It Is A Dangerous Dichotomy When The Middle Ground Is A Tightrope Between Two Extremes
I am posting this here for purely selfish reasons (to quote John Barth, not every motive of a writer is selfless), and mainly because i want it to be read by two specific individuals, namely Paci and Douglas
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I too am worried (not yet scared, though growing more nervous everyday) about the growing move toward theocracy in our executive government. How can one man cite his religion as justification for actions and decisions that affect millions and, through international relations, billions of people who don't necessarily follow the same religion? And even if they do, since for purposes of this debate it seems the consensus is religion is often an "individual thing", what if the constituents do not see said religion the same way as this world leader turned prophet? Isn't his job, given that he is elected to represent the people, to perform his duties in ways that are as closely as possible supported by his constituency? Maybe I'm walking on eggshells here, so let me phrase it this way: In my (non-Catholic*) Christian opinion, God does not cast a ballot in the United States presidential electorate.
*This totally makes me eligible for your five-words-for-religious-nitpickers, but I do believe Greg used "Catholic" as a synonym for "Christian" in his initial post. Picky? Yes. But this gives me firsthand insight as to why so many people feel so strongly about being specific when discussion of religion arises. It's about identity.
I was raised congregational protestant in a predominantly-Roman Catholic town. When I was in second grade, I remember most of my classmates bragging about getting sums of money in the hundreds (Lottery jackpots to my ears) or new gold jewelry, for making their first communion. Now we UCC-church kids didn't get any of that haha. I remember complaining to my parents about it. Funny to think about now. But I digress. Since Weymouth was so predominantly Catholic, whenever a discussion about church or mass arose, I would often find myselfexplaining what my church is like to a group of perpelexed-faced peers. (Is it really that different? I thought. I had never been to a Catholic mass at that point, so who was I to even compare?) But to most all of my Catholic classmates and friends who had never known anything different, as far as they were concerned, "Catholic" and "Christian" could be, and indeed were, used interchangeably and synonymously. I got into arguments over this. I think. How often was I discussing church in school? Ummm never? And this really was a discussion about church, not religion. Distinguish as you may.
At any rate, I was proud to be a minority in that respect. I liked being different. (There really were more of us than I thought...I think.) That said, the phrase "it takes one to know one" could be used to summarize my epiphany (pun intended) of this broad underlying conflict regarding how specific verbiage is sought by certain groups to maintain their own identity. People generally don't like to be mistaken for things they are not, with possible exceptions such as the 35-year-old woman who gets carded for cigarettes. Oftentimes people like the feeling of identity and being associated with what they are, (See: Red Sox nation, college Greeks, ex-marines) assuming they see this association in a positive light themselves.
I wonder how many grammatical errors I made.
JJ
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