"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." - Corinthians 13:1
Why is it that so many men and women who believe themselves disciples of Christianity are so errant in the very faith that they profess? Why have so many died - and suffered - at the hands of evangelists for Christianity because they would not convert or were thought heretics?
The Tea Party followers and Republican fundamentalists are "resounding gongs and clanging cymbals" because they have replaced the inclusion that comes of love for humanity with the hate of exclusionary religious vanity and a restrictive personal vision of a God.
An Islamic fundamentalist and a Christian fundamentalist share the same power of hate that betrays "the tongues of men (women) and of angels." It is the error of pride and the easy, lazy path of feeling redeemed by feeling chosen - and others being damned. It is couch-potato religion because it requires no responsibility other than to hate other humans who choose a different route through the perilous path of life.
Democracy embraces diversity; it doesn't try and compress it into a narrow tunnel of bile and arrogance. The Constitution ensures the separation of church and state because true freedom comes only with the right to choose one's religion - or to not believe in a God at all. What is the difference between a tyrannical government of any ideology and the cultist Christianity that a Sarah Palin would impose on us? None.
Without a love for the spark that ignites the glories of the human spirit, there is only a grim, spiteful self-indulgence wrapped in the harsh din of claims to knowledge of the divine. Human history has paid dearly for such selfish religious shackles. Is it our turn in America to learn this painful lesson?
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
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