Yeah baby, I'm breaking ALL the rules!

Ask anyone, talking about politics on a non-political blog is akin to stabbing your neighbor with a rusty spoon. Not nearly as bad would be talking about religion, let's say just stabbing that same neighbor with a spoon not washed with Cascade. Guess what I'm gonna do in this post???

First off, let me say, any comments left with swear words in them will be deleted. If you really feel the need to use them, please get creative with your punctuation marks. I'm sure we can all figure out what you mean. Other than that, feel free to share how you feel. Oh, and don't attack anyone personally. If I think your comment crosses either line, I'll remove it. I have that power- it's my blog (mhua-hua-huah!).

So here comes the fun!

I recently got into a discussion with a woman who attended the same private Christian school I did from kindergarten to twelfth grade. We are both self-proclaimed Christians, different denominations. We are both mothers, neither of our children attend private school (I believe her children are in public, mine are home-schooled after starting in private), and both of us and our spouses are active in our respective churches- different denominations, but both believing in salvation though Jesus' blood. (If you don't understand this, I can go into further detail.)

I was taught that you should respect those put in authority to you regardless of how you feel about their views, so you can imagine how irritated I got when she repeatedly made extremely negative comments about our current President. I will say right now, I didn't vote for him. I didn't vote for the other guy either. After at least a year of these comments (getting more and more unbearable) I finally said something. I pointed out how negative and disrespectful they were. I used nice words, only grammatically correct capitalization, and only what punctuation was necessary. Of course, this marked me for attack from her various supporters using their trademark overuse of capitalization and strings of exclamation points. Needless to say that this caused me to defend my points, politely again, explaining exactly what I believed and why I chose to believe it. Oh yeah, I did some research. It was really informative, and helped me really define what my beliefs were. So, I'm gonna share because it seemed like such a waste on people who didn't really listen to what I had to say because they were too busy spouting out things that didn't really have any backing facts but were full of capitalization and strings of exclamation points.

I believe that no matter your feelings about someone's beliefs, you should be respectful. Especially those in authority to you. It's just polite. I wouldn't demonize anyone, and although the President and I don't share a lot of the same views, that doesn't make him an evil spawn of Satan (I'm paraphrasing for comedic effect, I don't believe anyone used those exact words).

I believe that in no way should the government get its hands on my religion, and I understand that the First Amendment prevents that from ever happening. However, this also means that I can't get upset when the government refuses to allow my religion precedent over others in state sanctioned events. If it means children in public schools aren't taught that Allah is God, then I'm okay with them not being taught my Jesus is God. Yes, I understand the need to share my faith with others, but if I'm living my life the way I should, people would know I'm different before I even open my mouth.

For that matter, I could care less what holy book our President used while he took his Presidential Oath. In fact, I would rather have him swear with his hand on the book he deemed most holy, because then it would mean something more to him than using whatever book was handed to him. And as long as he doesn't touch that First Amendment, he can believe whatever he wants. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to do my darndest to vote up every law that follows my beliefs, and vote down every law that goes against them. That's how this country works, not always perfectly, but it's doing a whole lot better than some.

It was brought up repeatedly that because our founding fathers were Christian, we should follow the spirit of the law, and only allow Christianity into the government. I paid enough attention in school to know that nothing about that statement is true. Just because our money says, "One Nation Under God" doesn't mean they were Christian. Believing in a god is called Deism, not Christianity. You can believe there is a god without believing that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. They were politicians, and because of this, made many contradictory statements about what exactly they believed. So, if they weren't clear with their words, shouldn't we go by they way they lived their lives, you say (as many asked me to)? Lying, slave owners with mistresses on the side surely meant they were Christians, right? And last time I checked, just following the spirit of the law is still enough to get you thrown in jail. (Yeah, I wasn't really stealing, I was redistributing the wealth.)

At any rate, the law is the law. And if I don't want the government telling me how to believe, I can't tell them that they should allow my religion into their schools and exclude others. And yeah, when the Bible told you to respect those in authority to you, it wasn't just talking about the ones you agreed with, but then that would be that spirit of the law thing again, huh?

So, all right, share your thoughts. Remember, keep it civil, and use @%^#*! not curse words.