Note: This post is in response to an e-mail a friend of mine sent. The mail was supposedly a rant from Ben Stein. The text (in all its forms) can be found on Snopes I suggest you read it first or this post won't make as much sense.
Tolerance: Ben sure hit on some good points with this one. I like the fact that he says he doesn't mind Christian symbols and presumably he doesn't mind other religions symbols (or lack thereof) as well. Tolerance and acceptance of others makes a lot of sense to me - as long as goes both ways. Just like Ben doesn't like being "pushed around for being a Jew" I'm sure others (even atheists don't like being pushed around for what they believe (or don't).
A faulty premise: What I don't get is this statement: "I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. " Where the heck does that come from? America was founded by Christians seeking the freedom to practice the religion they wanted. Religion
freedom is written into the Bill of Rights and based the ever growing number churches I'd say religion is flourishing in America. In the
2001 census, Eighty percent of the population (
80%!!!) describes themselves as Christian (compare this to Jews with 1.4% and 'non-religious; with 15%) so it hardly seems to me that the Christians are being pushed around - they are obviously in the vast majority and in control.
The problem with diversity: But what we have seen as the country has grown is that, in the public space, we have had to wrestle with
how to handle this diversity. If you are going to teach the bible in the schools, which version are you going to use? Are the Catholics going to get pissed if we use a Lutheran bible? Can we create a bible with no affiliation? Won't everyone get pissed off in that case? There are
appropriately 34,000 separate Christian groups in the world today, if the public sector evens seems to endorse one of those, then assuredly one of the others is going to cry "no fair". And what about the smaller religions? Shouldn't Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Druids and even atheists get their fair turn to teach about their religions? So the public sector has taken a safe but boring approach and said, we need to get out of the religious business altogether and let the houses of worship take up that load. The ironic thing is that by trying to get out of the spotlight and avoid the issue, they get attacked for being anti-Christian. Notice that the Muslims don't get all riled up that we don't pray towards Mecca every day in the schools. They do that in their mosques. And if they want their kids to attend a religious based school, they send them to one. The downside of freedom: Unfortunately, the most intolerant in our society are often the most vocal. Take for example the
Christian church who protests the funerals of our fallen soldiers. Talk about an obnoxious, offensive, and disgusting example of free speech and freedom of religion. Again the irony strikes me: these soldiers died defending the very rights of free speech and religion that these zealots are using to desecrate their funeral. I see that and I think "Why are Christians pushing me around telling me to think? Why would anyone want to be associated with a religion that teaches hate, disrespect, and intolerance?" In my head, I know that these people are truly a small majority of all the Christian in America but nevertheless it leaves a very bad impression in my heart. If you look at what Anne Graham said below I can think of another similar but completely different response: 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are. But for years we've been teaching our children all about hate and selfishness
in the name of God. We have abandoned his moral teachings of love, tolerance, and charity and it has been the churches leading the way. God is fed up and has gone off to play golf.'
Personally, I believe we should be teaching
about religions in schools. If everyone learned more about the other religions in the world and the history behind them, we might be a lot more tolerant and, as I said in the beginning, I am a huge proponent of tolerance. If we opened up the minds of our children to the variety the world has to offer maybe they would be less likely to "worship Nick and Jessica", less likely to follow the intolerant teachings of churches such as Westboro Baptist, and less likely to try and cram their particular beliefs down my throat. Perhaps they would be more likely to understand that not everyone believes what they do and that it is OK to have that difference. Perhaps then we would see that most religions have at their core, moral teaching that should permeate our society and we would rise up above the trappings of any individual faith to attain the "greater good"
But unfortunately, that is not how most religions work. Just about every religion condemns the followers of every other religion to eternal damnation. They believe it is their mission to convert these poor souls and go out actively trying to do so. The "other religions" are full of false teachings and they need to be conquered. The atheists just don't want to hear about any of it and get pissed off when someone offers to "save their soul". The Christians see this as an attack on their religion and the whole thing goes back around in a cycle that until we find tolerance, we will not be able to break. I guess we do reap what we sow.
