It could be a drinking game.

What is ‘America’?   Who are we, as ‘Americans’?

Freedom!  Right?   Liberty?   Sure.. and those two are no small things.  But what a lot of people leave out is “Equality” without which, there is NO freedom or Liberty.   This isn’t equality in the sense of Socialism (so keep your pants on!) but equality of opportunity and even access where the public sphere is concerned.   If you disagree, then how much so?   Does equality have NO place in our democracy?  In what way is it acceptable to use that word (and no other)?

We are a great country but we are an experiment.  We are on-going and open-ended.   We can create new laws and discard laws that are no longer applicable.   We can fashion ourselves as a particular people of a particular hue if we so desire or we can abolish all such favoritism in any and all forms.  We can use legislation to define what “America” is, from a democratically chosen welfare state to a democratically chosen Theocracy.. it at least seems there is really no limit, without regard to the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, to what we may make of ourselves with the proper justification and the ‘right’ interpretation.

We can make laws that stand like fussy mothers over us, peering at all we do with gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) ‘tut-tut’s’ whenever we begin to err outside the lines.   “You cannot drive faster than this limit.. because you are children!”, “You cannot drink until you reach a certain age.. because you cannot be trusted to be responsible”, “You cannot marry whoever you wish to marry because WE KNOW BETTER than you in these affairs, silly little snotty brat!”, “There’s no way we, as your parents and guardians, will allow you to make up your own mind about smoking pot!” and “We are right and you are wrong, wrong, wrong.. you cannot have birth control and abortions are just your immature, childish ways of trying to avoid your responsibility – after all, you can’t have your cake and eat it too!”.

Our people span the spectrum from the quiet and oft-unheard public to loud-mouths and fire-brands.   Religious zealots and moderates, peacemakers.. to War-hawks and War-profiteers all reading from the same staid book.   We have citizens who don’t speak English, who weren’t born here but who work hard and pay taxes and we have welfare queens and theifs, criminals.   We have the poor and the extremely poor, living day to day in an existence on the street that would be jarring to most of us.   And we have the extremely rich who are immune to the problems and stress that most of us face on a daily basis.   And honestly, there is room for all of us.   In America, we are all brothers and sisters.   America is something that ties and binds us together, spanning politics and racial divides and everything from gender to education, world-view or philosophy must take a back-seat to the fact that we are all Americans, and there is room under this tent.. this great experiment for all of us.

I don’t have to like what you say, or how you think.. but I stand by your right to express your thoughts and practice your beliefs.

We often hear someone say something along the lines of, “Well that isn’t the America I grew up in” or “That’s not just unpatriotic, that’s un-american!”, “We need to get back to who we were.   We need to get back to America!”?   “That person doesn’t understand America” or “That person is distinctly, un-american!”These phrases and questions, rhetorical and dead serious, come mostly from politicians.   These tools are meant to rouse up one group against another, or one idea against another.  To exclude one group or set of ideas and principles from another in order to alienate them.   Sometimes to shame them or ridicule them.   To show them the door and tell them, politely or not so much, “Get.. out!”.

What if we were to make a college drinking game out of this while listening to our favorite ideological heroes.   Which groups would be drunker, faster?

I wonder?

Could I get some fries with my salt?

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour , wherewith shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.  Matt 5:13

Coming from a religious background, many of us.. no, most of us have heard the proverbial ‘salt-sermon’.   It runs along the self-congratulating idea that Christians are a preservative on Earth.   Preserving the earth from wickedness, evil, unrighteousness, and all manner of ungodliness.   This is the keystone verse to justify meddling in just about anything that puts a ‘burr under the saddle’.   And as an aside, this is really strange in light of the deep desire of most if not all fundamentalists to usher in the end-times; an epoch known for it’s ‘strong delusions’ and wars, rumors of war, earthquakes and a good ol’ general ‘time of great troubles’ – one would think they would just let it fly and instead wait with arms upstretched for the rapture.   But no, no no.   Not according to Matt 5:13.   I mean, what self-respecting Christian is going to want to be ‘cast out’ and ‘trodden under foot of men’?   So there, you Christians are stuck with it.. you have to meddle in the affairs of men, despite being ‘in the world but not of the world’ and strangers in a strange land.

Ok.   We all get that, kinda.   We understand.   But how are you really supposed to be going about it?   As ‘salt of the Earth’, does it really fit that you impose your views on a secular society?   So you disagree with gay marriage; that great threat to marriages everywhere!   Somehow, it will destroy the institution of marriage and according to some, subvert freedom.   The Day of Silence movement, where kids are being encouraged to walk out of schools across America to protest (silently) the anti-gay bias and bullying, is being promoted as some kind of ultra-liberal left-wing plot to encourage homosexuality in our children.   I really have to.. /headpalm.   Why everything is a national plot by the left-leaning commies.  Our good friend Allen West, in Florida of all places, used McCarthy-like rhetoric to label at least 80 democrats in Congress as Communists.   Nevermind that he probably doesn’t even know what Communism is, this is just pure vitriolic pablum and baseless ad hominum.   Oh, and it’s dangerous.   And let’s not forget the ‘Climate Change Controversy’ – ugh, really?   Just do whatever the hell you want to the Earth, ‘..God is still up there’ and ‘..The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous (James Inhofe).’.   Yeah, that’s outrageous alright.

By now you might want to cool your jets (if you’re jets need cooling) because I’m not going to argue any of these points with you.   That’s not what this blog is about.   It’s about being the salt of the Earth and more broadly, what we Atheists, Humanists and Secularists really expect from Theists of all stripes: Be Christlike and practice what you preach.

Sure, we don’t believe a word you say and judging by the steam rolling out of the ears of some of  your biggest champions, why should we?   Granted, many or even most of ‘them’ don’t really offer a fair representation of ‘you’, specifically.   They are merely a loud voice that gets air-time, somehow, to say bat-shit crazy things like the earthquake/Tsunami in Japan were punishments from God, as well as Katrina.   And like good little Theists, you give them cover with what may be more reasonable and moderate stances; more enlightened even?   Nevertheless, we’ve all had our scrapes with the ‘apologists’ only interested in scoring points without ever listening to a damn word any of us are saying.   We’ve all watched Christians spin off into hopeless circles while they call the kettle ‘black’.   It’s hard to step into the forum of discussion with a Theist who doesn’t see the ‘foolishness’ of putting belief as the prerequisite to evidence (cart before the horse), and then pat themselves on the back for having ‘the foolishness of god’.   Nevermind that it could possibly be real, genuine foolishness.   Oh what a better way to innoculate stupidity than to tell those initiates that when ‘others’ call it ‘stupid’, it just means you’re doing god’s will.   No.. it means it really is dumb!

How refreshing it is, even for an Atheist like me, to run into someone who asks honest questions and can carry on a banter, even from an equally biased (if you wish) viewpoint, and still come off as somehow genuine.   Instead of the wolfish grin through the lambs’ wool, they seem to treat you like someone they think their loving god cared enough to die for.   Well, it’s nice.  I won’t lie.   They do exist, but they are few and far between.   Instead there seems to be too many ‘believers’ out there who won’t turn the other cheek, not giving up any cloaks to anyone, love may be the second greatest commandment where an Atheist is concerned but you’re ‘going to hell’ anyway and for a real kicker – those jokers that are out there are so disconnected from the legal framework of their own faith that they never realize that they are arguing on the side of accusation against us.. as if they are co-counsel with.. could it be.. Satan?!?

Doesn’t seem very godly to me.

So what do I want anyway?   Am I really asking that Christians step out of the political sphere as outspoken self-appointed champions of god and get about the business of governing or doing whatever they happen to be doing, and that’s it?  Just be responsible for your own ‘walk with god’ and let everyone else be responsible for theirs?   Would I dare say that Christians shouldn’t be using their ‘faith’ as some justification for waging a war on women?   On the poor and our un-insured fellow-man?    Yes.   Absolutely yes.   What is a personal relationship with god when it isn’t so personal after all?   And what the hell is it with Tim Tebow, sports figures in general and just about everyone who thinks their god has given ‘them’ a green-light to pray publicly when your holy book clearly says, don’t?   Instead of wearing your ‘I’m with Jesus’ t-shirt’, what about being the kind of person who elicits questions like, “Hey, what is it about you that makes you so nice?” or “Ya know, you coulda lied back there to cover up that mistake and noone would be none-the-wiser.  Why didn’t you?”.

But instead of that we get arguments for an “Objective Moral Standard” and an “Objective Moral Law-giver”.   Seriously – that’s gotta be a joke.

You know, ancient armies used to spread salt around to destroy the lands they conquered.   To subjugate those who relied on said land and destroy them too.   So the next time you wanna be ‘the salt of the Earth’, how ’bout you do it in a way that gives things a little flavor and makes it a little more enjoyable instead of spreading wholesale destruction?

Are we any better?   No, not really.   But I certainly hope to be part of a growing movement among Secularists, Humanists and Atheists (among others) to be just that.    We get our morality from empathy and reciprocity – selfish I know, but looking out for others in simple and great ways really works in shaping how others view you and treat you.   It’s a positive feedback loop that really connects us to one another.  That, and because some of us know (and I hope more of us are learning);  who in the world wants fries.. with their salt?