Religion and reality

I've been reading Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. I read it a few years ago but decided to pick it up again. It's funny how different things jump out at you when you're in a different place in your life. When I read the paragraph below it screamed adoption at me.

"One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not - that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings."

The zeal of the religious to stop abortion may make them appear to be coming from a morally superior place - in the eyes of other religious people anyway. For many the morally correct stance is not to allow contraception. Then add to the list the abstinence only education for teens who are dealing with raging hormones and there you have the mix that creates the perfect environment for the religious to press their concerns and push the adoption agenda. Talk about inflicting unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocents! The unwavering faith in what the religious authority has to say allows people to simply wear blinders when it comes to the results of following those dictates. Why else would the BSE be allowed to be continued for so long? How could people who are normally loving and compassionate people, be duped into believing that sending girls away and forcing them to live without their children is the best solution for an unplanned pregnancy? So many people claimed that family is everything yet could send their pregnant daughters to go live among strangers to deal with such a traumatic experience on their own. That is truly a divorce from reality. The sad thing is these attitudes still continue today which is why adoption in it's hideous form still continues today.

"You believe that your religious concerns about sex, in all their tiresome immensity, have something to do with morality. And yet, your efforts to constrain the sexual behavior of consenting adults - and even to discourage your own sons and daughters from having premarital sex - are almost never geared toward the relief of human suffering. In fact, relieving suffering seems to rank rather low on your list of priorities. Your principal concern appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of yours contributes daily to the surplus of human misery."

This is the shame that created so much pain for so many millions. This belief, combined with the idea that only a married couple - defined as one man and one woman - is capable of raising healthy children, continues to cause pain for many more adults and children. This is another huge divorce from reality. Sadly many women are still raised in these beliefs and think they're doing the right thing when they hand over their babies for others to raise. It's only after the fact, and sometimes decades after the fact, that they wake up from the delusion of  "adoption is wonderful". In the meantime their children are living with the day to day reality of being an adoptee. The trickle down consequences of adoption continues for generations and it all stems from the belief that sex without a certificate of marriage is bad.

If the religious were really pro-life they would welcome new life regardless of the marital status of the mother. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to keep sacred the bond between a mother and her child. If they were really pro-life they would make sure that a new child is taken care of within their own natural family. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to prevent the suffering of living human beings, not just blastocysts. The suffering caused by adoption is immense yet the blinders are still on thanks to the immense power of religion to turn something natural and beautiful into something dirty and shameful. Equally as shameful is the adoption industry that uses people's beliefs in these ideas against them in order to acquire babies to sell and line their pockets with the cash.

Religion and adoption

This is interesting. Take a look at this article Evangelical Adoption Crusade.

Here are just a couple of small snippets.....

“We expect adoptions will continue to rise as new movements within the Christian community raise awareness and aid for the global orphan crisis,” Bethany CEO Bill Blacquiere said.

One result has been the creation of “rainbow congregations” across the country, like the congregation Moore helps pastor in Louisville, Highview Baptist. An active adoption ministry has brought 140 adopted children into the congregation in the past five years. These children don’t recognize the flags of their home countries, Moore proudly noted at a 2010 conference, but they can all sing “Jesus Loves Me.”

So incredibly sad, nothing short of brainwashing and child abuse in my book, and more.....

"As the numbers have dropped, the adoption industry has constricted, with the closure or merger of 25 percent of US agencies since 2000. The shuttering of Guatemala in 2008—what Luwis called “the gravy train” for many agencies—was a major factor. JCICS felt the squeeze too. In an internal 2009 document, the organization described financial shortages that forced it to halve expenses and staff in recent years.

“In the last few years, a bunch of top placing agencies in the US met together kind of clandestinely,” recalls Luwis. “To me it was a ‘saving our rear’ meeting. I take no salary. But for some of the others, this is their livelihood. They place thousands of kids; this is the way they’ve done it, they’re not going to change.”

*sigh*

It's a miracle!

Miracle of Newborn Child, Titian, 1511 Fresco.

I see this phrase a lot.... "the miracle of adoption". When did the man-made notion of adoption become a miracle? The religious like to put God into the equation to make it seem as if adoption is a sacred thing. How convenient to use a person's faith to convince them that adoption is part of the divine order.

Here's a definition of the word miracle I found online. "A miracle is an unexpected event attributed to divine intervention. Sometimes an event is also attributed (in part) to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that God may work with the laws of nature to perform what people perceive as miracles."

Well, adoption is not an unexpected event and the only ones intervening are humans. Look at the line I put in bold - ....a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Now that makes sense. Adoption certainly IS an interruption of the laws of nature. Natural law creates a bond between mother and child that is sacred. This is the miracle to me. This is what people have lost sight of. This sacredness has been sacrificed for the almighty dollar. The "almighty" didn't create adoption. The adoption industry calls taking a newborn infant from his or her mother and giving him to a couple who are strangers a miracle. I see adopters writing all the time about God bringing a child to them, that it was meant to be. If all is created by God then why was that child created in the womb of the other woman? Was that woman not meant to be the child's mother? She is then told by people who like playing god that she isn't good enough to raise her own baby. It's not too difficult to believe that if you've been raised to believe that you're a sinner to begin with. Maybe for some, the brainwashing started long before the pregnancy.

What could be more of a miracle than feeling your child move within you, feeling the kick of a baby as she grows? Being connected to that life on a cellular level, being one with that person for all those months is the closest connection any two human beings can have on this planet. That is the miracle! Seeing that child's face for the first time and knowing who she is, is the miracle. That experience was denied me when my daughter was born. I was physically connected to another human yet seeing her and touching her was denied me and she was denied knowing me. That's not a miracle, it's a tragedy.

Scripture is thrown around to justify the idea of adoption like these verses on an adoption site:

Deuteronomy 10:18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. Giving him food and clothing means just that - food and clothing. It does not translate into giving him new parents.

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. What is the cause of the fatherless? To be cared for and loved by their own tribe. If not the mother or father directly then another from their family. That would be seeking justice for the child. Working to keep the sacred connection between mother and child unbroken is seeking justice. Helping the mother IS helping the child.

People are using God to justify taking a child from a mother. If this so-called miracle is meant to be then does that mean God meant for the child to suffer the loss of her family and the family to suffer the loss of their child? How does this jive with the being who is supposed to be all-knowing and loving? When people pray for God to bring them a baby they are praying for something they want; they're asking to have their own needs satisfied. They are not praying for what's best for the child because what's best for a baby is her own mother. If their prayer is answered that means they got what they wanted and what they wanted translates into pain and loss, a sacred bond being broken. When you break it down it just means they're praying for someone else to lose so they can win. In adoption that means many people lose, not just the mother and child. An entire family is damaged.

I think I prefer this verse - Exodus 20:1-17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's. That includes their children.

Expectations

Danger - warning - some people who are sensitive to religion talk may be offended, but it's my blog......

We live with expectations all the time. What people expect of us at work, in our families and from our friendships has a lot do with how we run our lives. We're taught to behave a certain way so that we fit seamlessly into society. As children certain conduct was expected of us and of course that makes sense. I know what it's like to be out in a store or restaurant and be around children who aren't taught to behave - the kids are having fun but the adults around them are swearing a blue streak under their breath!

I appreciate the standards we set for ourselves, we need rules and we need to raise our children with rules for them to follow but....... where do we draw the line and when do we say - I don't think so, I'm going my way and making up my own mind? Sometimes we need to take a look at what we believe and the rules we follow and see if it's really in our best interest to keep believing and keep following. A re-evaluation of our values can be a good thing.

The painting above is about being caught in the web of the rules of religion. The white lilies are the girls like me - unmarried and pregnant, the girls who were expected to remain virginal until they began their lives of wedded bliss (I'd like to know who coined that term) no matter the age. The background shapes aren't legible here but they're bible pages. The web itself is done in gold leaf. Isn't religion many times wrapped in opulence? Religious organizations are very involved in the adoption process. Catholic Social Services facilitated my daughter's adoption. Did they do what was right? NO. Because of this connection, this was the first painting I did in the series.

As humans we want to be part of the crowd and fit in but sometimes we need someone to be bold, say no I'm not doing it that way and maybe wake everyone else up from the herd mentality. Surely, out of all those people involved in the cruel treatment of mothers and children over the decades, someone had a gut feeling or a thought as they were going to sleep at night that what they were doing in adoption was wrong. Surely, there was a family member who had the thought.... the hell with what society or the neighbors think, that baby needs to stay with us. We'll help take care of her. I know I wanted to tell everyone to just stick it, I'm keeping my baby, but I was too scared. Is that what happened? Was everyone too afraid to speak up?

Maybe if a few people had spoken up and said - hey! that's wrong, you can't just keep babies and mothers apart, you can't take that infant from it's mother right there in the delivery room, things could've been different. Maybe if people speak up now, things can be different.

One of my favorite new words is "unchurched" thanks to my friend Robin. It's a good word for how I think of myself. I've been unchurched for a very long time. For me it began when I was a senior in high school but it really took root after my daughter was born. No longer was I going to follow man's rules about morality and to me that's what religion is, a collection of man's rules put in place to control people. If there is a god, he/she/it is probably wondering why more people don't stand up for what's right. (I know the question is going to be... how do you know what's right without religion? I believe we all have an internal compass that if listened to we know what is harmful to ourselves and others and if we pay attention to that our conscience guides us) I don't think any organization has the corner on the market when it comes to morality and ethics, that's been proven time and time again in the news.

When it comes to this issue, deep down in our hearts most of us know that mothers and babies belong together and shouldn't be separated for any reason other than neglect or abuse. At least that's my hope. The Beatles had it right... all you need is love..... and compassion.... and empathy.

Peace