This morning, as I checked my email, I saw a headline similar to the one that leads this post and inwardly groaned. It has all the markers of the kind of modern-day Christian persecution story that people love to rally behind, just like this one:
But how believable are these stories? As one of the articles I read this morning points out, there are already some reasons to be a bit skeptical of this story about the kindergartner. If it really happened, then it’s certainly a deplorable situation — teachers have no right to stop a child from saying a prayer. They also have no right to force a child to pray. Sadly, many of the people who become incensed over the first scenario don’t realize they should be just as incensed over the second. The United States government has no right to infringe upon any individual’s religious freedoms. That’s why it’s so important to make sure our government keeps its neutrality.
Many Christians think they would like to live in a “Christian” nation, but whose definition of Christianity will be upheld? Will it be those who believe women should have no authority over a man? Will it be those who believe that all the Old Testament laws are still supposed to be followed, like sacrifice and stoning? What about those who believe interracial marriage is a sin, or those who think worshiping with instrumental music is wrong? These are the same problems that the early pilgrims were trying to avoid when they came to this country. And even then they often got it wrong, as the Salem witch trials illustrate.
We should all be thankful that we have religious freedom in this country. But having religious freedom does not mean we’re “free” to push our religious views on others. So when organized prayer was taken out of public schools, that was not an attack on religious freedom, it was a defense of it.
What really gets me about things like this story and the recent movie God Is Not Dead is that they’re often attempts to make people feel like religion is under attack in the modern world. That’s simply not true. I find the setup for that movie incredibly unbelievable. I can totally see a philosophy professor being arrogant — but a philosophy professor who is that dogmatic about forcing people to give up theism? I don’t buy it. The whole point of philosophy is to consider different ideas. Forcing someone to believe a particular thing runs completely counter to philosophy. And they also make the same old and unfounded accusation that down deep atheists believe the evidence supports God, but we’re just angry with him. It’s ridiculous and inaccurate, but it’s what many people want to hear.
Regardless of whether or not this little girl was really forced to stop praying, I would love to see a story like this promote a larger dialog about what religious freedom really is. I’m not holding my breath though.
Finding Truth 
I’ve seen the “God’s Not Dead” movie twice (frankly, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is not only better but has better moral / ethical content for discussion — hint: watch it all the way through to the end of the credits) and I have some heartburn with the movie that has relevance to this topic.
First of all, the professor in the movie wasn’t really an atheist — he’s a person who believed in God and hated Him. You can’t hate someone you don’t believe in. I guess the professor guy (played by Hercules) was this brand of “new atheist” all full of hate, not the true atheist who shrugs his shoulders and says, “I just don’t see proof for God — what’s all the fuss” and goes on and treats people better than your average Christian. I think the true atheist was the Dean Caine (Superman) character who had his “perfect life” with no regard for anyone but himself. He may have been cruel and insensitive, but he was the winner in this scenario.
OK (spoilers), the prof had a death bed repentance and died. But what about the student grades in the class? And what about the PRC student? Surely he will face consequences when he gets home to China and Christianity will have created a huge problem for him without giving him any tools to cope.
But the worst thing about this Christianity thing, as evidenced by the video above, is the horrible hypocrisy. The movie Christian characters acknowledge being unequally yoked. Without it, the movie would have flopped, but if they weren’t obeying Scripture in the first place, what complaint would they have? Really? Moreover, the Josh Whedon of the movie (really? really? Josh Whedon? C’mon, now!) seemed to be violating — as were the others — the “flee fornication” law from the Apostle Paul. What did the Christians think that was, some sort of insect sin? How did it not apply to them? Fortunately, thanks to this experiment, Josh found out that his sweetheart was really a dominating controlling bitch after only 6 years. How could he have not known? Well, at least that ends well — they break up.
So the woman finds out she has cancer, but she’s all good for it because of her conversation with the drummer of The Newsboys. It’s so comforting to know you’re going to die in pain with no hope (except the possibility that now you won’t necessarily burn in hell forever). No real solution there — hasn’t anyone heard of healing (sans replacing lost limbs, that is)? Oh, well.
And there at the end, the Jesus junkies are having their endorphin high at the loud concert (what’s with the lion roaring on the inside — that makes no sense at all), which is really the point of being a Christian, I guess — those druggie highs you get from your Christian street drug dealer selling you Chri$tian Mu$ic. Is it about morals, ethics or pure religion undefiled? It would have been better to have seen atheists in class turn to Christianity and visit orphans and widows in nursing homes afterward rather than to see people get high in the arena.
And last, but certainly not least, haven’t these “Christians” ever make the connection that for men, even nature teaches you that it is a SHAME to have long hair? Jesus was a Nazarene, not a Nazarite (Nazarites have to refrain from ANY grape product, not just wine [Jesus was accused of being a wine bibber, so he must have routinely had grape products, wine, grape juice and raisins]). Why weren’t all those Christians shamed by the men with long hair — particularly the one from Duck Dynasty.
Well, I’m underimpressed. The Christian right makes so much fuss about homosexuality and go right ahead with living together. Isn’t homosexuality just another form of fornication (with the grand exception for same sex marriages — so if the marriage bed is undefiled, two married guys together must be alright!)?
I think before Christians get their noses bent out of shape, poking them into other people’s lives, they should get their act together and return to their fall back position of SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE and then being ready IF anyone asks them about the hope that is within them.
LikeLike
By the way, I AM DYING! I went to my HMO and they let me know in uncertain terms that I might only have decades to live!
LikeLike
OK, OK, maybe I should explain: I came from a cult where the founder committed incest with his daughter for 10 years as he began his ministry.
The stories from within the cult concerning how children were treated are appalling — including, but not restricted to — withholding medical treatment for serious conditions.
I personally know a girl who had appendicitis who had medical treatment withheld and her appendix did burst. She did survive it some how, but she has never been well since. She was lucky — so many other children died.
The reason for the separation of church and state (we should try for the separation of corporation and state) is that the eccentric egocentric beliefs of one person or a group of persons in an hierarchical based religion seems to inevitably lead to an oppressive crazy belief system — whether it is the Catholics who taught that the earth was the center of the universe or the leader of North Korea proclaiming himself god. For marginal people, giving them lots of power is definitely not a good thing.
I’ll post this URL again just for reference:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-winner-effect/201304/the-north-korean-dictator-is-behaving-rationally
LikeLike
“(we should try for the separation of corporation and state)”
What a great idea, Mikey!
LikeLike
Unbelievable — well, good to know the feelings brewing out there.
LikeLike
Just know that there are some “Christians” out there who agree with almost everything you said in this blog. I use that term loosely because like you said there are so many different types of Christianity out there now that using that term to describe myself now lumps me in with some people I don’t want to be lumped in with lol
LikeLike
There are many brands of Christianity every where you look. I remember going on a business trip to South East Oklahoma and there was a church building nearly every three blocks along the road. It’s no wonder the South is called “The Bible Belt”.
The movie, “God’s Not Dead” portrays two brands of Christianity (at least): The traditional church with a solid caring pastor (Episcopalian?) and the arena Christianity playing Chri$tian Mu$ic. To be clear here, Chri$tian Mu$ic makes quite a lot of the mammon of this world. We are, of course, to assume that it is all going to the purpose of preaching the gospel.
There is another type of Christianity not mentioned much here: The Megachurch. We have many of them here in the Pacific Northwest. The one nearest to where I live has somewhere around 10,000 people every weekend, with vans in the parking lot to whisk parishioners off to plastic services designed much like a Disney Ride at a theme park — it’s too far for most people to walk, hence the vans. The whole “service” is packaged up for a particular time limit, because, darn it all, there has to be turnover to accommodate the congregants (who receive no personal attention in a group situation lost in the vast crowd). The original church started out decades ago with about 25 people. The pastor was personable and promised that he would always maintain his simplicity in pursuit of his Christian ministry. Fast forward, and he now has a multimillion dollar mansion overlooking the Tacoma Narrows above the water with his daughter’s multimillion dollar mansion next to his. Some how money and prestige seems to have entered in to his thinking.
The other Megachurch I’m thinking of was started by a former druggie “saved” by the Salvation of the Lord. A waitress who served him told me that she got no tip, he was rude and she had to endure his “Hitler children”. His is not just a Megachurch (as seen on TV) — it’s got plenty of facilities to go with it, which brings us to the joke about Megachurches.
The Leader was bragging to his cadre of associates about the facilities: “We have tennis courts, swimming pools, basketball courts, youth centers, senior centers, cafeterias, our own movie theater, nature trails….,” he said, going on expansively about all the other things which could be done on Campus.
A teen nearby listening to all this said, “With all this neat stuff, who needs God?”
LikeLike
@Unklee
What this rather grubby little suggestion does is subtly bypass the rights of the child completely, making them effectively chattel in the area of religion.
If unklee truly believes this then is it wrong to question a parent who indoctrinates a child with the belief that dying for Allah is the most sublime honour. It’s okay for the child to blow itself to bits while destroying infidels?
The child has no rights pertaining to circumcision, therefore it is perfectly okay to hack off its foreskin.
It’s is perfectly all right to subject the child to biblical literalism and Creationism.
ACE education and its insidious ilk are models of educational excellence?
Right….
Once again, unklee is trying to make a case for his brand of religion without bothering to
consider all aspects of what this rubbish does to children.
The problem, of course, is that once one begins to question a few aspects of child indoctrination then the whole of religion becomes open to scrutiny regarding what parts of it , if any, should children be exposed to?
This, I feel, would be anathema to someone like unklee.
LikeLike
For those who take exception to the movie picturing a philosophy professor insisting that his students sign a paper saying “god is dead” as being unrealistic, you know, I could be wrong, but I sat through the ending credits (twice) and noted the lawsuits posted there and wonder if there wasn’t some basis for the episode in the movie. Perhaps it may have been more realistic than we imagine and could have happened.
I’m not impressed either way, but I can say that in my experience working in an Academic environment along with working as a Corporate Manager and in government, that all sorts of things you wouldn’t think could happen actually do.
In Pierce County, up until the mid 1970s, public employees around the time of elections, had representatives of the elected official come around to collect campaign contributions to help re-elect their boss and if they didn’t or they didn’t give enough, they ran the risk of being fired.
In the corporations at which I worked I saw worse and academia had a lot of oppressive things going on.
So I don’t really know.
Do you?
I’m sure there those who have baseless opinions who will comment here to set us straight. That’s the problem with finding the truth: So many people confuse finding truth with expressing opinions.
LikeLike
Ark, I have some trouble with this point of view. Where do we begin to define what a parent should or shouldn’t teach or instill in their own children?
I agree, of course, that it is easy to see some harmful and inaccurate teachings and rearing; like teaching your children to mutilate animals or to kill classmates, etc.
But this line gets blurred too easily. There will always be dissent among differing parents as to what is right or wrong, or best or better to teach children.
Do we forbid the teaching of santa clause and the easter bunny? Do we outlaw deism? can we legislate which scientific theories should be held over another? Can parents not tell their children which baseball team to cheer for; should the parent present each team equally (or n not at all) and let the child choose when they’re old enough?
many of the christians are easy going, hard working, productive citizens. They may evangelize what they believe to be true, but maybe they are not doing it in a forceful manner. I’m sure they’d teach and indoctrinate their children – they think it’s right after all. parents have that right to raise their children as they see best. They may lead their children astray, but as long as they dont lead them to early graves or lead them to send others to early graves, maybe it’ll be okay.
They have their right to speak and teach, as do we.
Wouldn’t you teach your children what you believe strongly to be true? would you want others telling you that you could not do that?
am I missing your point?
LikeLike