A muslim went on a rampage and killed fellow American soldiers, or so reads many of the headlines about the Ft. Hood, TX tragedy. Religious extremism run amok, the interpretation of God at its worst, God before country, on and on as the debate about what part faith played in the murders continued. Politicians and social leaders faked the appropriate outrage and Muslim organizations tripped over themselves to make sure all the good Christians knew they’re weren’t all a bunch of soldier-shooting zealots.
But let’s face it, there’s Republican members of Congress and the Senate with as little respect for American lives as that soldier; elected officials that would, by their inaction, allow Americans to die for nothing other than the satisfaction of their extreme religious views. Fact: Abortion in the United States is a legal medical procedure between a woman and her doctor, made legal so women would stop DYING trying to do it themselves or from non reputable sources.
Fact: The main reason sited in abortion opposition is God, religion, scripture, doctrine, dogma, etc. and the “right to lifers” are well funded by churches everywhere. Fact: Up to 45,000 Americans, living, breathing, already born Americans die EACH YEAR from lack of insurance and access to health care in this country. Fact: November 10, 2009, there were multiple headlines about how Republicans will shut down the Health Care Reform process if abortion is not completely excluded from any of the funding, unless this or that condition about abortion, a legal medical procedure, is met (the only medical procedure to which there are any objections). So, conform to our religiously-based beliefs on this issue, or we’ll let Americans die needlessly at our hands.
That’s religious terrorism, just like the kind in Ft. Hood. Americans WILL DIE each year until everyone has access to health care (note I said health care and NOT health insurance, believe it or not, they are two separate things). Shooting a doctor that performs legal medical procedures based on the angry rhetoric of those that claim piety is religious terrorism. Repealing a civil right in Maine at the hands of religion, denying equal protection and violating the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is forcing your brand of Sharia law on a population; the same in California.
The fact is in America religious people and entities are the only ones that can openly hate, discriminate, say and do horrible things to other Americans with impunity all in the tax-exempt name of their Gods. Religious lawmakers enforce laws that discriminate based on religious ideologies. Religious lawmakers this moment are sitting and trying to block legislation to save American lives based solely in their ideology and on a religious based agenda and if it fails people WILL continue to die needlessly and preventably. No, the Ft. Hood shooter isn’t the only lunatic that uses a warped sense of religion as a crutch for violent or despicable actions. Each day, in this country, religion of all sorts is used to actually take away rights or even prevent laws that would actually stop Americans from dying; and allowing people to die because of religious ideology is as barbaric now as during the Inquisitions or the Crusades; or as horrible as on an Army base.
Each day in America organized religion chooses its targets and then begins attacks; be they gays that want to legally marry or women that want to have control over their own lives and bodies. Each day in America organized religion spends millions to wage campaigns to inflict its laws and tenants on the nation, and in doing so, Americans end up dead. Congress passes hate crime legislation but never addresses what the breeding ground for that hatred of anything different is: organized religion. And let’s not forget, in all honesty, we are seen as a Christian nation that has been killing Muslims unimpeded for over six years now while siding with their Jewish enemies in their homeland. There’s so much religion mixed up in that it’s impossible to separate it out or deny that it is a factor.
No, people are dying in the name of the lord every day in every part of the world, including America. Right now the pious are holding up legislation, forbidding it to pass unless their God’s views on life, on medicine on legal procedures for women are adhered to and codified as law, sick or dying living Americans be damned. The killer in Ft. Hood wasn’t the worst kind of religious terrorist in this country, he was just the most overt. Peel back the veneer and religion causes many deaths, causes families to split, hatred to form, causes sane people to act crazy be they wielding a gun or a ballot. And no matter the degree of the hurt or outcome, it’s all wrong. Notice God, any God, isn’t mentioned any place above.
There’s not many in this country that publicly follow the teachings or words of their leader, Jesus Christ. From what I have studied and read in seven years of religious school and then becoming an ordained minister, Christ was about love. Christ healed the sick, didn’t deny them coverage because their HMO or PPO wouldn’t pay, didn’t say that Lazarus had a preexisting condition of death, Mary Magdalene wasn’t denied coverage because her preexisting condition was being a woman, and the blind didn’t have to wait six weeks and then pay lots for their glasses because they were in the donut hole. Christ didn’t throw the gays out of the temple, he threw out the money changers (read insurance companies). In fact, Christ himself never mentioned gays once, ONCE, or abortion, and wouldn’t an all knowing-all seeing God or his prodigy mention the two things that would become the only issues his disciples dealt with for hundreds of years?
Jesus fed people, without making them go through a dehumanizing process called food stamps or welfare. He helped, he didn’t reform the system to remove benefits, he expanded love and understanding. He was for caring for all his children, which in modern day terms would mean universal coverage. He was for love, of any kind, which today would equate to any two people taking a vow, be they same sex or not. He would condemn any war, especially ones where there’s not even a clear cut goal, menace or cause. He would love.
Think of religion in the United States, or the world. Not your God, religion, and religious people in power. Does the world “love” come to mind for any of those institutions or people? Whether shooting people in Texas or denying them another year of life in the halls of Congress, there’s no love involved at all, and no real God, either. Many ask the question, “what would Jesus do?” The answer is obvious in today’s world; leave us to our own destruction. And it’s working.
But a clearer answer emerges. Religion can be dangerous, in Texas or Washington, D.C.
God help us.
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