While it seems a bit ridiculous to be charged with 'praying' - this man wasn't just praying. Do militant atheists go into church foyers with protest signs and start chanting atheist songs while church is in service and then wonder why there is no welcome or why they might be violently deposed? To many people Christianity was an oppression. While I personally have come to respect the existence of a higher force after having gone through the rigmarole of living on the streets for years in finding my own personal spirituality. I can see clearly how oppressive and coercive the attempt to 'save' someone or to obstruct someone's will this act of singing and visibly praying in an abortion clinic is. The Christians may claim this man is representing the voice of the unborn baby - which is fine - it is a belief as yet - if we are to take things this far we must treat every ejaculation as sacred and any misuse of semen as literal murder. We'll need a decent amount of cameras in every Christian's home to keep them all honest! This level of chastity is just unheard of.
It is not to say we must throw the baby of morals out with the bathwater of religion (for want of a better analogy) - it is to say, while I don't agree that this person should be charged with an offence - as a person having grown up in a distorted Christian sect - this behaviour by this man only cements the oppression Christianity represents for many people - it is the use of force to interject a perspective and 'remind' people of their upbringing - it only serves to work against the aims of bringing people around to the understanding of a sacred respect for life that Christians might aim for with such behaviour.
With all this in mind - this article and these fundamental perspectives are sensationalism that just generate reactions and cause good people to depart from reason - by focusing on the radical you create more radical it really is that simple.
Let's have independent news channels that aren't just so focused on radicalism because it generates views and exposure! It really is testament to the human condition - many human's thrive off conflict in this way - what's needed is a focus on a true solution.
We fight when we are forced - but to go out of our way to blindly push a subjective perspective with the force of a religion behind us - it doesn't create love or anything that might be the true aim of what Christianity would represent.
Of course, by presenting this perspective here, it goes without saying 'I need saving' and I'll have people 'praying for me'.
I don't agree with this man's sentence and nor do I think it is the government's place to enforce such or to consider it a crime - but to present this man's actions as some kind of pure thing and as a religious right - while he is deliberately imposing his will on others in the name of his idea of God in this way is to engage in active extremism - no it's not right. Let's acknowledge it's ok for you to pray and sing - but the same as any other practice - making a public display of it makes it public business.
For the same reasons I don't get up in a share house and play music loudly at 2pm in the morning.
I get the whole protest thing - I'm all about doubting the government and stopping the infringement of our rights. I may go to a forest protest to stop the logging of trees - this activism is my religion in a sense. I may block a highway even - we gain attentions in this way. I do indeed get it. I've been an activist for many years.
But in an age where every religious belief and entitled perspective becomes a pawn in a political game - humans find a way to push their perspectives as valorous and ethical and demonize all others to then add to fires of conflict which further imbalance the unstable relations of humans one with another. We focus on conflict, we make more of it. In many ways, Christians feed entities with the outcome of this conflict with their energies - not always good. It's just another competing etheric force vying for control - presenting itself as valorous and putting all other perspectives in the naughty box.
We shouldn't make a grey world of mixed average sameness either - this is not the answer - but there needs to be some level of mutual respect between people. Maybe then we can work towards mutual respect of individual sincere approaches to life and a general moral structure and includes just simply being kind.
Do Christians allow that there are perspectives on creation and perspectives on reality that are not inline with their own? Do they allow for parallel understandings of this mad cosmos and accept there are multiple viewpoints all with varying levels of validity and reasonable and unique perspectives? No, fundamentalism doesn't acknowledge this. That's force. On a long enough timeline this perspective held by enough people develops into a totalitarian state - church and state combined.
So the totalitarianism that the Christians claim to be fighting against - only seek to impose one of their own. I don't stand for that, I don't stand with that. Nor do I stand with the government. It is very hard to be different from either in a world where the human mind naturally polarizes all situations and rejects and accepts you in an ultimate way.
We need an adaptable vision that allows for many forms of spirituality and that doesn't have to be immoral. I also acknowledge the hypersexual agenda within the media and I don't agree with this. A return to extreme fundamentalism is not the answer however - although it is a common reaction by the unconscious group mind to apocalypse...
There is not just one evil society boogey-man group mind - there are many claimed alternative group-minds however well meaning that hold within them the same levels of unconsciousness and ignorance as the governments preferred model of 'blanket status quo'. The Christian group mind is little different as is the Muslim group mind or the Hindu group mind.
The issue is personal accountability and responsibility. The ability to take responsibility as an individual of this mind situation and its tendencies to dispose of reason in the presence of a group. Balancing all these accumulating and competing energies to still come out on top with a perspective on reality that is not skewed by that energy.
I hope this provides some thoughtful and reasonable interjections which add some balance to the extremism and 'injustice' presented in this media.
Good luck out there!
RE: Is Praying A Crime In America Now?