"From an angry outsider's perspective, we're just a bunch of know-it-all jerks who want to stick our noses in other peoples' business and piss on their beliefs. We're the ultimate trolls, raining on everyone else's parade for no reason other than
we're huge ****heads.
But what these folks are missing is that we're not merely pointing out their convictions out of spite. And we're certainly not upset just because we disagree with their point of view. The problem is that religion - and in the Western world (the U.S. especially), that would be squarely on the shoulders of Christianity - has been
so much more than simply another way of looking at the world. It has been a tool of ignorance, hate, rape, slavery, murder and genocide. And in current times, it bombards us (again, especially in the U.S.) with an unceasing shower of judgement, scorn and bullying. Religion creeps into our schools, our
science classes even. It makes itself home in our politics, our social views, our very laws. Those who adhere to religion
FORCE their beliefs on the rest of us, from the Pledge of Allegiance, to testifying in court, to our currency, to the
Cub Scouts. Religion has wormed its tentacles into every facet of our daily lives, often to cruel degrees.
Thanks to religion, our social norms dictate what entertainment we can and can't consume. Thanks to religion, our political leaders feel obligated to thank GOD as our savior. Thanks to religion, my son can't openly admit at Cub Scouts that he thinks the idea of worshipping a god ("Poseidon", to use his example) is just silly. Thanks to religion, countless people die every day in third world conflicts, and in developed countries, folks still have to worry about coming out, or dating outside their race, or questioning moral authorities. Most U.S. states still ban gay marriage, and most fail to specifically make gay adoption legal. Hell, we only let gays serve in the military openly this year.
Thanks to religion.
So when someone rolls their eyes and tells you to get over it, remind them how full of nonsense they are. Our waking lives are policed, lawyered, goverened and judged nonstop by the effects of two thousand heavyhanded years of Christianity, and those who don't think that still holds true in our modern day hasn't got a clue. You can't even buy a beer on certain days in certain places
thanks to religion. It infests us and our society like a cancer. But because most people
like this particular cancer, they don't see the problem. And when we get pissy about it all,
they call us jerks and whine about their beliefs.
I hate living in a zealous world, and I hate having to constantly play by their nonsensical, fairytale rules. If I need to vent once in a while about yet another right-wing religious leader banging some guy in a motel room, or yet another church cover-up of child rape, or yet another religious special interest interfering with my political system while simultaneously receiving tax-exempt status, it's not because I'm being mean where their "beliefs" are concerned. It's because I choose to use my brain, and when I open my eyes, the world I see pisses me off. If they could form a critical, independent thought, they'd feel the same way.
