I am far from an expert on religious beliefs and ideas. In fact, I have no clue as to what ‘faith’ means. I have never been able to accept things because that is the way it is and has always been. I am jealous of people who have faith that God is real but am unable to simply accept a concept because I am told I have to if I want to attain heaven. Hell, I don’t even understand what heaven is.
With this concept I also consider myself a religious man who sincerely believes God exists. As Gandhi stated, “ I love your Jesus Christ but do not like your Christians.” Being associated with science for most of my life I understand that something exists that defines what we all are. I guess you could call it God or even a potted plant but it does exist. You could call it a form of energy that created all energy. Scientists are now studying gravitational waves that could produce a unifying principle that explains where everything comes from. Maybe it is something so simple and beautiful that as a species we don’t have the capacity to understand.
I guess this is my problem but I can’t understand how people can believe something that literally doesn’t exist. I do respect people who do believe and follow their lives with their belief. This is why what is happening to the Evangelical Movement is so disturbing. If you believe in ethics and morality that is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ how can you support the activities of Roy Moore and Donald Trump?
Both of these individuals sexually assaulted women and they lied about it. I guess that has happened throughout our history. It is obvious we are and should be going through a social change. Having individual men state their accusers are lying does not surprise me but having Evangelical leaders ignore these lapses of morality and ethics because of political ends make me a bit ill.
For the last few days I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some Evangelicals. Everyone of them state the reason they support the actions of people like Donald Trump and Roy Moore is because these people represent an agenda they believe in and want to support. This agenda includes a ban on abortion and more importantly the nomination and inclusion of Supreme Court Justices. They sincerely believe the new justices would make the Evangelical Movement the law of our land. In other words, the ends of their type of conservative agenda totally overwhelm their moral and ethical beliefs. They don’t care if their basic beliefs are ignored as long as their political beliefs are realized. The Evangelical Christians now clearly understand the ends justify the means.
As I stated before my religious beliefs are tempered by the scientific methodology of facts. These facts include American morals and ethics our country is founded on. These ideas have never been disputed throughout our history. Sure, our basic Constitutional ideas have been debated but our social norms have never been challenged because of any ends of social attitudes or political gains. As a nation we know what is right or wrong. We, as a nation, have to support what we believe in and never back what we know is wrong because it might support a political idea.
Throughout our history there are many examples of how, as a society, we prioritized our beliefs over any means that could be produced. Our founding fathers built a Constitution that supported the concept of freedom. Many times our Bill of Rights have been challenged in order to make us, or some of us, more powerful. Slavery was put to an end even though ignoring the issue could have produced peace and prosperity.
There are winners and losers in all debates throughout human history. The Evangelical Christians will own this loss because how can one believe in a religion or philosophy whose basic beliefs can be corrupted. Jesus threw out the hypocrites in his Temple because they did not represent what he stood for. History will prove this again by having the Evangelical Christians lose their grasp on society because they lost their basic beliefs of what is right or wrong.
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