insight

Ethics not a matter of religion

I am a sinner.

What is it about this proposition that is so powerful? It is certainly one of the most prolific phrases within the context of our Judeo-Christian derivative culture.

I watched a television show that was sponsored as an infomercial late night on Sunday on the Fox network called The Van-Impe report.

What do I mean by infomercial? They were trying to sell me on something. Not a new turkey roaster or knives that cut through pennies, but an idea: that I am a sinner, because I am not alarmed by the impending arrival of the Four Horsemen, and this sin will prevent me from enjoying an afterlife with my loved ones in the celestial paradise of Heaven.

Our dear President Bush spearheads the Christian right movement as a righteous path for our country to follow. My sin and lack of absolution by them is evil.

What does sin actually mean? Historically? "Sin" is derived from the original Latin word "sinus," which means to conceal or fold. I wonder now, how many millions of people are completely unaware of the conceptual framework of the language they use to condemn? I don't feel threatened by this definition. I mean, wow. How many times has anyone heard that this or that is a sin? Abortion a sin? Pre-marital sex-a sin, right?

To them, the world is black and white. Sin, or lack thereof being the distinguishing characteristic of the shade. Sin is black. Being absolved of sin, by being saved into their theocratic regime is white.

I'm sorry, but if the world were black and white, decision-making would be easy. We wouldn't have disputes in the Middle East about desert real estate, the sociological ramifications of poverty, crime, racial prejudice, class struggles, or anything else under the sun. Ethics wouldn't exist.

This is a gray world, where ideas are unclear and ambiguous. Our decision-making is predicated on our ability to attempt clarity in a disillusioned landscape composed of tyranny by members of a majority who don't even understand the meaning of the labels they attribute to all who are not like them. These differences are what create the world in its diverse shades of gray that fly the spectrum of the imagination.

According to the infomercial (calling it some kind of report would imply that they were doing some sort of reporting), pedophiles and those who participate in oral sex are in the same group of "sinners." I believe they referred to oral sex acts as being sodomy, and related to bestiality and rape.

They went on to list statistics of American teenagers who have already participated in oral sex outside the sacred halls of the marriage contract.

Don't you just love empty rhetoric? Well, maybe those virginity pledges were effective. They weren't having "that kind" of sex.

Being interested in critical thinking, and disinterested in jumping on the hell, fire and brimstone judgment bandwagon; I watch, and listen to these Christian fundamentalist-right programs and try to see what is so clear to them, and what is entirely unclear to me.

I have seen them all: "The 700 Club," all of the cable ministry channels, listened to positive and encouraging K-Love radio. Even Rush Limbaugh is concealed in his "compassionate-conservative" radio show, and so is Ann Coulter, the unabashed extreme right wing author of such books as, "How to Talk to a Liberal, If You Must," where she very strongly advocates the forced conversion of Islamic people to Christianity, to be rid of terrorism. All I can come up with is that I don't see the world as being this simple.

I don't see the apocalypse as something I am afraid of.

I don't want to stop people from having sex because they're not married-or because they're in homosexual relationships, for that matter.

I think virginity pledges are ridiculous, let's not indoctrinate and call it "education."

I don't take The Bible that literally-let's never underestimate a good metaphor.

I believe in the separation of church and state-which, let's face it, is becoming a blurry line these days, with the argument by design replacing creationism. This isn't science, people!

I don't think a religion creates terrorist sociopaths-people do.

I don't think the government should tell me what to do with my body because it's mine and not theirs.

I don't disguise hatred of diversity with "spirituality."

I don't believe evil can be defined in one act, but in a chain of acts, perhaps.

I don't want to legislate morality.

I want to remain unconcealed and unsold on the gospel of ignorance and depraved indifference to what is actually ethical.