Pharisee, Part 4 - Self-Righteous Without Religion

This is a quote from a website called Al Gore, The Movement. Read it carefully:

"The" WILL To ACT" is a Renewable Resource - Al Gore Quote at the Academy Awards... PLEASE HELP MAKE ART A DRIVING FORCE FOR CHANGE... THIS SITE IS FOR AL GORE SUPPORTERS AND STOP GLOBAL WARMING AND THE STOP THE WAR IN IRAQ SUPPORTERS NOT FOR THOSE TRYING TO SPREAD MISINFORMATION FROM THE EXTREME RIGHT ! ! ! IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING,AND ARE NOT AGAINST THE WAR FIND YOUR SELF ANOTHER SITE TO EXPRESS THAT YOU'RE AN IDIOT ! THIS SITE IS FOR THOSE THAT LEAN LEFT NOT RIGHT ( OR " THE SELF RIGHTEOUS " )"

The parenthetical remark "OR "THE SELF RIGHTEOUS", was not added by me. The owner of the site put that there. So glad to see those on the left are so not self-righteous.

The Pharisee comes in many forms; not just masked with religion. The Pharisee creates his own laws, and demands that his views be observed by everyone, or else.

I once observed an anti-war protest on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. As I sat outside a cafe on the sidewalk lined with celebrity stars, I watched as peaceful protesters marched, holding signs and voicing their displeasure with the Iraq invasion. Unfortunately, their voices were muted out by those who were crying out for the death of George Bush, holding posters with bloody images of our President, which reminded me of the images I had seen of burning flags and Bush effigies in the Middle East. Watching this march, I could only think of how proud they all seemed to be with their own formulated brand of self-righteousness. How high-brow. How very enlightened. How very frightening.

The Pharisee cloaks himself in righteousness, and misses the point; that our perceived righteousness, whatever it may be, is a creation of our own mind. It's that thing that defines us. In fact, the cloak is the covering; part of our mask. And it is the very thing we have to bring into question about ourselves, lest we get lost in our Pharisaic little world.

There is a Pharisee inside everyone of us; even outside the walls of religiosity. The trouble comes, however, when we come to believe that we are indeed righteous, and lose ourselves.

And you may ask yourself

Where does that highway go?

And you may ask yourself

Am I right? ...am I wrong?

And you may tell yourself

My god!...what have I done?

-David Byrne-