed to our red-state way of life. It hardly took a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing inside the church: Potluck suppers, youth camp singalongs, respect-in-the-sanctuary training -- the whole liberal totalitarian tool set. So I got my family out, while there was still time.

Now I see how right I was. It seems some religions (Unitarian Universalism, Christian Science, the Teletubbies) just have a fatal attraction towards rationality. It's a disease -- a symptom of a backward culture in deep crisis, unable to cope with the xenophobic bigotry and fundamentalist superstitions of modern society.

Some people say we should destroy these intellectual terrorists -- invade their churches, kill their discussion leaders and convert them all at gunpoint to our mainstream conservative values. But that would be futile. Force is useless against the rational mind. The only thing these terrorists understand is cold, hard reason.

That's why the only solution, I'm afraid, is to hunt them down, one by one, and persuade them -- with massive, overwhelming logical firepower -- that resistance is futile, and that the archaic Enlightment values they hold dear are now as obsolete as democracy itself.

It won't be easy: Unitarian Jihad is cunning, and can count on the support of Bush Country's other mortal enemies: the Democrats (except Joe Lieberman, of course), the French, the liberal arts majors. But with time, and a relentless religious witch hunt, I'm sure this war can be won.