In 1942 Albert Camus wrote a book called “The Myth of Sisyphus”.
Camus describes those moments in our lives when our ideas about the world suddenly don’t work anymore, when every daily routine — going to work and back — and all our efforts seem pointless and misdirected. When one suddenly feels foreign and divorced from this world.
In these frightening moments of clarity we feel the absurdity of life.
Reason + Unreasonable World = Absurd Life
This absurd sensitivity is the result of a conflict. On the one hand we make reasonable plans for our lives, and on the other hand we are confronted with an unpredictable world which does not comply with our ideas.
So what is absurd? Being reasonable in an unreasonable world.
However, instead of denying that the world is unreasonable or abandoning reason all together, Camus suggests we should do three things:
1. Permanent revolution: We should constantly revolt against the circumstances of our existence and thus keep the absurd alive. We should never accept defeat, not even death, even though we know it can’t be avoided in the long run. Permanent rebellion is the only way to be present in the world.
2. Reject eternal freedom: Instead of enslaving ourselves to eternal models we should hold on to reason, but be aware of its limitations and apply it flexibly to the situation at hand — or put simply: we should find freedom here and now, not in eternity.
3. Passion: Most importantly we should always have a passion for life, love everything in it and try not to live as good as possible but as much as possible.
States across the US have enacted cruel, unconstitutional abortion laws that require doctors to sexually assault women seeking abortions and lie to them about the health impacts of abortion. Some laws require funerals for foetal remains.
These laws were pushed by ALEC, the corporate-backed “legislative exchange” that pushes “model legislation” through a network of slick lobbyists in state-houses across the country. ALEC purports to be in favor of “liberty” and “small government.”
Enter the Satanic Temple, a federally recognized religion whose members do not believe in Satan or supernatural phenomena. They believe “that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition.”
The Temple has a fantastic schtick. They go to places where christofascists have gotten laws passed that shove their weird, apostate version of “Christianity” down everyone else’s throats and point out that the First Amendment requires nondiscrimination among faiths.
Wanna put a giant stone Ten Commandments in front of your courthouse? Sure. But they’re gonna put a giant statue of Baphomet right next to it. The court challenges they mount aren’t cheap, but they’re slam dunks. The US Constitution is pretty clear on this.
Now, in 1993, Chuck Schumer sponsored the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” which lets Americans sue governments over laws that “substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion.”
Religious maniacs LOVE the RFRA and its progeny, like SCOTUS’s Hobby Lobby decision, which broadened the RFRA’s provisions and allowed corporations to claim exemptions from Rendering Unto Caesar where that interfered with the owners’ faith.
A Satanic Abortion is a religious ritual that is totally indistinguishable from a normal, medical abortion, except that the participant says a few self-affirming words about her bodily autonomy.
Oh, also: the ritual absolutely forbids, as a bedrock matter of religous conviction, any waiting periods, the withholding of medically necessary advice, mandatory counseling, required readings, and unnecessary sonograms.
Also forbidden: mandatory fetal heartbeat listening sessions and compulsory fetal burials.
If you want an abortion and the doctor tries this bullshit, hand them one of these exemption letters explaining how the law doesn’t apply thanks to the RFRA.
Now, the religious right could fight this. But if they win…they overturn the RFRA, and Hobby Lobby has to provide its employees with contraception and all the other theocratic exemptions go poof, too.
The Temple is pretty amazing. Here’s some highlights of their previous campaigns:
“Publicly confronted hate groups, fought for the abolition of corporal punishment in public schools, applied for equal representation when religious installations are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy, exposed harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners in mental health care, organized clubs alongside other religious after-school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations, and engaged in other advocacy in accordance with our tenets.”
(formerly the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer… changed due to Mr Campbell’s racism) an award sponsored by Analog Magazine/Dell Publishing, given annually at Worldcon
