I was going to avoid this topic on the blog, but I read an article from Seattle Times and noticed some of the comments that were being thrown about. There is a battle going on of people trying to say that religion has no right to display on government property or people need to not "rule others lives" with their beliefs. To me this seems to be very short sighted. I first want to say that there is some truth to religious people often doing that. Although what I find interesting is this argument that "others should not control my life". Take a peek at one of those thoughts: "There isnt anything wrong with you believing in a god. Its when you try to rule my life with your god and religious teachings that were going to have a serious conflict. God is not in my life and I feel fulfilled. I feel a common good." To me this is just ironic because of a situation that happened a church just the other day.
The church I work at has a preschool coop that rents out space and has many children that come and got to school there. I recently found out that our church can not put up any pictures of Jesus or anything in our own church, because the school is there. This is the churches OWN building! This idea that atheists/nonbelievers are the victim of big bad religion coming to not let them have their peace is silly. To me both groups are locked in battle to have their beliefs held more prominently. Religion is held out of schools, government buildings, and public spaces. Teachers are reprimanded or fired for sharing their faith or wearing crosses. It is just plain silly to think that this does not go both ways. Both Religions and Atheists are trying to rule each other's lives.
This argument of not wanting others to decide things on their life is just plain ridiculous. Who decided it was not ok for us to murder someone? Who decided it was not ok to steal things? We see many atrocities on the news all the time where someone has done something "wrong". They believe it was ok or justified, so why don't we leave it at that if we do not want others to rule our lives. The market collapse and banks exploiting people for their own profit was another example of people doing right by themselves. By having a government we give up a large part of our "freedom" for security. The truth I have found that true freedom only comes when resting in God. I will save that discussion for another time though.
The other thing to mention is how much I disagree with FoxNews about people trying to get rid of Christmas. I honestly fear more that they embrace Christmas, because of who they is. Most the battle seems to be over media and retailers (saying Merry Christmas). These two entities only embrace the time of the year because they can make a buck on it. They do not care about the reason why we celebrate Christmas. What these stories and outlets care about is that the culture has adapted the gift that God gave us into a reason to share gifts with one another. The industry capitalized on this by selling things we do not need. Last I checked materialism is not high on Jesus' list of things to help draw us closer to God. Foxnews does not really care about this. What they care about is "making" the news as much as reporting it. The more people they find a way to outrage then the more money they can pull in from advertisements.
I guess what I am really trying to get at here is to pull back the vail on our eyes about what is going on here. This is not to offer solutions (I don't want to be here till easter typing), but to think about what it is that we are seeing, reading, and arguing.
Unapologetically-Merry Christmas!
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