Atheist Apostasy
A fun story I like to tell is about when I was running one of the first horror fiction websites on the internet to pay a professional rate. Mind you, this wasn’t very hard to do. I made a point of doing it because at that point the professional rate for writing hadn’t changed since the 1950s, kind of like how minimum wage hasn’t changed in decades.
Other than the writers my entire staff were volunteers, and our last editor was a lady from Malaysia who was still in school. Malaysia’s state religion is Islam. Supposedly you can practice other religions in peace, but the one thing you must NEVER do is state that you are an atheist because you will be thrown in jail for it. I never really asked my editor what her beliefs were, because that sort of thing doesn’t matter much to me on a personal basis. A few months after starting work for me, I got a disturbing email from her.
As it turns out, she was picked up and questioned because she confided in her English professor that she was editing an online magazine in English. The professor’s delight turned to fury when they found out we published graphic horror stories, and the professor turned her in to the state police for apostasy.
In Islam, apostasy is punishable by death and forfeiture of all property. According to her, though, it was “attempted apostasy” and that was punishable by a fine and public lashings. This was 20 years ago so the laws around it have changed, but you can imagine my distress at all of this — my pet project had caused someone to come into harm's way because of a state religion.
I have believed vehemently in the separation of church and state since I was a teenager. This incident only steeled my resolve about my upbringing on this — churches have no business dictating government policy and deserve absolutely no special treatment. Despite this, churches in this country continue to push and develop policies for candidates when they have absolutely no business doing so. I’m increasingly angry that these entities are not taxed or investigated for their activities. These “Christian” organizations whip up frenzies about drag queens and other religions when the number one protector of child abusers and pedophiles is the Catholic Church. Separation of Church and State is something nobody is talking about these days, and in my opinion, it’s even more important than ever.
There’s another example that we can more recently point to that exemplifies this wrongness, and I’ve watched it and held this opinion my entire life. Watching the Middle East from my teenage years, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the entire problem is always Organized Religion. The stupidity of setting up an “ethno-state” with a state religion just because Menachim Begin bombed the King David Hotel (both sides in this conflict are rooted in terrorism, FYI) is just something I think nobody is ever going to acknowledge. The fact that the entire region is made up of these religious governments makes me pretty pessimistic that anything will be solved, ever. Problems in such states are always rooted in “we are better than you” when a smart person knows that all people are created equal, and nobody is better than anyone else. Anyone who believes in their own superiority is just not that smart. A religious government is a genocide waiting to happen.
And yet that’s what Christian Nationalists are pushing for here. With Project 2025, a highly dumb segment of the population is pushing the idea that women are inferior to men, should not vote, should not be in control of their bodies, and should not be president. They’ve always had the ear of the Republican Party — the authors of Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation, drafted and helped Ronald Reagan execute his transition plan. Now that they have control of the whole party, they are pushing a genocidal agenda that should have everyone worried. I guarantee they will not stop at women, or LGBTQ+ folk, or immigrants. They are rife with white supremacy and we should all fight against their agenda tooth and nail.
As an American, I am dismayed and upset that there is not more of a push for separation of church and state in this country. Separation of church and state is a bedrock foundation of our country. In this context, organized religion does nothing but create horrible situations for most people. Note that I have no problem with religion per se, my beef is with religion that’s organized enough to take control of a government. From dodging taxes (pastors should not have private jets or megamansions) to just plain crime (when was the last time you heard of a pedophile who wasn’t a youth minister or a priest?) the entire setup is shameful and hurtful to citizens and infuriating to any thinking person. You may wonder what happened to my editor in the story above, and while the story turned out for the best the way it happened will still upset you if you have half a brain. You see, they dropped the apostasy case against my editor because the person who reported her was also a woman.
Don’t let religion dictate our government unless you want something this stupid in our country.
