Here’s a tell: people are so unsure about this stuff, about what they pretend to believe to be true when it comes to religion, that they have to build walls around it, make it out of bounds, impolite to criticize. No, you don’t know the truth of this stuff, any more than folks living in ancient Norway knew the truth about Odin and Frigg. It seems to me breathtakingly ironic that religions make claims to truth and characterized dishonesty as a sin and yet are fundamentally dishonest, involving people lying to themselves and others about what they pretend to understand and know. I know that people are supposed to “show respect” to religious belief–that that’s a widely held position. In addition, the future of democracy might well depend on how many young people we can win away from such nonsense, especially in a time when the Extreme Court is busy trying to pave the way for fundamentalist Christian madrassas. There is zero evidence for such nonsense, and simply truthfulness requires calling it what it is. I don’t believe that virgins give birth or, despite Donald Trump, that there is a character called Satan at work in the world. And if they are stupid propositions, one should simply say so. It’s my contention that these propositions should not be off limits to discussion, debate, critique, because they have the “religion” label. Religions put forward propositions about the world. And they prevent actual thinking about the topics that they address. Quite the contrary: I think them childish and dangerous. I don’t think them noble or ennobling or worth preserving. The fact is that I mean very much to wean young people away from these frightful religious superstitions. Now is the time for liberals-and moderates!-to raise their voices against this onslaught before it’s too late. I worry that many of them still have some lazy faith in our govtl institutions to right the ship, still not having grasped how undermined they have become by now-unfettered capitalism, meaning big $ is the puppet-master. The bunch of June SCOTUS decisions is icing on the cake, driving the point home. Trump election/ admin/ the ”Big Lie”/ Jan 6 has been the wake-up call as to how far our democracy has declined in 40+ yrs, but it’s still sinking in for our perhaps 51-52% majority liberals. Getting that a huge backlash to liberalism was underway. Only sharp, well-educated people have been able to read the tea-leaves since the ‘80s. In “our” defense- and also those on the liberal side of church congregations/ spiritualism-I think many are still in shock.Īnyone born post-WWII thro those born in the ‘80s have been accustomed to a generally-liberalizing cultural tradition, reflected in laws that have tracked that increasing cultural liberalism. It’s the criticism of Dem party “messaging” I so often encounter here as well as in many Dem/ liberal comments to political articles. Jon Awbrey: “silence is commonly taken for assent, and if they do not defend their brand, who will?” Or do they want to transport us to an imaginary world where father knows best, women know their place, Black people quietly acquiesce to indignities, and everyone is forced to pray the same prayers? With a certain majority of 5 hard-core extremists, and the likely vote of a powerless Chief Justice, this Court is set to remake American society, to roll back the rights and freedoms that most Americans take for granted.ĭo they want to take us back to 1868, as Justice Thomas wrote, when people of color and women could not vote? The Court is drunk with its unchecked power. This Court, in true Taliban style, allows states to revoke women’s reproductive rights, the decision to control their own bodies. Will they next support teachers who are moved to pray in their classrooms? This Court supports a school coach’s right to pray in public while he is working and influencing students to follow his lead. The state is thus compelled to subsidize discrimination that federal and state law forbid. This Court requires Maine to fund two evangelical schools in Maine that openly discriminates against those who do not share their beliefs. This Court agreed that a baker open to the public may refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple because gay marriage violates his religious beliefs. In every decision involving religion, the Christian Court makes no effort to balance freedom of religion and the Constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion. Others call it the Supreme Christian Taliban Court. Supreme Court should henceforth be known as the Supreme Christian Court of the United States. After a consistent flow of decisions tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, readers have proposed that the U.S.
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