Enough is enough
"At the invitation of the Senate Majority Leader, a Mormon, a Hindu cleric opened a session of the U.S. Senate on Thursday, and three Christians in the visitors' gallery errupted in protest.
"This is an abomination," they shouted as he stood at the chamber's podium."
I'll tell you what is an abomination. That a country of supposedly modern, intelligent, educated people would continue pandering to a buch of superstitious Luddites, regardless of their particular "faith".
We should stop this ridiculous tradition of opening sessions of Senate with any sort of prayer. As a firm believer in the separation of church and state, this has always seemed like a blatant violation of that principal.
People are free to believe whatever supernatural bullshit they want. But that crap has no place in government or rational decision making.
Public policy decisions need to be based on actual, objective, verifiable facts! Not some mistranslated, two thousand year old, shattered clay fragments etched out by semi-literate goat-herders with a pointy stick.
If you are going to spend MY money or put MY CHILD'S life at risk, it better be based because on something you can prove is true and real. Not some belief or principal derived from some fairy tale that you just like believing because it makes you feel are warm and fucking fuzzy.
Your faith should be practiced the same way you masturbate. Do it at home, in private, to whatever kinky or supernatural fantasy trips your trigger, and wash your hands when you are done. Nobody else needs to know about that shit.
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10 comments:
Agreed, agreed, and HELL YES.
And ... there have been prayers said at the Senate for a few centuries now, and if they're going to do it (and apparently they are), I'm glad to see some religious diversity up there. The Christo-fascists who view every faith tradition but their own as "an abomination!!!" seriously need their heads examined, and if they want to be in church all the time, shouldn't visit the Senate.
Count me on the "hell yes" side. What a waste of time for a supposedly secular body as the Senate is.
I'd go for a FSM prayer, though.
As a Catholic (a liberal one) I am not happy with their behavior or with the recent comment from the pope. How christian of them! How about a momment of silence at the beginning of the Senate? You can think about your grocery list, your family, God, whatever. At least there will be a momment when it appears that they know what the fuck they are doing.
great post...and this is coming from a gal who went to school in your town.
Hmmmm....
The XO Manifesto...has a familiar ring
I really want a tactical nuclear weapon right now just so I can start the government over from scratch.
nightmare - well, ya can't have one. You say you want a revolution. Well, ya know, we'd all love to change the world. But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out?
From the standpoint of a devout non-Christian:
The biggest problem I have with the whole issue is that every day you hear Christians go on and on about religious freedom and the right to religious expression and all of that. The problem is that what they mean is that they want to have the freedom to express themselves at the expense of everyone else.
They want prayer in schools and so forth, but it can ONLY be a Christian prayer.
They want the Bible studied in schools, but not any other religious scriptures.
So it's not really freedom at all, is it...just another form of fascism dressed up in fancy red white and blue clothes.
It's so typically American.
And I'm damn glad I'm a "typical American". In case anyone hasn't noticed, the Christians aren't campaigning for any new rights. They're fighting to keep the ones we've had for a few centuries. But, one by one, they're being eroded. The Christmas tree has even become offensive to some, we're going to change the name to the great "fir tree" to placate their tortured senses. But, in the meantime, we'll haul elementary kids in PUBLIC schools to the local mosque, make them memorize verses from the Koran and make the little girls where burquas for 3 weeks as part of a rounded education and when the parents sue the school for violating separation of church and state, the judge rules against them. References available on request.
I hate like hell to see what a "typical America" will look like 20 years from now.
"I hate like hell to see what a "typical America" will look like 20 years from now."
I'll tell you what I hope it looks like.
I hope that our children receive an unbiased education regarding ALL religions and are shielded from indoctrination into any sponsored religion. I want our children to be able to make up their own minds whether to believe in a Christian God, or a Muslim God, or a Pagan God, or no God without any pressure or recrimination.
I want our children to know that ALL religions are a matter of faith (=belief without evidence). Tht means NO religion has any greater claim on The Truth than any other religion because NONE of them have any objectively verifiable FACTS on which to base that "truth".
I want a generation of children who will take their place as America's power brokers and decision makers based on FACTS rather than faith.
Maybe, just maybe, if we can raise 3, 4 or 5 successive generations who cherish fact over fiction and fashion our foreign policy on a firm foundation in reality in stead of fairy tales, we MIGHT just be able to salvage this country and live up to the ideals upon which it was founded.
Or, we can continue down the neo-con, republican, theocratic path and become no better than the Taliban.
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