Almost EVERYONE Should Leave Their Church!

Much has been made lately of comments made by a pastor at Barack Obama’s church.  Among Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s quotes (which are on video) are:

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant.  Because the stuff we have done overseas has now brought right back into our own front yards.  America's chickens are coming home to roost."  (Sept. 2001, after 9-11)

In 2003 Wright also said, “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.'  No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people.  God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.  God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."  In a sense, these are the least of Wright’s misstatements since there are elements of credibility interspersed among the criticisms of America.

For example it has been reported that an article appeared in a November/December 2007 edition of Trumpet, a magazine run by Wright's daughters where Wright described Italians as "garlic noses" and saying Jesus' crucifixion was "a public lynching Italian-style.  Wright has also been reported to have said publicly that the AIDS virus was engineered by the US government to harm Africans and under something called “The Pastor’s Page” in his daughter’s newsletter was printed an open letter to Oprah (Winfrey) from Ali Baghdadi, a person who has who said “Mr. al-Bashir (the President of Sudan) is known to be gentle, kind, and pleasant.  His smile is genuine.  One can easily connect with al-Bashir for his humility, warmth, and frankness.  He doesn’t play dirty games.  He doesn’t speak in double tongues.”

This is what Time Magazine says about al-Bashir:

“A top-100 list gives Omar al-Bashir too much company.  In a number of ignominious post-World War II categories, Sudan's dictator ranks in the top five:  most deaths as a result of war strategies (2.5 million in Darfur and southern Sudan), most people rendered homeless by scorched-earth policies (7 million), most villages burned to the ground (at least 1,500 in Darfur alone).  Bashir's one goal is to maintain power.  He has sown discord in Darfur with a classic divide-and-conquer strategy.  As a result, interethnic conflict is tearing the region apart, and attacks on aid agencies by government and rebel militias have left a million people beyond the reach of humanitarian aid. Bashir, 63, has blocked the deployment of a larger U.N.-led peacekeeping operation that would protect Darfur's civilians.”  (Go to http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615513_1614671,00.html .)

So here is an excerpt from that article that Ali Baghdadi wrote and was placed on Rev. Wright’s Pastor’s Page:

“I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa.  In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa.  The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission.  Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.”  (Go to http://tucc.org/upload/tuccbulletin_june10.pdf.)

Interestingly, a number of other pastors have defended Rev. Wright, for a number of personally unintelligible reasons.  Few have thrown Rev. Wright under the bus.  Why?  More on this later.

Obama has said he was not present when these quotes were made.  We assume he would say that he had not read the newsletters either.

In a March 25, 2008 column in Newsday, and typical of opportunistic critics of Barack Obama, Charles Krauthammer wrote, “The question is why didn't he (Obama) leave that church?  Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"?  Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.”

There is no doubt that Rev. Wright is off the wall factually and morally.  And as a non-religious person, I believe that many religions, churches and religious institutions are worth leaving and rejecting, definitely including Sen. Obama’s church; but it is hypocritical for others to single out Obama’s church for an errant pastor whose angst and hysteria is probably the result of having lived through the era of Jim Crow, the Tuskegee Airmen, segregationand lynchings - while staying silent on the deep moral failings of numerous other religious institutions.  Why shouldn’t the focus on the sins of religions and churches be more broad and meaningful?

What about members of mainstream religious institutions that have up until the recent past, as policy, covered up child sexual abuse, made treaties with the Nazis, opposed inter-racial marriage, supported slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and even Apartheid?  Shouldn’t it be demanded that their members leave their churches also?  Oh yes, these are not small congregational institutions we’re talking about – we’re talking about the largest two denominations in the country, Roman Catholicism and much of Southern Baptism!

What about members of churches whose founders were notorious anti-Semites (e.g.: Martin Luther), or who married their followers’ wives and daughters (e.g.: Joseph Smith); or were racists preaching that blacks had the “Mark of Cain” and could not be church elders (e.g.: Brigham Young), or had segregated churches (e.g.: United Methodists); or taught that Jews were “perfidious” (e.g.: Roman Catholic); thanked God they were “chosen” (e.g.: Judaism); subjugated women (e.g.: too many to list); or that one should not be friends with unbelievers, that to die a martyr for one’s religion would guarantee paradise (e.g.: Islam) and that all those outside the chosen faith were doomed to eternal punishment (e.g.: Islam, Christianity)?

Could this collective guilt be the reason why other pastors are loathe to criticize Rev. Wright – is it because their own institutions have too many skeletons in the closet?

Obviously these are all egregious and ethically unacceptable beliefs and behaviors.  And yes, all their members should reject the beliefs, religions and institutions and leave their churches.

But of course, it is mere political cynicism to single out one congregant of one church on account of one pastor when almost all have much to account for.  I wonder where, in the mainstream media, you might hear that story?

Tags: , jeremiah wright, barack obama, trumpet, al-bashir, Italians, Jews, Jesus, presidential politics, 2008 election

 

Working to Corner the “Stupid” Vote

  Everyone understands that there are more or less identifiable blocks of voters who act somewhat monolithically based on their pet issues: pro or anti-abortion voters, racial bigots or chauvinists, superstition-based voters and so on.  Little is said, however, about a most likely larger block that does not necessarily have one pet issue, but many fast-changing easily manufactured issues, but is still identifiable; I’m talking about the Stupid Voters.

In past years Stupid Voters have voted on the basis of their belief that Iraqis or Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11; or that tax cuts for the rich without corresponding spending cuts would never come back to haunt them in their middle class lives; that gay marriage somehow poses a threat to heterosexual marriage; and many other totally unsupported beliefs.  Flag burning, adultery, teaching evolution instead of Creationism in classrooms, and the nominal religious beliefs of a candidate are stupid issues that Stupid Voters do take seriously; the justifications for war, reducing poverty, eliminating government sanctioned torture and civil rights are the kinds of issues that do not interest Stupid Voters.

Stupid Voters want to believe the worst about someone who does not seem to be as stupid as they are.  In the 2000 campaign for the nomination, Stupid Voters were told just before the South Carolina primary that John McCain had had an illegitimate black child; this is just the kind of thing that Stupid Voters really care about; the result was that George W. Bush won that state and changed the momentum of the whole nominating process.  In 2004 the stupid election story to voters was that John Kerry’s heroics in Viet Nam were bogus.  The rest is stupid history, all courtesy of Stupid Voters.

Stupid Voters also are eager to denounce any verbal slip-up by a candidate or candidate’s spouse (e.g.: Michelle Obama’s statement, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.") who opposes their dogmatic position, while totally overlooking far more stupid statements by those with no such leanings (e.g.: GW Bush saying, “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.  They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and so do we.")

Another thing that Stupid Voters are prone to is belief in conspiracies.  In the past Stupid Voters have believed in a UN takeover of the US at the end of the last millennia; that the Clintons killed Vince Foster; that the Jews and/or the Bush Administration planned 9-11 with a cooperating bin Laden; and that “everything happens for a reason.”

So what are this election cycle’s most important stupid issues that will be used to attract the Stupid Voter?

Unsurprisingly, extreme dogmatism, often religious in nature, seems to always be front and center in pursuit of the Stupid Voter.

Religious opposition to gay marriage is a stupid issue that has still not run its course.  It is undoubted that this stupid issue will be used to galvanize those opposed to this improvement in the life of gay Americans even though no quantifiable harm would result to anyone else.  Many Stupid Voters cannot bring themselves to support an elected official who might show some display of kindness toward gays.

Dogmatic Stupid Voters are also desperately concerned about the authenticity of the supernatural beliefs of candidates.  Is Mitt Romney a real Christian?  This is, of course, more important to Stupid Voters than Mr. Romney’s ability to balance a budget or successfully negotiate the end game in Iraq.

But it is clear that the most important stupid story and issue of the upcoming campaign, if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, is the stupid expose of his past; “Is Barack Hussein Obama” a stealth Muslim?”

As almost everyone knows, an email claiming that Obama is a radical Muslim has been making the rounds of many inboxes.  Here is a sample of this email:

“Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya.  His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.

When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia.

Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta.  He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.  He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."  Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.  Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.  Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attemptto downplay his Muslim background.  ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag.  While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!  (End email.)

The perpetrators of this email even include the internet address of Snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp), the famous debunking site, which in fact entirely debunks this email, based on the smart assumption that Stupid Voters will not actually bother to go to Snopes.com and check it out!

But this is not the stupidest of the stupid!

The right-wing Drudge Report, as is typical, printed a photo of Barack Obama dressed, well, sort of, like a Muslim; their “cherry on top” was their most likely bogus attribution to the Clinton Campaign for the “anonymous leak” of this picture.

But not all of those who seek to woo the Stupid Vote choose to remain anonymous.

In late February, 2008, Conservative Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham was asked to warm up the crowd for John McCain at a rally, and that he did.  According to the LA Times, the radio host told the crowd he'd had a dream about "Barack Hussein Obama's wonderful life a year from today."  In the dream, he said, Obama was president and had just met with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and was set to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.  Then, Cunningham said, Obama was going to "saddle up next to Hezbollah."

"All's going to be right with the world when the great prophet from Chicago takes the stand, and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing [Kumbaya] together around the table with Barack Obama," Cunningham continued.

To his credit, Republican candidate John McCain repudiated these remarks immediately.  Apparently since McCain has not been the favorite of Stupid Voters in the past, he has some courage in this regard.

But McCain’s call for a respectful campaign did not sit well with the Stupid Voters and their leaders.  Here is some repartee between Alan Colmes and Bill Cunningham on FoxNews just after the incident:

Colmes: Let me point out that on your radio — what you're ignoring, Bill, is on your radio show didn't you call him Barack Hussein Mohammed Obama?

Cunningham: Well, I did call him that once, because Mohammed is the greatest prophet of God according to...

Colmes: I see. So why did you add a name that wasn't his name? Now you're acting like, "I just said his name."  You didn't do that.  You actually inserted the name "Mohammed" to his name.  Why did you do that?

Cunningham: I believed at the time that his confirmation and one of his names was Mohammed, and I rescinded the statement.  I said Barack Hussein Obama.

COLMES: I see…

Mohammed a confirmation name?  Only stupid person would believe that!  In other words, GREAT IDEA!

Bill Cunningham then indicated that he intended to support – Hillary Clinton!

So here is where we are in the 2008 race for the Stupid Vote: there are actually those who seriously are going to attempt to sway voters based on the middle name of one of the candidates.

And it is guaranteed that this will work to a stupidly amazing degree.

 

Tags: Cunningham, McCain, Barack Hussein Obama, Hannity, Colmes

Will Huckabee’s Religiously Extremist Views be Recognized… by Others?

In last month’s CFI Community of Long Island's INQUIRER, we noted presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s association with the most extreme elements of the Christian Religious right.  As usual, the Mainstream Media (MSM) is behind the curve, when truly it is their DUTY to be at the forefront of presenting actual relevant news and information to the public.

Since that INQUIRER was published, a new Mike Huckabee quote has been making the rounds, and it’s not pretty.  Will the MSM notice?  Will they make this incredible extremism an issue or will they instead write another story regarding Barack Obama’s “Muslim upbringing” or Hillary Clinton’s “un-likeability”?

So what did Huckabee say?  According to CNN’s Political Ticker, in a Warren, Michigan campaign rally, he said “…the biggest momentum out of Michigan may not go to the winner, but to the story of an election eve comment from third-place Mike Huckabee, still resonating as the contest moves south.

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God,” Huckabee told a Warren, Michigan audience Monday night, “and that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards, rather than try to change God's standards."  (Go to http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/16/ticker-morning-edition-wednesday-january-16-2008.)

Now Huckabee will make the excuse, even though it’s no excuse, that he was only referring to was gay marriage and abortion, as if this makes it all OK.

Briefly, the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from establishing religion, or in other words, from passing laws formulated for religious reasons only.  Huckabee recognizes this fact and therefore understands that the Constitution must be amended to allow religiously-based laws.  He did say, after all, “what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards…”  He did not even give lip service to the real basis of making law: the Common Good.

The fact is that changing the Constitution so that our laws conform to Mike Huckabee’s version of “God’s Law” to any degree is to change the very nature of what our country was meant to be all about.  To overtly make laws to conform to “God’s Laws” is the stuff of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamists, Christian Reconstructionists and theocrats of all stripes.  It is religious totalitarianism, period.  This is how it begins.

Will the Mainstream Media report that a presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee wants to make the US afundamentalist Christian nation?  Will they report that he is opposed to the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Paine, Ben Franklin and the Constitution itself?

Here is CNN’s take on the subject in the original article in which this story appeared: “That comment may have been music to the ears of the state’s Christian conservatives, but despite the jump in evangelical turnout, Huckabee failed to attract the same level of support he received from this voting bloc in Iowa. Evangelicals showed up – but despite a huge push by pro-Huckabee organizers, they were just as likely to support Romney as they were the former Baptist minister.”

Mike Huckabee states he wants to change the Constitution so it conforms with “God’s standards,” and all CNN has to say is that Huckabee failed to attract the same level of support he found in Iowa; they state nothing about the extremist and theocratic nature of his comments.

We must give Dan Abrams and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC some credit; they reported on this story on their TV shows on January 17, 2008; it remains to be seen whether the story will grow further.

What will it take for the Mainstream Media to objectively report on religion in America?

Tags: , Mainstream Media, Huckabee, Christian, extremist, Constitution

The Double Standard of Religious Criticism

Many persons criticize Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Vic Stenger and others for their blunt treatment of religious belief and religion itself.  Indeed, the criticism comes from not only the religious, but from other non-theists as well.

Take regular CFI Community of Long Island INQUIRER contributor Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, for example.  He has criticized Dr. Dawkins in print, and the following could be found on Massimo’s blog: “Skeptical Inquirer has just published the third and last entry of my unofficial “Dawkins trilogy,” three short pieces where I take Richard to task about his views on science and religion, his idea of memetics, and, of course, the selfish gene stuff…”  (For the whole blog go to http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html .)

The memetics and selfish gene issues, while important, are not crucial issues when debating God’s existence, or the truth or usefulness of religious beliefs.  These are issues that are of secondary interest to the topic at hand.

Even the portion of theabove noted critique of Dawkins on “Science & Religion” deals with a point that one can argue that Dawkins doesn’t really make (at least as much as Vic Stenger does); that science can “disprove” the existence of God.  In any case, whether Dawkins really argues this or not, as Dr. Pigliucci notes disproof of “God” is more of a philosophical question than a scientific one; Dawkins may be overstating the ability of science to disprove God (or maybe not) but he is not being dishonest; at the worst he has made some mistake in logic.  So note that non-theists, often being fanatics for good reasoning, healthily and securely will take exception to the shortcomings of even their heroes, like Richard Dawkins.

So here’s a contrasting question: Are religious moderates being hypocritical when they criticize atheists for religion bashing when in fact they do far worse?

It would be hard to defend, in this argument, religious fundamentalists who see things simply and clearly in black and white and who begin at a point that is in contradiction to reality: they assume a conclusion on complete faith, which in this context means a firm belief without evidence.  How does one rationally defend that?  One does not.

But what about non-fundamentalists?  What about the largest Christian denomination in existence, the Roman Catholic Church?  What about the Pope himself?

For all the flack that Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, receive for their attacks on religion, is the Pope more inflammatory, hypocritical, dishonest and hateful toward atheists and atheism, yet is seen as a symbol of peace, unity and acceptance by many?

The Pope is easy to dispose of in this argument.  In an encyclical issued 11/30/07 and entitled “SPE SALVI,” the Pope claims that “According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.”

Yes, the Pope is saying that salvation gives us hope even if we are living a miserable life.  Unfortunately he does not mention that it is the Christian religion that invented the idea of original sin in the first place which then requires the above noted redemption (and the hope/faith that one will indeed be unworthily chosen to receive this redemption) and contrarily, eternal misery if one does not “accept” this gift of salvation through an evidence-free faith; and, by the way, this faith will not make one’s actual life any better.  Thanks for almost nothing!

Is this overstating the case?  Is the Pope really saying that hoping something is true is the same as having faith that something is true?  Is he really saying that life is that bleak unless you blindly believe in something that gives you hope?

The Pope continues, “Likewise, when the First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be always ready to give an answer concerning the logos—the meaning and the reason—of their hope (cf. 3:15),“hope” is equivalent to “faith”.”

Well, yes, he is sort of saying that life sucks except for the possession of the hope/faith that one will be “saved.”  Well sort of, however, but not quite…

The Pope continues writing, “We see how decisively the self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare the Christian life with life prior to faith, or with the situation of the followers of other religions.  Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths.”

Well shut my mouth!!!

Could Richard Dawkins have uttered a more atheistic and dismissive sentence than “Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths.”

The Pope does not stop here; he cannot stop here.  Since the Pope has an interest in promoting the Roman Catholic religion, and no other, he cannot simply defend the concept of faith in general; he must attack all those and all religions that do not share the Pope’s faith and defend the concept of believe without evidence in his belief only!  He must remove all hope and all happiness from everything in the world except for the Roman Catholic faith in God.  Pope Benedict XVI must turn to attacking atheism, which in the Pope’s mind, is everything but Roman Catholicism!

He writes, “The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history.  A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God.  A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God.  It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested.  Since there is no God to create justice (Ed.’s note: The Pope cannot seem to decide if non-believers don’t believe in God or think God exists but is not good.  Here’s a clue–non-believers don’t believe in God.), it seems man himself is now called to establish justice.  If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God (Ed.’s note: He’s doing it again.) is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false.  It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim.  A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope.”

For thosewho cannot believe their eyes, the Pope is arguing that humanity’s quest for a just world is doomed not only to failure, but destined to create misery and remove all hope from the world!

How can one debate or have a reasoned conversation with someone who claims, “To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful.  A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12).  Only God can create justice.  And faith gives us the certainty that he does so.”  (For the whole encyclical go to http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly.php?id=26060&section=Cathcom.)

What religious charlatan could NOT make the above claim?  Bin Laden could endorse the above statement!

All godless lovers of justice take note: you are the cause of all human misery, according to the Pope.

Now you might say, “That’s the Pope.  Most religious persons are far more moderate in their opinions of the godless.  Most people never get as nasty about atheists as Richard Dawkins gets about religion!”  Or do they?

So what does an average person in the US, a so-called “religious moderate” say about atheists?

From the American Mosaic Project out of the University of Minnesota is the research paper “Atheists as “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society”:

“(Researchers) conclude that widespread political rejection of atheists and others who profess no religion provides a “glaring exception” to the general rule of increasing social tolerance over the last thirty years of the twentieth century...”

“Respondents had various interpretations of what atheists are like and what that label means.  Those whom we interviewed view atheists in two different ways.  Some people view atheists as problematic because they associate them with illegality, such as drug use and prostitution—that is, with immoral people who threaten respectable community from the lower end of the status hierarchy.  Others saw atheists as rampant materialists and cultural elitists that threaten common values from above—the ostentatiously wealthy who make a lifestyle out of consumption or the cultural elites who think they know better than everyone else.  Both of these themes rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individualists who are not concerned with the common good…”  (Go to http://www.soc.umn.edu/hartmann/files/atheist%20as%20the%20other.pdf.)

Please note that the above unfounded critiques are of atheists as persons, not simply atheism!  Yes, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens bluntly attack religious belief but “average” or “moderate” Americans impugn atheists themselves and ascribe to them all sorts of specific-to-them-only attributes that have no relation to reality.  No one bothers with evidence or facts.

Even religious moderates make the argument that “without God, all is permitted,” implying that those who do not believe have no reason for morality.  By extension they come to believe that the jails are filled with non-believers or that non-believers are selfish hedonists who care about no one else.

In contrast, from a godless standpoint, all persons, theist and non-theist alike have the same opportunity and motivation for good behavior; their innate concern for others.  Although many theists will make the magical and free-will killing assertion that God placed love and concern in our human hearts, Natural Selection offers a perfectly good alternative and well-evidenced explanation in its place.  Either way, non-theists do not see themselves as superior but only see dogma as an obstacle to human kindness prevailing.

Ultimately it is hard to see how anything that Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett or Stenger have ever said that comes even close to hatefulness and dishonesty that religious fundamentalists, the Pope, and yes, the even the average religious person commonly believes about atheists.

For it is written, “The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”  (Psalms 14:1.)

Tags: Pope, Benedict, Dawkins, Hitchens, Stenger, Sam Harris, Natural Selection, dogma

Pharmacists and Supernatural Taboos

Recently Pope Benedict XVI told Catholic pharmacists NOT to dispense products that contradict Catholic teachings, including products that prevent pregnancy, and also, ironically, products that could end the pregnancies that could have been prevented in the first place.

In his address to the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, the pope said, "We cannot anesthetize consciences as regards, for example, the effect of certain molecules that have the goal of preventing the implantation of the embryo or shortening a person's life.”  (Go to http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jw4DfRJJM5LHehUvvOG8BRS1VtuwD8SJ6PC82. )

Although the Pope paints this as a matter of “conscience,” the word “conscience” as the Pope uses it means almost the exact opposite as it does for most other persons.  In the Roman Catholic religion, you have a clear “conscience” when you know that what you believe coincides with what the Church/Pope demands.  If you follow your own sense of reason, compassion, logic and morals, you are NOT following your conscience, according to what my pocket Catholic Catechism says.  The Church/Pope IS the conscience of a Roman Catholic, supposedly.  The kind of restrictions being dealt with here are not moral rules but instead supernatural taboos.

So persons of reason then must consider the situation in a different light than the Pope would prefer.  Is it immoral (which is defined as whether something helps or harms well being) to dispense legal contraceptive devices or products to be used in euthanasia?

A difference of opinion is possible here (although I’d like to see the argument against condoms!)  And a person may actually come to a conclusion based on their own ability to reason and their own sense of right and wrong that actually coincides with the Pope’s demands.  A pharmacist who has reasoned it through then can refuse to do a portion of their job or find some other line of work if they so truly object.

But the pharmacy owner has rights also.  Should employers be forced to keep as employees those persons who refuse to completely perform a legal job?  If an employee asks to be relieved of certain duties that other employees willingly perform, and other potential employees would willingly perform, why continue to employ the reluctant employee?  That is a good question for an employer.

It really is simple: a religious excuse is no better than any other excuse, and in fact, it is much worse.  A logical reason is a better excuse; legality/illegality is a better excuse.  And yes, the ethics/morality of a behavior is a far better excuse than a supernatural taboo.

Religious persons are entitled to their convictions until they infringe upon the rights of others and cause others harm.  They can refuse to dispense condoms, the pill or other forbidden products; however, the employer, who might lose sales and income if he were to hire a store full of such employees, should have the right to fire them.

To put a bow on it, what would happen if other people stopped doing portions of their jobs for various and sundry religious and/or non-religious reasons?  Exactly why should this discussion be confined to pharmacists?  Why would this discussion be confined to contraceptives?

What about butchers in supermarkets refusing to butcher pork?  Or beef?  Or meat in general?  Must the supermarket continue to employ them?

Would it be ok if police or firemen or those in a retail job refused to work on their Sabbath or some other day of the week?  Is there a rule about the length of the Sabbath or holy days – could they be 2 or 3 days long or more?  Should private employers or the State accommodate any religious or even non-religious whim?  If we accommodate Catholic pharmacists, should we accommodate Christian Identity followers who refuse to serve African Americans?  Can the government designate one religion as “ok” and another as “not ok”?

Obviously not, but sometimes the obvious is invisible to the oblivious.

Tags: Pope, Benedict, pharmacists,

Mike Huckabee & Christian Reconstructionists

For about one moment, a number of usually sensible persons thought Mike Huckabee was different.  It was said, for a moment, that Huckabee was a “nice” guy, had some integrity, and was not a panderer.

That moment’s up!

Mike Huckabee is no longer a cute Baptist Minister with a warm demeanor; he has been found to be a religious fanatic, or worse, a bigot, who not only is willfully ignorant, but blinded by his faith even in the commission of his public trust and associates with the darkest and most extreme elements of American religious fanatics.

Where do we begin?

It’s almost trivial, compared to some other issues we’ll explore, to mention that Mike Huckabee is a Creationist.  He has said that he is a bible believer, and probably a literalist, so this is not a new revelation.  It is sobering, though, to consider that an admitted Creationist and Bible literalist could be soon impacting our children’s schools nationwide.  It is also amazing to see how little grief he gets for this willful ignorance from other candidates and the media.

Why is he let off the hook?  Answer: because his Creationism is a religious belief and a nutty religious belief is off limits in a way thatnutty non-religious beliefs are not.

For a person like Huckabee, magic and science and reason and faith are one and the same.  The mind boggles.

Yet, this is the least of it.

According to CNN, “Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee refused to retract a statement he made in 1992 calling for the isolation of AIDS patients… Responding to an Associated Press questionnaire, Huckabee said steps should be taken to “isolate the carriers of this plague” during his failed run for a U.S. Senate seat from Arkansas 15 years ago.

He said he probably would not make the same statement today because of what is known about how HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is transmitted.

"I had simply made the point -- and I still believe this today -- that in the late '80s and early '90s, when we didn't know as much as we do now about AIDS, we were acting more out of political correctness than we were about the normal public health protocols that we would have acted," Huckabee told Fox News on Sunday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in 1985 that AIDS was not transmitted by casual contact…”

Well if that were the end of it, this kind of ignorance would probably be par for the course for a politician.  But it’s not.

What about gay marriage?

In February, 2007, when pressed in an interview with the Associated Press, Mike Huckabee said the historic definition of marriage has worked for so long for a reason.  “’People have a right to decide how they live their lives.  But they have to respect not changing the definition of marriage,’ said Huckabee, who served as a pastor in Baptist churches before becoming governor in 1996.”

In 2004, the year Arkansas approved a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Huckabee said the ban was needed to quiet activists looking to rewrite the nation's social code.  But Huckabee also said it was OK to say a person's sexual preference was nobody's business, "even though it's not consistent with the Biblical norm of male and female."  Apparently it’s no one’s business until they want to get married; then it’s Mike Huckabee’s and the Religious Right’s business.

In 2006, when the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected a ban on gay foster parents that had been put in by a state board, Huckabee said through a spokeswoman: "I'm very disappointed that the court seems more interested in what's good for gay couples than what's good for children needing foster care."

Exactly how would eliminating potential foster homes be “good for children needing foster care”?  And please note the admission on Huckabee’s part that he does not want to do  “good” for gay citizens.  Of course, we suspect Huckabee’s answers reside in the bible.

Will these homophobic views come back to haunt Mike Huckabee?

Probably not; in the Republican Party most candidates, though not all, want to be seen as “tough on gays,” in the way that being tough on crime was always seen as an asset.  It’s got to be tough being a Log Cabin Republican.

Another area where Huckabee exposed a bigoted side was his passive-aggressive attack on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

Huckabee asked this question in a NY Times interview: “Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

According to Mormon scripture this is correct; but what was the point of asking?  Answer: to point out how Mormons are heretics, meaning Romney is a heretic, and of course, as every Christian fundamentalist knows, heretics are not capable of being President.

Once again, this may help Huckabee with some voters and indeed his poll numbers continued to increase after this little episode.  This and other anti-Mormon attacks forced Romney to give a speech where Romney promised not only that he would not take orders from the Mormon Church but that he instead would force a broad form of Christianity down everyone’s throat.  Thanks Mitt and Mike!

Unbelievably all of the above will probably mean little in the nomination process to most Republican voters, but there are some issues that may indeed come back to haunt Huckabee.

As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee took interest in the case of a convicted rapist, Wayne Dumond.  Huckabee began to believe that Dumond was railroaded and deserving of sympathy and ultimately release before his sentence expired.  Why did Huckabee take an interest in this particular convict?

The answer is twofold; one reason was that Dumond had raped a distant relative of President Bill Clinton, and this irrelevant fact had convinced many Religious Right fanatics such as Huckabee’s Baptist minister friend Jay Cole, and the NY Post’s Steve Dunleavy that Dumon was railroaded and innocent!

The other reason was no better: serial rapist Dumond claimed a religious conversion in prison and that he had become a “born-again” Christian.

Instead of commuting his sentence, which would have been an obvious ploy subject to criticism, Huckabee instead pressured the appointees of the Parole Board to release Dumond; Huckabee asked them to do his dirty work.  They complied.

Huckabee now denies he applied the pressure; however, ALL of the members of the Parole Board claim he did, including those who voted for and against the parole.  In addition, recently disclosed statements and letters from Huckabee at the time exposed his desire to see Dumond go free, indicating Huckabee thought that Dumond got a raw deal, not unlike his radical minister friend Jay Cole believed.  Worst of all, publicly disclosed at the time of the decision, Huckabee had meetings with and received letters from multiple rape victims of Wayne Dumond, including the Clinton distant relative whose rape landed Dumond in jail, who warned Huckabee in person not to have Dumond released!  Huckabee ignored the personal pleas from these victims and pressured for his release anyway.  They had no effect on Huckabee; Huckabee is evidence impervious.

In other words, because of Right-wing paranoia about Bill Clinton and unconscionable favoritism towards “born-again” Christians, Wayne Dumond was indeed paroled, and subsequently raped and murdered one, if not two more women.

Dumond was convicted of one subsequent rape/murder after his release but died in prison before he could be tried for the second murder.

Imagine: releasing a rapist despite warnings from MULTIPLE victims because of truly asinine political partisanship and religious favoritism leading to the rapes and murders of two innocentwomen!  So, what else could possibly be even worse with presidential candidate Mike Huckabee?

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee attended a fundraiser for himself in December 2007, and it was held at the Houston, Texas home of a self-proclaimed Christian Restorationist, Dr. Steven Hotze, a person others would describe as a Christian Reconstructionist.

As an aside, Dr.Hotze has also been cited by Quackwatch as spreading dubious medical information to the public (for his own profit as it turns out.)

Dr. Hotze has long advocated, as do all Christian Reconstructionists, that the government should enforce biblical law.  Many Reconstructionists apparently believe this means re-instituting slavery, executing homosexuals, adulterers, practicing Jews, Muslims, Hindus and non-fundamentalist Christians such as Catholics or Episcopalians (go to http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm).  According to "Talk To Action," Hotze has said, "There is no neutrality.  Civil government will either reflect biblical Christianity or it will reflect anti-Christian positions."  ( http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/11/23/85532/138 .)

Hotze also signed a Manifesto that endorsed the following: "We affirm that the laws of man must be based upon the laws of God.  We deny that the laws of man have any inherent authority of their own or that their ultimate authority is rightly derived from or created by man."

Doesn't this imply that an endorser does not recognize the laws of the United States?  Of course, all of this is the opposite of the American idea that a government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.

Why is Mike Huckabee having a fundraiser at the home of a person such as this?  Why would such a person support Huckabee?

Would some other candidate get away with associating with such an extremist—if he were not a religious extremist?

If it has not become apparent already, the active endorsement of a staunch extreme American Taliban-like Christian such as Dr. Steven Hotze should make one wonder; is Minister Mike Huckabee on a mission to make our laws conform to the only authority he and they actually recognize; the God of the Bible?

(More on Christian Reconstructionism; for the “Manifesto” go to http://www.churchcouncil.org/ReformationNet/COR/cordocs/Manifesto.pdf For the “42 Article” got to http://www.churchcouncil.org/ReformationNet/COR/cordocs/42Articles.pdf.

For more on Dr. Steven Hotze and his alternative medical practice go to http://www.drhotze.com/EN/index.html .)

Tags: Huckabee, Christian Reconstructionists, Hotze

Sorry for Beating the Dead Horse: or the War on Hats!

Believe it or not, this newsletter makes an active effort to not be uniformly negative; in other words, an effort is made to illuminate the positive aspects of a naturalistic, secular and humanistic approach to life and not merely bash superstition.  The problem is, it’s too easy and too obvious and too necessary to bash superstition to not do it.

From Adnkronos International comes a story that would make the Onion proud; in fact, the story is so “Onion-like,” full confidence in its veracity must be reserved:

“Women have been banned from wearing boots and hats on the streets of Tehran.

Police chief, General Ahmad Radan, announced the ban on Wednesday saying that boots could only be worn if they were covered by pants.

"If boots are not covered by pants that fall to the ankles, they show the female shape and that is therefore in contradiction with Islamic dress code” said Radan.

Iranian women can no longer leave home with their pants pushed inside their boots and they can no longer wear hats without a veil.

"A hat is not an adequate substitute for a veil or a hijab," he said."  If someone really wants to wear a hat, they can put it on the veil."  (Go to http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.1662888444)

Ridiculous, right?  Can’t be true, right?

Well, Reuters subsequently reported the following:

“Iranian police detained 28 young men and women wearing "inappropriate and repulsive" clothing and confiscated alcohol at a party in a northeastern city, an Iranian news agency reported on Monday…

"The police officers arrested 18 girls and 10 boys with inappropriate and repulsive clothing in the house," he said…

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behavior".

The authorities this month launched a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" suchas short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.”  (Go to http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSDAH44031020071224.)

Hats instead of scarves!  What is Iran coming to?  At least the President of Iran is on the case. 

Lest anyone think that this kind of fanaticism or hypocrisy or insanity is limited to one stream of religious belief, one only needs to turn the page in a newspaper.

How about a brawl between priests, fighting in and about the legendary birth place of the Lord himself, Jesus Christ?

According to AFP:

“Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

"As usual the cleaning of the church afer Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.

"For the two years that I have been here everything went more or less calmly," he said. "It's all finished now."

The Church of the Nativity, like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards a part of the holy site.

The Church of the Nativity is built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born in a stable more than 2,000 years ago after Mary and Joseph were turned away by an inn.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.”  (Go to http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5itableVuT2QIr2H6dF1FyV1gXZpQ.)

The BBC added:

“Palestinian police formed a human cordon to separate the battling dark-robed and bearded priests and deacons, said to number about 80, so that cleaning could continue.”  (Go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7161557.stm.)

Thank goodness the Palestinians were there to restore peace to the legendary place of the birth of the “Prince of Peace,” and Lord to all the combatants, Jesus.

And darn it for it being so easy to bash religion.

 

 

Tags: Iran, Jerusalem, Ahmad Radan, The Church of the Nativity