Misleading Persecution

Dear Mrs. Raymond,

I read your article very carefully before deciding to respond. It was difficult to find a starting point because there is so much contradiction in your statements that it became hard to follow, with the exception of clearly understanding what your end point was:  that anyone who is not a follower of the Christian God of the Bible should essentially be damned as the reason for all that is wrong with society, even as you seem to pontificate how we need to love each other more and be a better and more compassionate, understanding American people.
 
I could leave my response at just that, because it says everything about what is wrong with your entire article. But, it would seem more fun to dislodge your entire thesis to a greater and more intelligible extent.

I am continually confused by the profound hypocrisy that Christians like you seem to think is acceptable as you walk around infecting society with a perceived morality that you instantly negate with nearly everything that comes out of your mouth.

Near the beginning of your article you make a statement that our nation is miserable and, “All we do is argue.” “We can’t get along.” Yet you enable that exact divisiveness by writing an article that is obnoxiously judgmental, historically inaccurate, and presumptively nauseating. You seem to claim that you are persecuted while at the same time you persecute more than 5 billion other people on the planet.

My response to your article is going to be more about the overwhelming contradictions and laughable intolerance you exhibit throughout your writing, and less about the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m a non-believer and could care less whether God is in it or not. The Pledge is about a loyalty to our country and our freedom, and (which) has nothing to do with God. When attending my daughter’s school functions, I’ve said the pledge with her. It doesn’t bother me to utter the word “God” because it means nothing to me. It’s just another word. I could say “one nation, under a stack of turtles” and it would mean about the same thing.

It doesn’t offend me, but people like you do.

You really drive home the misunderstanding that we are a free people and the holders of rights because of “God,” and that our freedoms come specifically from the Christian God and not from man. You said exactly that.

Have you forgotten, in your persecution of every other belief or non-belief system on the planet, that the entire premise of our freedom was in fact the antithesis of that, the freedom from religious persecution that comes with the same extreme and singular dogmata you mislead your readers with?

First, I’d be curious what the millions who have spilled their blood in defense of our nation’s freedoms would have to say about your assertion that their actions had nothing to do with the preservation of our American dream over the past 238 years. American servicemen and servicewomen who were not all followers of “The God.” (You’re aware that there have been more than 2,000 documented “gods” over the past 6,000 years, going all the way back to the Sumerians, right? “The God” is a pretty narrow-minded and narcissistic statement).

American patriots are from all belief and non-belief systems. Perhaps you’ve forgotten about the Navajo “Wind-Talkers” of World War II; or, The many Hindus that served alongside of our allies in that same war to preserve measures of freedom that are not just unique to Americans. They are of no value to our American way of life and the freedoms we enjoy because they didn’t worship the Christian God? You’re really, truly that ignorant?

Those are just two examples of many, many more. In your article you speak to an American disconnect with history, but it would appear that you have quite a bit of catching up to do as well. You seem adept at being able to use the internet to research. I might recommend you spend some more time with that before your next homily of self-righteous bigotry.

Also, please remind us all where exactly it’s written that God wants all people to be free?  Other than the tale about helping Moses get the Jews out of Egypt, there seems to be as much evidence he wanted slavish, unquestioning obedience. Today that’s known as Papal infallibility. (It’s also interesting that he’d want freedom for the Jews, but then a couple millennia later he’d allow more than 6 million Jews to be slaughtered by followers of his very same Christianity).

You state: “Non-believers need to be reminded that the God they want to get rid of is the God that allows them the freedom to not believe He exists.” (It’s interesting how often you emphasize, through capitalization, the existence of but one deity. You know what this makes you? It makes you as much a non-believer as I am, the only difference is that I believe in one less god than you do.)

The Christian God did not allow people the freedom to “not believe” he existed. Not only are you detached from our American history, but you are also dangerously detached from the history of the very religion you profess is the “guardrail” of all that is right in society. Browse the pages of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy or Judges and then come back and tell us all what “God’s” real intent for non-believers was; torture and ultimately murder. I could cite dozens of passages from these books that make your god’s homicidal tendencies very clear.

The rest of your article is filled with much the same pattern of someone who bleeds cognitive dissonance.  You write about how good and god-fearing your generation is, but then write about all of the “injustices, racism, infidelity, rape and abuse” that were a part of your generation. You write about any number of “vices and sins and wrongdoings” of your generation, but then follow it with a paragraph that states there were guardrails (your “God”) put up in society that told everyone what was acceptable behavior and “everyone respected them.”

How is this? Which is it? How is it that “everyone respected” those guardrails yet you admittedly point out all of their wrongdoings at the same time?

How can everything be a part of his divine plan, but at the same time not be a part of it?

You seem to believe that all is God’s will, and that we are a good people only because of him, but when we act against the principles you (inaccurately) believe he stood for, he has nothing to do with it.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent [all-powerful]. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent [malicious]. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” - Epicurus

Indeed you are a product of the very same hypocritical brainwash that you try to inject into the minds of others. Please stop. You are embarrassing yourself and I suspect many Christians who don’t live their lives under the same umbrella of absolutes, dismissing the rest of the alternatively worshipping (or non-worshipping) American people.

To rebut your closing; freedom and god are not synonymous. In fact, they are literal opposites. You’ve quite accurately made a case for that.

Regards,

- A logical and free-thinking American