Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The enticing lies of religion.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. I heard about it yesterday, but have been pondering.
The unmarried mother's story about giving birth to a child diagnosed as terminally ill in the womb hit a major nerve on the Internet.
Every night for the last two months, thousands of abortion opponents across the nation logged on to a blog run by the suburban Chicago woman who identified herself only as "B" or "April's Mom."
People said they prayed that God would save her pregnancy. They e-mailed her photos of their children dressed in pink, bought campaign T-shirts, shared tales of personal heartache and redemption, and sent letters and gifts to an Oak Lawn P.O. box in support.
As more and more people were drawn to her compelling tale, eager advertisers were lining up. And established parenting Web sites that oppose abortion were promoting her blog -- which included biblical quotes, anti-abortion messages and a soundtrack of inspirational Christian pop songs.
Except, of course as the headline indicates, it was all a hoax.
OK, there's a lot more to the story, and I would recommend you read the article. But basically, this was this woman's way of dealing with emotions left over from a pregnancy which actually did result in the death of her son. So she created this fictional pregnancy and used it to explore her feelings about what happened.
Of course, she got in over her head. Way in over her head. Because she had tapped into a rich emotional vein of the anti-abortion religious right. And once she started getting some positive feedback from those readers, it was hard for her to let the thing go. They were a ready-made community of readers, happy to offer her support and emotional strokes.
And this, it seems to me, is one of the reasons why religion thrives, even in the face of reality. And how it feeds on itself. She got sucked into the lie, to the point where she couldn't let it go. Such a self-reinforcing dynamic can spiral out of control very easily.
And did.
Jim Downey
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The upside to this is, the
The upside to this is, the time all those anti-abortionists spent reading her blog was time they didn't spend plotting the assassination of another doctor just doing his job.