Dear God

Billy and I swapped comments on Facebook this morning about religious crap. I had posted that I could not understand why we humans wasted so much time and energy arguing over the existence of God. As an Agnostic, I just cannot say either way. Billy is a believer of a chaos kind of explanation; we just happened.

Okay fine. We stated our feelings and that should have been the end of it.

Billy then commented that he lived in the middle of a bunch of Thumpers down in Texas. That fired up some of the cylinders still working in my brain. I reflected that I had once read that the once invincible Puritan stronghold, New England, now had fewer churches than any other region in the country.

Always in search of something to write about, I quickly googled, "Which state is the least religious". It turns out that I was right. The citizens of New Hampshire and Massachusetts claiming high religiosity are tied at 33% each, with Maine and Vermont coming in close behind at 34% each. The 4 states with the highest percentage of religiosity are Alabama and Mississippi at 77% , followed by Tennessee at 73% and Louisiana at 71%.

The article from the "World Atlas" site speculated that the high level of secularism in New England may be a residual effect left us by the Puritans. The Puritans were many things, rigid in their beliefs, unforgiving of blasphemous behavior and the notion of secular was never on their radar. They did however, support literacy by creating public schools long before we became a country. They felt that people needed to be able to read the Bible in order to lead them into a life long relationship with God. 

I am guessing here, but did their efforts to teach people to read and write lay the foundation of their failure over time? I think it may have. It certainly could partially explain why today's Evangelicals are so anti-education. Teach someone to read and they will often find something other than God to direct their lives.

I stopped posting the silly church billboards because too many of them were fake. The above collage may contain fake messages, but their messages certainly point to a truth that the Evangelical segment of America look at education without restriction with jaundiced eyes. And time has proven that Evangelical Christianity in America is generally not a friend of secular education as the bill boards point out.

I long for the day in America when all religion is practiced quietly and personally and not worn on the shirt sleeves of so many fanatics. It seems counter intuitive that while Christianity as a whole is losing parishioners at the highest rate ever, the growth of Christian Nationalism has exploded. 

We should never want to stamp out religious faith, for religious freedom is an important and integral part of our culture. But what we should be doing is keeping it from  becoming the law of our land. Theocracies never prosper for the many. They always end up only serving the few.

Later ..........................................

______________________

Music for this post is from an Indie band from the 1980's, XTC. Here is "Dear God". This song twisted Christian panties coast to coast. Death threats followed which only ensured this tune becoming their most popular song. Righteously indignant Christians are their own worst enemies. .......... I just don't get it.

My favorite lyric:

“The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost/ Is just somebody’s unholy hoax“