Crusading Again

This article and everything behind it just upsets me to my core.

ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art

God is good. So why do you kill in his name? Why is your religion more important to someone else's?

Idols are bad, yes we get it, it's a commandment. Other religions are bad because they worship differently. But what/who gives you the right to go about destroying things that you don't agree with?

In the Middle East, people are dying over their religious beliefs. Meanwhile in the US, we're worried about getting high in Alaska.

I feel as if Americans are so far removed from the persecution of others because of our geographic isolation. But also because we act like squirrels who's only concern is saving our own nuts. We don't care about what goes on in the Middle East because it doesn't affect us.

But it does. It affects all humans. Religious tyranny is not confined to the deserts of Iraq. No, we find religious tyranny right here at home in the people who wish to impose their "Christian" beliefs upon others. Adults and children alike have suffered and died as a result of this (faith-based healing, anti-abortion violence). Or more frequently we'll hear news of immigrants who want to form laws based on their religious beliefs. The Conservative Christian reaction to this is amusingly and alarmingly a double standard; they push their religion on others but heaven forbid if a non-Christian tries to do the same to protect their beliefs.

In so many ways we are fighting crusades again, only set in modern times. When will it stop? How will it stop? Should we be afraid of that answer?

We humans are going to destroy ourselves because we have failed to love each other.



Further Reading:
What ISIS Really Wants

Death and Dignity

After reading a friend's blog article about Brittany Maynard, I was going to write a reply on his post. But given how at odds we are on the religious spectrum, him being white male Protestant and me being Creole female nothing, I decided that maybe it would be better if I didn't. Rereading my comment, I felt like it would be offensive to him on a personal and religious level. Much as I enjoy discussing religion with others, I don't enjoy offending them. So here is my expanded comment in response to his post, 3 things I would have told Brittany Maynard.

Very well written. I'm afraid I have to disagree with it though.

Yes, she'd be alive and with her family. But what's more cruel: for her to be slowly and painfully dying for a few more years before passing on -or- for her family's selfish need to have her that way because "she means more to us alive than dead"? Yes, life is precious. But at some point quality of life must override our need for that person to be alive.

Both of my grandmothers died from strokes; one took years to slowly fade while the other died after two days. As much as I love and miss them every single day, I would have rather seen neither one suffer as they did if there was an alternative.

Gramma lived with us for a while after her second stroke, before Hurricane Katrina. I was away at college when she first moved in but when I came home for the summer I helped my mother take care of her. She needed help with *everything* and I know she hated being a burden. I know she did appreciate when I made the bed nice and tight for her. After Katrina, our house was destroyed, all of our families were displaced, so she was put into an assisted hospital room as soon as my aunts could find one in the city. There she wasted away even further. The last time I saw her, she spoke in a whisper because to her ears her voice sounded too loud. The next time I saw her several months later was at her funeral.

Granny had a stroke the day after having surgery. She lay in a medically induced coma for two days. The doctors said she had a very low chance of waking up and if she did then she'd basically be a nearly vegetable and would have to relearn everything and would never have the same quality of life. So on the second night when she took a turn for the worse, her children decided to take her off of life-support. She passed after just 30 minutes.

What was more cruel? For each to lay alive but suffering? Or for us the family to selfishly wish them this way so that we would still have them?

"Beauty in suffering" sounds like a cop-out. That is one thing I'll never understand about the more conservative sects of Christianity. How can you believe that God *wants* you to suffer? And not just suffer but to glorify His name *while and because* you're suffering! I mean, it just blows my mind. I thought God was supposed to be loving and caring and compassionate. Not reveling in your pain. I just don't understand, can't fathom, why someone would find comfort in a sadistic masochistic God. He is above all that shit. Why would he care if you suffer? Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscience. Why would He need you to suffer in order to be more awesome? It doesn't make sense. At. All.

I think better to "die with dignity" than to suffer for selfishness.

Being a Non-Believer in a Believer’s World

I am a non-believer in a higher power. I can say this because it’s true and I’m not embarrassed by it. Growing up, the religious figures in my family were my grandparents. They took us to church and taught us to recite prayers. I remember kneeling beside my bed, hands pressed together. By high school I knew what little childhood belief I had was slipping away. I desperately wanted to believe, but nothing ever seemed to “click.” Not that I was heartbroken; hard to miss what you never had. I just learned to accept my lack of belief but also accept the possibility of a higher power. Keeps my options open. Until my eyes are opened and Jesus enters my heart, I personally don’t give one rat’s tail about believing.

I find one main misconception that believers have about non-believers is that we have “no morals.” Now, I have to admit that I was raised Catholic, so maybe that’s where my morals came from. However, I simply cannot believe that any religion has a monopoly on morals’ origins. A moral is a principle of right or wrong behavior. It’s learned through society and has evolved over the millennia of our social consciousness present in human nature. Basically, it’s a learned behavior designed for the well-being of the individual and those around her. As early societies began their sedentary lifestyles, the people had to learn how to work peacefully with each other to ensure the success of the settlement. Hence, morals are realized. Organized religions presented followers with a well organized list of morals. They basically took what was already around and copyrighted it, kinda like what Benson tried to do with “Who Dat?” One could make a stretch and say that non-believers can “learn” morals by observing the actions of believers but sometimes believers aren’t setting the best example…

As a non-believer, I am quite adamant that religion should stay out of politics, no matter how Christian of a nation we’re supposed to be. This nation was founded as a republic, a democracy, a free world, by a number of men who didn’t believe in Jesus by were influenced by a culture steeped in Christianity. Did you know that God was not mentioned in the Constitution, except in the date? The phrase “Under God” was not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1952. The First Amendment strictly prohibits the government from placing one religion over another. All of these things just reinforce my belief that Church and State should be separated. The government, and all its ruling bodies, was formed to protect the interests of all of the country’s citizens, not just a specific group. Which means your Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever, beliefs are not necessarily in the interest of all of the citizens and so should not be forced upon another believer through the law. It’s one thing to argue for a cause you believe in, and another to demand that the entire country conform to your belief. As has been quoted in several ways: “People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” As a lawmaker, it’s your duty to uphold the Constitution, for liberty and justice for all. I’m not saying to put your beliefs aside, just be cognizant that what you believe is best for one may not be best for all, then make your laws accordingly.

So now that you’re thoroughly appalled by my (non) beliefs, I know what question comes next: how on God's green earth will I raise children? Well, it’s not rocket science, Einstein. You teach them about love, compassion, peace. You know, the simple things a Christian needs a bunch of commandments to know. Then you teach your children about fear and pain, because it’s going to come one day and they’ll need to know how to cope with and overcome adversity. Don’t need fire and brimstone as examples when we have plenty enough bad examples in real life. When it comes to those pesky morals, you teach them to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Sounds like a bit of self-preservation common sense to me. Hmm, those two words: common sense; things that make sense on a common level. Like not lying to your mom because you know she’ll be mad if you do. Yep, didn’t need a commandment to tell me that one. See, raising children as a non-believer parent should be easy. Well, as easy as raising kids in any way can be.

Obviously none of my belief points here matter to anyone else, especially when that anyone else wholly disagrees with me. But that’s the beauty of this country: we’re free to disagree with each other. And to agree to disagree, but that seems a bit more advanced than we intelligent creatures seem to be able to handle. The apparent issue over religion in this country upsets me greatly. I respect your beliefs even though I don’t ascribe to them. All I ask is that you respect my beliefs and stop proselytizing through the law. Jesus may have said to spread the good news, but he didn’t say to force it unto us.


Links:

• Morals without God?
• How Will You Teach Your Child Morality Without Religion?
• Morality without Religion - Hauser/Singer (web text)
• Morality without Religion - Hauser/Singer (pdf download)

Further Reading:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Letter to a Christian Nation, The End of Faith
• Dharmachari Nagaraja - Buddha at Bedtime: Tales of Love and Wisdom for You to Read with Your Child to Enchant, Enlighten and Inspire

Semantically Separate but Equal

Semantics are a bitch. They create such schisms in today’s world that have polarized the populations of the earth into those for or against (insert issue here). Most recently, the issue of the fundamental civil right of two persons to form an official civil union in the eye of the state has made its way to the US Supreme Court. Wait, you say, that right already exists. Ah, this is where semantics enter the game. Try this fragment: “the fundamental civil right of two persons to marry in the eye of the state.”  The above statement sounds perfectly fine also, but when you change that to “the fundamental civil right of two persons of the same sex to marry in the eye of the state,” shit hits the proverbial fan. But what if you were to say “the fundamental civil right of two persons of the same sex to form an official civil union in the eye of the state”? Confused? So is the rest of the world.

First, a little history. The concept of marriage is as old as society. The word is more recent, Middle English originating from Latin ^{1 2}. Before the word marriage was coined, union was the oft used term. A union is a binding of people, things or ideas to a common goal. Marriage at its beginning meant basically the same thing, but the roots of the word come from the words for woman and man. Marriage, as we understand it, is end result of the traditional ceremony that joins two people via an appropriately vested religious figure. Now, throw homosexuality in the mix and, again, shit hits the proverbial fan. That’s because religious teachings tell us that it is “an abomination for one man to lie with another as he would a woman” ³ and that marriage is a sacrament designed to produce new little children of God through the sanctioned sin of sex between heterosexuals ⁴. Therefore, an abomination in the eyes of God simply cannot be married under God. Hence why so many people are opposed to gay marriage.

However, we are also taught that “all things, great and small, are God’s creations” and that we should “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Archbishop Gregory Aymond sums this up pretty well: “People of the same sex attraction, we love them as God’s people, we want to be in community with them, but we very much disagree on marriage for people of the same sex.” ⁵ So, if I understand this correctly, homosexuals were created by God and Jesus said to love them. But it’s not cool for them to marry because marriage involves sex and procreation, which is an abomination and not physically possible, respectively. Well, that’s quite understandable in a religious way. As a non-religious person, I can even respect your position in as much as it’s a core belief and you’re sticking to it.

My first concern with this whole hullabaloo is that one set of people is denying another set of people the right to a legal union. My second concern is in the semantics: by using the word marriage, the question of civil rights is taken out of the courtroom and into the church. Marriage is a civil union with the extra step of being blessed by God. Using the term “gay marriage” is offensive for people who believe in the traditional meaning of the word marriage, generally Christians, who will fight to keep the sanctity of this meaning. I really wonder, had it been coined as “gay union,” if there would not be such uproar over the issue. Think about it: the LGBT community is simply asking for the same civil rights as any civil union between two people. They’re not asking for God Himself to bless these civil unions, just the courts. Where’s the civil harm in that?

Ah, the harm is the fact that we live in a country that people insist is Christian founded and governed, even though the original Constitution was very careful not to promote one religion over another. ^{6 7 8} Then they insist that allowing gays a legal civil union will destroy the institution of marriage, by calling it marriage, and harm their children. Instead, this should be taken as an excellent learning tool. We can teach our children that love really does conquer all. That freedom is worth fighting for. That everyone can be happy. But most importantly, we can teach future generations to respectfully disagree with another person without denying their civil rights.

We as a people have no right to deny another person their rights because we don’t agree with who they are. I believe one day all people will have equal rights, but as history has shown us, that equality doesn’t happen instantly and certainly not without a fight.

 

Sources:

http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gendersexuality/f/Is-Marriage-a-Civil-Right.htm

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1 http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/more/1021/ ^↩
2 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=marry ^↩
3 Leviticus 18:22 ^↩
4 tp://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm ^↩
5 http://www.fox8live.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8712798 ^↩
6 http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html (First Amendment) ^↩
7 http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html" (section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment) ^↩
8 http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#god ^↩