Faith Run Amok

I'm sure faith can accomplish some wonderful things (it's a sign of my own personal troubles that I can't think of any concrete examples), but oftentimes faith can bring about so much, well, ickiness. Read just about anything from Santorum or Scalia (particularly on homosexual unions) to get a clear illustration of this point. In the name of their faith, they are trying to pin the crumbling of society on people's desire to just be left alone and do what they will in the privacy of their own homes with consenting adults. Instead of actually doing something about the crumbling of society. But preventing homosexual unions is going to do nothing about divorce. Or adultery. Or the other things that have been chipping away at the "institution" of marriage for far longer than homosexuality. I don't see how allowing homosexual unions could make the situation any worse than it is. In fact, we may have a thing or two to learn from devoted homosexual couples that have been sticking with each other despite the fact that the law doesn't recognize their committment.

Or how about the hullaballoo over Moore's Commandments? Have you seen or read about or listened to the scores of people protesting the removal of the monument? All in the name of defending their faith. I don't think God cares one iota if a big slab of rock is in a courthouse or not. In fact, God might think it pretty tacky that a building dedicated to justice for all sports a 5,300 lb hulk devoted to just a fraction of the ways people reach God. Like me, God may be wondering why all those protestors aren't spending their time and money feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, or even just looking at the planks in their own eyes & finding ways to remove them. You know, if it were just the Ten Commandments, I might not have a problem with it. But it talks about how the Commandments are "Nature's Law" or somesuch. Sorry, but the only laws of nature I'm aware of deal with biology, not God. And the only laws that belong in a judicial building are the laws of the country and the state.

The battles the faithful choose to fight often make me pause in any decision to return to organized religion. Maybe the fact that the Catholic lay people are gathering together to fight molestation is an indication that things in that religion aren't as bad as I had thought.