The "enemy"

In my post last night I did not follow through with an explanation of what I meant when I said that the Christian community is "the enemy" to us Pagans. I know that sounds alarmist, and a bit paranoid. The average man-in-the-street Christian is not the enemy; they have no idea that I'm not Christian and, for the most part, they are reasonable people who would probably just shrug it off and figure I had a right to believe whatever I want to. However, there are those few, those militants, those activists, evangelists, reactionaries - who see anyone of any differing religion (or lack of religion) as a threat to them and their so-called "family values." Here is an organization in Idaho that gets my goat on a regular basis: http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/. The head mucky-muck, Bryan Fischer, is at the forefront of shoving his religion into every arena of public life in Idaho. He wants to protect religious freedom - as long as it's HIS religion. One of his cohorts is Brandy Swindell, another local Idaho product, who goes all over the country whining about Christian persecution and demanding that the ten commandments be on display on public property. She ran for city council in Boise a couple of years ago. That was not long after I moved here, and we went to hear a debate of the city council candidates. She supposedly has lived here all her life, and I knew more about local issues than she did. Everything she said came from a prepared statement and she was unable to answer any questions spontaneously. I have to confess that whilst this sham "debate" was in progress, I was drawing and otherwise defacing one of her campaign brochures, which I left behind shuffled into a stack of them when we left. Her website soon decried the "hate" that was directed toward her in the campaign. I'm proud to say that I likely had something to do with that deluded belief.

My husband is constantly trolling the news pages online to find the latest on how the Christians are working to get their agenda in place to better control the country. It is a concerted effort, well organized and extremely well-funded. He says we have to keep ourselves informed about what they are up to, lest we lose our freedom to practice our religion. There are still those who quote the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and actually believe it. Oh, I work with people and know others who would simply freak out if I told them I was a witch. Most would just not believe me at all, but a few of them would start praying for me on the spot. And of course never speak to me again. You know, I work for the Catholics, so I have to mind my p's and q's, so to speak.

In fact, later this morning I am going to meet a very good Catholic friend of mine for coffee and bagels. She has no idea that I'm a heathen pagan, and I'm not going to tell her. You know, there are people that I would like to tell, but to explain it would just be so tiresome and most of them still wouldn't get it. The reactions either seem to be that you are just silly and pretending it's Halloween all the time, or you get the horrified fear; they think you're a devil worshipper. It's just not worth the hassle.

Pagan close-mindedness

As a self-proclaimed anarchist Pagan, I often deride the Christian right for its narrowminded unwillingness to challenge the Christian status quo, to think outside the box, to use their brain, for God's sake! In my own infinite stupdity, I believed that we Pagans were universally enlightened and not prone to the shutting down of independent thought that I see so often in the Jesus-loving types. A recent spate of responses on a Pagan message board, however, has me scratching my head, and saying to myself, et tu, brute?

The recent news story about the religious fanatic parents who let their son die rather than seek medical attention for him stirred up my and my husband's ire. We both participate on a Pagan online group, so he posted a link to the article, and made some comments as to what he thought should befall the parents who allowed this boy to die. He posted it only as an informational piece so that our fellow Pagans can be kept abreast of the minds of our "enemies," for that is what we consider the Christian right. More about that later.

So the first respondent to the post was a guy who generally does have pretty far out ideas, leaning toward the pacifist, tree-hugger, peacenik stereotype that many attribute to pagans. He stated that this boy would not have died if his "will to live" had been strong enough, and that modern medicine has had nothing to do with anyone surviving any illness. No, I am not kidding. He actually believes this, acknowledges that he "thinks differently" from most people (thank the gods!), and that we probably would not understand (implying that he is so deep and philosophical that we superficial dopes could not comprehend the idea). What I comprehend is that he basically says that the will to live is what keeps people alive, that antibiotics, surgery, etc have nothing to do with it. My retort is, why is it that in all the eons of recorded human history has there not been ONE person who never died? Surely among the trillions of humans who ever lived, there would be one or two at least whose will to live would have kept them alive forever. According to him, this is all that is needed to maintain life. What incredible, illogical, total horseshit!!! I cannot believe that anyone would put such an asinine idea down in writing and connect their name to it. He also asserted that my husband's posting a link to the article was "Christian bashing." Hello. I don't care WHO is stupid enough not to take their kid to a doctor, be it a Christian, a Pagan, an atheist, a Mormon, a Buddhist..... any parent who does this is a fucktard and a murderer!

The other person who responded posted a lengthy article with some questionable statistics (compiled by a disgruntled former CDC doctor) whose axe to grind is that most deaths in America are caused by medical negligence or foul-ups. She said she would never trust a doctor and this article proves she is right. So there. *Heavy sigh* Well, you know, I bet if she was having a heart attack, or had cut off her arm in an accident she'd damn well BEG for an ambulance. So that kind of holier-than-thou superciliousness just makes me laugh. What neither of these narrowminded idiots will recognize is that medical science has saved millions of lives that would otherwise have succumbed to disease, injury, infection, etc. Would they like to compare mortality rates from that time and now? The deaths that occurred due to infection, diabetes, and other conditions that are curable or manageable nowadays? I could go on and on. Anyone with half a brain knows what inoculations have done to prevent disease, not to mention all the other advances in surgery and treatment. No, I would never be naive enough to say that there are no mistakes in medicine; of course there are. That's why it's called a "practice." But personally, I'd prefer to take my chances than to end up with a disease or condition that could have been treated simply. She also raged about drug companies and their corruptness. Duh, I see that every day at work, don't tell ME about that. I detest drug companies and their sleazy marketing tactics. Our entire healthcare system is a fubar, bureaucratically. No one denies that. But it has and does perform miracles (or what we would have considered a miracle and impossible 100 years ago.