Man Was Not Made for the Sabbath

The Slacktivist has inspired me again, as he frequently does, with his third post on Sex & Money.

You should read the entire post, well, the entire series- fuck it, the entire blog! (we'll wait)- but here is the money quote for me:

I've been describing this as an evangelical Christian dilemma because that's who I am and where I'm coming from. But this is a human failing, not a peculiarly evangelical one. We all have this tendency and temptation to approach whatever we regard as holy writ as though we were paralegals, compiling citations and precedents for a moral indictment of other people. Every religion or ethical framework ever known has had some variation of the Golden Rule, and the adherents of every such system have at some point been tempted to regard that imperative as insufficient and inadequate, seeking and finding additional rules until those rules eventually come to conflict with and supersede that central principle.

"Love is the fulfillment of the law," the Bible says. When love is perceived as a violation of the law, something has gone horribly amiss. When the rulebook is telling you that more affordable, decent housing for seniors is wrong, then something is wrong with the way you're reading the rulebook.

Yes. Of course. If you're an atheist, you go a little further: if the rulebook really does tell you that, ditch the rulebook entirely.

Rules exist for a purpose, to guide and protect the people who live under them. 25mph isn't arbitrary, it's the fastest speed that safely allows one to traverse neighborhood streets. We don't punish driving while intoxicated because we are killjoys, but rather because innocent people die when others choose to drive under the influence. Rules are a good thing, I agree. Utter anarchy only serves the wealthy and well-armed, so I'll suffer a few misapplied rules. What I will not suffer is the worship of rules over people, the very definition of fundamentalism.

The reason I can't be a fundamentalist is that the rules will never mean more to me than the people. "No abortions ever!" they cry, and I weep for a raped 9-year-old, impregnated with twins, saved from certain death by an abortion. "It says right here that gay is wrong!" they rage, but all I can see is a gay man prevented by lack of marriage from seeing his love of 40 years one last time before he dies.

I don't understand you, fundamentalist. I don't. I try, harder than you can realize, I really do, but your rules, your words on a page, will never- not ever- mean more to me than the people they affect. You see principles, I see people. You tell me I am evil, and I wonder what part of love for my fellow man is evil. The further I move from faith, the more I understand that the greatest of these is love.