Religious Extremism in America - Homegrown Terrorists

This is something I wrote back in 2015 for a blog that is no longer in use.  I believe the material is still relevant to today's issues, if not more so.

---

America's ruling class is white, and they a majority claim to be Christian.  I use the term "claim" because they certainly do not act Christian.  However, by 2050, the Muslim Faith will be challenging the Christian Faith in the top religion of the world.   I often ponder on what America would be like if our politicians actually followed the First Amendment and separated church from state, and from politics.  I could chew on that thought all day long.

But this isn't about the future, this is about today.  This is about social control, and how religion's ideological programming of its followers works to strip away an individual's ability to think for themselves.  Social controls are everywhere. For every agent  that reinforces expected behaviors, morals, conformity, values, or even tradition are all agents of social control.  The truth is, you are under some sort of social control right now.  Nobody wants to admit it, but through the natural socialization process you've moved through in life, you have been subjected to agents of social control.  We all have; accept it.  It's okay.  It's a part of living in a society.

Religion is one of the agents of ideological social control that I believe, has the largest impact on America.  There are other forms of ideological social control, like the family we were raised within, formal education, the media, sports, and of course, the government.  Ideological social control is a sort of brainwashing, to put it bluntly.  It sounds scary when I've just told you we are all under some sort of social control, and I know many of you reading this are thinking I'm crazy and there is no way you are under any sort of social control.  Just hear me out, okay?

Social control exists to not only ensure a more peaceful society.  Without some sort of social control, children wouldn't be taught the rules of society.  If you want to be a part of society, you need to know how to behave.  So, social control is good because without it, we might be a society of deviants running a muck where personal safety does not exist.  

However, ideological social control goes a little further.  It uses belief systems that may or may not have real moral values, and religious followers are indoctrinated to such a point that even after leaving a religious sect, one may still always feel that what was taught to them is the only right, or correct way to think, behave, or live life.

With regard to religion, it also creates Christian Extremists.  We have seen a lot of this over the years. People are mass-murdered because they are so mad at the government because we've allowed gays to marry, or we still have legal rights to abortion, or because we've offended their bigoted, racists beliefs.  All of these people have been white males, and if I am wrong, I will stand corrected, but I can't think of one incident where a "Christian" committed a mass murder in the United States who wasn't a white male.  Perhaps they exist, but we all know the majority of these crimes fall back on crazy white men.

I grew up Presbyterian and left the church because I was told if a woman divorces a man, and then remarries, she is still committing adultery.  I was in my early teens when I knew this was not right.  What if that woman was abused and beaten and the husband was cruel?  Would God really want her to stay with him?  If so, this is not the God I want to believe in.  Then I went to a Baptist church, and was fear mongered into believing that I would spend my eternity in the lake of fire if I didn't believe what was being taught to me.  I ran away from organized religion after that.  I explored other religions, and it my studies showed me what was most important was to know they all have different paths into believing there is a higher power.  

Then I learned about how the original Biblical codex was much more than the Bible we have today.  Stories were cherry picked for inclusion, and it wasn't until after it was translated into English that stories changed, for example, Mary was no Virgin.  But that is for you to seek out - or perhaps I will write about it one day, but this isn't the time.

My point is, religion forces its followers to think and behave the way they want you to, and in doing so, you are under an ideological social control.  But it changes over time.  It is amazing to me how many Christians raise protest signs that proclaims "Jesus hates gays," and people like Pat Robertson blame natural disasters on social issues, like the ruling to give LGBT community members civil equality.

It is that very sense on thinking that creates America's homegrown terrorists.  There is much more to fear from the white man packing a gun than there is a refugee from a country riddled with war, child and human exploitation and trafficking, and other human atrocities.  In fact, it seems to me, quite sadly, that if you are toting a Bible and waving it to the masses, you will have followers coming in flocks.  No matter what you say, how bigoted you are, that Bible and a pulpit allows people to make crazy statements and get away with it.  The media swarms in and propagates the message, and a new extremist is born.  Then they take their guns in the name of Christ, and act like the very terrorists we want to extinguish from the world.

There is some kind of higher power in the Universe.  I'm not sure what it is, but I am sure religious extremism isn't something any "God" would truly want from its followers.