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| Spirituality |
Everyone, including atheists, can appreciate the benefits of having a place that is a refuge from life's hardships and a place that serves to bond people through community service.
We achieved this respite over a short period of time, but we are reverting to the worse aspect of religion quickly and there is no turning back unless we draw a very clear line in the sand and assess consequences for crossing that line.
Organized Religion
The Spanish Inquisition is below today's standards in terms of hatred and destruction. We have better weapons now and it is frightening. In Uganda, the crimes against gays and lesbians include 'corrective rape' and murder. They can thank American Evangelical zealots straight from C street in Washington D.C. for this added misery to their collective lives.
Organized religion was used effectively in the Middle Ages to control and rule the population. It was impossible to have a ruler that did not pledge allegiance to one religious sect or another. Murders, genocide, rape and torture were all in a day's work and religious leaders were untouchable.
People escaped when they could and some even reached a new land called America. These refugees effectively destroyed the culture and societies of the indigenous people. In seeking freedom for themselves, they enslaved and destroyed others. All in the name of religious freedom - their own.
In modern times religion is a tool that savvy politicians are adept at using to demonize their opponents and bring out the worst in humanity. They use religion to cloak their fault-riddled selves with a veneer of respectability that is wholly undeserved.
Throughout history, we have slaughtered indigenous people, subjugated minorities and placed human beings at risk of dying prematurely. All this because someone's voice from the pulpit or political stage was loud enough to obliterate common sense.
There is no war on religion.
There is a push back for religion to know its place in society and if this is what war means to them, they need to review, not revise, their bloody history and adjust accordingly.
The fact is that many of us would welcome the useful and peaceful teachings of religion if they just stuck to social good and stayed away from intruding in people's personal lives. Furthermore, let's give some consideration that the reason religion is becoming society's pariah is because the political company they keep is unpalatable to most mainstream Americans.
Religion-Free Zones
Religion does not belong inside our bedrooms without our consent. It does not belong as an unwelcome intrusion between a woman and her doctor. It does not belong anywhere except in those magnificent buildings designed to humble mere humans on a Sunday morning.
Religion does not belong in public schools. For many decades public and religious private school co-existed peaceful. Not anymore, religious zealots want to either take over our public schools or destroy them, and they have found powerful political allies in state governors to do so.
How Religion Could Have Made a Better Impression
Mind you that we may have a better conversation if those who oppose birth control in any form would come up with a viable plan to support and maintain the millions of children who are going hungry every day, are bounced around between foster homes and are abused sexually and emotionally by some of the same people who have made religion such an evil entity.
Religion would have found a comfortable nest if they had treated women with equality instead of property to be used and abused.
Religion would have found a powerful ally in women if they not tried to squash our dreams, hopes and aspirations. Yes, we are a loyal bunch and have a great deal of patience. Unfortunately, just a like an abusive marriage, we have been pushed too hard for too long. We are done - Good-Bye.
Women Stories
Many women have chosen to forgo their childhood religious training and raise their children free of dogma and ridiculous expectations. Some of us have distanced ourselves without fully cutting the cord, but no longer tow the line because we can't view the world through the narrow optics of religious dogma.
Women don't like being treated like second class citizens or like mentally defective individuals incapable of making decisions for themselves and their families. For many, the attempts to change the dynamics have reached the end and the betrayal has been deeply felt. From Catholic priests raping our children, to women not allowed to be leaders of traditional churches or temples. God may love us, but organized religion hates us.
The Men
More and more people are turned off by the screaming banshees thumping a particular book and are leaving the establishments in droves. Born again Christians disgusted by the likes of pastor Ted Haggard and others like him are connecting with each other online or hold small groups of Bible studies in their own homes. Religion has turned them off, but they still need that sense of community and blessed spiritual peace. Most of these are older, middle age men and some women.
The youth is leaving Evangelical churches in droves.
One of the reasons younger members leave is not because they are anti-God or anti-Jesus, but anti-control. They don't want to be judge for living their lives as they see fit. Their morals and values are very similar to those of generations past, but they are more 'liberal' when it comes to sexuality and charting their own course in life.
This is why organized religion is evil. In the hands of those who seek to control others - it has destroyed the goodness of public works and have effectively created a rift among people who together could have moved mountains of prosperity and equality for all. Unfortunately, religion has become a weapon of destruction and intimidation. Women, Gays and Lesbians, Blacks and Hispanics are shunned for being different from the majority of the congregation.
Health Care
Organized religion wants women to have the health care they dictate, not the kind the women want or truly need. Planned Parenthood has been on the news for a few months because they have been under attack by governors across the country.
The final blow was yesterday, when Susan G. Komen pulled their funding. The biggest issue is abortion, but the fact remains that this issue is a woman's personal issue. Women resent the unabashed intrusion and lack of privacy reserved exclusively for them.
The Politics of Organized Religion
Politics and religion make for very dangerous bed fellows. It is best to have separation of church and state as our Founding Fathers intended. They had seen first hand what powerful religious zealots could do to a society and its ability to govern itself.
While we are at it, we may want to finally classify religious institutions as a business and tax them appropriately. They no longer serve as a spiritual retreat but as a machine of perpetual hatred and intolerance.
It is a shame that organized religion has become as evil as the evil they claim to be against.
PEACE to you and yours.
Related Links on this blog:
Separation of Church and State
Hating On Women
Women and Politics
Women Used as Guinea Pigs
About Bob
An Assault on Women's Rights
External Links:
The Christian Century: Women Show Deep Drop in Church Attendance
Barna Group: 20 Years of Surveys Show Key Differences In the Faith of America's Men and Women
Ex-Mormon.org: Why We left
CNN: Why Young Evangelicals Are Leaving the Church
spirituality by Evgeni Dinev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
4 comments:
Ever notice how alll fire departments are primarily white? Ocassional token non-white here or there, but it seems obvious they reserve these soft easy money spots for those who fit their ideal for their "fraternity".
And the pay/benefit package!!! This is an industry which needs privitization, let alone austerity.
If not for that family those three men would still be alive.
This topic would never have been discussed if not for them.
I think you may have meant to post somewhere else. Don't see anything about fire departments on blog. However, I disagree, privatizing fire dpt. & police is a horrible idea.
In communities where this has happened houses have burned to the ground because the homeowners had not paid.
My friend died - he was a fire fighter. Yes, he was white and served with Hispanics and blacks. He risked his life to save others.
They don't pay them enough. His widow and son will attest to that.
I’m always Stunned-Again at the unbelievable and numerous examples of how the so-called-christian-religions prove themselves to be so blatantly Un-CHRIST-Like. There are exceptions, but I find them Few-And-Far-Between. Remember the WWJD bracelets so many folks used to wear? We need to re-generate/re-create them. Maybe WWCRD? WhatWouldChristReallyDo?
Gaiagurl --- all I can say is that hypocrisy thrives in ignorance and we have a very ignorant segment of the population who learns misinformation through knee-jerk reactions and bumper stickers.
Someone made the point that in order to be an atheist, it takes due diligence and research. Very few Christian soldiers know the Bible as well as many atheist.
I love the teachings of Christ. I just don't see them in practice very often. Perhaps Ghandi said it best:
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”
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