Friday, December 23, 2011
The Sufferings of Non-Christians
I wonder.
It must be terrible for non-Christians to labor under the massive load of Christian symbolism that surrounds one in the cities and suburbs, and piques one in the rural areas of America, especially on Sundays when they all trek to church.
Just who would feel that way? Off the cuff, I’d say it would be atheists, secular humanists, agnostics, Muslims, a-religious, neo-Nazis, and perhaps some of the vanishingly small sects of perhaps 15 other religions, such as listed in the census and make up the odd 20% or so of non-Christians.
I suppose they feel affronted and depressed that they do not have the majority power that Christians have and practice all the time, but they do have their own places of worship unhindered for the most part and their very own symbols marking the spot. But they are not satisfied with that. No, they must attack the Christians and their symbolism as if the very existence of Christian symbols threatens to stifle all of the odd religions and cause dissention in their ranks, especially in their children. No more prayer in schools, they demand, and succeed.
Wasn’t this Christian dominance in the US well known from way back, such that if they didn’t like it, there was ample opportunity to select another nation where their particular religion was coddled? No, they chose to stay here, because of our freedoms, security and our scale of living. Now they want to change things around to suit themselves, and tear down anything Christian they can get leverage on.
By doing so, they are creating a growing and potentially severe backlash that puts them in a very unfavorable light in our Christian culture and way of life. Can an employer that sees the damage done to his religion honestly trust, hire and promote such destructive people if he knows their deeds? I don’t know, but it surely could be an unwritten factor. Open bias of that sort is against the law, of course, of course.
One cannot attack a religion without such a backlash, however, and many, if not most, Christians, even divided into many sects as they are, see it as a concerted attack on their religion, and they see the levers being used as mistakes of interpretation that need to be corrected somehow, but not very clearly just yet. They marvel at the Supreme Court decisions that favor the odd religions, and grudgingly obey for the nonce, storing each affront to their sensibilities up for future use. We should appoint better justices to the court they say, and more conservatives to the legislatures and to the highet posts in the land.
Why, they ask, isn’t the status quo satisfactory to all? Are we not sufficiently secular now? Why create such challenges to our society when they are really not needed at all? What do they gain by such attacks? What do they lose? Have any of these people felt the bias against them? Have they felt the ceiling to their ambitions looming up because of their positions? Did they have to seek out positions that favored their rather stark differing thoughts and actions, such as self employment? Why are they being so divisive? Isn't it so that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good?
I wonder.
It must be terrible for non-Christians to labor under the massive load of Christian symbolism that surrounds one in the cities and suburbs, and piques one in the rural areas of America, especially on Sundays when they all trek to church.
Just who would feel that way? Off the cuff, I’d say it would be atheists, secular humanists, agnostics, Muslims, a-religious, neo-Nazis, and perhaps some of the vanishingly small sects of perhaps 15 other religions, such as listed in the census and make up the odd 20% or so of non-Christians.
I suppose they feel affronted and depressed that they do not have the majority power that Christians have and practice all the time, but they do have their own places of worship unhindered for the most part and their very own symbols marking the spot. But they are not satisfied with that. No, they must attack the Christians and their symbolism as if the very existence of Christian symbols threatens to stifle all of the odd religions and cause dissention in their ranks, especially in their children. No more prayer in schools, they demand, and succeed.
Wasn’t this Christian dominance in the US well known from way back, such that if they didn’t like it, there was ample opportunity to select another nation where their particular religion was coddled? No, they chose to stay here, because of our freedoms, security and our scale of living. Now they want to change things around to suit themselves, and tear down anything Christian they can get leverage on.
By doing so, they are creating a growing and potentially severe backlash that puts them in a very unfavorable light in our Christian culture and way of life. Can an employer that sees the damage done to his religion honestly trust, hire and promote such destructive people if he knows their deeds? I don’t know, but it surely could be an unwritten factor. Open bias of that sort is against the law, of course, of course.
One cannot attack a religion without such a backlash, however, and many, if not most, Christians, even divided into many sects as they are, see it as a concerted attack on their religion, and they see the levers being used as mistakes of interpretation that need to be corrected somehow, but not very clearly just yet. They marvel at the Supreme Court decisions that favor the odd religions, and grudgingly obey for the nonce, storing each affront to their sensibilities up for future use. We should appoint better justices to the court they say, and more conservatives to the legislatures and to the highet posts in the land.
Why, they ask, isn’t the status quo satisfactory to all? Are we not sufficiently secular now? Why create such challenges to our society when they are really not needed at all? What do they gain by such attacks? What do they lose? Have any of these people felt the bias against them? Have they felt the ceiling to their ambitions looming up because of their positions? Did they have to seek out positions that favored their rather stark differing thoughts and actions, such as self employment? Why are they being so divisive? Isn't it so that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good?
I wonder.
Labels: Christianity, Church versus State, Conservatism, Constitution, Democracy
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