Religiosity

Is it "A" or "The" problem?

I am agnostic. My parents tried. They really tried. My father was the Reverend Jack L. Moore and my mother was a faithful believer in the Holy Trinity.

I attended church services come hell or high water every Sunday from - I’m assuming - the day I was born until the last Sunday I was living at home before I high-tailed it to college. I might have feigned illness or a headache a time or two in high school to get out of traveling the twenty some odd miles into downtown Dallas to the First Presbyterian Church. But stopping at the “other” church, Church’s Fried Chicken for Sunday victuals afterwards was usually all the incentive I needed to endure the trek, practice my Windsor knot skills and put on a sport jacket.

I say agnostic rather than atheist because I have my doubts.

Since energy can’t be destroyed and all things are some form of energy, I guess I can imagine an interconnectivity and an immortality that suggests something beyond science. I am also a romantic, so that probably plays a role as well. I definitely don’t prescribe to the notion that something in our image lurks in the sky. Or that there is a place where we live on in eternity in any form similar to the form we have now.

I feel like there was a good reason the Founding Fathers wanted to separate Church from State. They knew the mischief it could cause.

They understood how fractious religion had been throughout history. They understood many Americans had fled the Old World for religious freedom. They tried to create a government that favored no religion.

Since those heady days in the 1700s, religion has been creeping into our government and our politics. “One nation, under God” was added on Flag Day in 1954. “In God We Trust” wasn’t added to our currency until 1955.

The Moral Majority - who were not necessarily all that moral, or a majority - led by Baptist minister, Jerry Falwell, threw their hat into the ring with Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, and from that time forward, diehard Christians tied themselves to right wing politics and politicians.

I have no doubt Roe v. Wade (1973) was a seminal moment, a clarifying moment, for folks like Jerry Falwell who would not stand by while women were being liberated. The Moral Majority was his response. Now we have evangelical ministers pilgrimaging to the White House to lay their hands on the most imperfect of vessels. Evangelical ministers with political axes to grind and conservative religious viewpoints that they would love to see codified into the Constitution.

What made me go off on this tangent - because I don’t have a bone to pick with religion as it relates to the social aspects of humanity - was the statement that our vice president believes in Noah’s Ark and is a climate science denier. Most likely, he is also a creationist.

These are the people who are holding society back. These are the people who would not mind the latest version of The Dark Ages. Dark Ages 2.0, if you will. These are the people who want to use their religious beliefs to rule the rest of us.

We can’t have believers that mankind has dominion over the earth and all of its creatures making decisions for us in the halls of power. We can’t have believers in the Christian end times sitting in the seats where our future is decided. We can’t have believers that “God” has a plan and we need make no plans whatsoever. These people are not deciders, they’re capitulators.

Religion - and, in America, it’s the virulent strain of Christianity that’s causing the most trouble - has no immediate role in the handling of climate change or the pandemic. I’m not saying it has no role in the body politic because, as an avowed communitarian, I understand, appreciate and encourage community building. I think faith is a powerful trait.

But, I often wonder why religious right-wingers seem to only take their cues from the Old Testament and gloss over the New Testament. Too much ‘Care Bear stuff’ in the New Testament I’d surmise. Not enough smiting and begatting. Not enough eyes for eyes or tooths for tooths.

Too much driving money changers out of temples. Too much forgiveness for the downtrodden. Too many rich people being admonished for their profligacies. Way too much spreading the wealth around.

Between the disaster capitalists and the religious wing nuts, there are a lot of people working against the solutions we are going to require moving forward.

Fortunately, there is hope.

I just finished an episode of the Missing America podcast by Ben Rhodes where one of his guests said although we are seeing an exponential rise in the factors that will lead us to environmental collapse, we are also witnessing the exponential increase of solutions to combat that very same collapse.

In other words, it’s a race. It’s a race we - obviously - don’t want to lose.

Walling off Church from State - once more - seems like a good place to focus on. Those people are welcome to spout their viewpoints from the pulpit, or shout them from the street corner, or hawk them from their television studios.

But we shouldn’t give them the keys to our secular kingdom.

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Speaking of religiosity, here’s an article on the - more than likely - next SCOTUS. Sigh.

Amy Coney Barrett’s Extremist Religious Beliefs Merit Examination

Her Catholicism is irrelevant. The worldview of the fringe right-wing sect she has grown up in definitely isn’t. By Joan Walsh, The Nation

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Also, if you missed Chris Rock’s Saturday Night Live monologue last weekend, now you don’t have an excuse. Because HERE is the link. Enjoy!

Or share widely! Thank you! - JLM