I’m not sure if it is just me, but this election season seems to keep just dropping religious bombs in our collective laps. I know the religious right has always tried to (has) control(led) the polls but never have they been more vocal to my memory. Also, not just vocal, but stupidly vocal.
As one example, Chuck Norris and his wife Gena just released a dire warning for the U.S.A. What horror could the mighty Chuck Norris of meme fame possibly have to fear? Obama. Evangelicals must vote so America won’t face Obama and the liberals ushering in ‘the triumph of evil’ and ‘1,000 years of darkness’.
I’m all for voting, regardless of which party someone belongs to, but to claim the apocalypse will occur if Obama is re-elected seems just a wee bit crazy. Furthermore, as an evangelical wouldn’t that be a good thing? Presumably Norris and his ilk would be raptured and the rest of us would just be stuck in the dark horror without them (which may be a positive for all of us on Earth). Finally, ’1,000 years of darkness’ certainly sounds familiar, let me think…oh, yes, that was what we called the DARK AGES when religion was in control. Hmm. But I’m sure if we just got rid of all the Jews/witches/protestants/atheists/etc. THEN everything would be fine.
*sigh*
Beyond those, points, the broader issue that we hear time and again is that the USA is a Christian country and was founded with a certain set of morals and beliefs that we are now destroying by _______ (whatever the hot issue of the moment is). Unfortunately that just isn’t true, as this video by the Freedom From Religion Foundation points out:
Of course, no self-respecting Bible-thumper would believe anything from the FFRF since they are a “radical atheist terrorist group”. But what about the words of the Founding Fathers themselves?
Note: I didn’t make this and would not necessarily have added the “Were not Christian” at the bottom (though some of them I suspect were indeed non-believers).
I think this one conveys the same theme a little bit better since the issue is not the Founding Fathers’ personal beliefs but the country being categorized as “Christian”:
Here is another fun fact: “under God” was NOT always in the Pledge of Allegiance! The argument of liberals “taking God out of the classroom” just isn’t true, since God was not in there to begin with (in more than one way). Prior to the Cold War era the pledge existed as seen below:
Perhaps most damning to the claim that the USA is God’s country is the 1st Amendment of our Constitution which states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
– The First Amendment
This amendment ensures not only that Chuck Norris and other religious folk can voice their opinions and worship as they please, but it also ensures that religion will never be enforced upon citizenry or upheld as the law of the land. This wall between religion and politics was so important to our founders because America was claimed by Europeans (sorry, Native Americans) as a place to escape religious persecution. That is what the Puritans and consequently Thanksgiving were all about, not food bingeing or the Macy’s Day Parade!
Informing a group to vote a certain way due to religious belief nullifies this amendment and is exactly what the Founding Fathers did NOT want. Vote as your rational mind advises you, not out of fear of religious condemnation. That is exactly what our nation was created to prevent.
