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The Bible Belt
Nov. 4th, 2004 10:16 amI read a scary thing in the paper this morning. It is reckoned by some that the main reason Bush won (apart from Kerry conceding, no counting of the absentee ballots and general polling day mishegoss) is religion. People apparently considered morality to be the highest priority -- for varying definitions of 'morality', given some of the atrocities committed by spurious factions of all religions since humans got enough forebrain to wonder why water was falling out of the sky. Anyway, a fair chunk of Bush vote apparently came from areas that are a) usually Democratic and b) profoundly Christian. Which means it's not just the Right, but the Religious Right, that won the day at the polls.
Does this scare anyone else?
According to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cholten99, Britain has never had separation of church and state. England is a Christian country by law, and there is none of this separation, not even in schools (particularly not in schools; there was a Catholic boarding school not a quarter-mile down the road from the founded-by-Quakers establishment where I sat my own A-levels, though we were fairly nondenominational). I'm not sure, but it may have something to do with the fact that the place has a regent. Fine, they're figureheads, but they're supposed to be, in an ideal world, the moral and ethical centre of our country. Yeah, right, when Charlie Big-Ears throws a tantrum just because Camilla isn't getting to sit in the Royal Pew at a wedding. But you see what I mean -- they're Christian, so it maybe sort of follows that so is the country they represent.
Four More Years of Bush, if the information I read today is right, seems to indicate that separation of church and state is becoming a lost ideal in the US, too. After all, if people are voting for Bush primarily because he's a born-again with born-again morals, it seems to follow that religion is swaying a political matter. That's setting a dangerous precedent, if you ask me. After all, you're talking about the country where (according to one ofcholten99's interminable documentaries, which I don't understand how he watches when he's against ideas that make him depressed) some schools are fighting over having to teach evolution. Yes, I really want a country with the economic and martial power of the US to gradually fill with people who believe the world was created in seven literal days. (That's what gets me about religious studies -- haven't these people ever heard of allegory?) Don't get me wrong -- I'm not against the discussion of evolution versus theogenesis in terms of how the world began. But it does have to be discussion. Which will have to include where the fossil record, Darwin's discoveries on the Beagle and the fact that genetic changes to existing species have been observed by scientists for decades fit into theogenesis.
Anyway, I'm off the subject. There is such thing as being a Christian country that doesn't necessarily base its decisions on who gets to be Commander in Chief on their religion and 'morals'. And anyway, look at the morals on display! Never mind forbidding two people who love each other to marry just because they happen to be the same gender. Never mind the anti-abortion stances. So we've got the whole Sodom and Gomorrah nightmare sorted out. Shall we also look to our Bibles and find, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?" Well, Bush cast a pretty big stone at Saddam Hussein, didn't he? And yet he can really somehow justify going to Iraq despite the fact that Mr Hussein had no viable WMDs or provable connections with Al-Quaeda. And despite the fact that, with the regime change, he brought death to his own people, his few allies and a lot of innocents -- not to mention increased terrorism in those countries in the form of hostage-taking -- he can still justify it and call it moral.
I'm not really a religious person myself. I believe I'm what you'd call a theist -- I believe there is a God, but I don't know Its nature. I used to refer to myself as a theist with Christian values, but the way I see some Christians act ("God Hates Fags dot com" and debunking evolution out of hand, for starters), I don't really want to call myself that anymore -- every religion has a golden rule about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and I try to keep to that at least. More than most people. More than Bush, I suppose. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if I were a religious person, I'd be praying for the American people, because the ones voting with their Bibles instead of their brains may not know what they've just done. But I'm not, so I wish those that voted Kerry well and hope to whatever might be listening that their Commander in Chief doesn't have to reinstitute the draft.
Does this scare anyone else?
According to
cholten99, Britain has never had separation of church and state. England is a Christian country by law, and there is none of this separation, not even in schools (particularly not in schools; there was a Catholic boarding school not a quarter-mile down the road from the founded-by-Quakers establishment where I sat my own A-levels, though we were fairly nondenominational). I'm not sure, but it may have something to do with the fact that the place has a regent. Fine, they're figureheads, but they're supposed to be, in an ideal world, the moral and ethical centre of our country. Yeah, right, when Charlie Big-Ears throws a tantrum just because Camilla isn't getting to sit in the Royal Pew at a wedding. But you see what I mean -- they're Christian, so it maybe sort of follows that so is the country they represent.Four More Years of Bush, if the information I read today is right, seems to indicate that separation of church and state is becoming a lost ideal in the US, too. After all, if people are voting for Bush primarily because he's a born-again with born-again morals, it seems to follow that religion is swaying a political matter. That's setting a dangerous precedent, if you ask me. After all, you're talking about the country where (according to one of
cholten99's interminable documentaries, which I don't understand how he watches when he's against ideas that make him depressed) some schools are fighting over having to teach evolution. Yes, I really want a country with the economic and martial power of the US to gradually fill with people who believe the world was created in seven literal days. (That's what gets me about religious studies -- haven't these people ever heard of allegory?) Don't get me wrong -- I'm not against the discussion of evolution versus theogenesis in terms of how the world began. But it does have to be discussion. Which will have to include where the fossil record, Darwin's discoveries on the Beagle and the fact that genetic changes to existing species have been observed by scientists for decades fit into theogenesis.Anyway, I'm off the subject. There is such thing as being a Christian country that doesn't necessarily base its decisions on who gets to be Commander in Chief on their religion and 'morals'. And anyway, look at the morals on display! Never mind forbidding two people who love each other to marry just because they happen to be the same gender. Never mind the anti-abortion stances. So we've got the whole Sodom and Gomorrah nightmare sorted out. Shall we also look to our Bibles and find, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?" Well, Bush cast a pretty big stone at Saddam Hussein, didn't he? And yet he can really somehow justify going to Iraq despite the fact that Mr Hussein had no viable WMDs or provable connections with Al-Quaeda. And despite the fact that, with the regime change, he brought death to his own people, his few allies and a lot of innocents -- not to mention increased terrorism in those countries in the form of hostage-taking -- he can still justify it and call it moral.
I'm not really a religious person myself. I believe I'm what you'd call a theist -- I believe there is a God, but I don't know Its nature. I used to refer to myself as a theist with Christian values, but the way I see some Christians act ("God Hates Fags dot com" and debunking evolution out of hand, for starters), I don't really want to call myself that anymore -- every religion has a golden rule about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and I try to keep to that at least. More than most people. More than Bush, I suppose. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if I were a religious person, I'd be praying for the American people, because the ones voting with their Bibles instead of their brains may not know what they've just done. But I'm not, so I wish those that voted Kerry well and hope to whatever might be listening that their Commander in Chief doesn't have to reinstitute the draft.
