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November 28, 2005
Epiphany
I want to take a moment to share a revelation I had recently.
I fear Christianity.
Some of you might have noticed lately a certain amount of what can only be called hatred creeping into some of my posts on the subject lately. This is a direct result of fear, fear not of the Christian God, but of the people who claim to represent him/her/it on Earth. It might seem flippant, but Yoda really is correct - fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
So I fear Christianity, and I have let it turn me into the sort of person I dislike: a rambling fanatic full of venom and hatred. It is a trend that I intend to reverse.
I have a fair deal of Christian friends. While I may not share their beliefs, I do respect their right to believe it. And lately I've been lumping them into my criticisms of Christianity as a whole. I do realize that there is a vast political difference between the many sects of Christianity, perhaps none more divided than the liberal progressives versus the conservative regressives. Yes, I meant to say regressives, because that is the only end result of the far right branch of the Christian religion.
What I fear is these people and what they can do.
In America, conservative Christians seem to constitute a major voting bloc. As you may well guess, most of them are concentrated in the South. The fact is that they more or less run the country: George W. Bush is what I consider a conservative Christian, and he has people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson criticizing him for not being conservative enough. These people influence the lives and decisions of, quite literally, millions of American voters.
And these voters are powerful. They are vocal. And they care only about their religion. Take Kansas, for instance: the conservative Christians won a minor victory there by forcing the school board to adopt a modified definition of science. Not only do these people claim that it was only done in the interests of fairness, but they also have the gall to claim that it is not religious in motive. This is clearly absurd. Intelligent Design is and always will be a codeword for creationism, but these far right Christians have gotten sneakier in their attempts to sneak their dogma past the First Amendment.
It didn't work in Pennsylvania, and I'm glad for that. The entire school board went home jobless after the last election. But I fear that this is not going to be the case everywhere. Already a good number of states have passed amendments to their state constitution that make it legal to discriminate and oppress a visible minority (denying homosexuals the right to marriage). There is absolutely no justifiable reason for this aside from "The Bible says it's wrong". Not even the ridiculous tautology of "Family Values" is defense for them, because I have so far failed to see proof that a homosexual couple would raise a child any differently than your typical American family. Again we see legislation that is religious in motive but carefully disguised as a secular effort.
It does not help either that there are very many Christians out there who see no problem with having "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. They reject the notion that Congress violated the First Amendment when they voted to add those words to the Pledge in 1954 during the height of McCarthyism. Today they rationalize it by saying that it's "traditional" and no longer has meaning. Well, if it no longer has meaning, then why do they get angry every time it is suggested that the words are removed? Is it a double standard? I think so. It is another example of the Christian Right not realizing that they are not alone in this country.
The Christian Right needs to understand that there are not only a great deal of Christian sects in this nation, but also a visible and vibrant minority of non-Christians, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, deists, wiccans, neo-pagans and various American Indian tribal beliefs. If this really is one nation indivisible, then why be so exclusive?
This is what I fear. That the Christian Right is trying to take over. And that they are succeeding.
I would like to close off this post by apologizing from the bottom of my heart to all of my Christian friends whom I may have offended recently, and that includes Chuck and Mark. I realize that you are not part of this problem, but are indeed against the rampant and willful spread of ignorance. We are all in this together.
Posted by Dalton at November 28, 2005 09:12 AM
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