Of Rights and Religion

It’s taken me a while to get my thoughts together on these issues. So much to unpack.

My views on religion are no secret. I am, after all, writing a book with the working title LUCIFER”S CHILD, the premise of which has been incubating from my childhood. I was the youngster (I think 6 or 7) who got kicked out of Sunday school for asking too many of the wrong questions. Plus, my sister used to call me the devil’s spawn, so it’s pretty on brand.

I’ve struggled with categorizing my beliefs. Atheist? Agnostic? Somewhere in between? Yes, I think I will settle there.

What I am is anti-organized religion. *

Yep. I don’t like any of them. Or I should clarify, I don’t like the Bible. Old or New Testament, Hebrew, good old King James, or anything in between or after, including the Book of Mormon and the Qur’an.

They are interesting reading. They give insight into how ancient cultures thought about their world, but they are also instruments of control. More people have died and continue to die proclaiming their interpretation or their belief is best, and if you disagree, well, here’s your ticket straight to some burning, eternal pit. Or if you are on our side, here are your angelic choirs or virgins or whatever your desire.

To my pre-pubescent mind, my conflict rose from two thoughts. First, how do we know this Bible is the word of God. I mean, it was written by humans, and if humans are fallible and sinners, why would we be trusted with writing all this stuff down? I mean, by 7 I’d played Whisper Down the Lane plenty of times. Didn’t make sense.

But the kicker was when I shared this doozy- if God is good, and the Devil is sneaky and evil, but also was an angel and powerful, then how do humans know the Devil didn’t feed those words to whoever was sitting there with their quill and parchment? I mean, I’d heard about the Crusades somewhere and it just didn’t add up.

I come by my questioning honestly. Even by 7 I had already learned how unjust and cruel people could be, how power dynamics ruled what should have been my simple life.

Which brings me to the issue of rights.

Why do men get to decide what’s right? Things are changing, but not here in the United States, not like Europe. We have yet to have a female leader. We are supposed to be a symbol of freedom for the world, but the more I see and learn, I realize much like my lack of faith in a Book collated by a bunch of men, I don’t buy into American Exceptionalism anymore.

I have privilege. I know it. I work to use it for good. I don’t always succeed.

And I see people who interpret the Bible for their own needs forcing their interpretation on others.

They’ve played the game well, feeding money into the greedy machine that is politics. It doesn’t matter that they are a minority. That distinction simply fuels their righteousness.

The people who fueled the Old Testament were truly oppressed, yet they had an understanding of how a decent society worked. Everyone might have had their role, but even then-since we all can guess the issue I am focused on-even then women were due a level of respect. The lineage passed through the mother, not the father.

Then came Jesus. A man who by all description was fighting for the overlooked, the abused, the shunned. He preached love and equality.

When did that teaching morph into “accept me as your savior or burn in Hell,” and the strange interpretations gleaned from writings written years, if not decades, after the poor man lived and horribly died? When did these passages, assembled by a Roman Emperor’s council with an eye for controlling the masses, become the standard by which we all should be FORCED to live?

Because that is what I see from the political entity that has evolved into the Religious Right. They’re simple black and white thinking that have no basis in the holy books I’ve read (and I have read 2 versions of the Bible, The Book of Enoch, and countless others- know thy adversary and all that.)

Like Constantine, these extremists pick and choose which pieces of scripture they like, wielding them like loaded guns to control those who dare to disagree.

So, let’s dive right into the major issue at hand. Abortion. Those who oppose it claim to be Pro-Life. But are they? Because the majority of those I hear about or know, simply think women, by nature of their (God-given?) biology are required to bear children whether they want them or not.

But these fanatics also want to ban the very things that are proven to reduce the need for abortion. Education, healthcare, easy access to birth control.

And in the US, once a woman gives birth, she is burdened with a miniscule leave from the job she most likely needs to survive, must find and pay for care for said infant while she returns to work, and exorbitant insurance or healthcare costs.

How is that Pro-Life?

Do these people shouting at women outside of Planned Parenthood clinics line up to adopt these children they claim to be saving?

Which brings me back to the main connecting theme of my angst. Why is the morality that a woman should be forced to bear a child more important than the morality to care for those who choose to bear children? Why does an unformed zygote have more rights than a contributing member of society?

Why does the Thou Shalt Not Kill part of the commandments apply to a woman and a fetus, yet not some blowhard with an AR-15? Why is it acceptable for a man to break the adultery commandment repeatedly, yet preach that a woman who is raped must carry any resulting child to term? Why are men chiming in on this issue at all?

Why is Viagra covered by most insurance plans, yet birth control coverage is disputed?

I am Pro-Choice, not because I think women should run out and have abortions as birth control, but because until men do not rape, until there is not one victim of incest, until the burden of possible pregnancy is shared equally between men and women, abortion needs to be a legal option.

Until pregnancy is no longer a threat to a woman’s life or livelihood, abortion needs to be a legal option.

Which brings me back to religion, because this anti-abortion movement is more about control than morality. It stinks of a lack of compassion or even common sense. Can you tell me that if Justice Barrett were faced with an ectopic pregnancy, she would choose to die because that bunch of cells implanted in the wrong place? Does she believe her God is cruel enough to cause such a painful and unnecessary death?

Why is her “morality” more important than mine or that of a majority of the country, if the polls are to be believed? Why is it less awful for a young man to shoot up a school full of children than for a woman to have to make the awful choice to terminate a pregnancy?

Why is what a woman chooses to do with her body anyone’s business but her own?

Which brings me back to religion.

This country was built on the concept that the State and the Church remain separate. We are allowed the freedom to worship and believe as we see fit. We should never be held to a religiously based standard. If you believe that life begins at conception, then do so, and live according to that standard. You are blessedly free to do that.

I wish there were no need for abortion. I wish our society supported women. I wish little girls could grow up without the threat of rape or incest, without being subjugated to the basest desires of men, and being forced to bear that consequence.

I wish dragons were real, too.

A world where women have control over their bodies should not be a fantasy.

*I felt for the sake of argument, I should add that I consider Satanism an organized religion as well. I am equal opportunity dismissive here.