Why Must We Hate?

The thought of hate was brought to me by the death of Jerry Falwell. Excuse me, the late reverend Jerry Falwell. Reverend: someone to be revered. Nice. There are those who do/did revere Jerry Falwell, but why? For what? Because he taught the Bible and lived his life like Jesus Christ? Or because he spread hate & discontent and allowed others to give into those emotions?

I consider myself a Christian. Not a Baptist (although that is the way I was raised) or a Methodist or a Catholic. I do not believe in organized religion for the same reason I will never revere Jerry Falwell. A lot of religions teach hate and that is not what Jesus Christ did, not what he stood for, not what he believed. Jesus fed the poor and spent time with prostitutes and lepers. He spread the "Golden Rule" of do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. Is that what religions teach today? Is that what Jerry Falwell taught? Is that what the neo-cons spreak about publicly? No!!

There are many religions in the country who teach hate, who teach discrimination and who feed into people's fear of anything different. Abortion is murder, they say. Homosexuality is an abomination before God, they say. All these people are going to Hell, they say.... I don't think so.

In my Bible I am taught that God alone has the power to judge. I am taught that I am to love the sinner, but hate the sin. I am taught to forgive my enemies 70 times 7. 70 x 7 = 490. That is a lot of forgiveness. I, of course, can only manage a small portion of that, but I try every day. (Not really ever going to forgive my ex-husband for a lot of crap, but that is a different post).

How did Jerry Falwell spread the gospel? By blaming homosexuals for 9/11. For blaming abortionists for Hurricane Katrina. How can America embrace such bullshit? How can we as a nation be so.. so.. hateful?

We add "under God" to our pledge, we lose our minds if someone burns the flag, we scream about the 10 Commandments and how our justice system is based on them and how they NEED to sit on the court house lawn. Then we whine about entitlements for the poor, about programs for the needy, about money for our schools. We complain about the high cost of taxes; we probably blame it on abortion and homosexuality. We quote the Bible and talk about how Jesus saved us, how we were born again, but we don't speak publicly to non-believers, or those of other religions. We wave our little hand held flags, we wear our yellow ribbons, and we talk about how much we support and appreciate the troops. We stand at attention over their flag drapped coffins, but we don't take care of their poor broken bodies and minds when they return alive.

We are a nation of hypocrites.

And it makes me sick.