by Karen on December 19, 2007
The Secular Coalition is now a member of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, one of the oldest and most respected groups of its kind. This is a “Big Thing” as it is confirmation that the rights of the godless horde are as important as the rights of other minority groups within the United States.
It makes me wonder what the Christians, especially the conservative ones who think they have a unquestionable mandate to harass non-members, are going to do now. They’ve had two thousand years of complete freedom when it comes to attacking non-believers. Hell, just this morning I opened up the paper and read how it’s “logical” for believers to believe we are without moral characteristics because we are atheists.
With this act, I think both the Secular Coalition and the Leadership Council has brought us closer to a day when people who say these things will automatically be considered to have severely fucked up. It’ll be a while and I suspect they’ll fight like hell to remain both “good people” and bigots, but it’s coming and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
I think they realize this too what with the newly minted “War on God” which was brought up by Tony Snow in a speech at some Christian college recently in addition to the War on Christmas. One would have to be blind not to realize that the war on plastic Jesus is all about Christian supremacy. I mean, really, who here really thinks this particular ‘war’ is about the secularization of a religious belief when it largely revolves around forcing commercial enterprises to sell things in the name of one particular god?
So, this War on God is little more than a “war” against those who think they have a right to demean, debase and demoralize anyone who doesn’t believe in “God”. We are fighting back and we’re getting some damned good allies along the way. The bigots will always be bigots, but one day they will be branded bigots and they know it.
I for one look forward to that day.
by Karen on February 25, 2007
A campaign is being mounted to credit Christianity with the end of slavery via a documentary called Amazing Grace. I have but one question. Is there anything Christians won’t lie about? Christianity has never opposed slavery and the reason is quite simple.
The bible supports the practice of buying and selling of other humans as private property. Christians themselves were active participants in the slave trade for 1500 years. American Christians were the worst of the lot with abolitionists being referred to as infidels and accused of blasphemy for speaking/writing against the practice of slavery.
As for the characters in Amazing Grace, John Newton was a slave-trader and remained one for several years after converting to Christianity. The excuses for this character lapse fail to grasp the bigger picture. Christianity is touted as the life-changing truth of all times. Without it, we’d be out raping, pillaging and murdering. If you doubt it, just wonder over to the Christian section of the bookstore or stop in at the local church. Furthermore, Newton did not turn against slavery until late in his life. Sorry folks, but it’s easy to stand up for something when you’re soon to be flat on your back with six feet of dirt for protection.
And lest it be overlooked, it was not individual Christians who were largely responsible for the melding of slavery and American Christianism. The churches themselves owned slaves and often sold them to raise funds for spreading Christianity. Frederick Douglass, the African-American abolitionist and former slave, put it this way in his self-written biography:
“The church and the slave prison stand next to each other; the groans and cries of the heartbroken slave are often drowned in the pious devotions of his religious master. The church-going bell and the auctioneer’s bell chime in with each other; the pulpit and the auctioneers’s block stand in the same neighbourhood; while the blood-stained gold goes to support the pulpit covers the infernal business with the garb of Christianity. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support missionaries, and babies sold to buy Bibles and communion services for the churches.â€Â
The fact of the matter is that most of our advances as a society began not in the pews or the pulpits. They began in the streets and each one was bitterly opposed by those in the pews and on the pulpits. Many, such as women’s rights, are still bitterly opposed by them. Christians would be happy for us all to forget the sheer evilness that is Christian history, but I for one refuse to do so.
Religions, their leaders and the faithful as a class are consistently playing catch-up with the rest of society, but only after they’ve failed to defeat us. We should never let them rest comfortably on the unfounded belief that they’ve led us anywhere but into the pits of their various hells.
Update: Here’s a great post from the nogodzone blog that goes into more detail about the history of the Christian church and slavery, Slavery and Christian Mythology
Throughout the history of the United States, only one constitutional amendment restricted the rights of Americans. That amendment went into effect in 1920 and it made the production, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal. It passed with the backing of conservatives and religious leaders who thought that criminalizing alcohol would solve crime, poverty and other social problems. It was repealed in 1933.
Now it’s 2006 and another amendment is up consideration. The Senate is considering an amendment that would illegalize gay marriage. Like the prohibitionists of yesteryear, the supporters (conservatives and religious leaders) of the anti-gay marriage amendment have proposed that that passing this amendment will solve all kinds of problems ‘obviously’ caused by the “rampant spread of homosexualityâ€Â.
The biggest difference is that this amendment is not widely supported and is unlikely to pass. Should it pass, it’ll have to go through ratification before going into effect and it will still be challenged by those who see it for the ‘soft’ bigotry that it is.
So, why press it? It’s rather simple. Bush and the Republicans used it as a political maneuver quite successively in the 2004 election. Ohio, the state that tipped the election, was one of several states that had a gay marriage ban on the ballot that year. This non-issue drove many to vote for Bush even though Kerry (and the Democratic Party) held the same opinion about gay marriage.
The question is ‘will it work again?’ It’s possible, as Americans tend to be capricious and disgracefully uninformed when it comes to issues. As of now, several states are putting gay-marriage bans on their ballots this coming season.At the same time, opposition to homosexuals is decreasing across the board while more Americans are becoming concerned about the war, the cost of gas and other issues that affect them personally.
We can only hope that they will not falter and not be side-tracked by what seems to be a last ditch effort to retain power by the Republican party.
