Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
- George Carlin
Call me naive, but I have a difficult time wrapping my head around how insuring 30 million (currently uninsured) Americans isn’t something everyone who self-identifies as a Christian can get behind. We live in the largest, most powerful economy in the world. We spend untold billions on the means and methods for killing people in every more highly technological ways. Yet the idea of ensuring that all Americans are guaranteed a basic level of health care is the worst sort of anti-Christian socialism?
Have we really reached the point where spending billions on the world’s largest military-industrial complex is considered the Christian thing to do, but spending mere millions on providing health care to all runs completely counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Has the question really become “Who Would Jesus Kill?” I don’t mean to engage in hyperbole, but I have to wonder when Christians seem OK with killing “the enemy,” whomever that might be today, but the idea of spending money to save lives is beyond the pale.
Looking for the guys who think America's a Christian nation? They're busy freaking out about 30+ million Americans getting health insurance.
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 16, 2013
If memory serves, Jesus was all about caring for those in need- feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, tending to the sick. I may not believe in God, but let’s say for the sake of argument that (S)He does exist. I have to wonder what His/Her Son would say about those who profess to revere Him and yet would deny health insurance to 30 million currently uninsured Americans. The hypocrisy and lack of compassion is as stunning as it is unChristian.
Either we’re a Christian nation which lives by the teachings of Jesus Christ, or we need to admit that religious faith is merely a shield we employ to feel better about ourselves and our callous disregard for our fellow Americans. I’m no theologian, but even I have to wonder about those who claim the imprimatur of their Lord and Savior while ignoring the teachings they find inconvenient and inconsistent with their prejudices and preconceived notions of how the world should be.
What’s even remotely “Christian” about that?
