Friday, December 02, 2005

Anti-Christian Conspiracy?

Many Fundamentalist Christians believe that a "secular humanist" conspiracy is out to destroy Christianity through a "well funded" campaign. And of course, the federal government is supposedly the means by which this agenda is imposed on believers.
As Bill O’Reilly recently put it:(via dailyKos)
"On the November 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Bill O'Reilly pointed to "a very secret plan" by the "secular progressive" movement, which he said aims to "diminish Christian philosophy in the U.S.A."
. . . According to O'Reilly, the "secular progressive" movement has three elements:

* First, progressive financiers George Soros and Peter Lewis "pour money into the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], they pour money into the smear websites, you know, they buy up a lot of media time."
* Second, "the ACLU is their legal arm. ... [T]he ACLU runs around the country suing everybody and intimidating people."
* Third, "the smear websites are their media arm."
But, the reverse is actually true. Under the Bush administration, fundamentalism and conservative Christians have never had the kind of access or influence over the government than they do now. In fact, some of the most powerful figures in congress and the White House are Conservative Christians! (Ako Rick Santorium, Bill Frist, and until recently, Tom Delay)
The Federal government is spending billions on "abstinence only" sex education. Many abstinence only educators are religious fundamentalist who subtly put their extreme beliefs into the curriculum. According to the Washington Post, some examples of this includes:
# "43-day-old fetus is a 'thinking person.'
# HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
# Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse."
# Half of gay male teenagers in the U.S. are HIV-positive.
# Touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy."
# Another program says that women who get abortions "are more prone to suicide" and that 1 in 10 become sterile.
According to mainstream health professionals, these claims are false.
And school districts who refuse to embrace this questionable program lose funding. (So much for local control).
Bush’s faith based programs is headed by a staunch evangavical and only seems to give money primarily for like minded religious groups.
If there is indeed a "secular" conspiracy, it’s a dismal failure.
The Funies also are wrong to assume we are a "Christian" nation. As The Reaction Points Out.

"American secularism is rooted in Lockean political philosophy, in the modern project initiated by Machiavelli and liberalized by Hobbes and Locke. The modern project sought to liberate humanity from the shackles of superstition and the domination of politics by religion. Lockean political philosophy is the philosophy of American constitutionalism, the philosophy that deeply animated the Founders as they sought to forge a new nation in a new world. To be sure, there are theological strains guiding much of American life, but American is a fundamentally liberal nation."

So, even the founding fathers would have called the religious right insane!

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