When will the time come when we no longer look to religion for moral guidance? Perhaps it should have come a long time ago; perhaps it never should have begun. The idea of rules for human behavior being based on compassion never really took hold in the Western world, although lip service has been paid to the notion, and our codes of behavior seem to owe more to fear of sexuality and the terror of what might happen if someone believes differently than directed by the priestly class.
At any rate, the idea that people should be left alone to pursue happiness and restrained only from acting to harm the same right in others is essentially American, essentially secular and essentially opposite to the teachings of American Christianity. Should young people be at liberty to form strong bonds of affection without the approval of Christian authority? Do I really have to ask? The religious say no to love, the secular humanist, the believer in the American way speaks for it.
I read in Raw Story this morning that A California appeals court ruled this week that a Christian high school can expel students perceived to be lesbians. [Italics mine] Of course a Christian school or a secular private school is not a public school, but it is, at least in part, subsidized by special tax treatment. Here they are denying the benefits of liberty and the pursuit of happiness without any protest from the law and with the assistance of your tax dollars.
I don't want to get into the legality of this and I recognize that those perceived to be too fond of each other have other educational choices, but haven't we come to the point where we can recognize that religious moral authority is not imposed for the good or the happiness of humanity but for the sake of fear mongering authority and those who make a living from it? I think most of us may be more morally evolved than Ted Haggard or Pastor Muthee or Pat Robertson or the ex-Nazi in the Vatican for whom minding your business, is their business. Yet we allow them to rule us and we don't find it strange.
I find it stranger still that people who profess patriotism and pretend to promote a government that only keeps us from killing each other and stealing each others' property and little else, will also promote a government that forces us to follow the mandates of ancient, bearded, angry and probably demented men against private consensual and harmless behavior? Why is it terrible to tax the population to support the elderly and sick but fine to force us all to adhere to their religious taboos? Where is the Christian morality in this -- unless Christian morality has nothing to do with love at all.
Of course it's all rhetorical. What I'm saying is that we can have prosperity, we can beat the swords into plowshares but we will never be free to love or live in peace until we stop allowing the perverts of "the cloth" to bend us over their Bibles and have their way with us.
Whew! Quite a post....
ReplyDeleteNow I know why I never go to church...I am not real good at allowing others to have their way with me! :) I am way too grumpy to cooperate.
The social conservatives want authority, laws and structure. Most of all they want uniformity and conformity. They believe all of that makes a country more secure.
They need heros, like Ronald Reagan and royalty like George Bush....and they do not comprehend that the founding fathers proposed a government and a revolution against everything that they aspire for....and they quote the founding fathers as 'their' legacy.
The founding Fathers who would, no doubt start another revolution if they knew how they had been used.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to draw a distinction between narrow-minded, demagogic religious influence - like that highlighted in this post - and inclusive, caring religious influence.
ReplyDeleteWhen Obama talks about religion, I'm moved. He offers a brand of Christianity that encourages understanding - even of Muslims, which is, depressingly, seen as a terrible thing by many die-hard social conservatives. I think having that kind of religious leadership isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I couldn't have stated it any better than you, Captain, or you, Tao. Having given up on humanity, I chose reverse evolution instead ... where the rules are certainly clear enough.
ReplyDeleteWhen one lives among sharks and barracuda, "eat or be eaten" is the same as "do unto others." It is easier to live with "eat or be eaten" because that is the way of ocean ... nothing personal, no sneering and jeering, no devaluation of another, just ... "gulp." Clean and simple.
In my universe, human beings are a morally inferior species because they abuse what they eat and kill for no reason at all.
I look forward to the day when an election can be held without candidates feeling they have to pander to one religious group or another. When we can blog without fear of being labeled atheistic nihilists.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you all. And God bless the United States of America.
Throwing out old religious texts, including the Bible, is like throwing out the baby with the bath water. Studying religion, not just Christianity but other world faiths, is very essential in my mind to a better world.
ReplyDeleteThere are variations, for example, of the golden rule, in most if not all faiths. In fact, many of our best human values lie in the intersection of the world's great religions.
The United States of America was founded in a way that would allow all of us to practice our faiths without persecution. In America's public life, leaving out a specific faith is the best way to let God/Yahweh/Allah in. S/He is too big to fit in any one church/synagogue/mosque/temple.
"but it is, at least in part, subsidized by special tax treatment..."
ReplyDeleteAre you referring to the fact that churches don't pay taxes? Are you suggesting they should be? If so, this puts you at odds with most on the left, including President Obama and the entire religious left.
More to it, as you know the power to tax is the power to destroy (McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)).
Don't let your hatred of religion blind you to the dangers of what you apparently suggest. If I can dig meaning out of your rant, you seem to be saying that the school should be forbidden from expelling the lesbians.
Does this not impinge on the freedom of a private school? Do you really want to start regulating whom they can seat? Is nothing free from government rule, even private institutions that do not receive tax money?
Perhaps you just want to tax churches (if that's what you want, it's hard to tell) out of anger and hatred of them, or is it perhaps because you want force your regulations on them?
Be careful what you wish for. That's a lesson we conservatives have had to learn from time to time.
Just consider my thoughts on the matter, please.
Take care.
I see it the opposite way, Tom... Not that we want to regulate who they can seat, but that it's discriminatory for them to regulate who they refuse to seat, based on non-education related matters... ...and speculation rather than fact, besides.
ReplyDeleteThat said, as a private institution, they do have the right to discriminate, I guess... But those institutions that do, lose any & all support and goodwill I have for them.
I think a big part of the story was the "perceived to be" part. They apparently didn't have anything more that suspicion... ...but it seems, a little suspicion about you is good enough to get you tossed out.
"No, we've never caught him with any drugs, or even smelled anything on his clothing, but he just seems too happy to be here in school. He must be high." ...and out he goes... (That's sad.)
In partial response to the comment by Tom, I will quote one of our blogging friends, Tao, who said this:
ReplyDelete”We have to acknowledge that if we find big government to be an impediment to the rights of individuals then we have to acknowledge that it is the 'bigness' that we fear the most and we have to acknowledge that this includes big business, big religion, and a big military.”
I agree. “Big religion” exhibits the same organizational psychology as any other form of incorporation. It has an instinct to survive, to perpetuate itself, to assert its authority, even when its actions run contrary to its own core values or the laws of the nation that confers legal status upon it.
Unlike other forms of incorporation, “Big religion” seeks to carve out a special niche for itself under the guise of freedom to worship. In fact, this argument is hogwash because, when civil laws are clearly broken, the state has the power and authority to intervene and prosecute. Instances: bigamy, child abuse, child sex abuse, animal cruelty, animal sacrifice, and kidnapping, as examples.
There is no justification whatsoever to practice discrimination in the name of freedom to worship. Civil rights legislation prohibited discrimination with respect to education, employment, housing, and all forms of public accommodation. Why should discrimination based on sexual preference be exempted from equal protection under law? And why should "Big Religion" be exempted from compliance? Government has a legal obligation to protect the rights of all citizens ... especially when "Big Religion" practices discrimination.
Labeling a child, clearly under the age of majority, as a lesbian is something civilized persons should condemn as especially abusive and offensive. We should demand an end to political bullying and intimidation by “Big Religion” or there will blood in the streets … guaranteed!
"Just consider my thoughts on the matter, please."
ReplyDeleteOK, but only if you stop trying to defame me with creative categorizations.
These are private institutions and nowhere did I say they should be forced to do anything by anyone. Leaving people alone in their consensual private affairs is what I advocate and what I wish this country would remember about its founding philosophy.
What I did say, or did attempt to say, is that regardless of what moral content of value may be in any religion, it's available without the religion attached and may in fact be better off unencumbered by the trappings.
To put it as simply as possible, I don't think the government or entities supported by the government have the right to enforce religious taboos on the general population concerning who can feel affection for whom or any other legal behavior for that mnatter. Out of the 630 Biblical commandments, only a very few have to do with what a modern person would accept as morality and there is little negative said about wife beating or slavery. In this respect the innate intransigence of religious teachings obstruct morality, in my opinion.
By giving an example of what I think is mean and close minded behavior by a religious authority, I am attempting to show that religion and the people who tell you what religion wants are just as small minded, cruel, mean and bigoted as anyone else - so why look to them as infallible moral arbiters?
I think there are better ways to assign values of right and wrong and that religious morality, because it has an overwhelming interest in self preservation and advancement that precludes moral advance, often sacrifices the innocent or harmless. It often intrudes into places it does not belong in a free society.
No, I think it's fine for purely religious organizations, charities and other such organizations to have a tax exemption, as long as that's what they really are about. As political lobbying groups or groups that seek political power over non-members?
as groups that advocate violating civil rights? No I do not, nor does the tax code.
I have, in fact, spent more than 40 years studying comparative religions from the Albigensees to the Zoroastrians -- for what that's worth. I have found none that, although I enjoy some parallels between early Mahayana writers like Nagarjuna and modern physics, that I could subscribe to, being essentially a rationalist or Humanist.
Find any Reds in there Tom?
The church members pay taxes. Thir children have a right to be transportes safely just as public school students. The privateb school students have the same academic requirements as public. So private schools are entitled to some taxpayer funded services.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I was arguing against that. I wasn't even arguing against the private school's right to demand unreasonable things of their students from any basis other than a moral one.
ReplyDelete