Ignorance

We live in a world where Catholic priests are widely categorized as child molesters, any individual who resembles someone affiliated with a religion based in the Middle East are immediately assumed to be directly involved with Osama Bin Laden, and Christians are seen as judgmental, hypocritical, homophobic and a bunch of other long vocabulary words.

While the benefits of our society seem to greatly outnumber the disadvantages, one downfall seems to be a popular trend in stereotyping religious groups. The main reason that these stereotypes appear? Ignorance.

Frankly, I am sick of it all.

When are Americans going to give a damn about someone other than themselves? New laws and amendments continue to cut religion out of daily life more and more. Yes, I agree that enforcing one religion on an entire country is wrong. What I do not agree with is what appears to be the slow removal of religion in general from a country that was founded in the name of God. For being a country that believes in the separation of church and state, we sure do talk about religion a lot.

Do you know why religion is such a touchy subject? Because people are so enraptured with their own amazingly fabulous beliefs that they aren’t willing to slow down and try and understand someone else’s story or viewpoint. Then, they automatically assume that an explanation of that religion is an attack on their own beliefs or a slap in the face with a religious doctrine.

I feel like we are, in a way, being trained to be ignorant. Having teachers in public schools who are instructed to be opinion-less on the topic of religion is subconsciously teaching adolescents that they, too, should just leave religion alone and focus on more important things. The fact that government employees are not allowed to have an opinion or belief, and that they aren’t allowed to express or share it with their students, is like saying they can’t agree or disagree with the color blue. Everyone has an opinion about the color, sees it his own way and believes it to be in existence for a certain reason. Religion is the same way. What is the big deal?

The best way to keep people from being ignorant is to force feed them and the seemingly easy way to handle that is education. Educating people, however, is the hardest part of it all. We live in a world where the church is so incredibly separated from state it would make Thomas Jefferson seriously reconsider his letter to the Danbury Baptists and the topic of our Christian president’s complete incompetence is run in a headline on a weekly basis. Even if an attempt was made to make World Religion classes mandatory in junior high or high schools, classes that don’t teach correctness of religion, merely information of religion, Bush would get shot down faster than a target at a shooting range.

Doesn’t anyone want to be educated anymore? Isn’t the best defense an even better offense? So, you hate Christians. Do your research. Find out whether or not your hatred is valid. If it is, great! Now, you have a really good reason, and information to back your argument. What is so wrong with that?

We have even gotten to the point where most religious people are ignorant about their own religions as well. Ask any person on the street and they will tell you they are Christians, but most of them couldn’t quote a Bible verse other than John 3:16. To be honest, even I have a hard time with scripture. It is difficult to read. And living in a country where reading is the poor man’s television, and life is always go, go, go, I just don’t always have the time to memorize scripture. It is boring, and not entertaining, which I am sure is what most of the world thinks as well.

A friend of mine, Jordan Vena, believes Americans have turned into relativists. The idea that everyone is right depending on where they come from in life, and what their opinion is, has been spreading across the country extremely quickly. The new way of living life doesn’t include learning about other things. It is simply a time to focus on yourself, and what makes you happy.

“It’s a load of bull,” he said. “That means that if you are a murderer or a rapist, you are right too. Screw what society says, because you think you are right.”
While that example might be slightly extreme, I am simply trying to convey a point. Putting up with everything, instead of doing something about it (like reading it up, or asking questions) is a detriment to yourself.

Having an open mind is a staple of our culture. Children are taught to be politically correct, and to accept all races, religions, sexual orientations and economic backgrounds free of judgment.

See that little phrase there? ‘Free of judgment.’ It means that not only are kids not judging others in a negative way based on circumstances that can’t be changed, they aren’t judging things in a positive way either and are simply wandering around blindly, cursing anything that upsets them.