Don't Drag the Rest of Us into Them

I have many problems with the minions of organized religion. Every one of those problems has to do with their desire to make me live or act in a certain way that satisfies their belief structure. I have no problem with the way they live. If they want to subjugate their women and the women put up with it, fine. If they want to condone the sodomizing of their sons and marry their daughters off at thirteen years old to old men, more power too them. They don't have to practice birth control or have abortions. They don't have to practice or condone gay marriage. They can conduct their services in any way and in any language they want. I don't care whether their holy men pretend to be celibate or not. It is offensive and injurious to me that the religious make charges that atheists and secular types are attempting to persecute and penalize those that choose to be religious.

The problems in religious society are of their own making. Progressives within the church seek to reform the church while the traditionalists seek to stop them. Atheists have nothing to do with this. We do not instruct progressive believers in how to make trouble. We do not evangelize among the faithful, attempting to bring them over to our side. There are no large, powerful organizations made up of atheists with leaders that attempt to influence the political process. We do not attempt to influence the religious in any way except to leave us alone, to live our lives in peace.

The religious should give up all this culture war crap and mind their own business. They would be best advised to put their own house in order and leave atheists alone. There are very few abortions among the atheist community. We generally are pretty good about birth control. Unwanted pregnancy is a problem primarily among those who profess to believe in God. If they don't want abortions they don't have to have them. I have not met many gay atheists. Those that I have met could care less about being "married in the eyes of God". At most, they are completely satisfied with secular equality in the eyes of the law and who could argue with that. Atheists want the same protections under the law to live their lives in peace as the religious. If their beliefs and practices are not the same as the majority, they should be protected, as long as it doesn't affect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of others.

The great unspoken truth about the culture wars is that it is a struggle between the progressive religious and the traditional religious. I would say to them, please keep your fights in church where they belong. Don't drag the rest of us into them.