I Heart The Earth

I think today's my day to write...or maybe that was yesterday.

Jen brought up a good point yesterday about people not owning up to our impact on climate change. Sadly, most of these people are fundamental Christians. I'm not sure if it's an active denial, (after all, I'm sure these are signs of the end times, and why not help them along?), or whether they are just that ignorant. A lot of them believe God gave us the earth to do what we will, and take care of it. This is taking care of it? And even if hypothetically there was no global warming, why is it such an insane idea to actually take care of our home, just in case we do contribute to something worse. The whole thing reminds me of a scene from I Heart Huckabees. I've referenced it before, but I'm actually going to give you the transcript this time.

Setup: Albert and Tommy are at Steven's house, investigating several coincidences between Albert and Steven. Steven was adopted by an American family, and brought over from Sudan.

Mother: What do you do?

Albert: I'm the director of the Open Spaces Coalition. We fight suburban sprawl.

Daughter: What's suburban sprawl?

Father: Ask Steven. He could have used a little suburban sprawl in Sudan.

Daughter: Excuse me, dad?

Father: Industry, houses, jobs, restaurants, medicine...

Albert: You can preserve a lot of open spaces and have jobs for people with...

Father: I beg your pardon, Albert. I wasn't finished.

Albert: Sorry, sir.

Father: Clothes, videos, toys, cheeseburgers, cars,a functioning economy.

Albert: You can still have a functioning economy and preserve open spaces With a little planning.

Father: Yeah. - Socialism. Complete disaster.

Albert: Theodore Roosevelt was a socialist? And Yeats? -

Father: Theodore Roosevelt...

Albert: Henry David Thoreau, Robinson Jeffers, the National Geographic Society, all socialists?

Father: You're talking about socialism.

Albert: Oh, I'm not. I'm talking about not covering every square inch with houses and strip malls, until you can't remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.

Son: What happens in the meadow at dusk?

Albert: Everything.

Parents: Nothing!

Albert: Everything! It's beautiful, it's beautiful.

Father: I Work for an electrical engineering firm, son. We do a lot of commercial and residential contracts. If development stops, so does my paycheck. Then Steven couldn't be here as our guest, could he? So your ideas hurt Steven.

Albert: I'm not hurting Steven. That's an outrageous accusation.

Father: Don't use that tone of voice in my house.

Albert: I think you started that tone. And I think it's entirely possible for your engineering firm to have jobs for people, preserve open spaces, have contracts, do the...

Father: Do you have a job, Tom?

Tommy: I'm a firefighter.

Mother: Oh, God bless you. A hero.

Tommy: I'm not a hero. We'd all be heroes if we quit using petroleum though.

Mother: Excuse me?

Tommy: You say you're Christians living by Jesus' principles. Are you?

Daughter: Jesus is never mad at us if we live with him in our hearts.

Tommy: I hate to break it to you, but he is. He most definitely is.

Mother: All right. That's enough. Steven, I don't know what this is about. Why they're here...

Steven: Sorry, Mom. Sorry, dad. I did not know.

Father: Stevo, I'm so disappointed.

Mother: It's all right. Look, he's sad. He's sad.

Father: I'm sorry, Stevo. My bad. You didn't know.

Tommy: You should be ashamed of yourself.

Father: I should be what?

Tommy: You should be ashamed of yourself.

Father: Why should I be ashamed?

Tommy: You're a hypocrite.

Father: I'm a what?

Tommy: You're misleading these children. 'Cause you're the destroyer, man.

Father: How am I the destroyer?

Tommy: I saw that S.U. V. Out there.

Father: My car's the destroyer? You wanna know how many miles per gallon I get?

Albert: Steven, I need to ask a question. It's why I came here. Why are autographs so important to you?

Steven: It is a pastime with this family which they have taught me, which I can now carry on.

Mother:It's just for fun [Game Beeping] - for entertainment. No games at the table, please.

Son: Yes! 260! And I've reached the omega level!

Tommy: Destroyer. Destroyer. Destroyer.

Father: God gave us oil.! He gave it to us.! How can God's gift be bad?

Tommy: He gave you a brain too and you messed that up pretty good...

Father: I want you sons of bitches out of my house now.

Tommy: If Hitler were alive, he'd tell you not to think about oil.

Father: You're the Hitler! We took a Sudanese refugee into our home!

Tommy: You did. But how did Sudan happen, ma'am? Could it possibly be related to dictatorships that we support for some stupid reason?

Mother: You shut up! You get out. -

Tommy: You shut up. Come on. Let's get out of here.

Albert: Later, Steve.

So much for a short post.

As spread out as the US is, I don't think we'll be able to adopt any type of train system. I would love to have a hybrid car, but I can't afford a new car right now - and there is no public transportation in Lake City. So until I save some money to get a new car, regrettably I will still be contributing to the downfall of our environment - at least I can carry the guilt that goes along with it.

Love and Forgiveness or Hate and Fear: Lessons of Christianity from the Deep South

Religious fundamentalism was a hard topic for me to write about – not because it was difficult to think of something to say, but because I had too much to say. I could probably blather on about this topic all night, but instead I’ll try to keep this to a reasonable length and stick to one aspect of religious fundamentalism.

BlogSupergroup (as well as its readership) is pretty stacked with current and former residents of Lake City, FL. However, for those of you who did not have the pleasure of growing up in the LC, let me enlighten you. Lake City is a small town in North Florida, located a little less than an hour south of the Georgia border. For those of you who aren’t personally familiar with Florida, North Florida is nothing like the stereotypical Florida you see on TV. No spring-breakers or wealthy retirees from New York there. North Florida is part of the Deep South, the Bible Belt. (If you have any stereotypes about Georgia or Alabama, they might apply better to Florida than any stereotypes you might have held about Florida itself.) Let’s sum this up by saying that Columbia County (wherein Lake City is located) had no questions about who won the 2000 election; Bush took the county by a landslide.

While I grew up in Lake City, my family was one of the few non-religious families in the area. However, my parents weren’t staunch atheists or anything; in fact, they sent me to a Methodist (I think…) preschool for three years. (Anyone else go to Mrs. Cannon’s?) Mom felt that because Christianity is such a huge part of Western culture, I should at least have a basic understanding of the Bible and Christian teachings. My parents also let me go to church with various friends to a variety of denominations whenever I wanted. They also didn’t seem to mind when I started a cult in our backyard. Unfortunately, most people in Lake City weren’t as open-minded as my parents.

I learned at a young age not to tell people that I didn’t go to church. Even when I was in elementary school, telling my compatriots that I didn’t go to church (or worse, that I didn’t believe in god) was the sort of thing that would earn me shouts of “You’re going to Hell!” (Most commonly pronounced “Yer goin’ ta Hay-ell!”) I spent years lying – giving the name of a church near my home when asked, and fervently hoping that whoever was asking wasn’t actually a member of that congregation!

Now, from what I know about the Bible, there are many good aspects of Christianity. Do unto others, love thy fellow man, learn to forgive, that sort of thing. But unfortunately, in many of the churches in Lake City (although definitely not all) the message of love has been replaced by a message of hate and fear. Hate of those who haven’t been "saved," who who reject (or simply don’t believe in) Jesus Christ. Hate of those who support a woman’s right to choose, those who vote Democratic and those who oppose the war in Iraq. Hate of homosexuals and anyone who supports them. (A little while back, Glenn wrote about his experience stopping at a gas station in Lake City while wearing a pink shirt…) And fear… it seems to me that so many local churches preached that the reason to worship Jesus wasn’t necessarily that he was a great guy, son of god and all that, but that if you didn’t, you would spend all eternity on a slow-roast in the fire and brimstone with the gnashing of teeth and such.

To me, one of the worst examples of this was the Tribulation “hell house” put on by one of the local evangelical churches, the Lake City Church of God, as a Christian alternative to Halloween. I only went to Tribulation once. That year I went to two traditional haunted houses – one located in the Lake City “mall” and one put on (I do believe…) by resident blogger Stephanie and some of her friends. Those two haunted houses (of the sort decried by the Church of God), were simply spooky, campy fun for all. In contrast, Tribulation was unpleasant. I still feel sickened thinking about it. Instead of re-telling what I saw, I’m going to quote this section of ReligiousTolerance.org, which is quite accurate (although as I went to Tribulation in 1997, the events at Columbine and 9/11 had not yet occurred):

A Hell House consists of a group of horrific scenes within a type of haunted house. The customer walks through a sequence of tableaus designed to create terror and revulsion. The last scene is different; it is typically a portrayal of heaven. The visitors are then asked to accept salvation by repenting of their sins and trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Hell Houses are a relatively new evangelistic technique used by many hundreds of conservative Christian churches in North America. One intent is to proselytize the unsaved public. Another is to promote certain conservative Christian beliefs:

*that abortions kill human babies;
*that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and can be changed;
*that everyone who is not saved will go to hell when they die (perhaps sooner, if Jesus returns);
*that underground Satanic cults engage in widespread sacrifice of humans.

Some hell houses are disguised to resemble conventional secular haunted houses. The customer only realizes that they have a religious theme after they have bought their ticket and gone part of the way through the scenes.

Typical scenes are:
*A realistic reenactment of the murder of Cassie Bernall, a teenager victim at the Columbine High School in 1999-APR. She was allegedly asked whether she believed in God, answered yes, and was murdered on the spot. The incident never happened. But the story has taken on a life of its own, and is frequently referred to in conservative Christian magazines and radio programs.
*A person being sacrificed during a Satanic ritual.
*Women undergoing very bloody late-term abortions, complete with screaming, lots of blood, and particularly insensitive, uncaring health providers. This scene has been partly abandoned in recent years in favor of a portrayal of guilt and depression arising from Post Abortion Syndrome.
*Gays and lesbians being tortured in hell for all eternity because of their behavior while they were alive on earth.
*The dangers of "dabbling" in the occult and becoming demon possessed.
*Personal tragedies arising from pre-marital sex.
*Disastrous tragedies and loss of life resulting from drunk driving.
*A man has an argument with his wife and is later seduced by his secretary.
*Witches pressuring a depressed teen to murder his fellow students.
*A 9/11 ground zero scene.

The Tribulation hell house I visited in 1997 was incredibly graphic and quite disturbing, involving “sinners” of varying ilks being tortured in an incredible number of ways – and yet people were bringing their children there as a safe, Christian alternative to Halloween. Gone is the Christian ideal of forgiveness, of love for one’s fellow man. Love and forgiveness have been replaced by the need to vilify those who are different and to use fear to coerce all to follow Jesus.

I urge all of you to check out the full article on hell houses at ReligiousTolerance.org.

Religious Fundamentalism

Well, this will probably get a lot of people really angry, but I seem to do that by accident all the time anyway, so ca, m'est egal. Also, it seems we're running late for a topic this week, and this should get people talking. Today, when I read the headline that Jerry Falwell died (and I'm not really proud of this visceral reaction), I was really happy, and thought to myself "Oh, good." It's a pretty terrible reaction to have to somebody dying who has family and friends who are really hurt by this. But that's exactly how I felt. This man injected religious conservatism into American politics in a way that I believe has permanently doomed this nation on the world stage. I mean, this guy made so many Christians believe they had to staunchly oppose abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research, the separation of church and state, the ACLU, etc. He poisoned the good nature and spirit of Christianity for millions of people. I'm not religious, so I'm definitely speaking from a biased standpoint, but I really feel that Christianity isn't supposed to stand for all these hateful and crazy things Falwell (and others) have made it stand for. When I was a kid going to church in Canada (not a very religious church, but still) we were basically told be good and do good. But in America (at least in the south, where I have lived my American life), Christianity seems to be about yelling and making sure homosexuals to turn kids gay. As everybody surely remembers, right after 9/11 Falwell said it was God's revenge against America for the ACLU and homosexuals. This kind of hate mongering is reprehensible, especially when you are claiming to be a voice box for a supreme being, and especially when millions of people follow your every word. And Falwell's twisting of Christianity into political jingoism, something that I believe is now inextricable from the American political theater, has doomed America on the world stage. I feel like there's no coming back from the heat of religious fervor this country has, and when national decisions are made based on flimsy interpretations of a magic book it really seems like progress is impossible.