That's a nifty title to suggest that my views could appear to be contradictory. This warning is because we have to get into religion again. Before looking at the problem, turning America into a full blown theocracy, its necessary to explain, my view.
To me all religion, is based on our species desire to identify things. 100,000 years ago there wasn't much in the way of science, so it was easy to assign acts of nature to "Supreme Beings " male, female, both , neither. Additionally since our species has not changed very much, it is not hard to imagine, some humans
A) truly believed in the supreme being/s
B) saw a chance to control people by convincing them "God" wants this, do it our he will eat your brains" maybe that's zombies, no its Gods
C) some of our species, truly wanted to do good, especially in the face of our species actions and developed rules of behavior for the species to follow
D) We are herd animals we humans, not very bright herd animals at that, so following the crowd is a pretty easy function for we humans.
E) If you combine A/B/C/D you get world religions ( the plural is very important) 7.2 billion of us and its estimated that 95 percent believe in some type of religion.
And just to cut off some debates on how I can stand in the percentage that don't believe when such an over whelming number do, consider the numbers of people who : believed the sun orbited the earth, the world is flat, man can not go faster than 60 miles per hour, and last Seinfeld was good TV.
The majority does not make something true see item D.
Having laid out this, there are social traditions that stem from our belief systems and our daily interactions. The act of saying "God Bless You" when a person sneezes, comes from a very old belief in the super natural. The children's poem/game Ring Around the Rosy, is based on the deaths from the Black Death that wiped out about a 1/3 of the worlds population.
Many traditions, wait traditions and culture are based on a collective or events from our past. Certain foods prepared, rituals performed. Most of them had a purpose, however wrong, when they were first performed, years ago, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago.
Any Yuppie worth there salt, ( worth there salt, salt was so valuable it was used for money) who has paid outrageous prices for food dishes that are based on receipts hundreds of years old, will know of tradition. But look at the food, 300 years ago, that cut of meat was the cheapest you could get, and the lower class people when they could get even that, had to make it palatable, and they didn't have flash ovens, so food preparation over a slow fire, mixed with what ever was available, 300 years years ago, now cost you 75 dollars without a side dish. Traditions of the past, cultures, carried forward to today.
Back to ME... my blog, I don't see these traditions spiritually, but many of these traditions do no harm. That they have become commericalized and industrialized and money makers is not the fault of the people who carried the traditions forward. There culture and traditions, are not in them self harmful
Bring on some traditions. Halloween, based on the several very frightening traditions, some over a thousand years old. Now is based around giving children candy for dressing up in costume. Not terrible important, or useful, but it is a time to let go of the realities of the world that can be very stress ful and pretend its a simpler time. Yes yes I know all the reasons, people speak out against this, poison apples, razor blades in the pop tarts, etc etc. Its a kids holiday, at least in America.
Christmas, now even if you are religious, you should know that Jesus was not born in Dec. 2000 years ago. More likely he was born in April ( no proof he existed but go with it ). And even I could rail about what Christmas has become. But the intent of the holiday is not a bad intent. I don't want to say happy holiday, I want to say Merry Christmas. Its a time to celebrate, the birth of Christ, or the middle of the dead time ( winter) a time of shiny lights, and exchanging gifts. Its not a bad tradition. Its not like this is the day we eat kittens, and sacrifice our virgins to the demigod BMT !!. Like everything else we humans have distorted the tradition, but its not a bad one. Valentines day is the celebration of a pagan spirit, or if you like the torture and murder of a young woman in ancient Rome, but Hallmark has turned it into something nicer, and despite the commercialization of the day, I believe it to be a nice idea.
So there are some traditions that despite there origin, are basically good things to have around.
I'm not looking forward to ST. APPs day, when we celebrate the 100) and 1 applications for your "I" phone. Or dancing around the GPS, but this could happen.
But why this lengthily explanation ? Because I am watching our nation, turn from rational thought to one based on "God wants this " which kind of reminds me of the Islam saying " In Gods hands"
While this nation was formed during a period when religion held a major role in most world powers, a closer look at the leaders of those nations, indicates that the leadership while allowing religion did not partake. It has been said that our founding fathers were deeply religious, but again a closer look indicates religion was a matter of convenience for them, and some were down right atheist.
I really don't care what religion you follow or if you follow, just as long as your beliefs , do NOT impose a belief on me. You believe God frowns on buying beer on Sunday....great, don't buy beer on Sunday. You don't want your taxes to support stem cell research because God told you stem cell research is murder? Get me a note from God and I will back you and support you, until than, back off. I don't like my taxes paying for child support, for some God Fearing red neck that doesn't believe in birth control but they do. I don't get to decide that. My taxes help support the infrastructure to Church's that I do NOT support, so I suck it up and accept it.
However the last time I looked our constitution has specific limitations regarding religion or use of religion in government.
than we have the first amendment to this same constitution...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So we have written into our constitution, no state religion and no religious "litmus" test for position in the government. I am not so naive as to think people will not do this... humans are stupid creatures who do stupid things. But now decisions for who should be president based on their religion, or which theocracy they do support ( insert Israel )
Ladies and Gentlemen, even allowing for the 85 percent dumber than rocks and 5 percent dumber than that, you cannot claim to be a patriot, you cannot claim to be a true American, while at the same time saying that you believe a persons religious preference shall determine if that person can be president, vice president, head dog catcher !! At least pretend to care about the constitutions.
Reverends, Bishops, priest, rabbi's, Televangelist any religious figure, needs to remember that they are tax free, sponges living in a country that allows them to sponge off the system. Their freedom of speech is supposed to have common sense attached to it. Just like none of us can yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you should not be able to yell " Mormon !" in a presidential election.
For me personally any religious connection is a negative, so inversely religious affiliation needs to be a wash. If I think you care about this country and the people in it, I don't care what your religion is. Hell, if an Islamic Em an is talking about fair taxes, job creation, good national defense and moving away from fossil fuels and energy independence, than I'M voting for him/her/it. You should really be thinking that people pointing out a religious belief of a candidate, is a dangerous person. This means that the constitution has no value to this person. Theocracies scare me. You might consider yourself safe. You may be a Christian, and thinking "me and family are good to go..." Theocracies never end that simple. Once in place than it becomes the "way" you believe or practice. Than it becomes, what kind of christian you are, what flavor.
Are you born again, baptist, evangelical , Jehovah Witness, Catholic, Protestant , Reformist??? What flavor Christian are you???? What flavor Christian do you want as leader of the United States??? And when you have to start wearing an identifying piece of clothing or sign to make it clear what your religious beliefs are, will you remember this warning? Avoid any one telling you to vote based on religious belief. Some traditions are harmless, some are not, learn to tell the difference. PLEASE.
To me all religion, is based on our species desire to identify things. 100,000 years ago there wasn't much in the way of science, so it was easy to assign acts of nature to "Supreme Beings " male, female, both , neither. Additionally since our species has not changed very much, it is not hard to imagine, some humans
A) truly believed in the supreme being/s
B) saw a chance to control people by convincing them "God" wants this, do it our he will eat your brains" maybe that's zombies, no its Gods
C) some of our species, truly wanted to do good, especially in the face of our species actions and developed rules of behavior for the species to follow
D) We are herd animals we humans, not very bright herd animals at that, so following the crowd is a pretty easy function for we humans.
E) If you combine A/B/C/D you get world religions ( the plural is very important) 7.2 billion of us and its estimated that 95 percent believe in some type of religion.
And just to cut off some debates on how I can stand in the percentage that don't believe when such an over whelming number do, consider the numbers of people who : believed the sun orbited the earth, the world is flat, man can not go faster than 60 miles per hour, and last Seinfeld was good TV.
The majority does not make something true see item D.
Having laid out this, there are social traditions that stem from our belief systems and our daily interactions. The act of saying "God Bless You" when a person sneezes, comes from a very old belief in the super natural. The children's poem/game Ring Around the Rosy, is based on the deaths from the Black Death that wiped out about a 1/3 of the worlds population.
Many traditions, wait traditions and culture are based on a collective or events from our past. Certain foods prepared, rituals performed. Most of them had a purpose, however wrong, when they were first performed, years ago, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago.
Any Yuppie worth there salt, ( worth there salt, salt was so valuable it was used for money) who has paid outrageous prices for food dishes that are based on receipts hundreds of years old, will know of tradition. But look at the food, 300 years ago, that cut of meat was the cheapest you could get, and the lower class people when they could get even that, had to make it palatable, and they didn't have flash ovens, so food preparation over a slow fire, mixed with what ever was available, 300 years years ago, now cost you 75 dollars without a side dish. Traditions of the past, cultures, carried forward to today.
Back to ME... my blog, I don't see these traditions spiritually, but many of these traditions do no harm. That they have become commericalized and industrialized and money makers is not the fault of the people who carried the traditions forward. There culture and traditions, are not in them self harmful
Bring on some traditions. Halloween, based on the several very frightening traditions, some over a thousand years old. Now is based around giving children candy for dressing up in costume. Not terrible important, or useful, but it is a time to let go of the realities of the world that can be very stress ful and pretend its a simpler time. Yes yes I know all the reasons, people speak out against this, poison apples, razor blades in the pop tarts, etc etc. Its a kids holiday, at least in America.
Christmas, now even if you are religious, you should know that Jesus was not born in Dec. 2000 years ago. More likely he was born in April ( no proof he existed but go with it ). And even I could rail about what Christmas has become. But the intent of the holiday is not a bad intent. I don't want to say happy holiday, I want to say Merry Christmas. Its a time to celebrate, the birth of Christ, or the middle of the dead time ( winter) a time of shiny lights, and exchanging gifts. Its not a bad tradition. Its not like this is the day we eat kittens, and sacrifice our virgins to the demigod BMT !!. Like everything else we humans have distorted the tradition, but its not a bad one. Valentines day is the celebration of a pagan spirit, or if you like the torture and murder of a young woman in ancient Rome, but Hallmark has turned it into something nicer, and despite the commercialization of the day, I believe it to be a nice idea.
So there are some traditions that despite there origin, are basically good things to have around.
I'm not looking forward to ST. APPs day, when we celebrate the 100) and 1 applications for your "I" phone. Or dancing around the GPS, but this could happen.
But why this lengthily explanation ? Because I am watching our nation, turn from rational thought to one based on "God wants this " which kind of reminds me of the Islam saying " In Gods hands"
While this nation was formed during a period when religion held a major role in most world powers, a closer look at the leaders of those nations, indicates that the leadership while allowing religion did not partake. It has been said that our founding fathers were deeply religious, but again a closer look indicates religion was a matter of convenience for them, and some were down right atheist.
I really don't care what religion you follow or if you follow, just as long as your beliefs , do NOT impose a belief on me. You believe God frowns on buying beer on Sunday....great, don't buy beer on Sunday. You don't want your taxes to support stem cell research because God told you stem cell research is murder? Get me a note from God and I will back you and support you, until than, back off. I don't like my taxes paying for child support, for some God Fearing red neck that doesn't believe in birth control but they do. I don't get to decide that. My taxes help support the infrastructure to Church's that I do NOT support, so I suck it up and accept it.
However the last time I looked our constitution has specific limitations regarding religion or use of religion in government.
Article. VI.....
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.than we have the first amendment to this same constitution...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So we have written into our constitution, no state religion and no religious "litmus" test for position in the government. I am not so naive as to think people will not do this... humans are stupid creatures who do stupid things. But now decisions for who should be president based on their religion, or which theocracy they do support ( insert Israel )
Ladies and Gentlemen, even allowing for the 85 percent dumber than rocks and 5 percent dumber than that, you cannot claim to be a patriot, you cannot claim to be a true American, while at the same time saying that you believe a persons religious preference shall determine if that person can be president, vice president, head dog catcher !! At least pretend to care about the constitutions.
Reverends, Bishops, priest, rabbi's, Televangelist any religious figure, needs to remember that they are tax free, sponges living in a country that allows them to sponge off the system. Their freedom of speech is supposed to have common sense attached to it. Just like none of us can yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you should not be able to yell " Mormon !" in a presidential election.
For me personally any religious connection is a negative, so inversely religious affiliation needs to be a wash. If I think you care about this country and the people in it, I don't care what your religion is. Hell, if an Islamic Em an is talking about fair taxes, job creation, good national defense and moving away from fossil fuels and energy independence, than I'M voting for him/her/it. You should really be thinking that people pointing out a religious belief of a candidate, is a dangerous person. This means that the constitution has no value to this person. Theocracies scare me. You might consider yourself safe. You may be a Christian, and thinking "me and family are good to go..." Theocracies never end that simple. Once in place than it becomes the "way" you believe or practice. Than it becomes, what kind of christian you are, what flavor.
Are you born again, baptist, evangelical , Jehovah Witness, Catholic, Protestant , Reformist??? What flavor Christian are you???? What flavor Christian do you want as leader of the United States??? And when you have to start wearing an identifying piece of clothing or sign to make it clear what your religious beliefs are, will you remember this warning? Avoid any one telling you to vote based on religious belief. Some traditions are harmless, some are not, learn to tell the difference. PLEASE.
No comments:
Post a Comment