Monday, September 27, 2004

More Thoughts on Theism

So here’s Jen Schroder, pinched from World o’ Crap(http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/), one of the Theists I was talking about below, boasting about her mother/son book-burning activities --(http://www.blessedcause.org/burnable.htm) -- but don’t worry, it’s okay, God wants her to burn books. It says so right there in the New Testament.

It’s Harry Potter she’s burning, no big surprise, but on the same page she also complains about her son being forced to read about Native Americans and their pagan gods, and about Lowry’s The Giver, in which, as you know, such evil things occur as euthaniasia and the destruction of the biological family. (Miss Schroder seems to think Lowry means this society to be read as utopian rather than dystopian. Miss Schroder’s not a gifted reader.)

Elsewhere on her site, Schroder complains about her son being forced by his evil public school to read books that mention Islam without saying that it’s just a belief and not true in every sentence, books that teach evolution without saying it’s just a theory and not true in every sentence, and being forced to study about “pagan” gods, by which I think she means Greek gods, though I’m not sure – her writing skills are not any better than her apparent reading skills.

Schroder and her ilk alarm me. We have a social contract in this country. It’s an important social contract, one that is responsible for our relative lack of tribalism and pogroms.

The contract says we let each other be. I let Schroder believe what she wants – teach her kid what she wants, however destructive and bizarre I believe it to be (and I do, in fact, for the record, believe that what she is teaching her child is both insane and destructive); and she stays out of what I am teaching my child. Americans have a multicultural society in which everyone is free to practice their own culture, their own religion, their own belief system. That’s the deal.

Schroder and her ilk are breaking the deal. They are breaking the deal for a specific reason, and it is connected to their worldview.

These folk don’t want pluralism. They don’t want freedom of religion. They want one religion: their own. They know the right answer. It’s their answer. There is no other right answer. And they will admit no other right answer. This is what they believe, and it is what they are teaching their children to believe.

It’s only one step from that to the Inquisition, to the Crusades, to burning women at the stake. Hell, Schroder’s already burning the books.



3 comments:

zelda1 said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
zelda1 said...

How did I do that? That's the problem with knowing a little bit about something. Well, my comment was there one minute and gone the next and the sad thing is I am too old to remember what I wrote. I still don't know what I did to make it all go away.
It's like the remote control for the dvd player. It was working and my husband went to the store and the sound got way too loud and I tried to turn it down and the voices went from english to japanese. I tried to correct that and the picture went away and all I got was sound. I should know better than to push buttons. They are all not there for our enjoyment. Some are there to delete.

Anonymous said...

I see the posts she writes as valid. After all, WHY should her kids be exposed to other religious material when her own religion was NOT allowed?

I mean this nations first school systems were meant to teach Christianity. But even if not, I get pissed when i see crap like that myself. I also saw on ehr site about the homo stuff in school, and that makes even more livid.

I think she's more like rush limbough, where she creates a lot of puff to be able to put a point across is all. I wouldn't be too hard on the gal.