Our local paper is clogged with letters, articles and editorials focused on whether the Christians or the atheists are winning the fight over whether Christmas should be such a dominant holiday in America. It isn’t just going on here, either. National press and even the “funnies” are dealing with the same question.
Underlying it is the right wing Christian contention that there is a movement to stifle their voice; a tendency for “secular humanism” to shut religion out of schools and government.
As a certified, card carrying secular humanist, I feel qualified to throw my two cents into the ring, too.
I will unabashedly say that I am solidly against the predominance of any religion in the affairs of government and I am solidly against the teaching of any religious tradition in public schools.
Does that mean that I don’t think you should practice whatever religion you truly believe? Not at all. It just means that I don’t think you have any right to tell me what I should believe.
I do not believe that anyone fighting against the insertion of Christian doctrine into governmental affairs is trying, as the far right asserts we are, to stifle Christian thought or expression in any way. The problem we have with a Christian government is the same problem we would have with a Hindu government, a Jewish government, a Sunni government or a Shiite government. What’s really going on is an attempt to control what people may think, say , and do by claiming the high moral ground of religion as the basis for political action – exactly what the Taliban did in Afghanistan!
Just for argument’s sake, imagine that we decide we are a Christian nation and so should have governmental policies based on Christian thought. Whose idea of Christianity is going to dictate that policy? Are we going to have a Jimmy Swaggert Christian government or a Bishop Fulton J. Sheen Christian government; a Jerry Falwell Christian government or a Martin Luther King Christian government? Should we have a Catholic government or a Protestant government; a Unitarian government or a Lutheran government; a Southern Baptist Convention government or a Methodist government?
Samuel Clemens once wrote about an experiment in which a lion, a lamb, and other such animals of opposite natures were put into one cage, and ministers of various Christian religious sects were put into another. They were all left over night. In the morning, the animals were found asleep, each in its own area of the cage, but the ministers had killed each other in an argument over a liturgical technicality.
Clemens was writing in the 19th century. Isn’t it about time the rest of us caught on?
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
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2 comments:
"I do not believe that anyone fighting against the insertion of Christian doctrine into governmental affairs is trying, as the far right asserts we are, to stifle Christian thought or expression in any way."
Of course you don't because you're advocating doing just that. The fact you brand anyone who thinks that those trying to ban Christians from being a part of the process is "far right" and then try to compare Christians to the same people who flew planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11 (with your Taliban reference.)
If you're telling a Christian not to put their views into our laws...which every American has a right to express their views upon at the ballot box or if they are elected to office...then you are attempting to stifle Christian thought or expression. If you were truly in favor of not stifling that expression you would have no problem with Christians expressing their views and being as much a part of the process as you.
Jason -
Thanks for reading and writing, but I don't quite understand your objections and I don't think you understood mine. If the cries for Christian law are not coming from the right, where are they coming from? The left? The Muslims? The???
I was raised a Catholic, but have never thought that church should insert itself into legislation.
Expression of Christian thought is not equivalent to creation of Christian law. Of course you have the right to vote for the candidate of your choice, but unless you want to divide America even more radically than it is now divided, I think you would be wise to select a candidate that has no religious axe to grind.
As for my comparison to the Taliban -- Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew, you have your idea of how you should conduct your life just as I do. We should each give each other the room to do so. If I try to dictate your lifestyle to you through law, I am no better for you than the Taliban would be. If it's you dictating to me, then you are no better for me than the Taliban would be.
By all means keep your Christianity, but be wise enough to also keep it out of government.
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