Shaking Your Finger Doesn't Make it Go Away

            Facebook is wonderful some days, just because I literally stumble across ideas that go from comments on posts to blogs here. Take for instance. I follow a page called One Witches Wonderland. Fantastic page, great postings and great conversations. In light of the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday (Goddess bless the victims and their families), one of the administrators posted about many Muslims in the U.S. coming under fire and how wrong that was, that we ought to stand up for them. I wholeheartedly agree, but that’s not what spurred this blog. It was a comment, made by someone in the thread. It went something like this: “Many Christian and Republican blogs and pages are just going nuts about it and to take "take back our Christian country for Christians.”

            Chances are, you’ve heard this before. I know I have. Often. Usually from family. Bring God back into our country, put him back in the schools, in the courtrooms, in the making of laws, and so on and so forth. This comment on this particular post snapped the thread and all of a sudden, all the thoughts I’ve been bottling up on this subject tried to pour forth. It would have been a novel in the comment box.

            First off, if you truly believe in an all powerful God, how in the hell do you think he just turns away because some asshat in Washington shook his finger? I don’t know about you, but I take my Goddess with me wherever I go. Just because she wasn’t welcomed in the church where my Pawpaw’s funeral was held doesn’t mean she wasn’t there for me. In a nutshell, if you really believe in something, it doesn’t just go away because someone else said so. So long as we believe, we fuel that idea, we give it power.

            Secondly, I wish people would get it through their thick skulls that this was not founded as a Christian nation. Most of the founding fathers were Deists, for pete’s sake. Not only that, but many of the people who first came to this land were seeking the freedom to practice religion their way. How dare anyone dishonor the privilege that they sought and that we take for granted?
            Here’s something else that bugs me about this and Bear and I kinda got into it with a family member of his about it. That was one of those Facebook threads where the onlookers are like “Grab tha popcorn now!” What it boiled down to was this question: Can values and morals be taught free of a religious context? Abso-friggen-lutely! But most people remain happily oblivious to that fact. They believe all the violence in schools is a direct result of God being removed from public schools.

            Countdown till explosion….three…..two….one……!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            ARE YOU BLEEDING SERIOUS! Here’s my honest opinion about violence in schools. It has nothing to do with religion in most cases. It has to do with the fact that in spite of all the anti-bully campaigns out there, there are still kids being pushed the edges of the social structure. They are still made outsiders and treated as less than their peers. Kids can be pretty damn vicious. I remember middle school, it wasn’t that long ago for me, so trust me I know. I flew under the radar and the worst thing I had to deal with came in P.E. class when hormonal little brats yelled and talked crap about me because I didn’t get the damn volleyball over the net. Or when I missed the stupid ball in woofleball or whatever it was. They made me feel stupid and incapable of even tying my own shoes some days. And compared to many, my middle school experience was a walk in the park with sunshine and pretty flowers.

            Kids either give up when faced with that kind of pressure, or they decide to fight back. Consider that for just a minute.

            It’s got nothing to do with God. If you want to teach the Bible at home, that’s your prerogative. But at school, it should be entirely within the realm of possibility to teach children to treat each other with respect and to give each child a feeling of self-worth, without bringing religion into the mix. But somewhere along the line, that gets lost in the haze of EOG and EOC test scores and reaching the government mandated standards. Sorry folks, but teachers have enough to deal with without teaching your children the story of Moses. Get over it.

            Here’s a radical idea. Instead of whining about the fact that God was taken out of public schools, teach your children to respect others even if they are different. Lead by example. That would make more of a difference than having children pray every morning ever could. It’s something I wish that more people would teach and actively enforce. Respecting others, having a sense of self-worth would probably change the world in ways we can’t even imagine, if everyone could get on board.