With the presidential election coming up this year, there has been a lot of news coverage regarding religion in politics. Romney and his Mormon faith, being at the center of it all. Apparently the religious right doesn’t perceive him as a Christian; therefore his electability comes into question with a huge base of the Republican Party. They conducted a study that showed how likely voters would be to elect a Catholic, Jew, Mormon, etc. Not surprisingly, an atheist candidate would be the among the least likely to get voter support. More surprising was that even less people would vote for a Muslim. Cause' we all know that believing in nothing is way better than believing in something other than our own God, right?
A while ago, I happen to catch a debate on CNN (or maybe it was Fox News?) between a male religious figure and a middle aged, female atheist. This was a while ago, so I don’t remember the details, but basically it came down to the Christian representative blaming Atheists for the problems of the world. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I don’t consider myself an Atheist, probably more of an Agnostic, although I would like to feel that I am an honest, respectable person. I know many other people that are downright Atheists and a few of those are the most honest people I have ever known. On the other hand, I have known many “Christians” who lived far from perfect lives.
I once was chastised by a co-worker for not raising my children with a good Christian upbringing. In the time I worked with him, he stole tips, drove home drunk with his 15 year old daughter in the back sleeping, and hit on me constantly, all, while claiming to love his overweight wife. On another occasion, I was at playgroup and a couple of the moms in the group were discussing religion. One mom (a very holier-than-thou type) proclaimed that she didn’t care what religion someone was as long as they believed in god. She would not want her kids exposed to such a horrible thing. Needless to say, I stayed out of the conversation for fear that my kids would suffer due to their parents’ ghastly beliefs.
So that leads me to ask; is the Bible really necessary to decipher wrong from right? My philosophy is to take the Bible (or the equivalent) out of the equation and instead ask the question, “will it hurt anyone, either physically or emotionally?”
Obviously, Murder, cheating on a spouse, theft, and lying would be considered wrong in my book. Then there are things like gay marriage. For religious folks, that’s one of the worst things in the book. I figure that it’s not hurting anyone, in fact, it’s helping society as a whole, producing a stable family unit. Then there are other things, like sex, that really are more personal decisions that have less to do with whether its wrong or right, but more to do with complicated variables that determine whether or not a person is making the right choice at the right time. For example, it would be wrong for a 16 year old regardless of the circumstances. The same cannot be said for a 30 year old.
In any case, I just find it a little unsettling about how people judge based on what they believe rather than how they live their everyday lives. Maybe people really do need religion to keep them on the right track. Ironically, the minute, insignificant differences that each religion has to distinguish each one from the other, is also the cause for much of the hostility in the world today. So is it really that bad if a person believes in doing good for humanity rather than religion?
Well said girlfriend!!!
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