Why am I thinking of Mandy Moore right now?

[trinityvixen]

For being a suspected atheist, a teacher in Texas has been put on administrative leave (and has every reason to assume the school board is looking to fire him).

The part that frightens me most is that this man wouldn't even confirm his religious standings and they roasted him anyway. It's not him being fired for being an atheist; it's him being fired (probably) for being suspected of atheism. Firing someone from a public institution for their religious beliefs is illegal and actionably so. The fact that this district thinks it can fire him because those in charge and one student who reported on him think they don't like his religious beliefs says a lot about the chutzpah these conservative, religious fuckholes have worked up over the past eight years. They're not used to people telling them they can't command the religious values of their public servants. That is very, very scary folks.

And yet one comment from a puported student makes me almost laugh:
The girl who made the accusations against Mr. Mullens is also trying to get several students kicked out of Brookeland for supporting Mr. Mullens. This past Friday she had the police officer talk to them because they were "harrassing her" even though two of the accuse haven't spoken to her since Mullen was suspended.She has said to me and several other students "I got Mr. Mullens fired, I can get them kicked out too."

It reminds me very much of the movie Saved!, where Mandy Moore's more-religious-than-thou behavior dictated who rose and fell in popularity her Christian high school. She thought she could shame and denigrate and even expel anyone who dared to refute her personal beliefs about and interpretations of the commandents of Jeebus with their sadly ordinary, human failings. Although Mandy Moore got served some justice as the film's villain, the point of the movie seemed to be less about punishing her than making the points that a) nobody is perfect and faulting people for being human is monstrous no matter how you cloak your evil in faith (as I posted about recently); and b) if your faith cannot withstand contrary opinions existing (let alone being voiced aloud), you must not have a strong sense of faith and perhaps that, not the other person, is your real problem. You cocksucker. (Sorry, I went too long there being polite.)

Comments

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

Wow, I just... I have no idea how to respond. It is really mind-boggling that so many people destroy the lives of others in the name of religion. Seriously? my own interpretation of Jesus is that he would have been one of those laid-back stoner types who says "dude" all the time.
"Hey, Dudes! Be nice to each other, 'kay? Cause, like, you wouldn't want anyone to harsh your buzz! Cool?"

I just don't get the people who militantly follow Angry Vengeful Drill Sergeant Jesus. *eyeroll*

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I ascribe to the Douglas Adams view of Jesus:

"...one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change..."

The saddest bit is that these fundamentalists who use violent language and scream in your face about how your actions are leading you to Hell (where you deserve to be, naturally, suffersuffersuffer), think that their God is wonderful. Is kind. Is a benevolent being. I attribute the reason that they don't recognize the disconnect between happy, loving God and their hateful, spiteful behavior is because they only think their God is loving because His rules allow them to be hateful, spiteful people. I'd think my God was awesome (if I had one), too, if he said everything I feel like doing--even when those actions fill me with something like shame--was okey-dokey.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You quoted my favorite line, too. It perfectly encapsulated the petty smallmindedness of an overly full-of-herself bigot. The Bible chucking was perfect.

The film was far too pat--everybody happy or fixed or whatever--but I did sort of love the romance between Macauley Culkin and his girlfriend. They were way more real (and fun) than the main girl and her sk8r boi.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The movie is a slightly-less-witty, Bible-thumping Mean Girls.

True that. As for Mandy Moore, she has something of a mean streak in her. I saw a bit of American Dreamz where she's trying to win the American Idol-like contest but she full knows she's playing a game not trying to "make a dream come true." She's fairly heartless, and it plays well against how cute she is. It's something she should really stick with in her career.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

Courtesy of Homer Simpson: "Save me Jeebus!" :-P

[equustel.livejournal.com]

There is so, so much I could say about this (dear Lord, a 50,000-word digression pops up in my head every time, without fail!) because it is a touchier subject with me, actually being a Christian, than most people would guess.

But.

I got Mr. Mullens fired, I can get them kicked out too.

Appropriately, that sums it up.

This has nothing to do with the ideology of Christianity, and everything to do with what controlling, insecure, arrogant little sh!ts people can be. That's what it always comes down to, every time: people. Using (read: twisting the fuck out of) whatever they can as an excuse for their behavior and a crutch for their worldview.

Yeah, I like to think Jesus would give people like this the verbal smackdown he used to reserve for the Pharisees back in the day.

GAH.

I'm done.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It has everything to do with the ideology of evangelism, which, unfortunately for non-asshole Christians, is specifically of a Christian bent in this country. (Can you imagine if an atheist student tried to drum out a Christian professor? My god, this would be national news.)

Bottom line: any dogma that causes you to act contrary to the best interests of people other than yourself is bad. The fact that religious dogma is particularly difficult to confront and shut down (without being vilified in turn) is the problem, not religion itself. Indeed, our recognition that religion is (for the majority of people) important is what keeps a lot of people from speaking out for fear of being assumed to be a bigot when they're really just griping at that one particular person/group using religion as a cover.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

It goes both ways, I think. In some areas of the world, if you speak out against the actions of a religious person – or religion in general – you do get labeled as a bigot and cast aside (at the very least). However, in other areas of the world, if you confess that you believe in a God or any kind of deity, you're (also at the very least) labeled as an unenlightened, ignorant sheep who can't think for themselves. Again, it comes back around to people in general being intolerant of any perspective that challenges their own. We're the issue.

As for evangelism: I'd argue that again, there's nothing inherently wrong about the ideology of it. I think it's something people don't realize that they're doing all the time, regardless of their worldview. I myself don't agree with a lot of specifically Christian evangelistic tactics (I'm more of the "hey, let's go help people, and if they ask us why we're doing it we'll give them an answer" breed), but at the same time I don't want to villainize every missionary ever with something to say and the actions to back it up... if you ask me, everyone is at all times evangelizing their worldview through their actions, rants, raves, opinions, values, and general lifestyle. Humanist organizations putting "why believe in a God?" ads on buses (like they did recently in Washington D.C.) is just as much evangelism as Christians putting up tacky crosses in nonsensical places. All IMHO, of course. :) It's just unfortunate that in the case of some religions, it becomes yet another way for people to threaten others into submission or silence, simply by nature of how foundational the question of God is to a person's existence.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think evangelism is a problem whether you're trying to prove things for your one god or prove there is none at all. I have a friend who worked for a non-profit in Cambodia who told me a horror story that encapsulates a lot of why missionary/evangelist work abroad worries me. The jist of the story is that in order to help people help themselves, they have to be the ones taking the action. They have to decide for themselves how they want to run things, and that is the only way they will lift themselves out of cycles of poverty and chaos. However, when their collective decision runs up against a belief system of a religious charity, the religious charity tells them no, they can't do as they have decided and they don't. They give in. Which leaves them much as they are.

Now, these religiously-based nonprofits do great work, but if their religion dictates anything, it defeats the attempt to have the people exercise their own will. If they come to like Jesus from the example of the missionaries, fine; if they pray every morning because the head of the nonprofit says they have to even if they don't want to, that's not okay. What these evangelists have to remember is that they control money that the people they're helping have no concept of--evangelism is very much a prerogative of the rich even if the people doing it aren't individually wealthy--and are desperately dependent on. They are not going to challenge what the missionaries say if there's a threat they could be left with nothing, and so long as that is the case--so long as the purse has strings still attached--they can't really help themselves.

This is true of a lot of charity work--do it the way we say or else--but government nonprofits being funded or not is a political issue that people can find out about. Religious organizations can keep their decision making almost entirely private. Secular nonprofits have no ready-built network of contributing believers, so they have to scrape by on every penny they can collect, which leads them towards full disclosure as well. Missionaries and evangelists also make no bones that they are out for converts, period. Yes, we want to help, but we also want you in our club. Plenty are okay with still helping even if the people they help don't want in, and bless them, but these people seem to be the exception rather than the rule, especially when missionaries prize converts so highly.

Just my $0.02.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Plenty are okay with still helping even if the people they help don't want in, and bless them, but these people seem to be the exception rather than the rule, especially when missionaries prize converts so highly.

See, maybe it's just because I'm extraordinarily picky about the churches I've been a part of throughout my life, but while I'm well aware organizations with these tactics exist, I've never in all my days even known a Christian who sponsors one of them - where the relief/food/money is withdrawn if the people aren't willing to accept the religion. In my experience, there are just as many genuine religious organizations out there with an eye to help, not to convert - people just don't hear about them as often. Unfortunately, this tends to be a global truth: the worst of people is what reverberates around the world, but the best of them is quiet, doing their work without a need to advertise it.

In a similar vein, just because Christianity in America is a pathetic, watered-down and twisted version of its original self (to put it lightly) doesn't mean that elsewhere in the world true Christianity isn't being played out in greater numbers than we realize. I'm sure that I sound wholly defensive on this matter, but I want to make it clear that I'm not ignorant of the failings of people when it comes to religion: I do, however, want to point out what a lot unfortunately don't get to see. True religion, after all, is defined by the Bible as caring for the poor. Full stop. And it's still alive and well today. Hasn't been killed off yet by all the abuse and misunderstanding, thank heaven. I know because this summer, several of my good friends are shelling out $4500 each to go to Zimbabwe, where they'll be eating the same food the people there are eating, living in the same kind of housing, etc. No special privileges. But a helluva lot of sacrifice and love, which is what those people need most of all. And that's what it's all about, right? :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know you're well-informed. You speak too well on this subject to be anything but. Your interest and caring does show, never you fear.

I guess the problem comes down to a matter of privilege first and foremost. Too many organizations just have paternalist/patronizing attitudes towards their relief activities, and this is a distinctly American failing as much as it is anything else. We expect to be lauded for work that should be its own reward. Witness the rest of the world thumbing their noses at us for the paltry sum we offered the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and look at the offended reaction of some Americans. Now, some went "Well, what a bunch of ingrates," but the true humanists went "Our government is ridiculously low-balling on much needed relief, so we will open our own purses." That's charity I can get behind.

Basically, the more rules that you impose on your gift--things like the global gag rule come to mind--the less genuine it is as an effort to help the disadvantaged. Alas, a lot of religious institutionalization comes with extra rules of that sort. (Some of the BYU missionary work, for example, is extremely restrictive, but so helpful to the indigenous communities that it cannot be turned away for all that.) When it comes down to it, all charity should be about helping the poor sustain themselves--teaching them to fish, to misquote an old aphorism, rather than giving them fish. Insisting that they only fish a certain way is a good way to leave them dependent on your sea-food market.

And that's all I should say on that because I'm reduced to fish analogies. Alas.