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Hell to Pay

It is very difficult to set aside our religious beliefs and agree to live in a pluralistic society because we don't think our beliefs are about our beliefs:  we think they are about God, and what God believes.  If you think you have learned what God believes, you had damned well better get with the program!

That is why it is scary to hear people talking about what God says, and what God wants, and what God has told them.  It isn't like learning that your neighbor hates Jews or loves BMWs.  Hating Jews is just hate.  Loving BMWs is Bavarian.  What God wants isn't just an option.  It is something absolute.

If, for instance, the Archbishop and the Priest said that it was their profound faith and fervent hope that nobody would ever have sex except when they intended to make babies, we could tell them they were silly fools.  But if they think it is God's will that priests never marry, or that abortion be damned, even if the mother dies, otherwise, then the argument is not about what the Bishop of the Priest think, but about what God thinks.

That is why religious people sometimes dig in their heels and damn the torpedoes.  They think they are defending what God thinks.  That makes Rick Santorum scary, and Michele Bachmann even scarier.   That makes the Archbishop or the fundamentalist megachurch pastor not just someone to argue with, but an absolute menace to anyone who disagrees with him.

As I once heard a clergyman say, "God and I make a majority!"

So if you think you want to live in a religious nation with an official religious backbone, chose a religion that rides easy on its opinions; one that does not have a very good pipeline to God.  Because even if all of us disagree with God, it won't matter.

Because if you know "the truth", it might not make you free.  There might be hell to pay.

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