bushie&co - why do the "christian values" groups support this administration

And, why do they have such intolerance of anything that is different or outside their belief structure. Why can they not accept that there are other views, other lifestyles, other ways to be. And why are they so offended that this nation that is founded on freedom from religious persecution and this nation which is supposed to separate church and state to ensure that peoples of all faiths have access to life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness actually sometimes does just that?

Here is a response I started typing to a post (and the comments associated with the post) from the MartionAnthropologist. It got SOOOOO Long that I decided not to fill his blog comments section with the whole post but to link to this response here. Read his blog entry and subsequent comments >>Here<<

Some bush supports accuse those who fear and dread bush and his cronies of blaming them for everything. Yes, he is (or him and his cronies are) responsible for many heinous things, terrible crimes, evil deeds, much harm and hardship for US Citizens and the human race in general. Many of them clearly documented yet - somehow unprosecuted. But not EVERYTHING is solely their fault. There's lots of other bad people in the world, lots of other weak or corrupt or plain old stupid leaders.

Also - somehow these losers were voted in... so there are many average citizens too easily lead around by the nose to be able to discern truth from balderdash, they are indictable too.
I have serious doubts that the system developed 200+ years ago can work in today's society. Society itself, IMHO, has been subverted by - well, point your finger at what you will, corporations, the uber-wealthy, a secret kabal of insiders. Not saying it's some grand master plan by Nazi's and Space Aliens, but this "by, of, for the people" crap is not working because the average citizen is uneducated and ignorant. We have a country of specialists. Experts in their field, expert lawyers, doctors, mechanics, bankers, traders, bakers, butchers... but few are able to rise above the daily grind and look out across the vast plains and see what's going on. Few are trained in rational and logical thought - general rational and logical thought beyond their area of expertise, and therefore, they are easily swayed by specious arguments or by the loudest person at the shouting match.

And the Democrats?! Exactly how are they better. So far, they are just "less worse". (ok, technically that would be defined as better, hence why I'm nominally a democrat), but there are actually FEW elected representatives who I place any stock in. And there are some Republicans among that short roster. Sure, the overarching theme of the republicans (at this time in history) is evil/dangerous/manipulative and not in the best interests of the citizens of this nation nor of the world in general, but while the repubs may be more destructive, more dangerous, the dems are impotent and not really offering any real alternative. I'm not at all convinced that the democratic party is any more scrupulous either.

I hate to sound pessimistic and disillusioned - but look at all the wrong doing of this administration, yet in 5 years they are still in power, still not in jail for crimes. Clinton was attacked mercilessly for what is (in comparison) minor transgressions. All the most serious allegations were shown to be completely unfounded. Only the blow job stuck. bush&Co. have perpetrated such acts as lying to congress, and disregarding mandates for presentation of information to congress that led to a war which killed tens of thousands of people, 2000 or so of which are US soldiers. They have restructured requirements for medical aid along lines of "christian values" which apparently mean no birth control, only abstinence teaching - which is now responsible for a huge spike in the spread of std's including AIDS in 3rd world nations. They are hamstringing past legislation that is in place to protect us citizens and our progeny's right to a clean environment. They are pulling the curtains of secrecy over the process of governing, the likes of which were not even so bad in the Nixon years. Nixon was a liberal pussy compared to this administration (think about it, he opened up diplomatic relations with china, was a major instrumental force in environmental protection).

Has anyone seen the season finale of Seinfeld? They all went to jail for not aiding the guy who got car-jacked. Well - all of us see the crimes going on around us and we are standing by observing this train wreck and we're doing very little. Some of us more than others, but in general, we are complicit in these terrible deeds if we don't rail against them.

The worst part is that many of this evil administration's supporters are acting like they are the victims. They support this evil because it claims to be a proponent of "christian values" and the people who think that "christian values" are a good thing feel that they are bound to support it.
But - first, the ACTIONS of this administration are completely counter to any of the official values of christianity, though even the RC church is terribly guilty of transgressing the formally official christian values. But ironically, the "christian values" that so many seem to value to the point of voting in such dangerous evil, have not in any way been under attack, yet they act like they are the victims. This seems to be because they have no ability to tolerate other people who do not live their lifestyle.

Only homophobes claim there is a "gay agenda" to convert everyone to homosexuality. Link 1, Link 2 Well, I've met a few gay people who said they wished that was the case, probably more than half jokingly, but the reality is that no one's going around trying to change anyone's "team". OK, I know lots of straight guys who try to get the women around them to switch hit for both teams, but that's apparently considered perfectly ok. But other than that, no team changing going on, but these "christian value" people are terrified they're going to touch a gay person and become gay, or even worse, that their perfectly normal child will be "turned gay" by touching a gay person. It's probably easier to think that than for someone who hates people for their sexual orientation to accept that their own offspring could be a hated sexual orientation. Really - if they think that their god is "the god" and a "one and only god" and if they think that their "one and only god" hates gays, then let their "god" do something about it. Let the gay people live their life unmolested and then they can "burn in hell" or whatever punishment this alleged god has for them.

Same with abortion, no one who is pro-choice is trying to force abortions on people who don't want them, but the anti-choice people (I refuse to call them "pro-life", I mean really, unless you're a war monger like the bush&Co. administration, unless you go around increasing the amount of pain, sickness, death and suffering like they and other evil organizations do, then you probably fall into the category of "pro-life". I'm very pro-life - pro human life, pro animal life, pro plant life, pro life on earth, pro life without war, pro life with medicine, pro stem cell research to extend life, pro consciousness, pro intelligence, and pro lots of other aspects of nature that exist thanks to the existence of life and I'm all for letting people control their own bodies and take birth control (which I'm also very pro on) and get abortions or nose piercings or whatever else they want to do to themselves. So - these anti-choicers, they are what? Afraid that if abortion is legal they will trip and fall into an abortion clinic and lose their baby? wtf. Once again, if they believe their god feels this way, then their "all powerful" god can step in and take action. Or, say their all powerful god, that allegedly values life and souls, and which defines abortion as murder, say that this god doesn't mind the murder and just punishes the murderers (the mother's who get abortion in this bizarro world definition), then let this all powerful god go and do the punishing in the next life. (which is perfectly for all of us that don't subscribe to this belief structure and don't believe in an afterlife or those reincarnationists who think that the after life is just here, life after.)

Same with marriage - how insecure do you have to be - and its rhetorical, I am implying a VAST DEGREE of insecurity to anyone who can feel their marriage is somehow weakened by other people being married. How about TV, video games, movies, music and other entertainment - again, how tenuous must one's own faith and belief structure be that they can think that TV, video games, movies, music, or other entertainment can sway them away from their beliefs, or sway those around them away? I would think very tenuous indeed. I'm certain there's no music, TV show, video game or movie that could make me believe in the western judeo/christian/muslim idea of a god like jehovah/Yahwey. And I like spooky mythic stories with ghosts, goblins, angels or other non-existent fantasy themes. But they are simply entertainment, something to divert me for a moment.

Or ID - again, how tenuous a grasp of one's faith does one need to be to fear science that empirically disproves something that is completely implausible or totally contradicted by the natural record. For centuries faith/mysticism and the natural sciences were able to co-exist because everyone understood one was allegorical and the other was based on purely physical evidence. I was raised RC Christian, and even as I was a young child and asked those obvious questions - like "how could the earth and all life on it be created in 7 days when in science class they teach about millions of years epochs and dinosaurs and supernovae etc" and my mom, who does not even have a high school education told me that they are both true, because one is based on faith and is our understanding of the nature of god and the other is what really happened and who are we to say that to god, 1 day wasn't millions of millions of our years, and how do we know that the way that god made everything before "Adam and eve" was by evolving it from simpler and simpler to more complex. And I asked about the whole, "formed from dust and Adams rib" and again she said that this is a way of us understanding where we came from and she fervently believed in her god and felt that this was, in it's way, truth, but no in any way contradictory to the descended from apes observations of evolution, because apes came from dust too, everything on this planet was once part of a star, and was then dust, and then congealed to form planets, and then life began, etc, and the hand of god (for her) was in all this. And the stories of the bible were real and true to her, but not contradictory to the facts that we observe empirically. When did this ever stop being enough. When did people become so militant and so viscously ignorant that they cannot wrap their mind around the dichotomy? There has always been a dichotomy and others exist as well in human nature. There's no reason our minds can't handle both concepts concurrently.

Personally, I have no dichotomy on this front because upon maturing, I found that I didn't need to shield my consciousness from the reality around me so I shed my security blanket of mystical faith in that which is not provable but comforting. I don't need to pretend that there's some old guy in the clouds looking out for me, or punishing those people I don't like. I don't need to believe that after my short life is over, that I will be rewarded for all my suffering. I don't need to fear reprisal after death to ensure that I follow a path of moral and ethical righteousness either, for I derive my morality and ethics from the very laws of the universe themselves. Funny - but all the things that many people need religion for - to tell them what is right and wrong for example, can be derived directly from observable and testable laws of nature. I can show for example why thermodynamics teaches us that murder and lying and stealing is wrong. Universally. But that's an entirely other entry.

For a long time I was comfortable co-existing with those that believed otherwise, I had no issue to take with those that believed in that which is unprovable. It certainly didn't bother me. Until I saw how those "of faith" were suddenly always on the attack, if not against me and my beliefs, then other free citizens of this nation. That's what spurred me to start writing and getting more vocal and involved and passionate about my liberty and freedom from persecution. Even when others around me were the victims, I saw and responded to the injustices perpetrated by the "christian values" groups as well as the more disturbingly evil groups such as this current white house administration.

I don't object to people holding these beliefs or any other beliefs, provided they are not using them to harm me (such as certain flavors of christianity preventing their offspring from getting medical aid because it's "against their religion"), but I do feel that these "christain values" people are harming me, by supporting an administration that claims to be their proponent, despite overwhelming evidence against that statement, and also by supporting not only their right to live their lives the way they choose, which I am all for, but by also trying to put legislation in place that prohibits me from living my life the way I want to, even though my life choices do not affect them at all.

And really, if I was a woman living in town A and had an abortion, in what way does that even affect anyone else in Town A (other than the father of course, but heck, it's not his body either), let alone how does it affect someone in Town B? "oh my god, someone got an abortion, my fetus is now at risk?!" that is ludicrous.

On the abortion topic, perhaps I'm arguing the wrong point because they are anti-abortion because of this "soul" thing. But not everyone believes in a soul. That concept only exists in some of the religions of the world and it is not in any way testable. So - I can't argue for/against that idea. And it therefore cannot be legislated. Unless we live in a theocratic state that has an official state religion. THEN, they can officially say that part of being a citizen is believing in this mystical bs and that mystical bs says that a soul exists and furthermore that it begins to exist as soon as fertilization takes place. But - until that time (and at that time I'm outta here), they cannot make that argument in our courts.