Facebook Faith #37 Grinch Obama continued...

Cartoon by NakedPastor

A few days ago, I posted about a meme that was going around.  It complained that President Obama did not go to church on Christmas.  My friend who initially posted this was questioned as to why it mattered to her what President Obama did on Christmas, she responded:

Its Christ's birthday its an important day. If it was his daughters birthday would he forget it and play golf? Just a sign of respect from my prospective. Just food for thought this is how I was raised to have a reverence and respect of God and his son ,Jesus. Don't mean to offend some of you ,but I was raised to honor the Lords birth so this is offensive to me.

That meme, the scores of people who liked it, and her response are an example of why I spend so much time publicly resisting religion. It is not enough that many religious people enjoy their religion and get something out of it. It is not even enough that they desire other people to be part of their religion. No, like most religious people, they take it further and find offense when others do not show deference to their religion.

In their annoyance that others are not showing preference toward their spiritual predilections, they often seek to assuage this irritation by going to the courts and using legislation to make everyone else submit to their religious laws and customs.  We are seeing this presently as my home state of Utah is desperately working the courts in order to enforce religious dictums on its populace.

I would gladly leave religion alone... if it would leave me alone.  However, as Christopher Hitchens observed, this is probably too much to hope for.

 "there is a real and serious difference between me and my religious friends, and the real and serious friends are sufficiently honest to admit it. I would be quite content to go to their children's bar mitzvahs, to marvel at their Gothic cathedrals... And as it happens, I will continue to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition - which is that they in turn leave me alone. But this, religion is ultimately incapable of doing."  ~Hitchens