Using Religion

More and more I see religion being used as a method to control an agenda. It's always been a tool used by people to control the masses but lately it has become far more prominent a tool than I can remember in my lifetime. In the past the prominence of religious control always seems to go hand in hand with great religious abuses of power and I wonder if it is possible to have religion holding great power in a society and still have that power act in a responsible and ethical way.

Religion .... the great morally pure ideology, salvation for the sinner, feeder of the hungry and comforter to the forlorn .... yada yada yada. Sounds good in theory but in practice it is usually more akin to a giant club than a shepherds staff.

Do the religious believe that as an atheist, I am entitled to my own beliefs? Yes? As long as they don't conflict with the great christian way? As long as I don't actually want to live my life as an atheist. Oh I see. I can be an atheist in THEORY but not in practice. Right. Ok. No problem .....

So you can deny my right if I should become terminally sick to be euthanised, because ..... because .... YOU believe only YOUR god should decide when it is my time to die ... not MY god .... YOUR god. That's imposing your beliefs onto me, but you don't do that .... right?

You can deny gay people the right to marry and recieve the equal benefits that marriage provides, because, YOU believe that homosexuality is a SIN according to your view of religion .... but not theirs.

Sexual education programs can be rewritten to promote abstinence as the ONLY way to handle teen sexuality, because of YOUR religious beliefs, even tho abstinance only has proven to be a failure. Teens who have taken the abstinence pledge don't always manage to keep it, even with their good intentions and when they do fail they participate in extremely unsafe sexual practice that can have dire consequences. You would deny safe sex education in other methods less religiously acceptable only because YOU feel very strongly about YOUR faith but not so much about others.

You would impose YOUR beliefs on other nations by denying them access to safe sex tools such as condoms because it is against YOUR moral teachings, even tho it is causing the needless suffering and deaths of MILLIONS due to Aids in developing countries where simply making condoms available could save so many. But you are morally pure, right?

You would deny contraceptives to women around the world because YOUR worldview doesn't include family planning due to your religious beliefs. Nevermind that millions die of starvation because they cannot feed to children they already have. But it's ok to expose these woment to the risk that they will have more children they cannot feed, forcing them to choose which child lives and which child dies according to who gets to eat and who doesn't. But you LOVE going over to these same countries on your missions to SAVE them. It gives you something to point at, at least, so you can FEEL you are doing some good even tho you are the CAUSE of their suffering.

You would force your choice on women who face an unwanted prgnancy because of your religious views. Pro life you chant .... but you aren't so pro life when it comes to the death penalty. Let them BURN. How merciful you are. You are so pro life some of you are willing to KILL to ensure that your views are imposed on every woman whether they agree with your philosophy or not.

You would use religion to intervene in the sanctity of marriage as long as you felt that YOUR religious views were being compromised, using your religious values in an attempt to DESTROY a man who was trying to do the right thing for his wife. You know who I'm talking about ... and the fact that you know means that you know what you did was wrong, you just didn't care, because you were RIGHT in the eyes of your god. He was obviously a SINNER because after 5 years of doctors telling him his wife was essentially brain DEAD he had the audacity to go on with his life. This man who actually became a NURSE to tend to his wife and would fight for 15 years to see her wishes done. This man who with your religious blinders on was considered an adulterer, murderer and opportunistic bastard, I happen to think was a saint. I can only hope that MY husband would fight as hard for MY wishes if I should ever find myself in a similar situation.

I guess it's ok to lie, cheat, steal and kill as long as you do it in the name of the lord. I could go on but frankly why bother. Nothing I say here will ever penetrate the shield of righteousness with which they shield themselves. They wonder why I get so offended when I hear prayer in the public square or in my child's school. They wonder why the word's "under god" are so appalling to me and they cannot understand why I don't just go with the flow. Well, I'll tell you why.

Because the flow is DROWNING ME. You say I have a right to my beliefs just as you have a right to yours. I say you are DELIBERATELY deceiving yourself. You know that's not true in society but somehow you have convinced yourself that YOU are the one that's hard done by and persecuted.

Rubbish.

IA

PS: Just ONCE I would like to see someone on the right actually try and defend ANY of the issues I raised above WITHOUT invoking a religious worldview or their personal god.