Mood:  sharp

I am not exactly a Napoleon Bonaparte ‘rah-rah’ kind of fan, because I’m not pro-war and he was Mr. Conquer Europe, but I saw something last night that pointed out an idea of his I truly liked.

Napoleon was against theocracy. He was against the Inquisition and the rule of the Catholic Church. He tore down the walls of the Jewish ghettos and granted civil rights to the Jewish people in the lands he conquered (Northern Italy, Spain, etc) who were oppressed by the Holy C. Yes, I was watching PBS last night. I could not believe I was actually in front of the TV set, and after dusting off the remote control, I found myself at PBS of course. Hoping for something light such as Antique Road Show I became engrossed in a documentary on the Inquisition.

If I was dead set against the Catholic Church already (my entire family is either extremely Catholic or members of the Orthodox Armenian Church), this documentary went further than anything I have ever read to make me firm my resolve against the papacy.

Anyway, Napoleon had the right idea with regards to the separation of Church and State.

Christians – prepare to be offended -

Biblical laws should not be used as the laws to run a government that rules over a diverse group of people from varying religions. They are exclusionary, chauvinistic, and in many cases barbaric.

Here is my issue. If what I do is a sin in your eyes, and you believe I will go to hell for it, and my soul will be damned for it, then, I will be punished and judged by your God’s laws. That does not mean you have the right to judge me in this life. That does not mean that you have the right to stop me from living my life. Let me be a sinner and be done with it. I am not asking you to save me and I am specifically telling you to not try. I am not asking for your approval, because you do not have the right to approve or disapprove of my morality because yours is not superior to mine. I do not need you to impose your beliefs on me.

Besides all of that, you are hypocrites. Should we enforce all the laws of the Biblical cannon, you all would be condemned over and over again. Some examples:

 Leviticus 18:19 “And you must not come near a woman during the menstruation of her impurity to lay her nakedness bare.” Okay, then, has every Christian or Jewish man slept in another bed away from his wife every time she was on her period and abstained from sexual intercourse at that time as well? If you haven’t, you’re a sinner and in violation of God’s laws. 

Leviticus 18:20 “ You must not give your emission as semen to the wife of your associate to become unclean by it.” Okay, then, every man who has donated sperm is a sinner, and every woman who has taken a sperm donation for the use of getting pregnant without intercourse, is a sinner. 

How about –

 Leviticus 19: 9 & 10 “And when YOU people reap the harvest of YOUR land, you must not reap the edge of your field completely, and the gleaning of your harvest you must not pick up. Also, you must not gather the leftovers of your vineyard, and you must not pick up the scattered grapes of your vineyard. For the afflicted one and the alien resident you should leave them." Okay, then, every farmer who hasn't given the left over of his harvest to the crippled and to immigrants for free is a sinner.

Leviticus 19: 19 "YOU people should keep my statutes: You must not interbreed your domestic animals of two sorts. You must not sow your field with seeds of two sorts, and you must not put upon yourself a garment of two sorts of thread, mixed together." Okay, all of you who have muts you adopted from the pound that you've bred, you're sinners. Or, if you allowed cross breeding, you're a sinner. Oh, and all of those not wearing 100% silk, or cotton, something that isn't a blend, then, you're a sinner.

Need I go on? I tried to pick some of the least offensive of the laws I could. Oh, and the argument that Jesus was the fulfillment of the cannon, and now you need only live by the new convenient of love thy neighbor, then, well, love me and stop telling me what to do.

OR, if all those laws still exist, and Jesus died for my sins, then he was the Substitutionary Sacrifice, and that should be enough.