Your Religion Is Your Religion, Not Everyone Elses
I’ve been pretty harsh in my views toward superstitious beliefs in general and religion in particular. You find what I have to say offensive. Thats fine, because I find things you have to say offensive as well. There is nothing wrong with being offended. It happens to everyone about something or other at some point.
What I find annoying and sad is when you feel that I am somehow persecuting you by my stance on these issues. This is just plain wrong. That you feel persecuted reflects your sense of privilege and superiority because you feel that you are right because your god tells you so. It is exactly this self righteous attitude that I despise and rail against. It isn’t your beliefs I find offensive, but the effects of those beliefs upon everyone else.
I believe that everyone has a right to believe whatever they want to believe; to worship (or not) as they wish. The one caveat is that your beliefs and your worshiping are yours, not everyone else’s. Talk about them to others if you (and they) wish, but don’t preach. Express your views on morality, but don’t seek to impose your morality upon others.
This also goes for your actions. If you believe that prayer alone can cure you, great. Just don’t insist on only using prayer when your child or someone else you love is ill. If they are receiving medical treatment and you think prayer will help, fine. But don’t insist that god will save your loved one by prayer alone because plenty of people have died needlessly because prayer was substituted for sound medical treatment.
Also, don’t try to legislate your morality so that it is imposed upon all of us. The current GOP/Religious Right’s war against women and LGTB’s is a perfect example. It is religion that causes the party of small government that does not intrude into our private lives to perpatrate the hypocrisy of passing laws that intrude into the most private parts of our lives: reproductive rights and the right to chose who to love and who to commit your life to.
It has often been said that religion cause good people to do terrible things. History certainly seems to bear this out. The imposition of Islam upon those that they conquered; the crusades where the Christian did the same to the Muslims and Jews; the hundreds of years of wars and the burning of thousands at the stake over differing versions of Christianity; the thousands of Muslim and Hindus killed in the partitioning of India.
So, feel free to hold your beliefs dear to you. Worship as you wish. But, keep these things out of the public sphere where they can do no harm, or infringe upon the rights of the rest of us.
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know Because My Wallet Tells Me So
James Inahoff is a U.S. Senator. He is also a climate change denier. He has claimed in the past that he is against the theory of anthropogenic global warming because the Bible says that it can’t happen. He explained this by quoting Genesis 8:22:
“…as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.”
His reasoning was that God has promised to keep the climate stable. There would be spring, winter and summer. If you read this verse carefully and accept his argument, you will quickly find that this “promise” was void as soon as it was given. Why? The area around the earth’s equator essentially has no seasons. The temperatures there are stable year round. Springtime, winter and summer are all the same. So much for seasons. This isn’t a small area either. The Torrid Zone, which is the area of earth around the equator and which has the same basic climate is over 126,000,000 sq. km. It also contains a large percentage of the world’s population.
As stupid as Senator Inahoff’s biblical based beliefs about why there can’t be anthropogenic global warming is, it is also a lie meant to justify the real reason the senator and others like him are against the theory of climate change. The climate deniers use the Bible to support their case in a cynical attempt to sway the majority of American’s who believe in the Bible.
The reason this explanation is a lie can be found in a statement by James Inahoff to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last month. When discussing global warming, the senator said,
“I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.”
This is par for the course for the GOP and the religious right. They use the Bible to support the real reason they are against global warming; Money. Specifically, profits for corporations in which they have an a professional or financial interest. They apply the same tactic to other issued like , clean air initiatives, environmental conversation, or oil drilling, as well as social issues such as universal health care, welfare, school lunches, and student loans.
They use religion to support and pass legislation that is anti-science, anti-poor, anti-woman, and racist when the real reason they support these views is greed.
Jesus is quoted in their Bible as saying that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter into heaven. I don’t hear them throwing that particular quote, or other’s like it, around very much. Their cynical use of the Bible to support their greed is nothing new, but it is having a dangerous and frightening effect upon society, and the very earth we live on.
The American Taliban: For Real
Many writers and bloggers have used the term, “American Taliban”, over the past decade or so as a metaphor for the growing influence of the religious right in politics and the public sphere. It is meant to highlight those on the right who would like to see everyone live by their religious standards. It has often been used as hyperbole in order to show the potential dangers of letting religion hijack the political process in this country. Until now. It is hyperbole no longer, but a frightening fact.
In Arizona, the state legislature is considering a bill that could require that employees provide proof to their employers that any contraceptives they use are proscribed for medical reasons.
Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.
“I believe we live in America. We don’t live in the Soviet Union,” Lesko said. “So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom and pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs.” *
This is a blatant attempt by the religious right to force their views on everyone else. Given that this law and other similar ones being passed by state legislatures across the country, this is no longer the propagation of fanatic religious ideology in principle, but in practice. This is the real American Taliban.
The Taliban in Afganistan forced their version of Islamic Shari’a law, based upon their reading go the Quran, upon the people of that country. Not only could women not control what happened to their own bodies, they were forbidden to vote, to receive an education, and to even go outside without covering themselves from head to toe in burkas. Women who were suspected of committing adultery were stoned to death or beheaded.
This is, of course, extreme, but at its core it is no different than the American Taliban who wish to enforce their Christian shari’a law, based on the Bible, upon the rest of us. Many of the leaders and prominent members of the religious right have stated unequivocally that their goal is nothing less than to turn this country into a Christian nation and replace the U.S. Constitution with the Bible as the guiding document of our laws and government.
Some of these same people have called for the imprisonment, or even death, of homosexuals, and the complete and total submission of women to men. They call for the abandonment of science and reason, the guiding principles of which have made this country the world power it is today. They would joyfully lead us to become a population of ignorant servants to their god who will quickly fall behind the rest of the world in technology, just as other great civilizations such as Rome, Egypt, and Persia have done after religious dogma replaced education and reason.
If you think I am being alarmist, think again. Laws have already been passed to force women to submit to humiliating medical examinations in order to get an abortion, to force the teaching of religious dogma in place of science in classrooms, and to force doctors to lie to women about the health of their unborn child. These laws are real and they are just the beginning, unless we, as voters, put a stop to it.
For you Christian women out there, if you ever felt sorry for the poor women of Afghanistan under the Taliban, or the Ayatollahs in Iran, just look no further than these examples to see what your life could eventually be like if the American Taliban continue to push their fanatical agenda upon the American people.
Wether you believe that this country was found upon Christianity or not, you can’t deny that it was built upon the idea of religious freedom. Religious freedom means not just being able to practice your own religion and to live your life as your personal set of morals tell you, it also means freedom from having to bend to others’ particular religious beliefs. You would never want someone to tell you how you can worship or live your life, but that is exactly what the American Taliban is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, alarmingly, they are starting to succeed.
Paying For Sex With Your Taxes
Rush Limbaugh has sparked an intense controversy with his sexist, misogynistic, and immoral statements about Sandra Fluke’s testimony supporting mandated provision of contraceptives by health insurers. Besides his horrendous comments and personal attacks against Sandra Fluke, his comments also begat a strange, terribly misinformed notion that American taxpayers are paying for women to get free contraception, in essence, we are all paying for women to have sex.
First of all, the foundation of this argument is totally bogus. Taxpayers are not paying for anything here. Insurers are paying for it. These insurers pass the cost of free contraception (just as they do free pre-natal care, yearly physicals, etc) onto employers in the form of insurance premiums. The employers then pay their portion of the premiums and the employee pays their’s. Nowhere does the taxpayer pay one penny for contraceptives, except for government programs like Medicaid.
So Limbaugh’s argument, which is being taken up by the religious right, is false. I might give him and others the benefit of doubt that they are just clueless, but I find it hard to believe that anyone in the public sphere, especially legislators, are ignorant of the reality. They are simple liars, lying to promote their particular political agendas.
But, for sake of argument, let’s assume that Limbaugh’s argument it valid and that taxpayer money is being spent to provide contraceptives. If that is the case, then it is no different than paying for Viagra for old, impotent men. Why should we pay for these men to have sex? There isn’t even any corollary argument for it, as with contraceptive. Contraceptives prevent pregnancy, STDs (in the case of condoms), help some women regulate periods and treat ovarian cysts. Viagra has no other benefit except to give a man a hard-on. So all these aging white men can stop getting viagra at taxpayer expense. I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want to pay for Rush Limbaugh to have sex, never mind actually watching him do it on video (as he suggested Sandra Fluke do).
Of course, the above argument is just a spurious as Limbaugh’s. The real lesson here is that this is one more attempt by privileged men to control women. The latest outrage is taking place in Arizona (that hotbed of radical religious inspired insanity). Read Rebecca Watson’s take on the new law that would force doctors to lie to their female patients about the health of their unborn child.
If you don’t think that there is a war on women being waged by the religious right and the GOP (which have become one and the same), there have been dozens of similar attempts to allow the state to control a woman’s body. For a party that claims that they are for less government and putting a stop to government’s intrusion into our personal lives, they sure don’t seem to think that applies to women. I supposed that as long as the government isn’t trying to regulate your guns or property, everything else is fair game.
Corporate “Personhood” Should Come With Responsibility of “Personhood”
The US Supreme Court plans to consider the lawsuit in a case that could be a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.
According to Discovery News, “King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi of the Ogoni and four other tribal leaders seek compensation for half a century of pollution from oil extraction and processing that has sickened people and poisoned the land and drinking water.”
The plaintiffs are suing Royal Dutch Shell under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, a law designed to assure foreign governments that the U.S. would uphold international law.
A lawyer for the defendants said that the law was intended to apply to persons, not corporations, but, as the Supreme Court declared last year, corporations are, legally, persons. As far as I’m concerned if corporations can reap the benefits of personhood that come with pouring millions of dollars to influence elections, they should also assume the liability for the actions of their employes who commit crimes in other countries, just as they would if crimes were committed in this country.
A Follow Up
This is a follow up to my post yesterday about the current contraceptive controversy. Jen McCreight has an interesting post on her blog about the whole contraceptive kurfulfle, It is opinion from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on a religious freedom case in a situation similar to that of the Catholic Church and others with the current contraceptive mandate of the Obama administrator. Just in case you don’t feel like reading it (although you really should), he definitely did not find this kind of issue to be a religious freedom issue.
Religion Gets A Pass. Again
Once again, religion in the U.S. gets a free pass. As you probably know, the Obama administration recently required all employers to offer free contraceptives as part of their employee health plans. This included religious employers who employe people who are not of that particular faith or are non-religious. This created a firestorm of protest from churches across the country, Catholic and Protestant. After weeks of outrage and complaints, the President announced that he will seek to allow religious employers to pass on the responsibility, and the cost, of providing contraceptives onto the insurance companies.
Now, I’m no economist, but it seems pretty obvious that the insurance companies aren’t going to like this very much. The result will probably be higher premiums, which religious employers will likely pass onto their employees. This means that people who are employed by religious organizations will be forced to pay more for “free” contraceptives. This despite the fact that religious organizations and churches are already allowed to operate tax free, even if they don’t use their money for charitable purposes, unlike other non-profits. Now they get to avoid the responsibility for the cost of contraceptives, unlike every other employer in the country.
The religious organizations claim that the rule to provide free contraceptives are an infringement of their constitutional right to religious freedom. This is blatantly bullshit. What it is in reality is an infringement upon their centuries old privileges. What if a white supremacist church, who believe that the Bible condones discrimination agains blacks and Jews, claimed that they didn’t have to provide health insurance for black and Jewish employees (assuming that they would employ them in the first place)? This would never be allowed, as it is blatantly discriminatory and against the law. Yet we allow churches to subtly discriminate against women who want, or sometimes even need, contraceptives. Not only do we them to discriminate against their employees (mostly women), but we allow them to pass on the cost of providing them as well.
The whole compromise it just a thin sheen of slime that allows religious groups to pretend that they aren’t providing contraceptives. Everyone is praising this sham as a great compromise that protects religious freedom, when what it really does is violate the rights of employees of theses organizations to equal access under the law.
I sincerely hope that someone brings a legal challenge to this and see how it plays out in the courts. Even if unsuccessful it will at least, hopefully, publicly shame these religious groups who continue to bend the law to allow them to perpetuate their immoral patriarchal privileges.
Christianity, The Religion of Hate
One Man’s Blog posted about a Fox News story describing a lawsuit to prevent a cross from being erected within the World Trade Center memorial without equal opportunity for memorials of other faiths. The comments on the Fox News site afterwards were filled with hate against atheists with the wish to kill all atheists, along with rape and other violence.
My favorite (if you can call it that) comment came from Sindy Clock who wrote,
“I love Jesus, and the cross and if you don’t, I hope someone rapes you.”
I’ve read the Bible through, several times. I studied the Bible on my own for years before finally dispensing with religion. I am pretty sure I never read about Jesus ever telling anyone that if they didn’t believe in him that they should be raped.
Michael Perii had this to say,
“these people are f’ing scum of the earth. can we start killing them now? few groups fill me with more hatred than atheists.”
Apparently, Michael seems to have forgotten that passage where Jesus tells his followers that they should love their enemies (granted, we aren’t his enemy, he seems to have made us his).
Hanns Anderson has a, well, interesting take on this:
“atheist has no rights a snail has more rights than a atheist has I say throw them out to the sharks let them eat them like the ate bin laden”
Apparently, being a Christian doesn’t require learning how to spell, punctuate, or even write at a grade school level.
Finally, Eileen Rourke thinks that atheists,
“…should go live in another country. You have taken enough of my rights away.”
This last comment is so common among Christians. Many Christians feel that their rights are being infringed upon because some of us dare to insist on equality, not just for ourselves, but for everyone.
Christians make up more than 70% of the citizens of this country. It isn’t their rights that are being eroded, it is their privileges. Being able to put crosses up where ever you want, to expect everyone else to pray to your god, is not a right. It is a privilege, and one that no one in a free and democratic society should be allowed to have.
These comments are not an aberration. We see these kind of comments constantly whenever their Christian privileges are questioned. For a group of people who like to preach about how their Jesus a god of love, they sure love to hate.
Pro Life – A Satanic Plot
Edwin Kagin beautifully defends a woman’s right to choose in this tongue-in-cheek piece. It is funny, but powerful. Read it.
-
Archives
- May 2012 (3)
- April 2012 (3)
- March 2012 (4)
- February 2012 (6)
- January 2012 (2)
- December 2011 (10)
- November 2011 (11)
- October 2011 (11)
- September 2011 (7)
- August 2011 (5)
- July 2011 (3)
- June 2011 (3)
-
Categories
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
