Evicting God

As everyone knows, I am far from being one of the church going folks.  I have my own thoughts on spirituality, creation and the rest of that lot and am quite content with those thoughts.  However, I also love my country a great deal, as before I will state;  love of my country does not need to translate into love of government, the people in it or the majority of the people that live in this country. 

Over the last couple of decades there has been a movement afoot to remove the phrase “One nation under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and the words “In God We Trust” from our currency.  Now, I really need  to ask why?  Is it really that big a deal to some people?  Do they have any idea of how much money it would cost to affect these changes?  Now, why there is some debate around recently about whether or not the founding fathers were actually Christians, there is really no doubt that until the last 60 years or so, this was a country very deeply founded in religious beliefs.  Those religious beliefs, whether you choose to admit it or not, had a deep impact on decisions made by the country and the directions that the country went in.  And yes, I am well aware that the phrase “One nation under God” was not originally written into the Pledge, it was added in the 1950′s, but again, that was at a different time and mentality for our country.

Now, if you want to take these phrases out for some misconstrued idea of Separation of Church and State that is all fine and good, however, you cannot have it both ways.  We are also going to have to take any mention of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas out of the public domain;  that means schools, calendars, TVs, etc.  You are gonna have to stop the various curse phrases that have one form or another of the term God in them.  See how ridiculous this can easily get?

Now, as I said and still stand by, I am not a Christian or a bible beater by any means, I believe in simple common sense.  I am a traditionalist, but only in the aspect of respecting the traditions that have gone before, not saying that we have to continue on with them in the current day.  I live my life by my own ideals and thoughts, as anyone should.  We should not be influenced by anything but our own decisions and thoughts.  Looking at the world for ourselves, examining the information that is out there and coming to our own conclusions about it all.  Faith is a good thing, I will not discount it at all.  However, basing your entire belief system on faith is a rather foolish concept.

Getting back on topic, holding true to the origins and roots of our nation is not a bad thing, it helps to show where we have come from, how we have grown.  We are so worried about one minor thing offending us that we tend to forget about its far reaching implications.  (Forest for the trees?) 

Why The United States Is Screwed

So, I decided to give myself a week before I even attempted to write a new blog post.  I needed time to cool off and to be able to think rationally from the events that occurred on November 3 here in Maine.  For those not aware, on November 3 the people of Maine decided to repeal the law allowing same-sex couples to marry, it was a very close vote but in the end fear, hatred and bigotry won out.  Those may seem like strong words, however, they are the simple truth.  Even in this day and age people are still very close minded when it comes to homosexuals.  I am not going to get into what the law was about, although it was very fair and equal for everyone.  Instead, I want to talk about what I see as the down fall of our great nation.

America…  I really do love this nation.  I love my country very much, however many of the people I cannot stand at all.  People hiding behind the church for their beliefs or just believing what they see on the television as being the final truth.  No one is willing to take some initiative and research the material for themselves and instead chose to follow the “words of wisdom” spewed out by various talking heads.

Side note – FoxNews only has an entertainment license, not a news license which means they do not have to hold to the same standards of factual reporting as regular news channels.

Democracy, at least as most people seem to understand it, is a disease and like any other disease it will eventually kills us all.  The concept of “majority rule” is an unfair and biased system.  Sure, for something like choosing what movie your group is going to watch or electing a President it works out fine.  But, where is the fairness is having the majority of the people deciding on the rights and freedoms of a minority?  Now, here I am using the term minority in a pure sense, the lesser of a balance.  When it came to things like women voting, equal rights for blacks and other minorities and the issue of abortion you were are perfectly happy to sit back and let the government put out its own rules, however when it comes to same-sex marriage you fight it tooth and nail.

Another side note – Majority rule:  Imagine if the majority suddenly decided they did not want Internet or alcohol allowed in their state and they won the election, would that be fair in your eyes?

Eventually, there will be marriage equality in this country, that is one thing that history shows us.  Sadly, though, for now we are going to have a lot of fighting, name calling and as has happened recently death threats being made.  This is indeed a hot button issue and one that is not going to go away any time soon, from either side of it.

Now, another poison that is slowly working to destroy our country is the churches.  Now I am not saying we need to get rid of them completely, people need their beliefs and their faith.  However, we need to get the influence of the church out of society, we are no longer in a position where we need it or want it as a whole.  History shows that having the church being a part of society is a bad thing, from either side.  Whether it is government fighting against control of the church or the church attempting to establish control over the government.  Some of the greatest atrocities in history have been committed by either the church or its designated representatives.  The Crusades and The Inquisition to name two off the top of my head.  We as a people are smart enough to choose whether or not we want church in our society and our fore fathers, who themselves were not Christians at all (The Founding Fathers), purposely set up our nation in a way to keep the church out of the rule of government.

We are slowly killing our country with special laws and interest groups and all of that other bullshit.  We need to pull together as a common people, allow for equality of all of our citizens, look out for the interests of our nation instead of every other nation out there and to make our system work, which it can if we allow it to by looking out for the common interest instead of “What is in it for me?”

One Burning Bush To Another

So, here we are a day before election day in the state of Maine.  I must admit that I am rather nervous about the results of question 1.  I am sincerely hoping that the No on 1 campaign does win, but after reading some various news articles I am beginning to have my doubts.  Either way the votes come in, sadly this will not end on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  This is something I fear that will go on for years until one side gives up the battle, which is really rather sad as this is so much more than just giving homosexual couples the right to marry, it is about marriage equality for everyone.  And as far as that ‘civil union” crap goes, it just does not float because if you need to have to different terms for the same thing then you are admitting a lack of equality.

Why are we as a people still so tied to religious beliefs that by their own admission have changed many times over the years and only follow those parts of the Bible they want?  What is so different from 1000 years ago, religiously speaking?  If the rules were good solid rules then, given out by God, then should they still not apply now?  How is it they can change so easily to suit their own needs, but when it comes to other things they hoist the Bible and say nope, not allowed?  And if homosexuality is the sin the Bible says, and if the Bible is the solid, literal word of God, then why are they not out stoning every homosexual they see?  After all, as they say, God’s laws come before man’s laws.

These Christian people are proclaiming on one hand;  Homosexuality is wrong, it’s a sin, it’s evil and a perversion, yet on the other they are saying, You can have civil unions with all the legal benefits of being married but we will not grant you marriage…  Sorry folks but that is called straddling the fence no matter how you look at it.  By the words of your own Bible you are going against God by not doing what he has stated.  You are compromising against the word of your God in order to follow the laws of man and for that, according to your own religion you are damned.  Confession and praying for absolution will not help in this because every day you are allowing homosexuals to live by not following your God’s words.

It is time for all of us to come out of the dark ages, seriously.  We have come so far as a species, yet for some reason we are still so tied to a book that we have no real evidence is truth at all.  Now, I am not saying that God as Christianity proclaims him is real or fake, I honestly do not know.  I have my own thoughts on the universe and life and they are my own which work for me.  We are a varied species, with other varied species living upon this planet and we need to learn to all coexist or we are truly damned by our own actions and not some prophecies that can be taken so many different ways.  (As a side not, around the year 1000 there is documentation saying the days of Revelations were coming true, just as we are claiming now, and yet a thousand years later this world still stands.)

There is so much more we need to focus on making right in this world than letting people have their own happiness.  There is hunger, poverty and oppression out there that need to end.  All these little things that we bicker over are taking away from the bigger picture that we really need to fix.  People loving one another, creating happy stable families…  what is so wrong with that?   Are you really so insecure in yourself and the examples you are setting for your own children that you feel this is going to affect them?  For as long as there have been people, despite their upbringing, their have been homosexual people, it is a fact of nature despite all your claims of “against natural law”.  It exists every where in nature and it is not a fluke and accident or a mutation.  Love and happiness is where you find it, you cannot deny the person that you are inside without causing harm to yourself.  Trying to force yourself or others to be something they are not, and this does not just apply to homosexuality, is wrong and goes against the concept that we know as free will.

Despite my own upbringing, I am a supporter of marriage equality, but I am also a supporter of plain old common sense.  If something feels wrong at its base, if it is wrong for the people as a whole, then it is wrong period.  Look through history, look at all the things we consider wrong that were brought down in history…  at the time, the ruling classes and people thought they were good but now we know they we bad.  The great socialist experiment that Russia tried, look how that turned out, that region is still feeling the consequences of that mistake.

We need to realize once and for all that maybe the Bible is not all there is to life, maybe there is more that has been kept from our eyes and minds.  As I said before I am not discounting the Bible at all, just saying their good be more.

This time I am going to close with a quote from the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster, seems rather appropriate.

Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there’s people on other planets?

Ted Arroway: I don’t know, Sparks. But I guess I’d say if it is just us… seems like an awful waste of space.