THIS IS WHERE WE ARE

I am not a believer in gods or religious dogmas, but, oddly, these things do hold a certain twisted importance in my life.

I actually enjoy people who are true followers of the Prince of Peace or the Buddha. Unfortunately, many who claim to be Christians are in fact merely hypocrites and/or impostors. 🥸 (The same can probably be said about Buddhists, Moslems, Hindus, Sikhs, and every other sect or denomination, but since so-called Christians represent the biggest religious group in the USA, they will be the focus of this discussion.)

Many so-called Christians today, were they to bump into Jesus on the street, would vilify him as a flaming liberal. (For the purposes of this essay, I will stipulate that Jesus actually existed, even though the evidence for this is scant.)

Jesus said help the poor. But many so-called Christians complain about their tax dollars going to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and subsidize health insurance for all. 🩺‍‍

Jesus said welcome the stranger, yet many so-called Christians support immigration policies whose defining characteristic is purposeful and unnecessary cruelty. Some of the children kept in cages and separated from their families by the Trump administration STILL have not been found!

Jesus said that if someone was angry enough with you to slap your face, offer him the other cheek to be slapped as well. Yet many so-called Christians today are so deeply enthralled with gun culture that instead of protecting children from school shootings by instituting stricter gun laws, they instead ban books.

As for the importance of religion in general, there is no doubt that the words and actions of religious people certainly impact us all. In fact, religion has always had an outsized impact on human affairs. To me, on an intellectual level, it is interesting (shocking, really) that many people still believe the old myths (and some newer ones), even in this age of modern science. 🧬🩻🩺🧪🧫

In spite of a total lack of independently-verifiable supporting evidence, people still hold on to old, tired dogmas. Or they at least claim to, in order to remain in good stead with their social groups. (This phenomenon is not unlike Republican politicians who despise Trump but will not openly denounce him for fear of a primary challenge from the extreme right wing of their own Party. Their silence is complicity! )

Not only are many religious dogmas refuted by science, but historically they have been the cause of much conflict and senseless bloodshed.🩸🩸🩸 (Question: what is the only real difference between an Israeli and a Palestinian? Answer: none; they only THINK they're different because they worship different prophets.)

Yet people continue to cling to their old, tired superstitions . I find this both fascinating and tragic.

And for anyone interested in democracy in America, consider this: the fascist and would-be dictator Donald J. Trump's single most important support demographic is white Evangelical Christians!!! According to a Gallup poll, 81% of WECs voted for the Done Cheato in 2020. They voted for him in spite of his continued denial of climate 🥵 science and efforts to weaken environmental protections, AND his impeachment for abuse of office, AND his spectacularly incompetent handling of the pandemic, AND the Mueller Report, which detailed at least ten instances of obstruction of justice and could NOT rule out collusion with Russian meddling in the 2016 election!

We still have a majority of nominally Christian Republicans saying they believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent, even though Trumpty Dumpty's lawyers could not produce the evidence and went zero for sixty in court. Trump's own cyber security Czar said the 2020 election was the cleanest in history! And Trump's own, hand-picked Attorney General, the same one who delayed release and then white-washed the Mueller Report for him, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, and that Cheato's claims of election tampering are "bullshit."

But should any of this really surprise us? Do you think it's just a coincidence that so many of the believers in Trump's Big Lie also believe in a rather extreme brand of religious dogma? In both sets of beliefs, isn't there is the same glaring lack of supporting evidence and critical thinking? ‍

Most religions, and fundamentalist ones in particular, value faith over reason. They teach their followers to believe without evidence, to accept without question. And when you are taught that it's OK to believe in things for which there is no evidence, and reject what is independently verifiable because it conflicts with your childish beliefs, then you are on a very slippery slope; anything goes.

This intellectual flabbiness is not without consequences. If we lose democracy in America, if we slide into fascism, it will be on the back of wacky, illogical, and unsupported beliefs. 🥴

So yes, I have to say religion/God is somewhat important to me. And not in a good way.