Holy Moses, Louisiana!
"What’s next? Perhaps Seinfeld’s best 10 minutes will be required reading for elementary school kids, and Barbra Streisand’s rendition of ‘America, the Beautiful’ becomes the daily hymn?"
By Barry Kluger
This week, the state of Louisiana took the unprecedented step of making sure that rules given to a Jewish guy a long time ago would be the new mandate handed down by an overzealous governor who hasn’t read the Constitution lately. Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill that requires all public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
What’s next? Perhaps Seinfeld’s best 10 minutes will be required reading for elementary school kids, and Barbra Streisand’s rendition of ‘America, the Beautiful’ becomes the daily hymn?
It’s not likely that the state that screwed up Katrina is adopting Judaisim as the rule of law. It’s just a gratuitous attempt to say that it’s about ALL faiths when we know it’s not.
This is how it starts.
Israel declares itself as a Jewish democratic state while others classify their countries by their predominant religion. But the US was built on many faiths, as the founders escaped religious persecution from across the sea. It’s right there in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” but the far right is pushing for states’ rights over a country’s rights and this is how authoritarianism plants its roots. We have seen it time and time again.
As it happens, Commandments 1-4 are all about religion, while the remaining 6 are about humanistic values.
So, basically, more than 50% of the ten clearly apply to how we should live our lives. That’s good news for atheists. If the Mets have a .600 season, we’ll be seeing them in the World Series!
A person’s faith has always been deeply personal to me and I have always been dismayed at how those on the far right are so terribly wrong.
I used to be open-minded and figured that as long as no one was hurting me, what they did was their own business. A bit of libertarianism. Last week, I heard that a Jewish friend’s child came home from school crying because they were told they were going to H-E-L-L if they did not accept Jesus Christ as their savior. I figured, enough is enough. I KNOW we are all supposed to get along, respect each other, give a group hug and sing Kumbaya. But the people who pray on Sunday are now preying on Monday, and they are trying to make their land into everyone’s land.
I heard someone tell me they were a Messianic Jew once and I had to laugh. There is no such thing and it’s time we stop allowing people to co-opt our faith, choose the parts of our religion they like, and discard the ones they don’t. Jews do not believe in the Messiah as proposed by these groups, so maybe they should be calling themselves Hebraic Christians. While that would be more accurate, it doesn’t help the cultism..uh..brainwashing..uh, I mean recruitment efforts of these folks.
Billy Joel once wrote: “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”
I tried to imagine what life here on earth would be like if all the “good folks” went elsewhere and we Jews were left in a tempestuous, burning landscape of snakes and extreme heat. Hey — have you ever spent July in Arizona?
I choose friends for a variety of reasons: their views, their interests, their values, their humor. I decided today I will not be friends with people who do not see my faith as loving. I will not be friends with people who use their faith to challenge mine or diminish it. An old girlfriend once said “can we still be friends?” I responded, ”I’ve got enough friends.”
And I do. They are Jewish, they are Catholic, they are Hindu. They are agnostics and they are Wiccans (OK. I don’t know any Wiccans). They come in all shapes and sizes and cultures and I will continue to debate and discuss those who respect who I am, not condemn me to a life of hell because of who I am not.
Pretty harsh words and not very “Christian-like” — in the misinterpretation of many. I prefer to be human-like.
Jewish philosopher Martin Buber may have said it best:
“A rabbi was asked by one of his students, “Why did God create atheists?”
After a long pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice. He said: “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion.”
You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need — anything that reflects care for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his actions are based on his very own sense of morality.
Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right. When someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say, “I’ll pray that God will help you.” Instead, for that moment, you might consider becoming an atheist — imagine there is no God who could help — and say, “I will help you.”
It comes down to humanity and the sooner we accept that as the Golden Rule, the sooner our elected leaders will not force us to live according to any narrow religious agenda.
BARRY KLUGER is a veteran Senior Corporate Communications Executive at MTV Networks and Author of the Klugertown: Boom-bastic column on Substack.
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