Has religion become offensive?


Pardon me, you're standing on my faith

I was reading Jason Pitzl-Waters' Wildhunt Blog (great blog BTW, and usually very thought provoking) and it hit me.

I think our American culture has gotten to the point that usually religion is looked down upon. I am not quite sure where we crossed the line.

Oh, religion is tolerated if you show good progressive values in some circles, or good conservative in others, but on the whole Americans don't seem to want to have much to do with public expressions of faith.

I'm guilty of it too. In my mainstream blog I go out of my way to point out that I am a person of faith, even if it is not one of the mainstream ones. But I don't talk about what that really means to me. At least not there.

But think about it. We draw all sorts of lines to keep other religions at bay. Can't do Christmas carols. Halloween has pagan roots. Easter was pagan before it was Christian. Lady flight attendants on a certain airline must cover their heads and walk three steps behind their male counterparts.

And if you start defending your faith, you immediately get into all sorts of confrontations. Or if you say, "I'm sorry, I don't share your beliefs so they don't apply to me," you've painted a targets all over yourself.

So we keep faith in the back room. We drape social convention over it. We pretend that is the way it should be. Except for our fundies, we don't go in for public rites and rituals.

Unless they have guards of course. Even there we try to keep disruptions at bay.

I am not sure why, but I am going to think about it some.

Posted: Sat - January 21, 2006 at 04:33 AM
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