I recently read a letter to the editor and found myself shaking my head sadly.
I live in Western North Carolina. I have lived here roughly 17 years. Day by day, however, things do not cease to amaze me. I shouldn't be surprised, yet here I find myself surprised yet again.
This letter was going on and on about how all the implants are forcing everyone to change to suit their needs, and they were implying that the implants were now going to take the bible stories out of the classroom because of this.
What they were implying throughout was:
A. The mandate of separation of Church and State never existed before the "implants" came in.
B. Anyone from anywhere else in the whole entire world could not possibly be Christian.
C. They have full right to shove their narrow beliefs on others.
Now, lets look at this another way.
As I said, I was moved here (against my will) 17 years ago. I was never raised with any sense of religion, but I knew many people from where I was that were of many different Christian varieties as well as Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist.
If any "religion" came into the school, it was more family traditions that we all shared with one another. There were many Jews where I was from as well, and I got to hear all the wonders of their culture. It was a great experience to see how different people looked at the world. We had a few obnoxious ones, but they were few and far between.
I was technically an Athiest, I had no sense of God, and I thought that when I was older, science and reason would explain away all my questions. If I heard about God from anyone else, I was fine with it as long as there was no shoving. Then I moved down here and the persecution by the fundamentalist's children changed that.
I certainly didn't ask to be brought down here, it simply happened. Any amount of Christianity I was exposed to was negative. None of them could give me any straight answer as they tried to proselytize, and none of them actually shared the Gospel with me. They called me "Satan" and "Voodoo" and bullied me horribly. Then they would bring me to a teacher that they knew was a Christian and I got the whole "But isn't everything in nature proof enough that there is a God?" spiel.
(I could write another rant concerning this little diddy, but I am boring you guys enough already)
I turned my back on respecting Christianity. I changed my mind later, but it was over 6 years after discovering God and required lots of pain, suffering, and a nice group of non-denominational Jesus freaks to change my mind (That's a whole nother story).
Whole point of my going off on a tangent:
What they don't realize is that we have to live with one another, and the kids in those classrooms didn't ask to be there. I wouldn't have shoved my views of "There is no God" on them. The whole reason we separate out is that we are all different, with different points of view. By shoving religion into the classroom where it need not belong, they are doing more harm to the faith and their own witness than anything.
Not to mention, they are failing to follow their own scriptures of the proper way to proselytize, the proper way to treat strangers, and the outright command of Loving Thy Neighbor.
TL;DR The ignorance of small pockets of people always ruins the good stuff.
I also know that not everyone in this area is like this, but enough of them are in this pocket to where it causes much malignment of the whole group.
Maybe they'll wake up. Maybe they won't. Let's hope that the persecution of different groups doesn't get too out of hand. The next generation seems to be rather tired of the rhetoric, but half of them usually are and generally move away, taking the good stuff with them.
I'm going to write a letter in myself on that issue, but I know it won't do any good for most people.
I think I'd have an easier time yelling at the fruit growing on the tree to turn ripe. ;D
