America's True Gods

America has new gods. 
 
America's new true gods. 

We're not a Christian nation.

We're not even a nation of Christians.

Sure, the majority population calls themselves that.

But when has that ever truly meant anything?

People call themselves all kinds of things that their actions contradict.

The importance is what people do, not what people say.

America has new gods.

Multiple gods.

We don't worship the Abrahamic deities in their many names.

We worship greed.

We worship unadulterated self-centeredness.

We worship fear.

These are the new gods of America.

Greed, where corporate overlords bilk us out of our paychecks and our future for short-term quarterly savings and gains.

And we praise them for doing it.

Self-centeredness, where people can unabashedly argue their right to own a deadly weapon they treat like a toy is more important than our children's right to live.

And their voices grow louder.

Most insidious of all, however, is the fear.

Fear, that drives people who follow a holy book that preaches: Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” to decry and condemn those fleeing destruction and death.

Fear, that drives people to value their own sense of righteousness over those who just want to love.

Fear, that drives people to identity politics wherein their ideas become their identity and no matter how wrong they are, any evidence against them is an attack on them as a person not an argument, and civil discourse becomes crushed and forgotten.

Fear, that drives people to vote against their own interests and give up their own freedom while stealing it from others with a smile on their faces.

This is America today, and these are our new gods.

These are the gods of a nation that is okay with its children being killed en masse.

These are the gods of a nation that is okay with a system guaranteeing the creation of the less-fortunate, then punishing them for being so.

These gods happen when we are no longer a nation.

Americans do not seem to care about America anymore.

They care about being an American, but not being America.

They do not care about their fellow Americans.

They care about themselves, to hell with anyone else.

“I have mine, whatever the cost.”

We are the trees who have forgotten we are a forest.

That is America today; these are our new gods.

I hope we’re proud of ourselves.

Because I’m not.