3 march 2003- religion

    how sad are we?  really, how sad are we when we base our associations on whether or not we all believe in some diety(ies) that may or may not exist.  this to me represents a sad social commentary on how life is in this country.  one girl was beaten because she was a pagan. don’t believe me? read this (the article is an exact copy from the knoxville news-sentinel, no online copy was available to link). you can be literally run out of a club, school or town just because you don't happen to believe in the same christian god as everyone else does.  now tell me, is that fair?

    the people who are defending this type of high stinking crap are the worst offenders.  i hear the same mindless drivel all the time-  this country was based on christian beliefs, the people who came here came to escape religious prosecutionblahblahblah.  whatever.  to the argument that the country was based on christian beliefs, i say it might.  it was also based on slavery and treating women as second class citizens.  in legal terms, are they treated as such now?  in case you haven't checked, one of the most influential, wealthy and famous people in this country is oprah winfrey, a black female.  then there's the prosecution thing.  actually, no.  the first ones over here (other than the indians and vikings) were the spanish (you know, that 1492, columbus, ocean blue thing).  they came over here for reasons that were strictly monetarily based: to find gold and to find a shorter way to china, where they would trade for silks and spices.  then the portuguese and english got into the act.  the first transport of people to this side of the pond for a religious reason were, if i recall correctly, the pilgrims who came over here in the 1600s, 200 years after columbus.  and they were told by the english to leave. again, that argument doesn't hold water.

but what is clear is how much undue attention, media and otherwise, that religion gets, especially any christian based ones.  tell me, does a jew really find it important what billy graham thinks about the fact that our children need guidance in thier life so the 10 commandments need to be hung on every schoolroom wall?  or how about if a muslim's way of life was wrong for taking more than one wife?  i don't think that many would care either way. 

the united states constitution does give us the right of freedom of religion. but it also gives us the freedom from religion. as in if i don’t want to listen to all of this religious drivel, i don’t have to. the vast majority of these religions do so. but the worst offenders of invasion of privacy is the christians. really. they invade your privacy by going door to door at inconvienient times while you are doing more important things (like sleeping, watching tv, having intimate relations with your partner, etc.) trying to get you to convert. televangelists are all over sunday television with sermons that the majority people in the church and watching on tv will forget anyway. it’s not just sunday morning. it’s ALL DAY SUNDAY. tbn is a babdiz television out of dallas that miraculosly survives despite their extreme religious intolerance. a website of the uber church of shatnerology has several clips of the webmaster and his wife absolutely getting over on one of the prayer leaders. and the lemming on the other end was so completely serious! that site also has the webmaster calling in on another a staunch religious fanatic’s radio show and constantly brings up his sexual misgivings. and speaking of radio, sundays on the am radio in the southeast is a lost cause. unless its in a major city, a vast majority southeast am stations play some sort of religious material in the mornings, something i don’t need.

and it doesn’t stop there. most americans don’t know what shortwave radio is. shortwave is another form of radio broadcasting that can be heard worldwide. and get this: in 2001, there were more religious shortwave stations in this country than in every other country combined. over 90% of all shortwave stations are religious. think about it folks, what we send out is an oppressive, conformist ideal that a lot of people don’t agree with worldwide. and in all seriousness, if there was another reason that we were attacked on september 11, 2001, the fact that these fundamentalist muslims heard all that crap may very well have been one. what happened to the free thinkers in the united states?

i find it embarassing that people have to pose to be a christian in this country if they don’t belong to another religion. the people that care that is. in this country, image is everything. that’s why nayscor (the national association of stock car automobile racing) is so popular. the racing is terrible, but because they market everything and push sponsors and drivers down our throats constantly, it has become the fastest growing sport in america. the image of simply being religious automatically carries with it that you are, in fact, religious.

late last year, a man, james brooks, was shot to death by two louisville city police detectives. brooks’ hands were tied behind his back. oh, and um brookswasblackandthedetectiveswerewhite. and ever since then, the so-called “reverend” louis coleman has called upon all blacks to protest the po-lice department and called for the chiefs head (note: the city of louisville and jefferson county decided to merge in 2000 and both poliece departments would merge in january 2002, weeks before the shooting). but wait, there’s more! he has now called for, in the last week, a boycott on all white owned businesses and encouraged all blacks to cross the bridge and shop over there. he even wanted those lemmings to call him at the justice (for blacks) resource center and report to them how much money they spent in indiana.

what did that have anything to do with religion? he has the title of “reverend”. would a man of the cloth ever say and do some of those rediculous things in a normal cituation? that isn’t the only example of his protests in the name of his lord. wlky-tv 32 reporter john boel exposed his little game in a story done over a year ago.

now, after reading that tirade if you assume that I am anti-christian, anti-semetic, or anti-muslim, you are mistaken. i have no problems with religion. i personally don’t care. call me agnostic or atheist if you want. suits me fine. all religions are cults (i define cult as a group of people that gather together that have similar beliefs and participate in activities that further the person’s belief). cults are fine, some of the activities that some cults have may be questionable though. here’s my take on religion: all religions are correct. every one. it doesn’t matter what someone else’s religion is because it is a personal thing. another’s religion has no bearing on how YOU operate. the christians don’t seem to think so which is unfortunate. many people think that religion will solve this world’s problems. maybe it will. but to those people, i say to you: it all stops when you all go to the same church/temple/mosque. racial tolerance is slowly coming along. maybe we can work on religious tolerance next.

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i am open to response. e-mail me at jcarti01@louisville.edu or jcarti01@yahoo.com. hate mail summarily deleted.