Comes a moment, after yet another headline about some Christian group foisting their religion on innocent people, that you pause to ask yourself, "Self, what is it with these Christians!? Why can't they live and let live?" It's in the news every day. Some preacher or teacher or School Board or elected official or candidate or parent or principal or employer or Pentagon officers or the General in charge of the godforsaken Air Force Academy is shoving Christianity down people's throats. And you wonder, "Where do they draw the line?"
You read up on the virulent Christianist Movement loose in America nowadays, and it sets your hair on fire. You read about the Family's Townhouse in DC where elected Congressmen go to be trained in subverting our Constitution in favor of the King James Bible. You see State legislators passing laws outlawing gay marriage, sodomy, consensual homosexuality -- even forbidding school teachers to say the word homosexual (Tennessee). All because their "Bible tells them so."
Why do Christians care what others believe?
What you sincerely believe is your world view. Your handle on Reality. Answers to the Big Questions -- where the universe came from, what it's for, where you came from, what life is about, where it's all headed. How you see those things is your world view. Those are the moccasins you stand in. You act and react from there.
We each have a handle on Reality, our grasp of what this world is and how to cope with it. Shallow or profound, you can't not have a world view, a handle on Reality. To not have a handle on Reality is called psychosis.
From our beliefs comes our attitudes (visceral emotional responses) to other people, to events in our lives, to everything and everyone we encounter.
For example, if you believe white soldiers rape and eat Japanese people, as civilians on Okinawa did in 1945, out of extreme fear you will kill yourself before you let one come near you. That fearful attitude came from your sincere belief that Marines are monsters. Not until your belief changes will your attitude change. Not until your attitude changes will your actions change.
A person's beliefs determine their attitudes about the world, life, other people and those attitudes determine their actions and reactions to their life experiences.
Belief -- Attitude -- Action. This is how human beings tick. All of us.
We each live and act within our framework of Reality. As long as we are sane, we don't leap off tall buildings, stand in front of trains, pee on electric fences or step on Superman's cape. Our handle on Reality warns us that these aren't healthy activities. Hopefully, as we go through life, our reality jibes with really real Reality. Simple things like 'gravity' and 'wet' we all pretty much agree on. More complex things like 'meaning of life' we do not agree on at all. Reality is complicated.
Driven in our attitudes and action by our sincere beliefs, we are only capable of acting against our Reality under extreme persuasion. Pistol to the forehead. Offer me a million bucks. Three wishes from a genie. One night in Bangkok. Something like that and I'll see things your way, sure. But my conversion to your point of view is only good until I get a couple blocks away. It was never sincere. Turns out I had my fingers crossed the whole time.
To change how people act, you have to change their attitude. To change their attitude, you've go to change their beliefs. Anything less is just pretense. There was no sale.
It isn't hard to see that if one of our core beliefs is screwy, our attitudes and actions will be even screwier. As computer mavens like to say, "Garbage in, garbage out." If you believe a passing comet is going to take you home, your attitude will be 'farewell to this world' and your action will be to put on new clothes and happily swallow poison. Along with 74 of your friends.
The bedrock belief that drives Christian evangelism, Dominionism and the kind of overbearing behavior modern day Christianists display is the cornerstone belief of all the Abrahamic religions. It is the notion that this world had an historical starting day at the hands of the one true Sky God and will have an ending day at the hands of the one true Sky God.
Christianity inherited this belief from Judaism, which picked it up from the Zoroastrians. The idea of one true Sky God creating and ending the planet was bouncing around in the Middle East, Caspian Basin and India for a few thousand years before the current era. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten was a fierce monotheist, for a time. The Hindus have always recognized the notion of one Sky God being the only God as a valid religion within their panoply of religious views. The prophet Zoroaster made it a key part of his teachings. From there it was adopted by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
It was a powerful idea, especially to warring tribes and city states with multiple gods to keep track of. The idea that there is really only one supreme God out there, who created everything and will end everything made Reality simpler. Earth is a little experiment He is running. He started it, and He'll finish it. He has full command and control, and the point of His experiment is to let people choose freely -- freely choose Him or go to Hell for all eternity. It's still a powerful, dramatic idea.
It's a Yahweh or the highway thing.
This is the cornerstone belief of Christianity, inherited from the religions it descended from. The notion that -- like a jar of mayonnaise on the supermarket shelf -- this world had a definite, historical date of manufacture and has a destined date of expiration. That its beginning and its end are not a matter of natural processes, but are supernatural events conducted by Sky God. Pharaoh Akhenaten called this Sky God Aten. Zoroaster called him Ahuramazda. Moses called him Yahweh. Muslims call him Allah.
What all these Sky Gods have in common is, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they all say, "I'll be back." To end the world, to divide up the good folk from the non-believers. Heaven this way, eternal lake of fire over there.
This is the Christian world view. This is their view of really real Reality. Naturally, their attitude toward Sky God is fear and respect and begrudging love. Hell's bells, you'd be nuts to respond any other way to a Terminator like Him. Just call him Sir, and make the smart choice quick before He comes back. Any other response would be crazy.
Given the advances of science and human knowledge since the days early Mesopotamia, only an idiot would live in fear of an ancient tribal god, would believe that this world will end suddenly at the hands of a great, bearded Sky God, but . . . well, there's a whole lot of idiots around.
This cornerstone belief requires Christians to view all human beings as passengers on the same historical journey under this same historical purpose -- no one gets to opt out, of course, or it invalidates the whole idea that this planetary experiment in free will is going on.
Which would invalidate their whole religion. Their Reality.
Which would precipitate an instant identity crisis in the idiots who believe this experiment is going on.
This cornerstone concept -- truly believed -- requires a Christian to reject evolution. This world didn't come along over time, it was made in a week by Sky God and it will be unmade on Judgement Day by Sky God.
This bedrock belief -- truly believed -- requires a Christian to classify people as saved or hellbound. There is no middle ground. There is a great experiment in free will going on here on Earth, and if you fail to choose Sky God and get in line, you are going to burn forever.
This belief explains the smugness, superiority and contempt many Christians display toward other religions. They see them all as walking dead, doomed to burn. Waste of space and air and water. If they haven't got the sense to make the right choice, fine. To hell with them in this world and the next. You've seen it.
Understand -- this is really, really real for sure Reality to believing Christians. No kidding. If you stood in their moccasins, you would see things the same way, have the same attitudes, and act the same way.
You may be a Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Bahai, Borneo headhunter, in a coma since birth -- doesn't matter. The Christian cannot accept that you are outside of Sky God's command and control, that you are not in on this historical experiment on planet Earth provided for the purpose of accepting Him or failing to. If anyone, anywhere on Earth is outside Sky God's command and control, outside His experiment, then it invalidates the whole idea of His command and control of Earth and its inhabitants. He would be a part time God, or a God of only part of Earth, or part of its people. A mini-God. Just another God.
In which case, there goes His whole planetary experiment, and his whole religion. Either he's Sky God for everyone, everywhere, eternally, no exceptions -- or not.
This is why Christians cannot, simply cannot, live and let live. It would invalidate Sky God's command and control of every soul. There simply cannot be souls who get to opt out of the experiment Earth is here to fulfill. There cannot be souls who get to opt out of the end of the world. How can you have an end of the world if some people get to stay home? You can't.
Either Sky God has the whole world in His supernatural hands to smash as He pleases, or He doesn't. If He doesn't, then He is as relevant to our lives today as Aten. As Ahuramazda. Zeus. Quetzacoatl. Indra. Zambiapongo. etcetera . . . etcetera . . . etcetera . . . fallen gods by the hundreds, lost in the mists of time.
If a Christian accepts the validity of other religions --
If a Christian accepts evolution --
If a Christian accepts that this world is 4 billion years old and will spin along until our Sun becomes a red giant --
then they reject Sky God, they invalidate Him, His religion, His followers, the great Earth experiment, and this precipitates an instant identity crisis in them. So they plug their ears and scream and yell to keep science and common sense at bay.
This cornerstone belief that Sky God started the Earth and will end it at His pleasure -- if sincerely believed as Reality -- forbids viewing other religions as anything but heresies and worthless endeavours resulting only in eternal hellish torment.
That cornerstone belief produces this attitude, and the resultant intolerant actions from Christians we read about every day. To these true believers, we who doubt and scoff are the ones who have no grasp on Reality.
This bedrock belief drives Christian Dominionism, the fanatic goal of "true Christians" taking over every government on Earth, taking over all 'Seven Mountains' of culture for Sky God -- putting Christianists in command of Business, Government, Media, Arts, Entertainment, Education, Family and Religion. At which point Sky God will come back and punish everyone who still fails to believe in Him. That oughta learn 'em.
Some Christians are all squishy about this and other basic beliefs of the Christian religion. They pick and choose from the sweet parts of the Bible, they accept evolution, they don't believe in the end of the world, they find truth in all religions, they do not fret about the Great Commission Jesus laid down to go forth and convert all the nations.
These are wishy-washy pretend Christians, more like Buddhists or Hindus or freethinking moderns who have learned some science -- they are willing to let the world spin around, they are willing to let others live as they wish to live. And that is most certainly not what Jesus or Moses or Zoroaster believed or taught, so this is not genuine Christianity. It is pretend Christianity, feel good Christianity. Apologist Christianity. Christians who won't shit and yet won't get off the pot.
These wishy-washy sort of believers work very hard to apologize and keep things fuzzy in the public sphere, worldwide. When some gay kid gets beat up or killed by good Christian lads screaming 'go to hell where you belong' these wishy-washy Christians are the first ones to step up and say, "Oh, Christians aren't really like that. We believe in forgiveness and mercy."
Like hell you do.
That's not what Leviticus 18:22 says. That's not what Matthew 10:34 says. The Bible says a great experiment in free will is going on here on this planet, and the choice is stark and simple. You either believe this is happening or you aren't really a Christian.
A real Christian believes and acts according to this core concept taught by Zoroaster and Moses and Jesus. They truly believe this. Which makes them an idiot waiting for Sky God to end this world that He personally created about 6,000 years ago.
And you shouldn't ever put up with or apologize to idiots. It only encourages them.