People should learn to housebreak their seeing-eye gods

(Some seeing-eye gods are sillier than others…)

I’ve always had a soft spot for Judaism. Sure, it’s slightly preposterous for any subgroup of humanity to claim to be the Chosen One but, unlike most other religions, they don’t try to convert other people. All they basically ask is to be left alone to worship the God of their choice, without feeling the need to tell others what they should do.

Obviously, like anyone who asks other people to leave well enough alone, the Jews have found out that this simply does not and will not, ever, happen. Which is another way of saying that, by now, even the most simplistically devout Jew must be aware of the fact that it doesn’t exactly pay to be God’s Chosen.

Anyway, now, I’m an agnost, so I find most stories about religious nuts (whether they are of the Ayatollah or Dawkins persuasion) quite silly.

Still, I normally don’t care all much that the vast majority of people feels the need to bow to one type of beard-in-the-sky or the other. It’s fashionable to call this state of mind ‘tolerant’ but, truly, I just can’t be bothered much to care about the spiritual comfort blankets of others.

I would only claim one simple rule of thumb. That is, the moment that the religion of person X starts to seriously inconvenience or harm others, then that person, religion and/or God can go fuck themselves. No form of tolerance should be wasted on anybody who thinks his or her belief systems are worth more than the welfare of other people.

It’s a rather elementary form of social hygiene, not to play your portable music thingummies in public, not to litter or too talk too loudly and too long on your mobile phones outside your home…

… and not to bother other people with your choice of supernatural support system.

It’s one thing to claim people should respect your need to have some kind of divine seeing-eye dog; it’s quite another to expect other people to tolerate said dog to piss all over their carpets, chase their cats and bite their ankles.

So, when Popes forbid people in AIDS-riddled communities to use condoms, or certain Muslims encourage throwing homosexuals from high buildings or groups of Hindus claim they will beat up or kill couples who kiss in public, then sanity and that fore-mentioned social hygiene demands that we resists these kinds of people, totally.

Now, I have to regretfully come back to what’s supposed to be God’s favourite set of tribes, the children of Israel. As I mentioned earlier, they mostly obey all the rules of social hygiene. Still, any social, political or belief system has its own fair share of lunatics. Judaism, sadly, is not exemp from this rule.

Enter Dena and Gordon Coleman, of Embassy Court in Bournemouth, England:

“A Jewish couple are suing neighbours over motion sensors that turn on the lights in their communal stairwell, which they claim make it impossible for them to leave their flat during the sabbath. Since the sensors were installed, the lights come on as soon as they set foot outside their front door — which they say makes them responsible for switching them on and therefore prohibits them from leaving the building. The couple are suing their neighbours, saying that their human rights are being breached, and are claiming up to £5,000 damages.”

I’m obviously not saying that suing your neighbours over a few offending light bulbs is quite the same as telling people to get AIDS and die, or kill & maim homosexuals and kissing couples but it IS part of that strange pathology that insists you can sick your divine seeing-eye dog on people who don’t respect your preferred type of invisible pet.

So, I’m afraid all civilized and rational people should treat this Jewish couple in the same way as any other raving Godhead and politely – and if need be forcefully – insist they desist and fuck off already.

(My dog has sharper teeth than yours, so there…)