Conservatism and Religion
There is a list of religious murderers and pious monsters longer than my arm, and no fewer of them are Christian than are any other religion.
I have been a conservative for most of my politically-active life, and one easy way to get under my skin is to equate conservatism with Christianity - or with religion in general. The urge to defend against the encroaching grasp of the government, to fight for the rights and responsibilities of the individual, belongs equally to any and all religions, and taking any one faith as a cause diminishes the dignity of conservative thinking as a whole.
This is especially disturbing when it is taken as a given that Christianity is the only valid path - that the author's own particular way, out of all the thousands out there, is the only one worth following, and that calling on others to convert to it should not be taken as a personal affront. There are many things I would rather endure than have someone force me into Christianity; I doubt that I have the mental fortitude to become a martyr, as so many Jews have, but I bet that the Congresswoman currently recovering from grievous wounds would feel the same way I do.
There is no Hell. There is no Satan gibbering at the doorstep of Heaven. There are no demons but what you conjure up in the darkness of your own mind. God may be real, but Jesus was a human, nothing more - and he was no true Messiah. Conservatism is, at its root, about the responsibility and the power of the independent citizen - our worth and our right to determine our own destiny, to defend ourselves and our families. Don't let the yoke of religion replace that of the ever-so-well-meaning government; both are equally anathema to liberty.
I have been a conservative for most of my politically-active life, and one easy way to get under my skin is to equate conservatism with Christianity - or with religion in general. The urge to defend against the encroaching grasp of the government, to fight for the rights and responsibilities of the individual, belongs equally to any and all religions, and taking any one faith as a cause diminishes the dignity of conservative thinking as a whole.
This is especially disturbing when it is taken as a given that Christianity is the only valid path - that the author's own particular way, out of all the thousands out there, is the only one worth following, and that calling on others to convert to it should not be taken as a personal affront. There are many things I would rather endure than have someone force me into Christianity; I doubt that I have the mental fortitude to become a martyr, as so many Jews have, but I bet that the Congresswoman currently recovering from grievous wounds would feel the same way I do.
There is no Hell. There is no Satan gibbering at the doorstep of Heaven. There are no demons but what you conjure up in the darkness of your own mind. God may be real, but Jesus was a human, nothing more - and he was no true Messiah. Conservatism is, at its root, about the responsibility and the power of the independent citizen - our worth and our right to determine our own destiny, to defend ourselves and our families. Don't let the yoke of religion replace that of the ever-so-well-meaning government; both are equally anathema to liberty.