If I've one pet peeve pertaining to piety, it is invoking one's "god" (whatever that term means) to smile down beneficently and solely upon your own nation. Ugh.
Do theists really believe that than an all-seeing, all-knowing, immaterial magic mind which transcends space-time itself really cares overmuch about national borders? Did the colonial-era cartographers who arbitrarily sliced up the Middle East (among other bits of the globe) change the way the "gods" treat those people? Did the Louisiana Purchase commingle the divine wrath or favor of those in the original colonies with those living in the untamed wilderness?
If such questions give pause, one should consider the reflexive and unthinking credulity in implicit in calling divine blessings down upon the nation in which you happened to grow up by praying to the god that your parents taught you never to question. If you grew up in Persia, you'd be calling down Allah's curses against us even now, and your faith would be no less unshakable nor more grounded in fact. As Will Rogers said "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
Photo credit:
daveknapik
2 comments:
Due to my tenacity, someone had to remove a "god bless america" decoration from their office at work last week. It was immensely enjoyable.
It doesn't bother me that co-workers want to show off their Judeo-Xn-Nationalism. It does bother me that I cannot post my Darwin fish without fear of retaliation.
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