A Note on Christianity

While we here at Barrelhouse are busy starting our new, dare I say, "religion"
(I prefer belief system), I just want to note that we mock things about Christianity because we love. I personally think Christianity would be better off without Dr. James Dobson quoting approvingly from a soon to be published book about how a father can ensure that his son does not go gay: (thanks to Tapped, among others):

He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

And we might be better off if uber-Catholic Senator Rick Santorum was not musing on NPR that(thanks to Buzzmachine, among others):

"This whole idea of personal autonomy — I don’t think that most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. And they have this idea that people should be left alone to do what they want to do, that government should keep taxes down, keep regulation down, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, that we shouldn’t be involved in cultural issues, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world. And I think that most conservatives understand that we can’t go it alone, that there is no such society that I’m aware of where we’ve had radical individualism and it has succeeded as a culture."

Has it ever been tried, Senator? Meanwhile, virtually every failed regime over the past 100 years explicitly REJECTED individualism. And they took alot of innocents down with them.

The U.S. is a secular state for a reason. Because Europe was ravaged by wars started for every conceivable reason, and for a good chunk of the 17th Century, because of religion. Gee, that was the same Century that the first Europeans came to America. Coincidence, Senator Santorum?

The explicit goal of the United States, as codified in the Constitution, is not to ensure that everyone goes to heaven, but rather to ensure that every citizen's life is as long and peaceful as possible. Obstacles to this include not only outside forces like terrorism, but also an overbearing government that does not trust its citizens to make the right decisions.

Right now, many, many ridiculous things are being said in the name of Christianity. I cannot help but think that these so-called Christians need to take a deep breath, open up their Bible--past all the parts with the smiting--and reflect on what it means to have love and forgiveness for all. Save souls on your own time and you can bring about true conversions; forcefeed through law and dictate and you will be constructing a whitened sepulchre for yourself while not doing anybody else any good.