The First Amendment is Not a Difficult Concept

So... I'm feeling ranty.  This was originally a Facebook post I made after a Facebook friend liked another one of those "In America, we say Merry Christmas" pictures because I am absolutely sick of that shit.  I've copied verbatim what I wrote (and added some more ranting), and included the picture that cheesed me off so much.  Also, I'm going to be kind of "offensive."  If that's not your thing, move along.

Here goes.

What the fuck, Right Wing News?

I have multiple problems with this image.

1. It is misappropriating Charles Shultz's work, and this annoys me. (Just like it annoys me when people put random phrases on pictures of Minions, or Winnie the Pooh, or whatever else.) Yes, the Christmas special talks about Jesus (from what I remember of it; I've only seen it once), but that doesn't mean you get to put words in Charles Shultz's mouth in order to further your own views. He was never particularly non-inclusive in my view; because he wrote from the perspective of a white, Christian, American person, his stuff was always going to have a bend in that direction. I sure as hell wouldn't expect anything about Kwanzaa from a bald white kid who can't kick a football. So of course he wouldn't say anything except Merry Christmas. It's still wrong to take someone's artwork and add your own words to it without clearly stating as such, since it's basically attributing it to that person, and he isn't even alive to defend himself.


2. America is NOT a Christian nation, and people need to get over that fact. The Founding Fathers specifically decided to avoid having a national religion so people would be free to worship as they choose, which means "Happy Holidays" is as appropriate as "Merry Christmas", "Joyous Kwanzaa", "Happy Hanukkah", or "Merry Yule". Back in the early modern period (1500-1800), there were a lot of countries whose religions were officially Christianity (or Catholicism, usually, until Protestantism appeared on the scene). Have you forgotten the INQUISITION? How about witch trials? These are products of "Christian nations". So I don't really feel that having an official religion would do this violent-ass country any favors.

Here is the text of the First Amendment to the CONSTITUTION of the United States of America:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This means that the nation of the United States of America does NOT have an official religion. No one is required to be of any faith. So please stop saying America is a Christian nation, because I have had it with people saying that; it's ridiculous and makes you look ignorant. America is meant to be a free country, so nobody is going to make or enforce a law that says the official religion is Christianity and that that is what you believe. That, my friends, is called oppression, and most people frown upon it. Especially Americans, who are all about their freedom. So, Americans, why the hell are you trying to oppress your neighbors for being different from you? Are you stupid?  Do you not perceive the irony here?


3. I do not understand why the hell people get so offended when someone is polite enough to wish you well, even if you don't believe in the damn holiday. Who the hell cares what people believe? Why do you care that someone said "Happy Holidays" to you? They probably aren't Christian, or aren't sure if you are Christian, and rather than make an assumption about someone, they are choosing the "safest" phrase to say to share their glad tidings to you. How dare you be offended about that. That offends ME, that you would dare to be angry with someone for having the kindness in their heart to take time out of their day to wish you a happy or merry anything. I am an atheist, and I am proud to be an atheist, and I have no problem with religion in the slightest. I celebrate the secular version of Christmas, because I love the magic of the holiday. I say whatever phrase applies to whomever I am speaking to.

4. Have these so-called Christians forgotten what their precious Jesus says?  "Love one another."  Did he fucking stutter?

No, he did not.

Seriously.  Seriously!  "Jesus" (Yeshua, actually) was a brown, progressive, revolutionary, feminist homeless dude who just wanted everyone to love each other and care about each other.  And instead they started killing each other in his name.  If he ever actually existed, he'd be spinning in his grave so fast he'd probably dig a hole to the other side of the world.

Sometimes I feel like I would be considered better at being a Christian than most of the loud Christians out there.  I sacrifice for others, I am generous, I will give when I have almost nothing to give if someone needs it, and I generally do my best to be kind and helpful to those around me.  And I don't usually shout about it, because it's not about the recognition, it's about trying to make the world better, which is all that Jesus was trying to do (once again, if he ever really existed and wasn't a character in a book).  Didn't Jesus help people no one else would help, feed 5,000 people, and just try to teach everyone to love one another through fables and his own actions?  

That said, how the hell are you capable of being so hateful when you supposedly follow a man like this?  Have you even opened a bible?!  All you people who bitch and complain about people like me (atheists, non-Christians) and then behave like you do, you should be ashamed of yourselves.  You are nothing like the Christians you're supposed to be.  You are hateful bigots.  Why are your panties in a bunch over someone wishing you well the "wrong way"?  What about the refugees from Syria, or female infanticide in India and China?  There are bigger, wronger things to get your panties in a bunch about while you sit in your comfortable homes complaining that someone had the audacity to say "Happy Holidays" to you since you don't have a big fat "Christian" tattoo on your forehead to identify you as such.

In short, untwist your panties, put them on like adults, and get over yourselves. The world does not revolve around you or your beliefs.

Atheism

So, I'm going to venture into a controversial topic - religion.  Woo hoo.  As you may have guessed from the title, dear reader, I am an atheist.  I am 27 years old and I've been an atheist longer than I have not been an atheist, if that makes sense.  And, in all honesty, I'm not sure I was ever not an atheist.

A little bit of background to explain where I'm coming from:  I was raised in the Catholic church by my mother's foster parents.  (I always just think of them as my grandparents, and from this point forward will refer to them as such, but the distinction is important.)  My mother was not around (I think I've mentioned this before), so it was up to them to raise me, and they were devout Catholics.  I mean, they really had faith, they believed ardently.  Every day at the same time, my grandma would sit down with her prayer book (what even is that?) and pray for an hour.  They always prayed before each meal.  They prayed before bed.  They went to Mass every week.  And they sent me to a Catholic preschool and a Catholic elementary school.  I didn't even know there was another religious option besides being Jewish until I was in 3rd grade, when a new girl came to school and she couldn't take communion with our class during the weekly Mass and I assumed she was Jewish and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.  (I'm pretty sure I only knew Judaism was a religion because of Jesus.)

I don't remember ever feeling that certainty that other people seem to feel in their religions, that knowing that their god is definitely there watching over them.  I had children's bible stories to read, and to me they were just nice stories, like Cinderella.  I'm not kidding, I felt exactly the same way about the bible stories as I did about fairy tales.  And I was a child being raised by devout Catholics.  I think my atheism was always going to happen.  Anyway, it never felt real to me the way it seems to be to the people I know that believe in God, and I started questioning it to the adults in my life sometime between 3rd and 6th grades.  I can remember specifically one of the teachers at my school reading a statement to our church one day, talking about Roman Catholic this and "our monotheistic" beliefs or something along those lines.  I do remember she said "monotheistic" and how much it confused me.  How can we be monotheistic if we believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I wondered.  What about the saints?  We prayed to them, too, so didn't that make them gods, making Catholicism a polytheistic religion?  And even if you ignore the saints, how do you reconcile the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit style of worship with the statement of being monotheistic?  Obviously, I didn't ask these questions with this wording (at best, I was 11), but these were the kinds of questions that I was beginning to ask.  I didn't even know what atheism was, I didn't find out that was a thing I could be until I was about 13 or so.  I wasn't shy about it either, and I got bullied pretty badly for that (among other things) in middle school.  (Also, what the fuck is up with that?  Jesus says "love one another" so let's go persecute this girl who has no friends because she doesn't believe in Jesus or our God!  That does not make any kind of sense whatsoever.)

Anyway.  That's where I came from.  I did try, but I felt like I was talking to an imaginary friend, which, for all intents and purposes, I was.  I'm learning how to be comfortable with being "out" about the state of my (lack of) beliefs - it's very hard to allow people to see this part of me without fearing that I will be persecuted or thought of as a terrible person, which is what has usually happened in the past.  Here's the thing - while I was taught that not being religious meant that person was not a good person and they were going to hell, that is so beyond wrong.  I am a decent human being.  I care about people.  I try to help those around me when I am able.  I think it's wrong to treat others badly, or unequally, or to maim or injure someone for any reason other than self-defense.  I think children should be allowed to be children and not forced into work, marriage, war, prostitution, or death by those around them that are supposed to be there to protect them.  There's so much more to me that makes me a good, decent person than whether or not I believe in your god.  And then I wonder - why do you believe in god?  Why do you think that there's some sort of all-powerful omniscient being "out there" somewhere who benevolently watches over the humans on this planet?  If I was an all-powerful omniscient being, I don't think I'd care about one tiny little planet when there's a whole galaxy, a galaxy of galaxies, a universe of galaxies of galaxies, a universe of universes.  The world is bigger than our world, and we don't even know how big it is, and you can't tell me that all that is out there and expect me to believe in a god that was created to explain things before people had science.  That is really what religion is, that is the origin of religion in general.  I can't see how it's ethical to teach your children to believe in god but not teach them that there might not be a god at all.

I'm not sure I've actually made a point with this, but I felt I needed to say it, so I guess I said it.  I could probably go on - the universe of universes that I mentioned, for instance.  For all we know, that universe of universes is a teeny little speck on some world somewhere out there, a little dust mote, completely, utterly microscopic, and the world it floats in is just a tiny part of another universe of universes.  It could go on infinitely.  I cannot reconcile all of this with the concept of a god.  The two things cannot coexist in my head.  *shrug*  I'm not sorry, though.  I am happy with the way I am.