I'm with BombaySapphire here. I was raised Catholic, and rejected it wholesale at about 14, because it just didn't make any sense - no more nor less than any other theistic worldview I've come across, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or any of the 31 flavors of Pagan Robbins lying about the place (Unless one's made of mint chocolate chip. Then we can talk, nootch).
What people choose to do with their beliefs is no business of mine, as long as it's not bothering other people that don't believe that way. If you believe everything the Bible says is absolute, literal truth or Odin's coming back and he's pissed, rock on with your bad selves.
When your religious beliefs start influencing government or public policy, though, then I have a problem. By this, I don't mean the "spirit" of a religion doing the influencing - i.e., JUST "do unto others" or JUST "an' it harm none." "Do unto others" is something of a tenet I try to live by, regardless of my atheism - not because Jesus may or may not have said it, but because it's just basic human decency.
But once you move past those things and into the other beliefs these religions can bring, you enter the danger zone. That basic spirit is rendered meaningless and human suffering inevitably follows. Did more people die at the hands of Islamic fundamentalism on 9-11 than have died at the hands of abortion clinic snipers over the years? Yes. But we cannot say that the abortion clinic shooters aren't as "bad" because they haven't managed to engage in some hardcore LARPin' Donkey Kong with a few airplanes and some really tall buildings. I'm pretty sure that the wife of a doctor gunned down in front of Planned Parenthood felt the same anguish when watching the crime scene footage on the evening news that the wife of a janitor in one of the Twin Towers did as she watched people throwing themselves from the windows in desperation, knowing one of those tiny falling bodies on the TV screen might very well have been her husband.
For me, it's not a matter of degree or numbers. Suffering is suffering. We all must face it in our lives in one form or another, because it is part of the human condition. But it is our responsibility to try to avoid causing more of it when we can - whether you're doing it because the Bible told you so or via your godless moral compass - because it is by this that we achieve grace.
The way to avoid causing suffering is to embrace reason and temperance on a large scale, and a big part of accomplishing that involves not sticking people that are bat**** ****in' crazy in office - PARTICULARLY in the United States. With great power comes great responsibility, to ourselves and to the world. We've got a very long arm, and we exert a lot of influence on the inhabitants of this planet. Allowing a fundamentalist of any stripe enough power to compel a nation to do terrible things is dangerous indeed. It might start out small, like, say...only teaching Creationism to children not old enough to examine it rationally...but it can leap up to terror in no time flat - and if you don't believe me, go ask a Christian or Muslim whose child was killed by India's Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sure, Palin hasn't advocated strapping dynamite to toddlers to kill the Great Beige Satan and, in comparison, instituting Creationism in our classrooms seems harmless, but making a move to indoctrinate our children at a young age will give her beliefs enough traction to begin working their way up the ladder, gaining more influence along the way.
We must, en masse, resolve to pay attention and fight it as soon as we begin to see the seeds of fundamentalism taking root. Regardless of our personal worldviews, we must give "do unto others" its rightful companion - "reason over faith."
If we don't, I'm afraid we may one day wake up to find we need to slap a sign on the Statue of Liberty that says "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
Everybody Wang Chung Tonight,
Zombie
PS - Wow, I talk a lot. Sorry 'bout that, this is just an issue close to my heart.
09-15-2008, 02:42 AM
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