When Pat Robertson Says Outrageous Things, Blame People for the American Way

After all, Robertson himself does.

I said it yesterday morning on Wilshire & Washington and I’ll say it again here: these so-called Evangelical leaders are making themselves more and more irrelevant with every crazy word out of their mouths. I’m starting to get the sense that many Christians are getting really fed up with being represented and led around by these guys.

Let’s hope that trend continues.

Atheists Unwanted in Military, in Government, and in Some Cases as Foster Parents

Kermit the Frog once complained that “it isn’t easy being green.” But if the song were re-tooled today, he might instead choose to sing about how it’s hard not to believe in god.

We live in a time when atheists face discrimination while serving in the military and are told at home that they don’t share ‘real’ American values.

And in some cases, atheists are unwanted as foster parents. On a recent trip to Nebraska, I spent a couple of hours at Boys Town an organization that focuses on building community and support for troubled youngsters. Boys Town does a lot of good work, so much in fact that I asked what the qualifications were for becoming a foster parent in the hopes that someday I might spend a few years supporting children in need. I was shocked to learn that “teaching couples” — what Boys Town calls foster parents — must practice a “mainline religion” to be considered for the post.

I asked if Buddhist meditation counted, but apparently that isn’t mainline enough for them. I’m sure that’s news to the world’s more than 300 million Buddhists.

And keep in mind that Boys Town — according to its own FAQ — receives government money.

The Christian Right on the 2008 Presidential Election

A few tidbits that drifted through my reader today:

• Christianists are having a hard time accepting John McCain as the Republican party’s presumptive nominee, especially with the rumors that he might select Florida’s moderate, unmarried governor Charlie Crist as his running mate.
• Experts think that Ellen DeGeneres may have a unique impact on the California marriage debate. “Because of her likeability, a lot of viewers feel like they know her,” says Jim Key, chief public affairs officer for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. “She is like a friend. People who know her want her to have the same rights as everyone else.” Ellen sure made a difference for me ten years ago when she came out on the cover of Time. I carried the cover of that magazine around in the clear plastic sleeve of my binder for the rest of the year. It’s how I came out at school.
• Meanwhile, prominent evangelical leaders like Mike Huckabee are raising points that might put some Christians in bed with the Democrats rather than the Republicans. Social liberalism anyone?

Does anyone else think that this spells limited evangelical support for McCain in the fall? Might Democrats take the upper hand with this group given their dissatisfaction with McCain, more mainstream acceptance of gays and lesbians and Obama’s wonderful ability to speak to people of faith?

While Europe Slept

As you may have noticed, it has been a few days since I’ve posted. I’ve been reading a book entitled “While Europe Slept”: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West From Within.” Author Bruce Bawer, a gay American who lived for many Europe in several Western European countries, paints a stark picture of the problem in Europe right now of Muslim immigrants who, rather than being encouraged/forced to integrate into society (as are American immigrants), are encouraged to keep their own cultures, identities, and customs. The result has been an increasing divide between native Europeans and immigrant Muslims.

Because of many European countries subsidization of mosque and religious schools, and they unwillingness to appear intolerant, it appears to me that Fundamentals has become quite prominent. It appears that an increasing numbers of those Muslims who are immigrating are becoming radicalized, or, at the very least, hostile towards their new host countries. Fear of being intolerant has kept the authorities from becoming involved with issues such as forced marriages, honor killings, spousal abuse and rape, Antisemitism and gay bashing.

It is disturbing to read anecdotes of students harassing their teachers for being homosexual, and principals instructing Jewish students not to display Stars of David for fear of being “inciteful.” The statistics on the recent rise in many European countries in rape, murder, and crime are alarming.

I’m unsure how accurate the portrait painted of fundamentalist Islam in Europe is. I’ve never been to Europe, so it is difficult for me to tell. I do know that the US, for all its problems (see President Bush), would never stand by idly as its citizens were forced into marriages, raped, beaten, or denied basic human rights. Just this week the US raided a fundamentalist Mormon camp accused of such things.

However, what I hear over and over again in this fascinating book, and what I have read on dozens of blogs (which are, admittedly, not the best source of information), is that, in many European countries, the police and authorities are much less helpful than the US police and authorities with respect to standing up for those who are being bullied, beaten, or abused.

Given that I cannot go to Europe for at least another year (Cash Rules Everything Around Me), and that I know there are many Europeans readers of this blog, I am curious for your insights with relation to the accuracy of this book and the claims it makes.

P.S. I know that the US is not perfect, gay bashing and anti-Antisemitism have not been eradicated, the KKK still exists, and our President has repeatedly authorized the issue of torture.

Apparently, Atheists Don’t Have Rights

Studies show that many Americans believe that atheists - those who do not believe in, or question the existence of God - don’t share American values. Former President George H.W. Bush once told a reporter, “I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”

With all this vitriol against Atheism, it’s hardly surprising that Illinois state representative Monique Davis (D-Chicago) said this to an atheist testifying before her committee last week:

This is the Land of Lincoln  where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous…

It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! …

You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

If this were a black man, or a Jew, or even a gay person in the hot seat, the American people would erupt in furious protest. But because the person in question is an atheist, the incident hasn’t received much attention outside of Illinois.

Democracies are there to project the minority as well as the majority. Since when is it acceptable to treat someone this way because of what they believe?

Vatican Issues New Seven Deadly Sins

Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. These are the seven deadly sins as issued by the Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century AD, and further brought into the mainstream by Dante and St. Thomas Aquinas. After 1500 years, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti (head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences), has decided to issue a new seven deadly sins:

Environmental pollution
Genetic manipulation
Accumulating excessive wealth
Inflicting poverty
Drug trafficking and consumption
Morally debatable experiments
Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

Personally, I find these new sins both ridiculous and inappropriate. The old seven deadly sins have been a mainstay of our culture because they were non-specific, politically neutral and referred to intent than actions. No one is going to dispute that greed and envy are positive spiritual actions. However, the new seven deadly sins are highly charged politically, open to misinterpretation, overly vague, and in some cases, flat out wrong.

Let’s walk through each poorly written sin:

Environmental pollution: even freegans pollute to some degree, so where exactly does this sin begin? While dumping toxic waste into a reservoir seems obvious, what about driving a car with bad gas mileage? Is driving a car with good gas mileage okay? Does 28.4 mpg constitute sin, while 28.5 constitutes virtue? Even breathing oxygen increases the amount of CO2. Have I lived a life of sin if my carbon footprint is anything other than neutral? Or am I virtuous as long as I drive a hybrid and carpool to work? The Pope travels all across the world, burning up fossil fuels? Is he a sinner?

Genetic manipulation: so we probably shouldn’t clone a master race of super soldiers. But what about using genetic research to cure disease? Is using stem cells to treat Parkinson’s a sin? I believe Michael J. Fox would disagree.

Accumulating excessive wealth: what person has done the most good for mankind in the last five to ten years? Hard to say, but Bill Gates would certainly be in the running. The Gates Foundation has significantly improved the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. Has he been a scourge on mankind? Is the world worse off because he accumulated ridiculously excessive amounts of wealth? Only Steve Jobs would agree with that. Plus, aren’t most Bishops pretty wealthy?

Inflicting poverty: what exactly does “inflicting poverty” constitute. I don’t exactly break the bank as a teacher, but I have two TV’s and four computers. Do my spending habits inflict poverty (I could sell my TVs and give the money to the homeless)? Or do I need to go the Robert Mugabe rout and bankrupt a nation in order to commit this sin?

Drug trafficking and consumption: what exactly constitutes a drug? Heroin is a drug. But so is Aspirin. Is my uncle, a Merck employee, going to hell if he doesn’t confess his sins for helping to develop drugs that reduce cholesterol? Or is just drugs that are illegal? Does that mean it’s a sin to smoke marijuana in New Jersey, but not in Amsterdam? Or is the Vatican going to issue a list of drugs that are sinful?

Morally debatable experiments: so is any experiment that requires extra scrutiny by an ethics board sinful? If we have to debate the ethics of something, is it a sin? Does this mean we can only exercise the scientific method in non-controversial areas?

Violation of fundamental rights of human nature: not sure what this means, and it seems a little obvious, but I’ll let this one pass. At least it’s not condemning Bill Gates (who actually funded some of the computers at my school).

If you want to live your life by a set of rules someone you’ve never met came up with, I suggest using Gandhi’s seven deadly sins:

*Wealth without Work
* Pleasure without Conscience
* Science without Humanity
* Knowledge without Character
* Politics without Principle
* Commerce without Morality
* Worship without Sacrifice

Religion and Politics Together are Deadly to Both

I just finished David Kuo’s Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction in which the former Special Assistant to the President makes a genuine and heartfelt plea to American Christians to “fast” from politics for two years.

Why this fast? Kuo asserts that the Bush administration has skillfully extracted votes and money from religious Americans without giving their movements anything substantive in return. The culture war rages on, to be sure. But the faith-based and community initiative remains deeply underfunded. Religious Americans who once saw President Bush as a “compassionate conservative” have been deeply mislead.

The essence of compassionate conservatism is not difficult to support. Organizations that effectively help the disadvantaged can receive government funds regardless of religious affiliation. I have no problem with this, just so long as the money is not used to proselytize. Neither does the Federal Government. Even before the Bush administration, a number of large religious movements such as the Salvation Army were able to get government funds for their work.

President Bush entered the White House seeking to do some good for America’s needy. But as Kuo came to learn, he was more interested in making it look like he was helping the poor than in actually helping them. Much of the promised funding for the faith-based initiative he touted never came to be. Meanwhile, staffers in the faith-based office were forced to choose between obscurity and using the initiative to further the administration’s political gains. They chose the latter to disastrous results.

To explain the fundamental tension that led to his call for a fast, Kuo cites a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters in which the powerful demon Screwtape instructs his young cousin Wormwood on how best to vex a Christian:

 Let him begin by treating patriotism…as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the “cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce…[O]nce he’s made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.

Meanwhile, religious certainty can have the same dark effect on otherwise nuanced and principled public servants. After a while, those in positions of power who tie their religious beliefs directly to their duties can come to see themselves as divinely chosen. They can have a hard time separating their personal will from God’s will. Much malfeasance can be excused if it is conducted in “God’s service.” The ends come to justify the often vicious means.

I support Kuo’s call for a fast for anyone who sees himself in Screwtape’s letter to Wormwood. As a non-Christian, there’s really no way for me to second it. But I definitely support his intentions. Two years fasting from politics should give compassionate conservatives some time to re-orient themselves to what’s really important. When they do return to politics, I hope it will be much more thoughtfully.

As If We Need Another Reason to Be Frightened of Mike Huckabee

That sounds a lot like George W. Bush telling people that God wants him to be President. Can our country really deal with four more years of this drivel passing for political discourse? I hope we never have to find out.

Via Mark Melief.

Republicans in Congress Holding Megachurches Accountable for Lavish Spending

What an AWESOME headline. I never thought I’d see the day, but here it is!

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee recently sent letters to six American Christian Nationalist ministries that practice questionably extravagant spending. Many of these ministries preach the gospel of wealth and ask followers to give more than they can really afford. Grassley is questioning whether the churches’ tax-exempt status is being abused.

One example is the ministry of Benny Hinn, who has been getting rich off of faith healing scams for years. I remember watching a story on television years ago about how Hinn defrauded an immigrant family of all their money, promising that God would heal their desperately ill son. They gave money they could have spent on doctors and medicine to Hinn and their son died without even a visit from the “man of God.”

The doctrine of most Christian nationalist churches requires followers to submit. Women submit to their husbands. Men submit to church leaders. In theory, church leaders are supposed to submit to God. But this last part gets tricky. With absolute power over a prostrate flock, some of these leaders get a little too big for their proverbial britches.

The result? Rolls Royce cars. $5,000 a night hotel rooms. Private jets.

I don’t think that people of the cloth should have to go about in abject poverty. But that kind of extravagance reveals a priority that has more to do with the material world and its pleasures than the joys of Heaven these so-called ministers use to scam people.

Fearlessly Feminine: How Circular Arguments and Personal Truth Threaten Women’s Right to Self-Determination

In the interest of understanding more about the view of women that informs so many of the religious right’s policy goals, I’ve been reading books such as Jani Ortlund’s Fearlessly Feminine: Boldly Living God’s Plan for Womanhood and Michael Farris’ How a Man Prepares His Daughters for Life.

Ortlund’s book — in which I am currently reading the chapter on motherhood — is particularly interesting. On the first pass, I was surprised with just how much of her outlook I actually agreed with.

After all, in my experience communication is central to a good marriage. Things that can be bought and sold are not of true spiritual significance. Sex without respect is morally bankrupt, and taking care of the needs of others is a critical component of righteousness.

So many good points started jumping out at me that I started asking myself, “just how different am I from Christian Nationalists, anyway?”

Confused, I went back and re-read the passages I agreed with. I began to deconstruct Ortlund’s rhetorical devices and quickly realized that her book is 95% regurgitated conventional wisdom about marriage, motherhood and singleness.

Like most conventions of our society, this wisdom is tinged with hints of misogyny. After all, we’ve changed the relationship between the sexes more in the past 50 years than we did in the past 4,000. It’s perfectly understandable — although not acceptable — that our social conventions still reflect our patriarchal roots.

This is where Ortlund segues so effectively into her more controversial points about the role of women. Before you know it, it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that a woman’s place really is in the home being “slave labor” — as she so elegantly puts it — for her children. She extrapolates her arguments beautifully from the tendrils of social convention that so desperately need to change.
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Chris Hedges Speech on American Fascists

Via Fora.tv my newest discovery. It appears to be a promising one. From their about section:

FORA.tv delivers discourse, discussions and debates on the world’s most interesting political, social and cultural issues, and enables viewers to join the conversation. It provides deep, unfiltered content, tools for self-expression and a place for the interactive community to gather online.

Money Quote: America’s Providential History on Democracy

Even if Christians manage to outnumber others on an issue and we sway our Congressman by sheer numbers we end up in the dangerous promotion of democracy. We really do not want representatives who are swayed by majorities, but rather by correct principles.

Anyone who thinks that the radical fundamentalist Christian right isn’t a threat to America should read America’s Providential History, a popular textbook for Christian dominionists who seek to seize the reigns of power from our secular, pluralistic society and move us toward being a nation where the rights of Christians come before those of all other people.

Today’s Intelligent Design: “Sneaky Deep” Conversion Strategy of the Christian Right

There’s something you don’t know about me. When I was in high school, I was taught…intelligent design. But this wasn’t anything like the pseudo-scientific flim flam being passed off today in courts and school districts around the country. It was a decent, honest attempt to reconcile science with belief in God.

Mrs. DuPen, our beloved biology teacher at Holy Names, had a banner posted above the white board of our freshman biology classroom. It read, “The likelihood that the universe was created by accident is equal to the likelihood that the Oxford English Dictionary was created by an explosion in a print shop.”

We weren’t taught that evolution contradicted the idea of God as creator. Rather, we were encouraged to investigate empirical matters scientifically while allowing ourselves private beliefs where matters of faith were concerned. It was a wonderful way to teach science while respecting religion, and I do understand evolution very well. My own personal reconciliation of evolution and faith–one that I shared with many of my classmates–was that God set evolution in motion because God was wise and knew that this was the best way to create vibrant, healthy, thriving species.

If we are to allow for the possibility of God in American science classrooms, I would suggest Mrs. DuPen’s method as the way to do it. But the current intelligent design movement isn’t about allowing for the possibility of God. It’s about converting a generation of American children to Christianity.

If Evangelical Christians were really only concerned with the idea of intelligent design, then they would adhere to the 1987 Supreme Court decision that creationism could not be taught alongside evolution because it disobeyed the Constitution by promoting a specific faith in public schools. They would simply fight for the allowance of the possibility of God and leave the matters of specific faith or non-belief up to individual children and their families.

Instead, they are continually working against their own political interests by trying to advance a “sneaky deep” message about the rightness of only one religion: theirs. This is all part of the larger goal of converting the entire world to their particular way of believing.

I’ve been thinking and reading a great deal about doctrinal fundamentalism–both religious and social–lately. I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the biggest threats to the future of humanity. Any ideology which leaves no room for doubt, variation or individual conscience cannot be allowed to impose itself on a democratic system of governance. Such an eventuality would be an assault upon human dignity and liberty.

Would You Vote For An Atheist?

A recent, controversial post by Teresa made me wonder if there were any atheists in Congress. There aren’t. Nor have there ever been any atheist Presidents (although Jefferson is debatable). In fact, more people (53%) would not be willing to vote for an atheist than virtually any other demographic.

I don’t know of any openly atheist state legislatures either (though I am sure there must be somewhere). With over 90 percent of the country believing in God, do you think it is possible we will see any atheistic Congressman in the near future. And do you think there is any chance of us seeing a President who is an atheist this century? Would you, personally, be less likely to vote for a candidate who is an atheist? More?

Why Militant Atheism Bothers Me

I am a science-minded person. I am less skeptical of assertions that are backed up by good scientific research. I see the phrase “incontrovertible evidence” as an oxymoron. Science never proves anything. It only comes up with good theories backed by mutually supporting evidence. This has led our society to such wonderful innovations as antidepressants, PHP and synthetic fabrics.

And yet, despite the irrationality of it, I believe in a loving God. Call me simple-minded. Call me naïve. I just can’t shake the personal feeling that we are not alone in the universe.

I object to militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, because they lump all people of faith together. If I hold beliefs that can’t be backed up by reason — no matter how reasonably I integrate those beliefs into my choices — Dawkins and his ilk would paint me as a dupe, or a charlatan.
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Why Believing in God Works For Me

I am not an atheist. Nor am I an agnostic. I’m pretty much convinced by my own anecdotal evidence that there is a God and that he cares about me.

That said, I’m also well aware that my belief in God is completely illogical. There is no concrete evidence that God exists. It cannot be proven to anyone else. I wouldn’t even attempt to try.

I’m comfortable with this inherent contradiction. That’s because I’m not a terribly religious person. I don’t think believing in God a matter of salvation or damnation. I think we’re ultimately forgiven no matter what we do because God — being omnipotent — has the power to enlighten us posthumously, purify us completely, and bring us back to him.

I see scripture as inherently flawed and for the most part completely unreliable. I think that religious tenets and prescriptions for behavior are for the most part dreamed up by power-tripping humans with too much confidence in the universal correctness of their own perspectives. If I engage in religious behavior, it’s because it works for me and not because anyone told me to. And when it comes to the will of God, I think he’d rather I try to do right by my fellow living creatures, past, present and future.

So how do I know what the right thing is? I trust my gut. I acknowledge that I am imperfect, and therefore my gut is an imperfect instrument for discerning right from wrong. But it’s the best tool at my disposal, so I listen to it, try to think logically, learn from experience and then make the best decision that I possibly can.

What works for me may not work for others. I understand that some people need rigid strictures to live their lives to the fullest. Some people thrive in structured environments. Others need more freedom and flexibility. All I ask is that they don’t try to impose their beliefs on me, and I won’t try to impose my beliefs on them.

I guess the bottom line is that life is illogical. The world is a very messy place and, for me, it takes a messy approach to live effectively in it. God seems to fit nicely into that messiness. Life wouldn’t feel right without him, so there he stays.

America, Star Trek and the Future of Humanity

I read a great article on the official Star Trek Website today that I thought merited sharing with you. The editorial by Sandy Stone is entitled First Contact Day: What Does It Mean?

In her article, Stone writes about the pivotal moment in Trek history when inventor Zefram Cochrane makes his first warp-speed (read: faster-than-light) flight. The warp signature attracts the attention of a passing Vulcan ship, which lands on Earth after realizing that humanity has significantly recovered from our warlike past and has now achieved warp travel. No longer a child race, we are welcomed into the society of space-faring civilizations.

According to Stone, the key in all of this is that, “[the Vulcans] came to be our friends, not our saviors. We had to save ourselves first.”

She goes on to write:

History has shown repeatedly, generation after generation, century after century, that the end of the world is not nigh, and that if humans don’t fix it, it ain’t getting fixed. Yet despite the obvious timeworn evidence, too many of us still believe in certain disempowering and dubious mythologies that imply that all our efforts are for naught, that there’s no point in even trying, because (fill-in-the-blank) is going to come down, any day now, and set things straight.

Faith in a higher power can be a good and constructive thing, but all causality in human affairs is strictly in human hands, and this we must wrap our brains around proactively. It’s up to us to stop waging war against each other. It’s up to us to reverse the environmental damage we’ve inflicted upon our planet. It’s up to us to sort out our priorities, question our assumptions, and demand honesty and integrity of ourselves and each other. It’s up to us to define our future and make it come to pass.

Maybe then and only then will someone come down from the sky — not to save us — but to shake our hands. (Or salute us, as the case may be.)

This message has never been more relevant. As a species, we are at a crossroads. Self-destruction is still a possibility. But our natures have better angels. I hope that in this next presidential election, the American people select a leader who can truly listen to those angels, as well as people with a diverse set of perspectives and priorities.

This is not to say that America is the only nation that matters. We must come together as a planet before we can overcome our past. Indeed, America’s place in the world may change dramatically in the coming years. But I still believe that the spirit with which this nation was founded — an ethic of constant work toward a “more perfect union” — is still humanity’s greatest hope.

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