I swear to God that I'm an atheist

 

Now that I have your attention, I have to admit that I am NOT an atheist – but I am also not a regular church goer either.

It’s always dangerous to discuss politics and religion with other people, ESPECIALLY those whom you don’t know well.

Like most families, our friends and relatives run the gamut from people who pray the rosary every day to a few folks who are proud atheists.

In addition, most of the people I know are die hard Democrats, but we also have friends and relatives who voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Our Founding Fathers, having witnessed the religious wars on the European continent, took great pains to separate church from state – which is how it should be.

The biggest threat to our nation today does not come from Russia or China or North Korea.

It comes from within.

If you watched the assault on the capital on January 6, there should be little doubt that there are a lot of crazy people in this country – and some of the them are our elected officials.

There are folks who believe that America is a Christian nation.

It’s not, even though roughly 70% of the people in this country would identify as Christian.

For many years, I faithfully attended mass every Sunday, but have evolved to the point that I definitely agree with Barry Goldwater about religion.

This is what he said in 1964:

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."

Raw Story just published an article about an individual who grew up in a religious commune that sounds suspiciously like the commune that Jim Jones led in Guyana. You can read the entire story at the link below, but here are some high points:

“My family lived on a Body Farm, a mostly off-grid outpost on the northern shore of Lake Superior, where I grew up singing, clapping, hollering and dancing in the Tabernacle aisles as shamelessly as King David. In our insular community, Holy Spirit-led practices like speaking in tongues, visions, prophecies, laying on hands and faith healing, altar calls, mass conversions, river baptisms and even demon deliverance were as commonplace as eating or sleeping or, for us children, playing with smooth stones in the frigid stream at the edge of the woods. Back then, if you had asked me if church scared me, I would have been confused by the question, and I would have said no. In retrospect, I was scared all the time.”

Only a couple of years ago, Franklin Graham, son of "America's Pastor," Billy Graham, declared any criticism of former president Donald Trump to be the work of demonic powers. The following year, one of the president's closest evangelical advisors, Paula White, publicly commanded "all satanic pregnancies to miscarry." Polling in recent decades indicates that around half of all Americans continue to believe that the Devil and demonic possession are very real, and though some recent numbers suggest that figure may be lower among Democrats, the percentage of Americans who believe in the Devil rose from 55 percent in 1990 to 70 percent in 2007 — as of 2018, even Catholic exorcisms appear to be on the rise. Around half of all Americans believe the Bible should influence U.S. laws, and 68 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe the Bible should take precedence over the will of the people. In other words, if you find yourself talking to an American Christian, chances are they have been reared in the fear of making a wrong move, of choosing the wrong side, and believe that doing so could have nightmarish results in this life and the next. Chances are that fear is so deeply ingrained that it no longer registers as fear. Fear is simply the lens through which they view the world.”

 https://www.rawstory.com/religious-beliefs-in-america/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7380&recip_id=499418&list_id=1

The author of the article posted in the link above is Shawna Kay Rodenberg.

Shawna Kay Rodenberg is the author of "Kin: A Memoir," out now from Bloomsbury. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and her reviews and essays have appeared in Consequence, Salon, the Village Voice, and Elle. In 2016, Shawna was awarded the Jean Ritchie Fellowship, the largest monetary award given to an Appalachian writer, and in 2017 she was the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A registered nurse, community college English instructor, mother of five, and grandmother of two, she lives on a hobby goat farm in southern Indiana.

Two books that are worth reading are “Educated”, by Tara Westover and “Wrapped in the Flag” by Claire Connor.

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter, she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

“Educated” is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change “

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated

“Both of Claire Conner’s parents were deeply involved in the cult of far-right politics: they knew that Eisenhower was a secret Communist and they idolized Francisco Franco. Wrapped in the Flag is at once the heartbreaking and intermittently hilarious story of her coming of age and a first-hand history of the far right since the 1950s. Conner’s book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the sources of the conspiratorial, hate-filled tropes of the right today—whether they emanate from the Tea Party, the gun movement, race realists, Sovereign Citizens, or, increasingly, from elected officials in the GOP.” Both of her parents were early members of the John Birch Society (which still exists today).

https://www.amazon.com/Wrapped-Flag-Learned-Growing-Americas/dp/0807033316

I’m never going to criticize someone’s religion (or lack thereof) – and I also will not tolerate any criticism of my beliefs (or lack thereof).

Going forward, the best approach is this one:

Live and let live.

Can I have an “amen” brothers and sisters?