Chruch & State

OK, I'm sure there are others who could say this better but I just have to get this off my chest.  An associate just sent me an email.  It gives me the option to score 100 or ZERO.  Now that already pisses me off.  Nothing is black or white.  NOTHING!  Oh, were life that easy to maneuver.  It isn't.  We're human, we've designed this journey for hard questions and big decisions and yet we run from them like a puppy from a beating he's had before. 

Let me share what"s chapping my behind.  After the score thing, I'm shown a lot of white bread, Christian images of Jesus being compassionate and suffering in various pictorial versions of stories we've all heard.  Then, "I'm not ashamed.  He is the only one that can save this country and they want him removed from the government.

Our great nation will not stand if we delete HIM from all aspects of our government as the atheists want."

Then it goes on the threaten me if I don't send it along.

Are you sitting down?  Bet you are now. 
In case you haven't figured it out, apparently I'm a they.  And I had no idea I was an atheist.

To all the small minded, fear based, lost souls out there.
Please don't try and shame me into sharing your beliefs.
Creating economic and government structures (two different things that need to aligned to be successful) that care for an entity's members is, yes, a moral argument.  The argument is simply do we care for all our people or just those who fit our definition.  This so called argument is an utterly erroneous question in a healthy society.  A health society cares for all it's people.  We are a sick society.

Traditional western religion is guised in morality but tethers its people with shame, judgment and fear.  Church and state must be separated because churches, clans, clicks, groups - all create their definition of themselves by judging others against them.  By definition, this is not a society but a subset who has found comfort in their sameness.  That is fine, it is part of the human condition to need this comfort.  It is NOT morally just.  It is not relevant to the states job.

The states job is to care for all it's members.  To strive for a community, a group, that cares for ALL it's people is to not exclude, not judge, and to not leave behind those who do not 'fit' the judgers parameters. 

This disparity of goals negates success for both factions. 

We need to recognize that Christian based faith is not necessarily a moral stance arguing for a government that cares for its people and yet encourages individual attainment, as the Americans would like it.  Christian based faith, especially as it is being currently sold - and bought -  is a fear based emotional reaction to the unknown all other religions of the world.  If Americans would read a book or see or listen to the rest of the world, they would know that all religion harbors a 'moral' message and posture, all religious followers believe theirs to be the 'right' moral stance and the only other emphatic, zealotic religious group in the world that even compares to the Christian right wing in it's fear and judgment is extremist Muslims - these people's biggest fear.  What's the saying, be careful of what you hate... AND both religions are rooted in the same Catholicism - read your history!

Church belongs in a church.  State belongs in government.  Faith, love and compassion belong everywhere and seem to be clinging like a stormy summer's spider's web to the edge of societies branches.