One of my professors mentioned the Elizabeth Smart news to me today, and said, "The Mormons must be really happy to get all this media attention." He also noticed that no one seems able to talk about Elizabeth Smart without somehow distorting it into an advertisement for their religion. "This is clearly an answer to prayer," "miracles do happen," "this is no doubt a miracle," and on and on. This is not a fucking exercise in confirming religious superstitions! A girl has been kidnapped by a religious nut, held for nine months, probably "brainwashed" and had God-knows-what done to her, and all anyone wants to talk about is how this validates their damn religion. Patty Hearst has made the only intelligent comments so far:

"You have absorbed this new identity that they've given you," Hearst said. Hearst, now known formally as Patricia Hearst Shaw, also said abductees become psychologically dependent upon their abductors. "Many times, people who have been held hostage say, `They really were nice to me,"' she said. "But what they really means is, `Thank God they didn't kill me."' She said Elizabeth's family should keep the girl away from the news media. "The experiences she's gone through have changed her," Hearst said. "She's never going to be the same trusting person. She's going to be very suspicious."

At least I wasn't the only one who noticed how soap-boxy everything was in people's comments about the abduction. I had wondered if I was being overly harsh on people who need a religious crutch during a difficult time. But then I thought, "No, there is a difference between using a crutch and wearing blinders." Maybe religion helped them have hope, but now it just obscures the situation. The Smart family seems pretty capable of handling things without expecting too much assistance from God. But I've known plenty of Mormon families that were so caught up in "prayer" that they couldn't even communicate with each other or help each other in functional ways. Everything is just mediated through prayer. Maybe it's my zeal for generality, and maybe it isn't altogether fair, but every time I see something like this, I am reinforced in my general fear of religious nuts. Most people seem to get reinforced in their fear of religious nuts excluding the ones they follow. "My spiritual leader isn't the crazy one," everyone says. "The Pope isn't nuts, he's wise and inspired." Personally, I define a religious nut as anyone who wants to teach you something on the basis of a message he got from God.

• "I've been called by God to the ministry" - nuts.
• "God spoke to my heart" - nuts.
• "I/we have the authority to declare truth on behalf of God by proxy" - nuts.

I got a message from God, too: He told me He doesn't exist. Now I'm nuts too. But at least I cancel myself out.