Human beings who practice almost any religion assiduously often cross the line into an area where they cannot accept the rest of the world without forcing their faith on others.
This is true of Christians of many sects, especially the Catholics.
Catholic belief has forced its way into many laws which govern all, or at least some Americans. Two of those laws truly amaze me. The first is the law against allowing gays to marry. If a pastor refuses to marry them, that I can understand as his right, but that is not the compassion and acceptance that I would expect from a man of the cloth.
Nor is that what I would expect from his congregation.
The second is having an abortion, and that, I agree with many others, is the right of the woman. If the baby has come to term and is not obviously suffering from some malformation, tthe child should come first. But if obviously malformed, the woman should make the decision.
One of the most intrusive things I have ever heard of is pharmacists who refuse to sell birth control prescriptions or devices to women. Pharmacists should not be in the business of deciding morality or health based on their own religion.
Oddly, the armed forces are full of people who espouse religious faith but who do not confuse that with killing other people. A truly religious man who serves in the armed forces, however, is a man of serious thought and unbearable dilemma.
Most people on earth, even we atheists, believe that the world was created by some sort of Force. Most all of us love it, including us atheists. Thus, the most mysterious thing of all is the fact that so many religious people, especially Catholics, cannot see what is ahead with the uncontrollable spread of human beings over the earth, smothering its plants, its animals, and all of the beauty that the Force left for us. If the earth as it is becoming is the best the Force could do, then we atheists wish the Force would either improve us somehow, or just create another animal that really is the best in town.
LittleBill
11/8/09
3 weeks ago
2 comments:
Hi Little Bill,
wish I knew the answer or at least could shed some intelligent light on the subject.
I'm a Christian,I have an unshaken faith in God but have little faith in my fellow Christians or in organized religion.
The only semblance of an answer I can come up with is that Christians follow dogma not from the bible but rather from religious leaders who are as unstable and dogmatic as Glen Beck.
Good thinking, Oso, and said much better than I
did.
LittleBill