DIVERSITY

On the Religion page of the Garden island, Friday, January 28, spiritual leaders on Kauai responded to the subject of diversity. There were three responses. Two from Christian Church leaders, Pastor Wayne Patton, Kahu James Fung and one from the Bahai’is of Kauai. I know little about this religion but that it does not name a ‘leader’ is interesting. I’d like to quote one passage, which, according to the anonymous writer, was written by Baha’u’llah, the Prophet of the Bahai Faith.

“The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together. If you meet those of different race and color from yourself, do not mistrust them and withdraw yourself into your shell of conventionality, but rather be glad to show them kindness.”

The writer of these words goes on and, I think, if I needed a God or  a religion I could fit in here. The only difference: I would have one less God. All atheists, agnostics, human secular and non-believers, simply do not know if God exists; most of us, many of us, admit we don’t know, but we also know, neither do ‘believers’. Believers believe, and, in our wonderful country, they have this right.

I will not quote the Christian Pastors, who, of course, quote Jesus and the Bible, but I will comment, and, please, correct me if I’m wrong, to ‘believe’ as they ‘believe’ one must first ‘believe’ the Bible is the word of God and Jesus, who is the Son of God, is their spokesman and everything he says is to be taken as God’s word and God’s word, of course, comes from the Bible. Sigh. Without a ‘belief’ in the Bible, Christians haven’t a leg to stand on;  atheists, agnostics, secular humans and non-believers are aware of that and our reasoning minds cannot ‘buy’ into this ‘book belief’ system, which  is anything but diverse. There is no diversity here.  One either ‘believes’  or one doesn’t, and it gets worse, because, according to all Christian believers,  if  one does not believe in the book and its God He will send you to a terrible place called hell which he created.

Thus, while many Christians don’t buy into talking snakes, or arks that saved all the animals, except dinosaurs and unicorns,  from a watery death,  the Jesus that preaches love and peace can turn into the Father, the God of the Old Testament, who can proclaim as in Joel 3:9-10…

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let the come up:

“Beat your plowshares into spears: let the weak say I am strong.”

Or worse: Psalm 137: 9 “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stone.”

No non-believer could or would buy that and you Christians are  stuck with it. There’s no way out. It’s in the book. God said.

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