bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2009-04-09 09:59 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2009-04-09 09:59 pm
Entry tags:
Guns, Gays, and God
Just to wrap up some recent events in a tidy little package, I thought I'd bring up the three topics near and dear to the hearts of our conservative brethren to the South: guns, gays, and God.
Yes, there has been a dramatic increase in people killing each other with guns lately. This has of course led to calls for more gun control, outright bans on certain weapons in private hands (as opposed to the hands of Privates) and other such hue and cry.
I have a perspective on this that may surprise some of my readers: as a boy I was introduced to the proper use and care of firearms by my Scoutmaster and by the range master of the Scout summer camp I attended. Both of these men were retired military and took a similar no-nonsense approach to firearms. One of the tenets they engrained in me was "never point a weapon at anyone or anything you do not intend to shoot." And I have the NRA patches attesting to the skills I learned in these camps. Yes, that NRA.
That said, I have never personally owned a firearm, nor do I think I ever will. I know my temperament well enough to know that having a firearm about the house is for me an invitation to tragedy. But I begrudge no one the right to keep and bear arms as entitled by the Second Amendment.
My reasoning is, the world is not a safe place, and as long as guns exist, they will fall into the hands of those who will use them for evil purposes. As is often said, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. And you really cannot tell, a priori, who is going to freak out and grab the weapon closest to hand and start methodically butchering their family, or their coworkers, or the patrons of a randomly chosen store.
But the real reason for the Second Amendment was so that military occupation of these United States would be forever more impossible, as long as a sufficient proportion of the populace actually kept and bore arms. And by arms they really and truly meant the very same arms that would be used by a standing army of occupation; otherwise, the military value of having guns sprinkled among the civilian population would be utterly lost.
The folks who demonize gays for having the audacity to want to be married have got a lot of explaining to do, because in practically every campaign they mount as a result of being freaked out over li'l ol' us, they lie like a rug.
No, we are not trying to recruit your children. No, we are not trying to have pastors fined for teaching what their churches believe. No, we are not trying to force churches to perform same-sex marriages against their religious tenets.
All we ask is the same access to the legal, financial, and civic benefits and responsibilities that heterosexual couples enjoy automatically upon marriage. And there is absolutely nothing in that simple request that can in any way impair anyone else's marriage.
So the fundamentalists can take their bad meteorological analogies and wedge them in their own fundamental gaps.
Which brings us to the ultimate source of these folks' obvious displeasure with us. They truly believe that their God is angry and willing to do them harm merely for allowing us to exist.
My take is that an omnipotent God -- as was posited to me in my religious upbringing as well as that envisioned by the fundies -- basically can do whatever She damn well pleases, and it behooves religious humans not to presume to do Her work for Her. (Yes, I'm referring to God in the feminine here just because I know it pisses them off. I don't care.) Look, after all, at what the Bible says about vengeance and judgement: "Vengeance is mine,... saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19) and "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matt 7:1, Luke 6:37).
And now that the astounding hypocrisy of the so-called Catholic Church has been exposed -- when the same institution covers up for priests who diddle young children, and at one and the same time proclaims that it would quite literally rather see me dead than married to the man I love -- then I have got to say that church is no longer holy and no longer catholic (small c) and no longer deserving of my notice, let alone respect.
Not only that, I was never a great believer in the power of prayer anyway; too often, as during the period surrounding my brother's untimely demise, it seems a cruel joke, and scientists have studied the purported power of prayer in a clinical setting and found it wanting. Yes, I was offended to distraction over the stories the nuns used to tell us about Communist Cuba having children pray to God and then to Castro for candy, and upon the latter prayer being given the candy to "prove" Castro is better than God. But praying for things, or events (or avoidance of events) seems to me to be worthy more of the fictitious creatures our society shares with each generation of children (such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny) rather than God.
I'm really beginning to come around to the view of the Deists, that God (or as many referred to back then, Providence) created the universe, and then sat back and watched His creation work, like a fine bit of machinery, without necessarily intervening once it was finished. That sort of Deity I can live with.
Guns
Yes, there has been a dramatic increase in people killing each other with guns lately. This has of course led to calls for more gun control, outright bans on certain weapons in private hands (as opposed to the hands of Privates) and other such hue and cry.
I have a perspective on this that may surprise some of my readers: as a boy I was introduced to the proper use and care of firearms by my Scoutmaster and by the range master of the Scout summer camp I attended. Both of these men were retired military and took a similar no-nonsense approach to firearms. One of the tenets they engrained in me was "never point a weapon at anyone or anything you do not intend to shoot." And I have the NRA patches attesting to the skills I learned in these camps. Yes, that NRA.
That said, I have never personally owned a firearm, nor do I think I ever will. I know my temperament well enough to know that having a firearm about the house is for me an invitation to tragedy. But I begrudge no one the right to keep and bear arms as entitled by the Second Amendment.
My reasoning is, the world is not a safe place, and as long as guns exist, they will fall into the hands of those who will use them for evil purposes. As is often said, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. And you really cannot tell, a priori, who is going to freak out and grab the weapon closest to hand and start methodically butchering their family, or their coworkers, or the patrons of a randomly chosen store.
But the real reason for the Second Amendment was so that military occupation of these United States would be forever more impossible, as long as a sufficient proportion of the populace actually kept and bore arms. And by arms they really and truly meant the very same arms that would be used by a standing army of occupation; otherwise, the military value of having guns sprinkled among the civilian population would be utterly lost.
Gays
The folks who demonize gays for having the audacity to want to be married have got a lot of explaining to do, because in practically every campaign they mount as a result of being freaked out over li'l ol' us, they lie like a rug.
No, we are not trying to recruit your children. No, we are not trying to have pastors fined for teaching what their churches believe. No, we are not trying to force churches to perform same-sex marriages against their religious tenets.
All we ask is the same access to the legal, financial, and civic benefits and responsibilities that heterosexual couples enjoy automatically upon marriage. And there is absolutely nothing in that simple request that can in any way impair anyone else's marriage.
So the fundamentalists can take their bad meteorological analogies and wedge them in their own fundamental gaps.
God
Which brings us to the ultimate source of these folks' obvious displeasure with us. They truly believe that their God is angry and willing to do them harm merely for allowing us to exist.
My take is that an omnipotent God -- as was posited to me in my religious upbringing as well as that envisioned by the fundies -- basically can do whatever She damn well pleases, and it behooves religious humans not to presume to do Her work for Her. (Yes, I'm referring to God in the feminine here just because I know it pisses them off. I don't care.) Look, after all, at what the Bible says about vengeance and judgement: "Vengeance is mine,... saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19) and "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matt 7:1, Luke 6:37).
And now that the astounding hypocrisy of the so-called Catholic Church has been exposed -- when the same institution covers up for priests who diddle young children, and at one and the same time proclaims that it would quite literally rather see me dead than married to the man I love -- then I have got to say that church is no longer holy and no longer catholic (small c) and no longer deserving of my notice, let alone respect.
Not only that, I was never a great believer in the power of prayer anyway; too often, as during the period surrounding my brother's untimely demise, it seems a cruel joke, and scientists have studied the purported power of prayer in a clinical setting and found it wanting. Yes, I was offended to distraction over the stories the nuns used to tell us about Communist Cuba having children pray to God and then to Castro for candy, and upon the latter prayer being given the candy to "prove" Castro is better than God. But praying for things, or events (or avoidance of events) seems to me to be worthy more of the fictitious creatures our society shares with each generation of children (such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny) rather than God.
I'm really beginning to come around to the view of the Deists, that God (or as many referred to back then, Providence) created the universe, and then sat back and watched His creation work, like a fine bit of machinery, without necessarily intervening once it was finished. That sort of Deity I can live with.
no subject
no subject
I do think at times prayer does do what we hope, the catch is, it's rarely if ever the way we envision it to take place for if God or whomever is assisting, they know what's best more than we humans often do.
As for those churches who insist their view be the world view, I personally don't they they have a right to exist and here is why, if they'd just keep things to themselves then there'd be no problems but they don't, they want to interfere with everyone w/ their dogma and squelch those they don't believe in then they cross a line and therefore should be banished from the earth.