illumined horizon

It occurred to me recently that the right wing Christian extremist claim to the United States being a Christian nation is de facto negated by the simple phenomenon of many (perhaps the majority of) Americans not being friendly with (and in many cases not talking to at all) their neighbors. Now I must admit, in viewing Christians from this perspective, it is much harder to blame a particular Christian as opposed to placing blame on Christians as a whole. I mean this is my personal problem with folks who try to blame the human race for this or that or whatever catastrophe or problem. Because it's like, no, I'm sorry, there's a ruling class and concentration of power in the hands of the few, and imperialism and neocolonialism and so on and so forth... I mean this can be debated, but I don't think these (hierarchical) structures that rule the human race represent human nature; instead they represent ossification of the 'progression' (in some cases regression) of the civilization of an intelligent life-form (in this case humans on the planet Earth).

But anyway, back to the original point, America is clearly not a Christian nation insofar as those who purport to practice fundamentalism or at least strict Christianity do not love their neighbor as themselves. This a very powerful concept when some time and thought is devoted to grasping it. Poverty would be eliminated, racism would be greatly diminished, the government would not have to provide many of the services that it currently does; the list could go on, if only America were a Christian nation that practiced the Christian tenet of loving one's neighbor as one loves oneself. As I said I've already undermined my argument, because I think it is somewhat flawed to hold individuals accountable for the failures of an extensive abstract group; but nonetheless, it is a fact that in the United States of America the failure of neighbors to have the appropriate Christian relations, greatly impairs the argument that the United States is a Christian nation (and I didn't even need to get into the fact, it's in the constitution stupid!).