Tuesday,
January 14, 2003
Buckle up, buttercup -- it's going to be a bumpy ride. . .
Apparently, Justice Scalia thinks courts have gone too far to keep religion out of public schools and other forums. By golly, I think Justice Scalia is right! Let's petition Congress for Mecca markers to be posted in all large public gathering places, government-sanctioned zazen time and no work to be done on Saturdays.
Or was he just talking about Christianity? Oops, my bad.
*sigh* I probably should elucidate some of my views, by the way. I approach organized religion from an admittedly biased viewpoint -- mainly, I don't like it because there are factions in each religion that try to prosletyze, and I am scared by people who think that everyone should think the same way about God and are willing to use coercion or force to achieve this end. This attitude, by the way, extends to every religion that prosletyzes -- this isn't a "Let's Bash the Christians" rant.
I myself am not a Christian. This is a conscious decision, arrived at after years of contemplation and study. I don't believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, I don't believe in heaven or hell, and I don't believe that there is an Almighty who is watching over us. Neither am I an atheist, but that is a subject for another post.
I can understand the comfort one takes in one's religion. I can even understand the desire to offer that comfort to other people. But the problem is that, while some people will take a polite no for an answer and never bring it up again, there seem to be a much larger group of believers who think that if they just keep their beliefs in front of your face long enough, you'll realize the error of your ways and join them.
Quite frankly, that's insulting. I'm intelligent enough to recognize when something is the right thing for me. Organized religion isn't one of those things, and I dislike having it pushed on me in public places, hence my last post. Now, if the faithful of the world were like my cool Christian friends (aka people who believe deeply in their faith, but consider it to be a personal matter and don't try to push it on other people), I wouldn't have a problem with the practice of religious beliefs in public because it would be done with dignity, grace and respect for other people's beliefs. Unfortunately, there always seems to be a very vocal faction of the faithful (in every religion) who overshadow the reasonable people and spoil it for believers and nonbelievers alike by alienating nonbelievers with their all-encompassing and intrusive demonstrations of "faith."
Personally, I don't
see that as faith -- I see that as showing off. Then again, they think I'm going
to hell, so what do I know?