Why Your Religion is My Problem

Every American is entitled to freedom of thought, a Constitutionally-protected right to believe and express anything at all, no matter how patently absurd. I may believe that Capuchin monkeys come to my room at midnight, perch on my pillow, and feed ideas into my brain using a funnel and a teaspoon. You can't prove to me that this doesn't happen. For one thing, those monkeys are damn fast; plus, they are invisible to people who don't believe in them. You cannot convince me otherwise, despite a clear lack of evidence, for I have 'faith' that it is true and I have a right to believe it. Likewise, if you want to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or God, that is your business. However, when delusions cross the line from mere belief to compelling action, and thus have a deleterious impact on the rights of other people, particularly on people who may not believe the same things, they need to be confronted. When people with a shared delusion band together to elect as our president an enemy of science like George W. Bush, who restricts life-saving stem cell research and funding to family clinics (based on the church's relatively new position that life begins at conception,thus abortion is wrong, and any clinic that even dares mention that option is unworthy of funding) and who sends young men and women to their deaths in a war that is 'god's plan', when your religion poisons public policy and legislation, well then your religion becomes my problem.

The radical anti-intellectualism that defines Christianity in this country is perplexing. We can forgive the people who lived two thousand years ago and had no insight into molecular biology or astronomy or other sciences - they needed a god to explain natural phenomena in the world, just as the Greeks and Romans needed their gods. But in this day & age, it is ridiculous to give the current monotheistic god any more credence than we give to the polytheistic gods of the past. And to cause, or let continue, suffering to real, live humans in the name of some nebulous god, is deplorable and despicable. It is time to relegate the divine fantasies of past generations to the history books and move to a fully secular society, governed by reason, logic, and compassion for all mankind, not by threats of eternal damnation or promises of heavenly reward.

I am happy to say that most of my self-proclaimed Christian friends are of the cafeteria variety, and while they may not be fond of the term, I mean it as a compliment. Though I think they ought to dispense with the whole piety charade altogether, I'm glad that they can pick and choose a la carte the positive things that their faith has to offer (such as celebrating birth, marriage, and death. Of course, all of these rites of passage can be observed in a purely humanistic manner, without theistic overtones, and be equally joyful). I have quite a few Catholic friends who've had in-vitro fertilization - a big no-no, per the Church. Most of them now use contraception, another big no-no. And most voted for Barack Obama, a huge no-no given his stance on a woman's right to govern her own body, anathema to the church's desire to meddle even with reproduction. These friends, and people like them, do not make their religion my problem as they to some degree recognize the limitations of a dogma developed thousands of years ago. But the fundamentalist evangelical right-wing hatemongers, who despite calling themselves Christians are most un-Christ-like, who kill doctors who provide abortions and who murder people at the U.S. Holocaust Museum because of differing ideologies, are my problem. Even the 'moderate Christians' who do not condemn them loudly and clearly, are my problem. And any Christian who uses the Bible (which itself is fraught with contradictions and open to interpretation by any man in garb with a microphone) to dictate his/her behavior, instead of using reason to consider the moral good or rights of others, is my problem. And because these people constitute a (happily declining) majority in this country, they are your problem too.