What DID Happen to our Country's Morals: Religious Arrogance

[usregimechange]

Rev. Leonard Miller (Globe Nov. 22nd) recently expressed his discontent with "huge companies with homosexual leaders spending big bucks pushing for the homosexual agendas." He started off by asking: "What happened to this country's morals?" I think that is an excellent question.

Recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that there are over 60 million Americans who are obese, which is a major contributor to many conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Childhood obesity has doubled in the past two decades and has tripled for teenagers. There are 46 million Americans without health insurance, including 8 million children. Drug use, divorce, and child abuse remain public health nightmares.

If we could focus one tenth of the energy some expend to publicly oppose various gay plots to take over America, to saving disabled or abused children, what could we accomplish? So what did happen to our country's morals? Have we "neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23)? Have we spent our energies focusing on the perceived sins of others so as to ignore our own?

Are we following in the footsteps of Jesus or Ted Haggard? Jesus was at least as concerned about the sins of those who claimed to be righteous than the sinners that washed his feet with their tears. Our current identified sinners have a greater propensity for ethics than those that would chain morality to their own arrogance.

Seth Jackson
sent to the Joplin Globe

:dilemma:

[Warpy]

1. Religious arrogance is right.

Have you ever talked to one of these fundamentalist types? Well, I mean listened to them. They honestly believe if they've accepted Jebus as their personal god that no matter what they do in life, their ticket is punched for heaven. It's why they concentrate so much on Leviticus and Paul, the two books of the bible that are most useful for bullying the rest of us. You see, they're SAVED, so it doesn't matter if they break all the laws of Jews and of Christ. They believe, therefore they're bound for glory.

Added to that are equal doses of Calvinist predestination which says the rich are blessed and the poor damned because gawd planned it that way, and a dose of Rand that says dogs are here to eat other dogs and all that Christian altruism of feeding the hungry and loving one's neighbor is just so much sissy claptrap.

It's a bizarre and pernicious twisting of both Christianity and Judaism into a shape that neither can possibly recognize. It feeds on pride of one's own stated belief and hatred of anyone outside it.

If we don't manage to marginalize it again, it will destroy this country.

[ixion]

5. precisely

I was exposed to this briefly in high school via the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was involved for a few months, but eventually dropped out because it was too creepy.

Fundies base nothing, absolutely nothing, on reality. If you've accepted Jebus, you simply can do no wrong. It doesn't matter if you'd killed a dozen people. All would be forgiven. If you had lived your life as a good person, but hadn't 'accepted Jesus as your personal saviour', you were goin' to hell, plain and simple.

For me, it had the feel of a cult.

[HockeyMom]

2. The mentally disabled

I take care of them. In so many instances, it is so very, very sad. Susie is a woman in her early 50s with Downs who is severely physically and mentally impaired. In her case file there are letter from both her mother and her sister. The mother states, "I wish no contact with Susie or from anyone involved with her until her death." Susie has now survived her parents. Several years ago, Susie had a medical emergency and her case manager contacted her sister. The sister wrote back a very nasty letter saying she told the agency she wished no contact with her sister whatsoever and if it did not cease, she would go through legal channels to stop it.

Susie is the sweetest human being you could ever know. She will take your hand in hers and pat it, while looking deeply into your eyes, and smiling. When I change her diaper, she throws me kisses. Susie is total innocence, just like a newborn baby. She cannot walk, talk, feed, dress, or toilet herself.

Now, I can understand a family not being ABLE to take care of the Susies of this world, but I cannot understand how they can just "throw them away" as if they were garbage. They are living, breathing human beings.

Will the "christian" community be there to take the Susies in? Will they give their money for their round the clock care for the rest of their lives? Will our government? Or is banning abortion/birth control and preventing gays from marrying more important to the morality of the "culture of life"?

[madrchsod]

3. i`ve known many people who worked

at our local "state hospital" for the mentally disabled and many family washed their hands of the their children. but 20 some years ago they were all gone. many were shipped into chicago and basically dumped on the streets while others were housed in barrack like buildings. several years ago those were shut down and now we have a decent care provider for those less fortunate than us.i can not understand why people are so ashamed or so conceited that they reject their flesh and blood.
"Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

[Warpy]

4. I've never known a profoundly retarded person with Down's

to have any capacity for meanness. Oh, they can be cranky and they can get into mischief, but they're never MEAN to another person.

I think I understand where Susie's family was coming from. Guilt can make people do pretty amazing things, cruel things. Plus, some people still misunderstand what causes birth defects and some are still nuts enough to consider them a condemnation from gawd.

I knew parents who would visit frequently even after they'd signed their parental rights away. I knew parents who retained those rights who never visited and never wanted to be bothered. Since I had never walked in the latter's shoes, I learned not to judge them.

Some Christians will start hospices to take the Susies of the world in, but not nearly enough of them. That's the problem with a heartless government that denies responsibility for its weakest citizens, charity is never, ever enough and can never fill the whole need.

[Joe Bacon]

6. Sadly, you answered your own question.

These "Christians" don't give a rats ass about anybody except themselves. They will Bull the Shit about Jesus, but in reality, they follow Ayn AS IN MINE Rand and her "Objectivist" Get Yours and Fuck Everyone Else ethos.

You watch closet queens like Paul Crouch on the Jesus TV and he tells you that the more Christian you are, the more money you have. Well, if that is so, then God REALLY pitches a tent for Bill Gates. Yet, I don't see Bill Gates beating a bible over anyone's head.

This is why I hate and despise modern churches. You go in them, the preacher spits out the latest GOP talking points and the congregation slobbers as they pass by the cutout of Bush, like the robot kids in Jesus Camp. No thanks.

[MasonJar]

7. Wasn't it St Paul that said in Corinthians II 10:29 (not sure of verse)

something like "Why should my liberties be subject to the judgement of another man's conscience?"