Who thinks they are going to hell? I never thought I was, but I am, according to a couple of religious demonstrators in the Library Quad this month. Great, that?s all I need.

In case you missed the ruckus, some individuals decided to illuminate the college students at Sacramento State by advising them to read the Bible by waving a giant sign and proclaiming that female students are wasting their childbearing years by attending college. Someone should have introduced the concept of knowing your audience to these people. The only thing most college students know about the Bible is that, in a pinch, its pages can be a good substitute for rolling papers. They were also risking their personal safety by telling female students they needed to stay home making babies.

But you have to admire someone who believes in something so much they are willing to make a fool of themselves in front of a crowd of strangers. The power of religion lies in the dependence on faith, something you just know to be true. These demonstrators had faith, arguably misguided faith, in spades, a phenomenon that is becoming endemic to the world.

Many Americans become very uneasy around the subject of religion. The fundamentalists and zealots of this nation have forced us to hide behind the separation of church and state provision of the Constitution whenever it is brought up, frightened we will be struck by ignorant generalizations.

The fundamentalists tell us American morality is on the decline because we have strayed from Christian values. Here?s a secret: if morality really is declining, it?s because we now live in an increasingly complex society, where the line between right and wrong has become blurred because of knowledge, fairness and a desire of equality for all peoples?not just the WASPs.

Then there are the people who believe the Middle East hates the United States because our liberal society, specifically the culture that appears in the media, threatens conservative Muslims. Secret number two: Muslims in the Middle East hate us because we have been raping their land of oil and undermining their governments for decades. They could give a crap how much cleavage American women show on television when large American corporations are mining every valuable raw material in sight and setting up coups in the region.

Religious beliefs can be the ultimate defense of one person, or the ultimate attack on another. By attacking someone?s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, you are implying that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Unfortunately, it can be used as a diversion to hide the real reasons for discontent. For example, a lack of prayer in school is not what is breaking the educational system. Lack of funding is the cancer of public schools.

Those who blame society?s ills on religious grounds, a la the protestors, are inadvertently hurting religion as a whole. By turning religion into a battlefield, many will choose to avoid it altogether and deprive themselves of the sense of spiritual kinship with the rest of the universe that it offers.

Hell fire! Contact Ryan Flatley at [email protected].

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