Americans should be very alarmed having Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House of Representatives. His declamations warrant extreme caution to those who enjoy and participate in our Constitutionally guaranteed liberties.
Johnson’s ideology is antithetical to civil rights; he is an obstinate Christian nationalist who would prefer social control and reject civil liberties. He erroneously thinks governmental authority is bestowed by a deity. Allowing Johnson such power shows America is failing at teaching civics. Belief in a dictatorial god should not be foisted on others. No matter what his god’s rules are, he should avoid shoving his religious views down the throats of Americans.
On FOX “News” Mike stated he opposes abortion, marriage equality, and contraception because “I’m a Bible believing Christian.” He must avoid forcing his personal sky-god belief on others. Only a dictatorship would have police or the courts enforcing religious edicts. If Speaker Johnson is against abortion or LGBTQ rights, he must make a rational, persuasive case, based on facts and shared logic, not impose Sharia-like dogmas.
Dark prejudice hides behind an affable, smiling face.
President Thomas Jefferson adamantly wrote true democracy requires a wall of separation between church and state. The Constitution’s First Amendment stipulates legislature shall ‘make no laws respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’
Matthew 22:20 quotes Jesus: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” meaning pray all you want, but respect lawful authority of civil government; don’t use religion to enact civil law.
Unfortunately, some disinformed Americans say our country was founded as a “Judeo- Christian” nation. That is a conspiratorially misleading and untrue.
True religious freedom is best guaranteed by a purely secular government. Imposing religious guidance on civil government undermines the power and authority of institutions established to safeguard liberties. The democratic republic established by the Constitution was in reaction against historically autocratic, theocratic, and imperialistic European nations. This United States would be ruled by and for its citizens, not by kings or religious domination.
Religion affects morality by myth and taboo. Myth creates a supernatural credo offering heavenly sanctions through socially (or sacerdotally) desirable behavior; heavenly hopes and fabulous fear of everlasting hellfire led naïve individuals to accept restraints placed upon them by their masters.
By nature, humanity is not typically obedient, gentle or chaste, but nothing restricts these traits like superstitious fear of gods and demons. Ideas of property and marriage traditionally were guided by religious sanctions, but they began to lose their vigor as civilization progressively acquired knowledge and superstition waned.
Government is not natural, but is a necessary social mechanism by which devious demagogues like Napoleon, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Putin and Trump manipulated credulous populations using false theocracy leading to autocracy, negatively affecting nations’ constitutions. Primitive tribal chiefs’ power increased by magic and sorcery just like today’s governments derive hypocritical sanctity when demagogues manipulate credulous populations.
The Bible is a collection of Late Stone Age and Iron Age oral Semitic desert-dwellers’ oral traditions. Once alphabets were developed, these were written down. Multivariate translations from Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek to today’s languages, subjected to editing out of “undesirable” sections, were declared “holy” by a group of fourth century clergy. Many live by its ancient inspirational prose, however, the Bible is neither a reliable source of history or science.
Ancient “sacred” law can be whittled down to more pertinent basic human behaviors like cheating, lying, stealing, violence or murder. These necessitated control by civil law to maintain social order. Human knowledge through empirical reasoning far outweighs appeal to superstition or the supernatural. Biblical literature is based on much older belief systems. Similar commandments, parables, miracles, heaven, hell, resurrections, virgin mothers, demons, and angels are found in much older Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, and Assyrian texts.
Historically, religion has been the driving force for good and evil, built and destroyed nations, oppressed and freed generations, starved and fed the masses, started and ended wars. It has always been here, sometimes as a blessing, more often as a curse. Religion allows leaders to remove responsibilities from themselves unto imaginary deities. If something positively loving results from their instructions, guidance came from a god. If death and destruction results, it is either the devil or a deity’s will, as punishment for not following the directives of their church.
Using science and sound human reasoning to make policy decisions, leaders would no longer blame their poor results on a god or demon. If leaders were wrong, or mistakes made, they would return to the drawing board seeking a solution using science and human reason instead of blaming “Satan”, curses, or a deity’s “mysterious ways”.
Would wars end without religion? No. Greed, envy and hate will always remain human traits, with or without religion. Would there be fewer wars and grief, though? My opinion is YES if leaders were held accountable for what they do, or fail to do, based on their personal leadership skills. The current state of world affairs is a clear sign that church and state must always remain separate.
The image of Donald Trump using teargas and force to be photographed holding a Bible upside down is nauseatingly unworthy of American leadership. His hollowness is filled with filth of crime and deception. When it comes to the business of government, one must use the sense of morality that civilization has instilled.
Laws and rules are necessary conventions of behavior in organized societies. Laws encompass customs, morals and regulations that the group considers vital to its welfare and development. These customs and morals regulate every sphere of human existence, giving stability and continuity to the social order. Morality is the cooperation of the part with the whole, and of each group with the larger whole.
Civilization would be impossible without it. Religion is inexpedient to develop moral civilization.
Peace to all, harm to none.
