Elton on Religion

Elton John, interviewed in a special gay edition (!?!) of the Observer Music Monthly magazine proffers some contradictory ideas regarding religion. In essence; many gays love religion, yet on the other hand it can turn people into hateful lemmings, so it should be banned.

Organised religion lacked compassion and turned people into “hateful lemmings”, he told the Observer.

But the musician said he loved the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it which he had learned at Sunday school.

And he said there were many gays he knew who loved their religion.

Well, yes, it can do that. And, yes, gay people can love their religion. Yet his proposed solution to the conundrum is somewhat heavy handed, to say the least:

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people,” he said. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”

“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion.”

According to the singer-songwriter, 59, his solution would be to “ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it”.

 Um… Riiiight. How, I wonder would that work out in practice? A bit like the crackdown on Catholicism in the 1500s perhaps? A return to the cloak and dagger world of priest-holes and clandestine masses, maybe? Here we have a gay man; subject no doubt during his life to the prejudices doled out to homosexuals; proposing a solution that would do exactly the same thing to other people based upon their beliefs – even if those beliefs are for the good. Yup, I’m baffled too.

On the one hand we have:

“But the reality is that organised religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

And on the other:

And he called on the leaders of major religions to hold a “conclave” to discuss the fate of the world – which he said was “near escalating to World War Three”.

Not much point if organised religion doesn’t work… :dry:

“We are all God’s people; we have to get along and the [religious leaders] have to lead the way. If they don’t do it, who else is going to do it? They’re not going to do it and it’s left to musicians or to someone else to deal with it.” 

So are we banning the buggers or not? Beats me, I’m confused too. Listen, Elton, old bean, stick to the piano and leave the politics and religion to people who know what they are talking about, have a coherent argument to put forward and can do so without being completely self-contradictory. I mean, do you want to ban organised religion, or do you want to get them together to sort out the world’s problems? You can’t have both.

Actually, you can’t have either…