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Holding back the anger - rant
Nov. 3rd, 2004 06:06 pmIn college, I was once told by a muslim friend from Egypt that the United States is not a democracy with complete separation of church and state. Instead he felt that the United States was an extremely tolerant Protestant country. When one looks at it that way, things fall into a different shape.
Our Puritan/Calvinist roots lend to the idea that government has the duty to legislate moral behavior like the Consistory of Geneva so many centuries ago. Jon Calvin, Jon Knox, and Oliver Cromwell all felt government must stamp out swearing, public drinking, theatre, provocative dancing, card playing/gambling, etc.
Only once in the history of the United States has there been a non-Protestant elected as President.
If we are religion-neutral, this is upsetting. If we are a tolerant Protestant country, then we are open to allowing people who are Catholic, Jewish, etc. to run for president.
Did *anyone* think the former Confederacy would ever go for a Catholic, even if he chose a running mate from the South?
We will always close down the country for Christmas but never for Yom Kippur. If one even tried to honor Ramadan, they'd be stoned in parts of the country.
People will always insert things like "under God" into the Pledge of Allegience and singing songs praising God will just seem to automatically go with loyalty to the country on July 4 and the 7th inning stretch.
I sometimes want to scream.
I sometimes want to bash people's heads in while telling them what beliefs come from votes, what was simply made up and when, what was misinterpreted, and what original documents actually said.
I wish there was a place somewhere truly free for intellectual questions, where science and not myth ruled, where intelligence was looked up to and praised, not feared and hated, where people did not care if their neighbor was gay, straight, black, white, religious, non-religious, kinky, vanilla, tall, short, young or old... where the only thing that mattered was whether or not they were a good person.
I don't like it when any one group or political party dominates.
Why do people make up shit about some God they invented NOT wanting gay people to marry, blacks and whites to marry, kids to celebrate Halloween, us to spare the environment for our kids (James Watt felt God wanted us to use up all the Earth before Rapture comes soon.), anything...
...anything you want that you can not justify... just claim God wants it.
I want to scream at the world.
Our Puritan/Calvinist roots lend to the idea that government has the duty to legislate moral behavior like the Consistory of Geneva so many centuries ago. Jon Calvin, Jon Knox, and Oliver Cromwell all felt government must stamp out swearing, public drinking, theatre, provocative dancing, card playing/gambling, etc.
Only once in the history of the United States has there been a non-Protestant elected as President.
If we are religion-neutral, this is upsetting. If we are a tolerant Protestant country, then we are open to allowing people who are Catholic, Jewish, etc. to run for president.
Did *anyone* think the former Confederacy would ever go for a Catholic, even if he chose a running mate from the South?
We will always close down the country for Christmas but never for Yom Kippur. If one even tried to honor Ramadan, they'd be stoned in parts of the country.
People will always insert things like "under God" into the Pledge of Allegience and singing songs praising God will just seem to automatically go with loyalty to the country on July 4 and the 7th inning stretch.
I sometimes want to scream.
I sometimes want to bash people's heads in while telling them what beliefs come from votes, what was simply made up and when, what was misinterpreted, and what original documents actually said.
I wish there was a place somewhere truly free for intellectual questions, where science and not myth ruled, where intelligence was looked up to and praised, not feared and hated, where people did not care if their neighbor was gay, straight, black, white, religious, non-religious, kinky, vanilla, tall, short, young or old... where the only thing that mattered was whether or not they were a good person.
I don't like it when any one group or political party dominates.
Why do people make up shit about some God they invented NOT wanting gay people to marry, blacks and whites to marry, kids to celebrate Halloween, us to spare the environment for our kids (James Watt felt God wanted us to use up all the Earth before Rapture comes soon.), anything...
...anything you want that you can not justify... just claim God wants it.
I want to scream at the world.
