Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Ingersoll
Hey, Southern Man, there was this cool dude named James Madison who lived a long time ago in a faraway land. One day, he was chillin' with some of his bros & smoking some hemp that his homeboy G. Wash had grown down by the Potomac & he got to thinking about some John Locke $hit he read back in college @ William & Mary. Now, ol' Jimmy used to like to read Locke after he ate some of those farout mushrooms he found growing out in the cow pasture, and this one treatise about government stuck in his mind. So, sometime in the late 1780s, he set quill to parchment & came up with this thing called a Bill of Rights. They usually teach you about such stuff in school, but since I know most Southerners don't make it past the 3rd grade, you probably learned about it on "Schoolhouse Rock." At any rate, I'm sure you've at least heard of this Bill of Rights. Anyway, years after Jimmy wrote it down, some preacher-folks started going around asking their congress critters for some money to help them build things like crosses & stone monuments & other idolatrous items on public property. One day, some secular humanists saw fit to make ol' Jimmy their president, 'cause they realized that even though he was a stoner & kinda non-religious, he was a pretty smart dude. Besides, the job didn't pay that much & you had to live in a house in a swamp, so not many other fellas really wanted the job. Gettin' back to the story, these preacher fellas showed up in the district, asking their congress critters for money. These easily bought vermin were ready to give it to 'em too, but they forgot that ol' Jimmy had written the rule book for this here form of gubmint. So when they put a bill on his desk (remember "I'm just a bill/sittin' here on Capitol Hill?"----that was on "Schoolhouse Rock" too; you probably saw it), he vetoed it & sent it back with a note attached. It read:
"The appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, [is] contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.'"
Now, since ol' Jimmy wrote that particular article, I'm kinda figgerin' he prolly knows how to interpret it.
I'll close with a bit from a 1995 issue of Mad magazine I have lyin' about:
"You're a group of Christian-based, conservative organizations with several million dollars to spend. Do you: feed the hungry? Clothe the poor? Don't be so naive! You blow the millions on a series of slickly-worded, logic bending ads espousing a widely discredited theory that one can be 'cured' of homosexuality through counseling & prayer."
|
Please. I'm so over "organized religion". And I, personally, "can talk", having "grown up" in the church. I attended an Episcopal boys choir school, in Chicago, for 3 years. It laid the foundation which enriched me in myriad ways, academically, and artistically.
However, I became disillusioned by the "under culture" of predatory priests (in the Episcopal diocese in Chicago), not suspecting of a wider culture present in the Catholic church, until years later.
While coming to grips with my own homosexuality, I realized that I had been conflicted by my religious upbringing vs. the intellectualization of the "rites of passage"...and as a result, became increasingly more spiritual and less religious, over the years.
After a personal crisis, I became attached to another church, in the late 90's, and sang in the choir. The pastor, a brilliant orator, and amazing vocalist, with his own "laundry list" of baggage, warred with his propensity to rail against homosexuality as the "supreme evil" and his ambivalence toward moderating his stance in lieu of his two sons, both ministers of music, and both "gay". I tolerated his "back and forth" for almost 4 years, until I could no longer be party to his message of "exclusion". I left the church and the choir, in 2000.
And I finally came to peace with balancing my sexuality and my spirituality, as I believe we each have a personal relationship, with the God of our understanding,if we so choose, exclusive of other human beings.
Then to witness the blurring of the lines of separation of church and state, in public arenas, in schools, in politics, only served to make me more disillusioned about religion and "more political".
Then to have charlatans and demagogues like Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson point fingers at "gays and lesbians" as the root cause of natural disasters like "Hurricane Katrina" and 9/11, just was the "camel's back" for me. Hypocrites, in their televangelism, profiting, "financially", and routinely succumbing to hedonism. Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Thomas Weeks...the list is long.
Coupled with the Catholic Church's sex scandals, in recent years, have proven that "organized religion" ( in America) is more of a sham and a vehicle for promoting agendas that impose on our freedoms and our rights under the Constitution, than a force of good in the world today. Certainly, it is intolerant of the beliefs of others, which, in my estimation, was totally opposite to the teachings of Christ, who said, "Come and follow me", not "if you don't come, I'll kill you".