It has been many, many years since I abandoned Christian-Protestant fundamentalism, moved through liberal Christianity, clung to a kind of universalism, and eventually found myself described as an atheist. It is an apt description; I have absolutely no god belief. Yet I struggle with religion.
I raised my daughters in the mentioned protestant fundamentalism. Much to my delight all have abandoned that ideology. Two however, went on to embrace profoundly conservative branches of Catholicism. My daughters are smart, well educated, capable, self assured young women. Their lives radiate a kindness and love of which any Father would be proud and, except for their religion, they are fiercely independent people.
For an atheist and an ex-Protestant there is no organization worse than the RCC. Were the RCC a secular organization the Pope and dozens of his underlings would be in jail for protecting pedophiles and obstruction of justice. The organization itself would be sued into insolvency, its assets frozen, confiscated, and eventually redistributed. Instead the RCC retains its tax except status and the protection of governments around the world who refuse to prosecute the guilty. The RCC's role in the oppression of gay people and women continues unabated and without serious challenge while its ambivalence to real education and seeking truth is unchanged since the days of Galileo. To put it bluntly, to me, the RCC is a world wide criminal enterprise supported by fraud and a naked abuse of power and corruption. Were it to implode and fade from human endeavors tomorrow, the world would be a remarkably better place.
Yet two of the people I love most are fierce supporters of this very organization, bow a knee to the Pope without reservation, and suspect that a world ruled by the Catholic church would be a world close to paradise. That two such loving, smart, independent women so love the RCC is a paradox beyond comprehension. Even after several years I have absolutely no idea how to fit the reality into my world. I am an atheist yet the RCC lies closer to my heart than my own life. And so I struggle with religion.
The United States of America is the only country where the separation of church and state is at the very core of our society. It is one of the reasons we are one of the most successful and oldest democracies on the planet. Yet that separation is being challenged by the very government that thrives on its existence. Catholic and Protestant religious fundamentalists now undermine a democratic government at all levels and have deeply infiltrated the military. Though not yet a route, secular ideals are on the defensive everywhere. Nearly every political candidate vying for any office openly wears some sect of militant Christianity on his or her sleeve. Each of them admits that assaulting the civil rights of various groups is demanded of them by their religion, and that they will use the powers of political office to fuel oppression in what was once a free society. That representatives of the various sects, Catholic, Protestant and Mormon are currently savaging each other in an attempt to solidify the support of all religious people offers the only faint hope for a future free of such idiocy.
It is hard to imagine that a Catholic would be any more pleased than I to be living in a country ruled by Protestant or Mormon fundamentalism. Nor can I imagine a Mormon or Protestant fundamentalists cherishing the idea of a President who kneels at the foot of the Pope. Throughout history murder, torture and repression are the fate of one religious order when some other religious order holds the reigns of power. When religion rules via political power everyone suffers. Religion, particularly fundamentalist religion, is determined to rule. Something I will certainly struggle against.
Every single day that I check the news a Muslim somewhere has murdered a group of people often by suicide bombing. Every single day! Islamic governments world wide promote and enforce an oppressive abuse of women that, in many cases, is hardly distinguishable from slavery. Every day hundreds of baby girls are tortured in an Islamic ritual of "purity". Churches and Mosques are routinely bombed by followers of the prophet. There does not appear to be a single redeeming idea in Muslim ideology, only oppression, hate and a demand for blind obedience to the dictates of religious oppression. As an aggressive cancer ravishes the body militant Islam ravishes the body politic, threatening civilized society.
I know from the most personal experience that not all Catholics reflect the evil that lurks deep in the Roman Catholic Church. I know that a very liberal and progressive branch of Protestant ideology exists, that the fundamentalists speak loudly but not for the majority. Knowing this is true of other religions is about the only thing that separates me from loathing Islam and all of it adherents without restraint. Most Catholics hate child abuse and would not protect the abusers. Not many Protestants support the twisted ideology of TV evangelism. It must be that few Muslims support the terrorism cherished by Islam's outspoken Imams. (If they did the world would already be a smoking cinder devoid of civilization.) Yet the Pope remains. TV evangelists rake in the millions of dollars needed to keep their operations alive. And Imams preaching murder have attentive congregations. As long as such people retain the power that comes from legions of religious followers who allow them to reign, I suspect there will be many who share my struggle with religion.
That such remain in power is, to me, one of the surest proofs that the gods they claim can't possibly exist. I don't know about you, but if I were Allah or Jehovah or Jesus, a lot of people would burst into flame the next time they stepped up to a microphone or started tapping on a keyboard. Whoever raised a rusty razor blade to a baby girl or tried to lure a child into the back of the rectory would instantly dissolve into a pile of dust to be scattered in the breeze. Any person attempting to strap a bomb on a teenager would be found a corpse with hands made of lead and a heart turned to stone. TV preachers who claimed to have god's own knowledge of an upcoming election or the reason for the latest earthquake, would feel their tongue grow rigid and swell until they choked to death on this one last lie. No god worthy of the title would tolerate what these people do in god's name.
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