Tyranny by Snyder: Chapter 1

 Tyranny by Snyder

"Professing" and "Practicing": Two Very Different Words

 

In American politics today and over the last 8 to 12 years, one of the most influential groups has been those who describe themselves as "Christians" or "Conservative Christians".  Yet, very rarely do any of these people describe themselves as "Practicing Christians".  And therein lies a very serious problem of religious, moral, ethical, and political dichotomy, or more bluntly, political hypocrisy.  The problem is rooted in the very basic moral, ethical, religious, and political difference between the two words "Practicing" and "Professing" as they are or can be applied to religion, theology, politics, morals, and ethics.  The Oxford Language website defines "Practicing" in this manner: "actively pursuing or engaged in a particular profession, occupation, or way of life". Their second definition of the word is this: observing the teaching and rules of a particular religion. The same Oxford Languages website defines "Professing" in this manner: claim that one has (a quality or feeling), especially when this is not the case.  Their second definition of the word "Practicing" is this:

affirm one's faith in or allegiance to (a religion or set of beliefs)".  The difference between those two definitions is at the heart of the many societal problems which are being created in America today by those self-described "Christians" or "Conservative Christians" and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican politicians they have assisted in rising to power at all levels of elected offices in America.  Most of them, if not all, are simply "Professing Christians", if they profess any beliefs at all other than their belief in the abolition of most individual constitutional rights, and they are not remotely "Practicing Christians".  Anyone, anytime, anywhere can profess to be or support anything without any attempt to practice the core tenets of whatever it is they profess.  I have written in the past on this blog about these people and the core differences between what they claim to be compared to what they actually are based on their daily efforts to destroy the US Constitution and the country which is based on that constitution.  

These people under discussion are working on a daily basis to create laws which force the government to intervene in citizens lives in areas which have clearly been forbidden to the government by the Bill of Rights and hundreds of previously approved laws based on that Bill of Rights.  They support book banning, voter suppression, governmental control of the medical decisions of citizens which have clearly been forbidden to the government for more than 200 years.  And, what they never would admit, is that based on their egregious invasions into personal rights, they are indirectly, and sometimes directly, supporting the total destruction of representative democracy in America.  They are simply using the Bible and the churches of the nation, (or at least those churches which allow them to) to abolish the concept enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  They are more than willing to completely and falsely deny the fact that no citizen can be happy, at liberty, or free to live a live based on individual rights when these people are daily working to destroy, abolish, and forever eliminate the right of those citizens to make their own decisions in their daily lives. They are brazenly denying the basic constitutional concept of Separation of Church and State.  They are literally willing to steal and abrogate anyone's freedoms whose beliefs do not support their own totalitarian beliefs.  They are the greatest danger to the perpetuation of democracy in America today.