“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”

― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Selfish Gene

Something has always troubled me about those of the most zealous Christian religious temperament. I don’t doubt their sincerity in espousing their beliefs. I don’t doubt their conviction that they are doing what they believe their God wants them to do. I don’t doubt their determination.

I suspect their underlying motivation. I doubt the reason why they do such things.

What is the reason? What is the purpose? What does achieving their goal look like?

Over the last few decades, there has been a rise in Evangelicals and Fundamentalist Christians—sadly accompanied by right-wing Christian nationalists—insisting on a Christian foundation for the government of the United States, to the implied exclusion of all others.

They point to the Christian faith of many of the founding fathers as their strongest argument. If they were Christians, the government they designed must be based on Christian tenets and enforce Christian Doctrine.

Anything opposing their faith cannot be part of government doctrine or law. Those Christians who are less zealous, less demanding, less emphatic about imposing Christianity as the official religion of the United States are the Laodiceans, the lukewarm Christians.

The fundamentalist even point to Revelation as evidence God wanted Christian zealots not passive ones.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!” (Revelation 3:15-17).

This belief that the fundamental basis is Christian and that every action by the government needs to be driven by Christian principles ignores the history of the founding fathers intentionally seeking to separate the Church from the State.

The founding fathers were clear; they recognized the danger of an official state religion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”

“God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
―Voltaire

We now have school officials dictating requirements that a Bible be in every classroom and included in the course content, without a similar insistence on the texts and teachings of other faiths and ignoring the presence in the school of children being raised with different religious tenets.

They claim they are encouraging teaching religion from a historical perspective, but it is decidedly one-sided.

We have legislative mandates to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

We have parent groups conspiring with law makers to screen every book they perceive as anti-Christian or offensive or, in their definition, pornographic and remove them from libraries.

Christian politicians with no training or professional credentials often refuse to accept clear scientific evidence of conditions such as sexual dysphoria, conditions they categorize as sin based on first-century standards.

The founding fathers were clear; they recognized the danger of an official state religion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”

Joe Broadmeadow

Back then, epilepsy was proof of demonic possession and thunder the wrath of God.

The single most troubling part is their pathological fixation on perceived discrimination against Christians. They see it everywhere.

The French do what the French are famous for, bizarre artistic performances, and immediately some Christians, seeing a resemblance to a painting depicting the Last Supper, have their (chaste and non-sensuous) panties in a bunch.

First, the painting is an “artist’s conception” of what the event (if it ever actually occurred) may have looked like. DaVinci was not there, nor were most people who wrote about it. The first account is attributed to Paul, who most assuredly was absent.

There are no eyewitness accounts except for John (maybe), whose version differs from the other synoptic Gospels. You get the point. DaVinci’s version is no more historically accurate than Paolo Veronese’s 1573 version.

Veronese included the heretical element of a dog instead of Mary Magdalene, for which he was charged with heresy and required by the Church to alter the paintings. Not wanting to be the barbecued entertainment for his last supper, he complied.

Christians were upset about the French making fun (if they, in fact, were) of not Christian doctrine or faith but a painting created from the imagination of one man. One should note that there are hundreds of versions of the Last Supper, twenty of which are of historical significance in Italy alone.

I would suggest this to Christians who take offense; consider the source. Why would you care what some choreographer creates for an Olympic ceremony? Even if he were making fun of the Last Supper, it has no effect on your ability to embrace or practice your faith. Maybe take your Savior’s advice and turn the other cheek?

That some people think your faith is just another human-created fable to explain things some cannot understand is the way of the world. And, if for the moment I conceded the US is a Christian-based form of government (just for the moment), I would remind those taking offense that the very first amendment to the Constitution, written by those very same Christian Founding Fathers and aptly known as the First Amendment, expressly protects such ridicule and criticism.

So, there’s that.

But back to my original question, what motivates this zealous insistence on accepting Christianity as the official religion?

Why?

What is it within some embracing the Christian faith that drives such zealous behavior?

The examples of the ramifications of religious extremism are myriad, but none so stark as the flying of airplanes into buildings to seek martyrdom and battle the enemy of a different version of the same God.

But that wasn’t Christians!

True, but history is rife with the cruelties and abominations perpetrated by Christians in their God’s name. Just ask Giordano Bruno or other guests of the Inquisition or the more modern example of kidnapped Native American children forced into Indian Schools and having their religion and culture erased, or the Irish Catholic (wait, they’re not real Christians) Convents staffed by nuns who took in unmarried pregnant women then sold the children to childless married couples or buried the ones who didn’t survive in unmarked graves.

So why? Why the zealous insistence on the US being a Christian nation?

The government imposes no demands on religious compliance with secular policy except those where the religious tenets put others at risk. You can pray all you like over your child’s broken arm after you take them to the Emergency Room.

There must be a hidden motivation.

Christians are free to practice their faith but can’t insist that others accept it. I think this is part of their issue. But there must be more.

It may be a crass comparison—and not the first time I’ve been accused of making such a claim—but I would say the answer is simple. When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. In this case, substitute money for personal salvation in their concept of heaven.

The answer is simple. Remember Occam’s razor; the answer is almost always simple.

Selfishness.

These actions are taken not for altruistic reasons but because if they don’t act, they are failing their God and jeopardizing their souls.

“Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.”
― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Selfish Gene

The Bible is full of invocations to fight against sin—the fact that the sins keep changing and the variations in interpretations confusing is simply ignored.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.”

Isaiah 13:9, 16
“Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it… Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.”

And for the sake of balance, here’s a New Testament one.

Luke 14:26
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

They embrace the preceding quotes as commands. I’m certain Ravished is a kinder and gentler way to say rape. I only read the Bible once. And not sure how you equate saving the unborn while your God says, and I quote, “Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes…”

I could be wrong, but you might gain bipartisan support for a bill in Congress prohibiting the dashing to pieces of infants.

Some interpret the Bible not as an allegorical guide to moral behavior—the Golden Rule if you prefer Cliff Notes—but as a call to action. A veritable list of marching orders. A Christian Intifada (oh, watch the reaction to this one) demanding they not only follow Christian Doctrine but declare as their mortal enemy anyone who resists.

Because if they don’t, they won’t get to heaven.

And it is a strange belief, in my estimation.

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Religious doctrine offers the faithful a path to the afterlife. It lays out specific guidelines for behavior. But in its simplest terms—leaving aside all the peripheral ceremonies, doctrines, and rules—it comes down to this…

“Do Unto Others as You Would Have Done to You”

Nowhere does it say you have to drag everyone else kicking and screaming into your church demanding they accept your doctrines, teach the Bible to people who follow other faiths, or tack ten ancient rules onto walls to prove the depth of your devotion.

As a matter of fact, the Biblical God is specific about who gets to make the final judgment. And remember, this is a jealous God we’re discussing; you don’t want to anger the final arbiter of fate.

How about we let he/she/it live up to those promises and keep your religion to yourself? Think of it this way, leave us faithless sinners to our evil ways and there’ll be more room in heaven for the faithful.

The United States overwhelmingly benefits from diversity; in religion, culture, and perspectives. We need to bear this in mind. It is a government of all the people, not just one flavor.

And if you fervently believe the only thing that is keeping society from disintegrating into immoral anarchy is fear of the afterlife and the text from a written, rewritten, translated, re-translated, re-re-written, re-re-re translated first century manuscript, we have much bigger issues to face.

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