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Monday, November 23, 2009

What Our Fathers Really Meant Was...

It amazes me how very few pictures there are of all the Founding Fathers, in fact I couldn't find one. The one here to the left is actually historically inaccurate since some people paid the artist to have their face in the picture regardless of the fact that they were not there when this event occurred. The painter and his skills were the prehistoric Photoshop. Unfortunately, I didn't conjure up the idea to write about phony pictures and the lack of quality images that display the faces of all our founding fathers. Instead, I've decided to talk about an issue much more pertinent to today and our lives daily.

As a Christian, there is a lot of stigma behind that title. Fellow protesters of Scientology have jested about certain dogmatic aspects of Christianity attributing it to religion as a whole. The biggest stigma is that Christians are suppressive. Christians have a history of suppressing all sorts of things which include sexuality and the discussion thereof, critical thinking, dissenting speech, controversial literature, opposing theological viewpoints, atheism, science, and anything that might have the potential to threaten the mainstream Christian-held beliefs. With such a negative rep, I'd like to be able to tell my friends and fellow protesters that that was all in the past and that that was stuff Renaissance era religious blindness, but I can't because it's all happening today. Human sexuality is still being suppressed in the form of imposing our Christian views on others. The same is true for most of everything else I listed previously. It a huge grievance for me that many millions of Christians have bought into the lie that Christianity is all about right and wrong; sin and virtue. It is a big heaping mess of hypocrisy to assert our moral, cultural, and political values on others when Jesus did not impose His Way on us. The tragedy of liberty is the freedom for groups to invent reason to suppress each other over fabrications of nothing.

Some Christians, the most vile and hypocritical of them all, are more crafty than to blatantly label their organizations as Christian organizations, but instead pose as followers of such high and lofty ideologies as liberty, virtue, and truth. They cite the Founding Fathers intentions as justification for censorship and religious favoritism. America is not a Christian nation, regardless of what some "patriots" would like you to believe. Yes, this nation was founded by men who listened to God, and quite very likely helped found this nation because of strength from God, but they did not found a Christian nation. To say that America is a Christian nation defeats the whole purpose of America. America was an escape from the cruel oppression of the Church of England, and later from the tyrannical King George. Some Christians think it is their business to impose on others their own interpretation of the Constitution, as if they have some divine connection to our long dead Founders and can therefore express the true meaning and intent of the words which we hold so dear.

Stupid Christians, always thinking their better than everyone else. I can't stand the arrogance of my own family, that is my spiritual family. And I'm not picking on one denomination over another, Catholics have a very bloody history, but the Baptists are known for their hellfire and brimstone sermons that only turn people away, while charismatics and their over-spiritualistic attitude towards everything has turned people over little things like Harry Potter and Twilight. Do you know what I think it is? I think it is Christians who have not had a real relationship with God, who don't read their Bibles without a judgmental filter, and who have nothing but contempt for anyone or anything that doesn't conform to their picture-perfect idea of a world that doesn't exist but in their twisted little mind.

Honestly, the freedoms we have today are not meant to be interpreted as a license for Christians to skew it in their favor. The freedom of speech protects the rights of Neo-Nazis and Christians alike. It protects those who want to say, "fuck" every other word with those who want to say, "Merry Christmas." The freedom of religion ensures that a Buddhist can live out his life without being subjected to Christian standards and expectations of how he should act. It protects Christians from being hunted down, raped, tortured, and killed because of their faith. It also protects an atheist from having to participate in any religious activity or adhere to any tenets of faith which he does not volunteer to adhere to.

I propose another freedom be added specifically for those who might want impose their views on others without their consent, the freedom to find a hole and die.

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