The Religious Left -- The Christian Left

Almost every individual's life is complicated enough (sometimes even to the point of being more so than he or she can handle) just in terms of the common secular reality we all mutually must deal with. That is to say, we all must constantly face and deal with each area of our "triptych world" including (1) those PHYSICAL THINGS we can all see and touch and believe we "know" (such as furniture, appliances, houses, cars, airplanes, cities, roads, other people, animals, nature, the Earth, etc.); and (2) those IDEAS and CONCEPTS we can all at least partially grasp and comprehend to one degree or another (such as those embodied in physics, mathematics, biology, language, ethics, morality, health and mortality issues, etc.); and (3) those uncountable PERSONAL ACTIONS we are all expected to undertake-- or, alternately, to eschew-- throughout our lives (endeavors/acts involving work, play, education, sexuality, family life, recreation, charity, criminality, revolution, citizenship, and so on).

Thus, it strikes me, in light of this vast complexity inherent in virtually everyone's life, that it is ridiculously foolish to intentionally attempt to add on a FOURTH "panel" to our "triptych world," and especially one that has, for its essence, a jumbled mass of conflicting abstractions regarding "beings" and "realms" which none of us can ever actually see, or touch, or know, nor which any of us can ever fully grasp or comprehend! Plainly, I am talking about RELIGION/FAITH here as that unnecessary, and often very counterproductive, "fourth panel" of our life/world. We all know (or should know) about the undeniable history of GREAT HARM that the organized pursuit of religion, in general, has brought upon the people of the world, regardless of the religions involved. And we all know (or should know) that the totality of that historical GREAT HARM vastly outweighs any potential relative "good" which those religions, arguably, may have brought to the world.

Indeed, virtually all religions were introduced, at their respective beginnings, to the populations which adopted them, merely as a means for one class of people (the more sophisticated priestly class) to be able to exercise control and power over a much larger class of people (the more ignorant commoners) by establishing a broad-based belief in some illusory beings/realms which required the theoretical efficacy that could only be provided by members of that priestly class both in terms of basic instruction, and in actual mediation between the commoners and those illusory beings/realms! Thus, all religions are basically just giant con games with a relatively small number of "grifters" who (whether cynically or sincerely) earn their livings by exploiting a much larger number of "victims." This view is not my "opinion." These are the facts of history and reality!

However, if one feels the absolute, individual NEED to further complicate one's life by adopting the additional complexities involved in attempting to integrate some sort of external religious framework/worldview into the mix of his or her own personal life, and if that person chooses Christianity as the religion, yet wants to adapt those religious views so as to happily coexist with Liberal social and economic political views, there actually ARE a few organizations and churches which can be of help in doing so. For starters, I would recommend these two websites:

http://www.christianalliance.org

http://www.tcpc.org