Readers and Free Inquiry’s editorial board will, I hope, forgive my using this space to promote my new consulting business. I’m still toying with names, but as of this writing the leading contenders are Conscience Relievers™ and 21st Century Indulgences™.
The concept for the business came to me as I reviewed a religious apologist’s insightful defense of enslavement as prescribed by Mosaic law. Per said apologist, it seems that:
- Enslavement under Mosaic law was okay because it wasn’t based on color but on more reasonable demarcations, such as nationality and indebtedness.
- Enslaving your enemies is way nicer than killing them.
- God gave rules for but never once said he approved of
- God, who reveals his will a little at a time to avoid overwhelming his people, held off banning enslavement while everyone adjusted to higher-priority laws, such as eschewing cotton-polyester blends, omitting Canadian bacon from Eggs Benedict, and quarantining menstruating women.
- Not to be overlooked, enslaving human beings was okay back then because morals were different back then, an argument that appears tautological only because it’s circular.
That kind of reasoning tour de force wins my admiration. Any fool can follow data to a reasonable conclusion, but it takes a genius to defend an unreasonable conclusion against data.
Yet my admiration knows bounds. By confining their efforts to religion, where everyone knows there’s no money to be made, apologists bury their talent in the ground. The ability to twist the reprehensible into the hensible, the contradictory into the dictory, and the absurd into the surd would be worth a fortune in the broader marketplace.
Which brings me back to my new consulting firm. Even if you haven’t enslaved anyone lately, I bet you have a skeleton or two in the ol’ closet. For a to-be-determined price, the staff apologists at—ooo! how about Guilt-B-Gone™?—will find a way to make your most atrocious acts appear totally trocious.
To obviate the need for a trigger warning, I shall confine my examples to the trivial. Suppose, for instance, your nagging conscience won’t let you rest because, just once, you slipped up by committing, say, one or two tiny murders. Upon receipt of payment or approval of credit, Guilt-B-Gone will custom craft a choice of outs sure to make your conscience lay off the nagging. Such might include: Just one murder? Jeez, it’s not as if you’re a serial killer. Or: It happened a while ago, and we mustn’t judge history by today’s standards. Or perhaps: You were only defending yourself, good patriot that you are. After all, WWKD (What Would Kyle Do)?
Continuing in the spirit of keeping things light, let’s say you awoke one day and decided to storm the United States Capitol. Count on Guilt-B-Gone to come through with just the apologetics you need. For instance: It wasn’t you; it was antifa disguised as you. Or: All you did was force your way in, chant “Hang Mike Pence,” and terrorize guards and legislators like any other tourist. Or perhaps: Your actions were entirely reasonable because, despite all evidence to the contrary, the election was stolen, and, besides, what about Benghazi?
One more example should suffice. Suppose you scammed people out of their hard-earned cash for a glorious post-mortal existence, secure in the knowledge that disappointed customers would be unlikely to demand a refund on account of their being dead and all. Guilt-B-Gone might supply one of the following conscience-assuagers: Scams that instill hope are a good thing. Or: Lying is a great way to teach kids morals. Or: Sure, it’s a scam, but look at all the good it does, such as the mistreatment of LGBTQ people, the oppression of women, the denial and preservation of systemic racism, the conflation of dispatching a blastocyst with murder, the harboring and protection of sexual predators, and the elevation of a petulant, white-supremacist, misogynist, anti-human rights, orangutan-style-coiffed lummox to Chosen One status.
In the interest of full disclosure, be advised that Guilt-B-Gone reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Murderers, insurrectionists, and glorious hereafter mongers are one thing, but if you top pizza with pineapple, prefer cats to dogs, or use your phone in the movie theater, please take your business elsewhere. We have our standards.