Shocking Revelations

On Sunday, the day of the last game of the ALCS between the Red Sox and the Indians, the San Francisco Chronicle printed a story about Indians' pitcher Paul Byrd having in the past purchased human growth hormone. Now this is a big story of course, the use of HGH and steroids, known as cheating, is said to run rampant in baseball. And the news just happen to come out on the same day as the biggest game of the Indians' season. The reporters at ESPN were absolutely giddy having a big story to run with for the day. And they all seemed shocked.

What struck me was why they were shocked. They weren't surprised by the fact it was a pitcher caught doing it. The conventional wisdom of it being only hitters "juicing" was blown out of the water when they actually started drug testing in baseball and tons of hurlers were busted.

No what kept being mentioned over and over by so many of the commentators was that they were shocked because Paul Byrd is "deeply religious."

Huh?

Where exactly did this myth come from that religious people were somehow more virtuous than other people? There is nothing throughout history that has shown this to be the case, so what gives? I'm guessing that just because Christian types run this country from top to bottom this fallacy continues to be pushed as some sort of "truth." People like to believe that those who are like them are the most honest and decent people around.

But I have yet to see anything to make me believe that hardcore religious people are better human beings than those who aren't. In fact, in my world all of the non-believers I know are a heck of a lot better people than the Jesus/Abraham/Mohammad freaks I know. I'm not saying that religion makes you a bad person, I know many good and decent people that believe in one of the major fairy tales. But religious certainly does not equal virtuous.

Look at things like the Inquisition in history to see how shitty the pious types can be. Jeez, as recently in history as World War II we had the head of an entire world faith that openly supported a man who wanted to eradicate an entire group of people from the planet. (That would be the Pope, Hitler and the Jews for those of you with a modern public high school education).

All the southern people who lynched black people for talking to/whistling at/looking towards a white woman were super-duper Christians. Heck, the bible was their reason for why they treated blacks the way they did.

Cheating and stealing? One needs to look no farther than your average TV preacher to find guys who do that. Jim Bakker slept around with women other than his wife and stole money.

And do I even need to remind people how many Catholic Priests, in many countries, were molesting children in their care? Worse yet, the leadership of that very same religion found out about it, helped cover it up and let those sick fucks continue to have jobs working with kids. Every atheist I know would have called the cops if they found out something like that.

These commentators are shocked by a religious baseball player who cheated? Are they forgetting something? The guy most of the public figures to be the biggest cheater of them all, Barry Bonds, based on the major increase in the size of his head and feet in his mid-thirties, is one of the most religious people in the game. He is a seriously devout Christian. And not only does he cheat at his profession, he's also a major adulterer. And I doubt you could find too many people that would say that Barry loves his neighbor.

Speaking of adultery, we live in a country that a vast majority of the population consider themselves religious. Yet statistics show that over half of the married people in the U.S. have had extramarital affairs. Presumably this does not count swingers, who do so with their spouse's permission.

In fact, baseball is full of seriously religious people. Probably over 90% of players are pretty damn religious people. Most insiders in the game figure that well over 50% of them are taking performance enhancing drugs. In other words, lying and cheating.

Shocked by a dishonest believer?

Not me brother.