In the United States religion has mostly gotten a free pass. If religious beliefs stayed within a family or a church group, religious beliefs were not challenged.

But beliefs are just that, only beliefs. Beliefs are ideas that are not independently verified. If someone claims that the distance from the earth to the moon is so many miles, that is a claim that can verified by someone else.

However, all religions are based on ideas that have never been independently verified. A flood that killed most of the world’s people, except for one family, or that the Jews were held captive by the Egyptians, or that Moses parted the Red Sea, or that gays are an abomination before God, or abortion is a sin, or being trans is a choice and not determined before birth, are all examples of religious beliefs that are unsupported by facts.

But, and it is a big but, conservative Christians are now forcing their religious beliefs on everyone through state legislatures and the courts. By doing this I feel that their religious beliefs are fair game to be challenged.

I was a cradle-Catholic and attended church regularly through college. I faithfully prayed for relatives so they could move from purgatory into heaven, made sure I went to confession, and kept the Holy Days.

When I met my future wife Helen, she was a strong in the Presbyterian faith as I was in the Catholic. Neither of our mothers learned to drive so one Sunday we took my mother to Holy Rosary in West Seattle and the next Sunday we took her mother to West Side Presbyterian church.

As a Catholic I never was encouraged to read the Bible, but since the Presbyterians had regular Bible study, I eagerly jumped in. I was appalled that there was little in the Bible to back up the teachings of the Catholic Church, but it was also hard to find justification for the “once saved, always saved” of the Presbyterians.

In both churches I was becoming a “duck out of water”.

Over the years I have read through the Old and New Testaments several times. I have also read the Book of Mormon, extensively about the Jehovah Witnesses, as well as Mohammad and Martin Luther, but never the Koran. So, I am most familiar with the Christian Religions.

I fell away from the Catholic Church when my mother was dying of cancer. I could not imagine what my mother did that was so terrible that she had to suffer so terribly. The Catholics also believed that it was good to suffer on Earth, which would shorten the time of suffering in Purgatory. I could not believe in their teachings anymore when faced with the realities of them.

At the beginning of the Christian religion there was the question of who would make it into Heaven and who would go to Hell. At that time in world history life was a struggle and most people lived short lives filled with sorrow and grueling work.

Heaven, where the opposite was true would come as a welcome relief from everyday travail and knowing how to get there was very important. Over the years the first Christian churches morphed into the Catholic Church with its own rules and bureaucracy. Sins were divided into groups of sins that were Mortal and Venial sins. If a person died with at least one Mortal Sin “on their soul” they went straight to hell, but if they only had Venial Sins on their soul they went to Purgatory where they suffered until they atoned for their sins and could move into Heaven. This period of suffering could be hundreds of years.

I still remember as a little boy coming out of confession and then receiving Holy Communion. It was a mortal sin to receive Holy Communion if there were still sins on your soul. There were a lot of stone steps leading from the front doors of Holy Rosary to the side walk, and I imagined tripping and falling hitting my head on a lower step and plunging straight through the step into hell if I forgot to confess a sin.

The question then arose of what would happen to babies who died in original sin but before they could commit any of their own sins. This was solved by the idea of Limbo where such babies went where they had all the benefits of Heaven but without the presence of God.

By the time Martin Luther came along not only could a person be prayed for in Purgatory to shorten their time suffering, but a person could purchase indulgences to shorten other’s time in Purgatory. This was a strong incentive for people as they might imagine a parent or other loved ones suffering in Purgatory.

Indulgences could be the result of direct payment to the Catholic Church or by paying to see relics such as bones of the saints or fragments of the cross. This might seem far-fetched, but think of the people flocking today to see the body of the Nun in Missouri that does shows little signs of decay. They pray over her, touch the body, and some even kiss her dead body.

At first Martin Luther was only against the selling of indulgences, but soon the movement he started questioned the whole concept of the Catholic Church’s doctrine on sin, Purgatory and Hell.

The new religious movement was called Protestant, as in to protest the doctrine of the Catholic Church. While the Catholics counted sin the Protestants believed that Jesus died on the cross to absolve believers of their sins and to believe in Jesus was to obtain everlasting life in Heaven.

This culminated in the modern idea of “once saved, always saved” and people to remember the date when they “accepted Jesus as their personal savior”. This idea formed the basis for crusades by well-known Christians such as Billy Graham where an “alter call” would encourage people to come to the front of the room and publicly “accept Jesus”.

However, a careful reading of the New Testament can yield another way to Heaven, one that I find more satisfying. To me, believing in someone means not only to recognizing them but following what they say. I believe that to believe in Jesus is to believe in what he tells us, and he summarizes it all in the admonition to “Love your neighbor as yourself”.

Jesus illustrates this in the only place in the New Testament where he specially speaks about the judgement of people. These are the very telling, but often overlooked verses: “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me”.

These are the kind of people Jesus wants with him in Heaven. People are either selfish and want to put themselves first or unselfish and think of others also when making decisions.

Jesus never said that suffering is an important part of redemption from sin, or for that matter, necessary at all. The only necessary things to do are to forgive others and to make restitution for the sin. These facts, right from the lips of Jesus, call into question the concept of Purgatory and even Hell.

Knowing this, how can conservative Christians attack the most vulnerable children, the gay and trans ones, in the unkind way they do through statehouse generated laws? It must be because they think that acknowledging Jesus is the son of God is enough to get them into Heaven, and they need someone else to decide for them what is right and wrong.

They must feel if they fight against gay marriage or transgendered children, or any abortion they must be doing God’s will. “Loving your neighbor as yourself” is too difficult for them, for instead of blindly following a rule they would have to decide for themselves how to act. It is in this deciding that Jesus can easily see what kind of a person we are. “Loving your neighbor as yourself” is too difficult for them.

I would like to leave you with one last thought. If you want to learn what are a person’s priorities, look at where they spend their money. You will get a very good idea from that.

The current fight over spending and the debt limit gives a decisive picture of the priorities of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. It can be simply summarized as follows: The Republicans wanted to take from the poor and give to the rich while the Democrats wanted to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Which use of money is closer to the teachings of Jesus? Why do conservative Christians mostly support the Republican Party?

You tell me.