No worries - I know you are just asking. It's not Christianity per se that bothers me. If you follow these links, and read the articles, you will see that what scares the frak out of me is people who use religion (this is the case for any religion, but Christianity is the one we contend with in the US) as a means to grasp for power, take away the rights and freedoms of others, amass wealth at the expense of the masses, and rule the world.
If you think that sounds extreme, believe me, I wish it were. There are groups, Christian groups according to them, who want exactly those things, and make no bones about saying so. A man who owns a company of well funded and well armed mercenaries describing himself as a 'Christian Crusader,' charged by God with eliminating Muslims from the globe and bringing the Kingdom of God to rule over the earth should scare anyone. A group that, on the one hand declares their express plan for achieving world dominion, but on the other, openly declared that their own illegal acts don't matter because "normal rules don't apply to them," should scare anyone. Groups and individuals willing to distort the truth as badly as we are seeing in this health care reform insanity (i.e. Palin's 'death panel' nonsense) in order to topple the legitimately elected leader of this country should scare anyone.
Now you, and many others may be quick to say that these are not 'real Christians,' or that real Christians would not do those things. But none of us can know what these people really believe. What we do know is that they do what they do in the name of Christianity, and even well-meaning real Christians follow and enable them in the name of Christianity. They say they are fighting for and with God, for and with Christ, and I have no choice but to deal with them in those terms.
It isn't the religion itself that I have a problem with. I will admit that, having studies the history of Christianity, and watched closely the things that have been done by and in the name of that faith in my lifetime, that it seems to me that Christianity (again, as with any religion, especially a monotheism) has an inescapable mechanism of power, of control.
When a system of thought, be it a religion or anything else, outlines both an urgent need and the only solution to meeting that need, it claims power, by virtue of the fact that it controls the one thing which it itself established as the thing everyone needs. If one company both identified a new, fatal, all but incurable disease, and held the only antidote to that disease, would they not find themselves in a position of unbelievable power? We might hope they would not choose to grasp at that power for their own gain, but look at history; humanity will always grasp at power.
Whether there is value in Christianity, or any religion outside that mechanism of power, I can't answer. But I do know that when religion and government mix, bad things happen. I know that right now, I see a possible future where America is a theocracy, a religious totalitarianism, and where gays, people of color, people of other religions, or of no religion, have no place. I see a place where women are once again oppressed, where rational thought and free inquiry are taboo, where history is rewritten to endorse the views of those in power. That's the world Orwell saw when he wrote 1984, and that's not the world I want my son to inherit.
no subject
If you think that sounds extreme, believe me, I wish it were. There are groups, Christian groups according to them, who want exactly those things, and make no bones about saying so. A man who owns a company of well funded and well armed mercenaries describing himself as a 'Christian Crusader,' charged by God with eliminating Muslims from the globe and bringing the Kingdom of God to rule over the earth should scare anyone. A group that, on the one hand declares their express plan for achieving world dominion, but on the other, openly declared that their own illegal acts don't matter because "normal rules don't apply to them," should scare anyone. Groups and individuals willing to distort the truth as badly as we are seeing in this health care reform insanity (i.e. Palin's 'death panel' nonsense) in order to topple the legitimately elected leader of this country should scare anyone.
Now you, and many others may be quick to say that these are not 'real Christians,' or that real Christians would not do those things. But none of us can know what these people really believe. What we do know is that they do what they do in the name of Christianity, and even well-meaning real Christians follow and enable them in the name of Christianity. They say they are fighting for and with God, for and with Christ, and I have no choice but to deal with them in those terms.
It isn't the religion itself that I have a problem with. I will admit that, having studies the history of Christianity, and watched closely the things that have been done by and in the name of that faith in my lifetime, that it seems to me that Christianity (again, as with any religion, especially a monotheism) has an inescapable mechanism of power, of control.
When a system of thought, be it a religion or anything else, outlines both an urgent need and the only solution to meeting that need, it claims power, by virtue of the fact that it controls the one thing which it itself established as the thing everyone needs. If one company both identified a new, fatal, all but incurable disease, and held the only antidote to that disease, would they not find themselves in a position of unbelievable power? We might hope they would not choose to grasp at that power for their own gain, but look at history; humanity will always grasp at power.
Whether there is value in Christianity, or any religion outside that mechanism of power, I can't answer. But I do know that when religion and government mix, bad things happen. I know that right now, I see a possible future where America is a theocracy, a religious totalitarianism, and where gays, people of color, people of other religions, or of no religion, have no place. I see a place where women are once again oppressed, where rational thought and free inquiry are taboo, where history is rewritten to endorse the views of those in power. That's the world Orwell saw when he wrote 1984, and that's not the world I want my son to inherit.