I
realized that the our currency says, "IN GOD WE TRUST," but which god?
It's been cited to me that the reference is to the Judea-Christian god
based on a bas-relief of Moses adorning the US Statehouse wall, but
other figures are featured there as well. Hammurabi was a polytheist
Babylonian. Gaius was a polytheist Roman. Papinian and Suleiman were
Muslims. Maimonides was a Jew. Thomas Jefferson mostly refused to be
pinned down on ascribing to a particular view while Solon banned
religion in politics altogether. The other 14 were arguable Christian,
so again I ask, "Which god?"
God really didn't figure too
prominently before the McCarthy era when the national motto "In God We
Trust" supplanted "E Pluribus Unum," Latin for, "Out of many, one" in
1956 and "...under god" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.
Both were in response to communism as an effort to further differentiate
ourselves from our identification of them as godless for their banning
religion. Christians didn't exactly win so much as god did. The
Christians just seem to think that their god is the only god. It's not
"In Jesus We Trust" or "...one nation under Jesus."
By virtue
of of the argument that 76% of the US is Christian you have to ask how
many are actually active while also acknowledging that 24% are not
Christian. The reason for multiple reliefs on the walls of the US House
is that ours is a democratically elected republic. It's not entirely
majority rule as a minority population of Americans is still a
population of Americans. The interests of everyone are supposed to be
represented, which is why they chose to add god and not Jesus to the
national dialogue. Really it can be any god you wish if you want to
drill down on this subject, and there are literally thousands to choose from.
On the US as a Christian nation it should be noted that even
in recent history governments that called themselves Christian have
been used to commit unspeakable horrors. Hitler was a catholic that used
his seminary teachings as an excuse to exterminate the Jews, gays, or
anyone else that was not of similar thinking. He drew the conclusion
that since Jews did not accept Christ, they didn't deserve the
protection of a Christian government. Stalin was also a catholic though
he used his knowledge to marginalize the church as part of the ruling
class. And finally Pol Pot was a Buddhist whose ideas on government
extended from his own interpretations of Buddhist teachings.
Removing this fallacy of the US as a Christian nation does not mean that
laws regarding theft and murder would be removed. It is a dangerous
person whose morality hangs on a fanciful story. Laws such as those
exist because most people understand what is and what is not socially
acceptable. The rationale that a law or belief in god is the only thing
that keeps a person in check equally says that a lack of laws or belief
could inspire a person to kill or justify any other misdeed up to and
including discrimination on issue of marriage equality, which is
honestly not an issue of god's will so much as a person's interpretation
of a vague, bronze-aged text that says nothing explicitly in regards to
homosexuality.
Homosexuality itself is something of an
anomaly because the Bible does not normally speak cryptically on matters
of sex. The Old Testament is replete with graphic descriptions such as
Genesis 38:9-10 on birth control (NSFW), Ezekiel 23:20 on trashy women
(NSFW), and Leviticus 20:18 on menstruation. The New Testament can be
equally as graphic with Matthew 5:28-29 on ogling women or Romans 6:13 on
masturbation. These are explicit texts on sex and sexuality that are
equally explicit in regards to slavery, human trafficking, wearing blended fabrics, eating shellfish or pork, planting crops, and even
shaving, all of which are said to necessitate your execution and being
sent to hell. It's pretty clear. I argue that you cannot say that it's
just a metaphor.
This issue of same-sex marriage is just
another of those moments where religion will come scampering up from the
rear with some remarkable revelation that is really just another
revision as it gives in some areas to meet with the times.
One-hundred-fifty years ago slavery was cool because the Bible said so.
Sixty years ago inter-racial marriage was illegal because the Bible said
so. This is just example of how religion impedes our government today,
the same as it impeded development of the free world for the 800+ years
following the fall of Rome, it was called the Dark Ages for a reason.
Highlights from the period feature famine, plague, and crusades.
Religion had it's chance to run the show and they did a pretty shitty
job of it. Think about what started the moment Gutenberg created the
printing press (which was directly against the church). Suddenly people
were able to read the Bible on their own. Heliocentric theory was
published. People learned about new worlds and constellations. Sadly
this is all information that was a part of Greek culture. They actually
suppressed knowledge to the point that it had to be rediscovered. That
800+ years easily cost us almost twice as much.
Religion had
it's chance and fell far short of the mark by cheating us out of a
future. Pretend for a moment that we only lost that 800 years of
progress without having to recover lost knowledge. What do you think the
Earth will look like 800 years from now? That is the today that they
stole from us. Seriously, these are the conversations that we need to be
having with people that want god and government to be synonymous.
Otherwise us kowing to their beliefs is pretty much the same as us
negotiating with terrorists.
