Church of the Churchless

Evidence of Rumsfeld's Christian war

Here's a great example of how unsupported religious beliefs get mixed up with politics and foreign policy, helping lead to war:

Slides of former Bush defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's briefings to the White House where he juxtaposed war images with inspirational Bible quotes.

Take a look.

Sarah Palin's Christianity is scarily senseless

Yesterday I thought I'd pushed the car radio button that brought up Oregon Public Broadcasting, so I wasn't all that surprised to hear Sarah Palin's distinctive voice.

It appeared that she was being interviewed by someone with a Christian bent. I figured that an excerpt from the interview was being played so it could be discussed from OPB's usual moderate perspective.

But Palin and the man she was speaking with kept on talking. I heard her refer to him as "Dr. Dobson." That spurred me to glance at the radio setting.

Oh my God! I had stumbled onto the dark side! Somehow I'd tuned in an FM station that carried Dobson's Focus on the Family brand of dogmatic fundamentalism.

I felt like a churchless eavesdropper, since I was getting an inside peek at how Palin describes her faith when she's on comfortable Christian media ground -- as contrasted with the godless mainstream reporters who have such unreasonable expectations for her.

Such as, that she be able to speak in coherent English sentences and make at least minimal sense.

You can listen to her conversation with Dobson here. I started to play the interview again, but I couldn't stomach hearing Palin and Dobson mangle rationality and reason in such an absurd fashion.

I recall that Dobson talked about how her detractors make fun of her Christianity.

Well, that's to be expected when someone expresses such ridiculous religious beliefs. If Palin or any other believer doesn't want to be mocked, they should keep their more bizarre notions to themselves.

Case in point: Palin and Dobson said that God is in charge of things here on Earth, but we also have free will. That's a big "but" which didn't come in for the serious philosophical discussion that it deserved.

So I got abjectly confused by how prayer was supposed to enter into the presidential election. On the one hand, Palin said the election is in God's hands and that however it turns out will be the right thing for America.

For a second I thought a miracle had happened. Palin's mind seemed to be on a halfway reasonable track.

In another interview I remember her trying to claim that she agreed with Abraham Lincoln when he said that God wasn't on either side in the Civil War, and that our job wasn't to tell God what to do but to accept His will.

Pretty clearly, though, this wasn't where she and Dobson wanted to head theologically. Because there was a lot of talk about how people are praying for her and McCain, which means that God should have a favorite in the election.

David Waters takes issue:

Last time I checked, Dr. Dobson, all four candidates on the major party presidential tickets are unabashed Christians. All four have had the "courage" to speak the name of Christ. Aren't all four deserving of our Christian prayers and appreciation?

Well, not in my view, since I don't see how a believer in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent personal God can justify telling the Big Guy/Gal Upstairs how to run a universe.

It seems obvious that Palin and Dobson are simply trying to use religion to justify their personal political preferences. And that isn't right. It's absolutely wrong.

A psychologist who used to be a fundamentalist, Valerie Tarico, has written a devastating "Open Letter to Sarah Palin."

She understands how deluded true believers like Palin are able to twist their minds into contorted knots and view anyone who doesn't share their dogmatism as a tool of the Devil.

You cannot affirm basic human decency or capability, because according to your dogma, we are sinful, weak, and dependent on God. And so, your decisions would not be based on expert advice or even your own reasoning, but on your gut-level, intuitive interpretation of God's will. This would allow you to do anything and claim you were led by God.

Your thinking necessarily is black or white. People and policies are either good or bad. After all, Jesus said, "He who is not with me is against me" (Matt. 12:30). Under your leadership, diplomacy and cultural nuance would be less important than not blinking. In a spiritual war, you don't negotiate with the devil.

Regarding social policy, as a believer in individual salvation, you would emphasize individual morality and responsibility, not a community approach with structural solutions. You would be judgmental and controlling of personal choices regarding sex, reproduction, and library books instead of addressing global warming, torture, poverty, and war.

Your belief in eternal hell-fire, your deference to a literal Bible despite its cruelties and vengeful god, and your indoctrination to disbelieve your own compassionate instincts, are likely to leave you numb at your moral core. You might recall the verse, "If a man will not work he shall not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). However, faith-based initiatives would be okay because they would use caring to evangelize.

I can't begin to imagine how scary a McCain - Palin administration would be for this country -- and the world. Fortunately, polls show that Americans are putting their campaign on life support.

That's great. But on November 4 we've got to be sure to kill this angry, judgmental, ill-informed, unethical fundamentalist beast, the final gasp of George Bush's failed policies.

Pray for McCain-Palin (they need it)

Thanks to Pharyngula, I learned about a Pray for McCain-Palin web site, which I was pleased to visit, adding my voice to a poll about whether McCain's pick of Palin made me more or less likely to vote for him.

I'm totally supportive of this site. It's hard to think of anyone who needs prayer more than John McCain and Sarah Palin. (Proof, here and here.)

In case you're not sure about how to pray, the site provides some helpful specific prayer requests. My favorite is:

Pray for the peace of mind of the candidates & their families and that they will be able to weather Satan's attacks

Why, what could they mean by this? Hmmmm, maybe this.

Well, I see this as a lot more Satanic. Maybe McCain and Palin need to look at their own campaign rallies for evidence of Satan's attacks.

McCain campaign says God wants Obama to lose

Reason number 439,816 to not vote for John McCain (don't have time to list rest of them):

A minister delivering the invocation at a McCain rally asked that God protect His reputation by orchestrating an Obama loss – since non-Christians are rooting for McCain's opponent.

"There are millions of people around this world praying to their god—whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah—that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens," said Arnold Conrad, the former pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Davenport.

Well, I'm not a Christian and I support Obama. And it's true that most of the world wants to see Obama become president.

But Rev. Conrad shows the sort of narrow-mindedness that is driving independents, moderates, and the churchless away from McCain.

I'm sure right-wing fundamentalists love God is on our side talk, but to other voters it sounds as ridiculous as it is.

I’m praying that Sarah Palin never becomes V.P.

Though Sarah Palin's hotness makes her more appealing to look at, compared to the usual wrinkled right-wing religious white guys, her Christian zealotry is just as scarily ridiculous.

Scary, because here's a God is on my side true believer who could, just possibly, heaven help us, be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Oh, wait! We already have a president like that. So what's the problem with another one?

Lots. By comparison, Sarah Palin actually makes George Bush look minimally competent and well-informed. So her astounding fatuous cluelessness, when combined with her trite Christian fundamentalism, results in an exceptionally dangerous political mix.

Sam Harris nails her to his non-believer cross in a cogent Newsweek piece, "When Atheists Attack."

We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist.

Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of Judgment.

Recently I opined that craziness can be a dose of sanity. Absolutely. We all need some sort of way out there to balance the humdrum, practical, sensible side of life.

But my caveat is that our healthy weirdness shouldn't unduly interfere with other people's ability to live their own lives as they see fit. If you want to ski black diamond runs in an icy snowstorm, great. Just don't run into someone else.

Sarah Palin's religiosity, like that of so many other fundamentalists, crosses way over the line in this regard.

I've got no problem with her believing that God speaks to her. However, when she uses this supposedly divine inspiration as a foundation for public policy, now Palin becomes a freaky true believer who shouldn't be allowed to get near the Oval Office.

In her church, Palin has prayed that the Iraq war is a "task that is from God." Ditto for a natural gas pipeline through Canada.

This probably explains why Palin is so fond of saying that she "doesn't blink." Meaning, I guess, that when fresh facts come into view, she keeps on staring at God's vision that she's fantasized in her mind. Harris writes:

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents – and her supporters celebrate – the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson [Charlie, of ABC News] that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Plain would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

Well, Palin can pray in her fashion, and I'll pray in mine.

Dear God, if there is one, which there probably isn't, but just in case, hear my plea: Do not, repeat do not, allow Sarah Palin and John McCain to win the election in November.

God rejects prayers for rain on Obama

Excellent news for those of us who want Obama to win in November: God is on his side!

You want proof? Easy. Anti-Obama Christians have been praying for rain in Denver tomorrow, to wash out his outdoor acceptance speech.

Here's the forecast. 0% chance of precipitation. Will a miracle happen? Odds aren't zero, but close to it.

Obama outshines McCain in faith forum

I doubt that Barack Obama will be using a Church of the Churchless endorsement in his presidential campaign, but I'll offer it anyway: he got more kudos from me than John McCain did as I watched yesterdays' "Civil Forum" sponsored by Rick Warren's Camelback Church.

Still, neither candidate impressed me from a churchless perspective. No big surprise. Heck, they were speaking in a church. And trying to appeal to evangelical voters.

Both Obama and McCain struck me as sincere. Each has deeply felt religious convictions, so far as I could tell. I expected McCain to be less comfortable in the Forum, since he doesn't speak about religion as much as Obama does, but he was surprisingly at ease.

(Some are wondering that this might be because he knew some of the questions ahead of time, not really being in a "cone of silence" while Obama was interviewed by Warren.)

Obama's brand of Christianity is much more palatable to me than McCain's is. Their answers to a question about evil were especially telling.

Each was asked, "Does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?"

Obama's answer can be read here. I liked this part of it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, but you know a lot of evil has been perpetuated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

Contrast this nuanced and thoughtful response with what McCain said:

Defeat it. Couple points. One, if I'm president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do that. I will get that done.

Those words are straight from his stump speech. No thought went into them, no consideration about what the nature of evil is, no recognition that while "evil" vs. "good" makes for good applause lines, the line between these concepts is blurry rather than clear cut – as Obama pointed out.

Plus, if McCain knows how to capture Osama bin Laden, why hasn't he told the Bush administration how to do it?

Unfortunately, as a CNN commentator pointed out, McCain's religious style likely will connect emotionally more with Middle America.

Obama was more thoughtful, and thinking doesn't mesh very well with religion for lots of people. He should get most of the churchless vote though, for what that's worth (not much, sadly).

Dobson’s illogical attack on Obama

"Illogical" and "fundamentalist" are so closely associated, it isn't big news when a closed-minded evangelist says stuff that makes me go Huh?

But James Dobson has broken new ground in crazy ass theological reasoning, as described in a CNN story: "Evangelist accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible."

Dobson is righteously pissed at Obama for making terrific religious sense.

In comments aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.

In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.

Recently I wrote about Obama's speech, noting that he should get the churchless vote based on his well-reasoned sentiments.

Which, it turns out, also reflect the attitudes of most religious believers. Yesterday the Pew Research Center released more results from a major survey of Americans. Here's an excerpt from a summary, "Religion in America: Non-Dogmatic, Diverse and Politically Relevant."

A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country's religious landscape.

That's good news. Because it puts fundamentalists like Dobson in a decided minority, where, the great Tao willing, they'll remain.

Somehow Dobson isn't able to see the absurdity of his theological position. He faulted Obama for referring to Old Testament injunctions, saying they are no longer relevant to New Testament teachings.

OK. So Dobson is fine with picking and choosing what to believe in the Bible. Yet the CNN story goes on to quote Dobson as saying, ""I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology."

Well, Mr. Dobson, the traditional understanding of the Bible is that it is God's inerrant word, through and through – both the Old and New Testaments.

You just said that much of the Old Testament can be ignored. The stuff that's antiquated or irrelevant. Who decides what parts to ignore, Mr. Dobson? You've got your opinion. Other Christians and Jews would differ with you.

Where's the "fundamental" in your fundamentalism now? Gone. Except you won't recognize it. You should. Particularly if you want to appeal to the clear majority of religious believers.

Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.

Well, what would you expect? Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are way out there, even when compared to normal unfounded religious speculation.

Here's more evidence of Dobson's illogical way of looking at the world: he completely misunderstood Obama's call to frame religious beliefs in a universal fashion when debating public policy. Obama has said:

I do make the argument that it's important for folks like myself, who think faith is important, that we try to translate some of our concerns into universal language so we can have open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us.

And Dobson mistakenly takes this to mean:

Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies? What he's trying to say here is, unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.

No, Mr. Dobson, that isn't what Obama is saying. Like most zealots, you only hear what fits with your rigid preconceptions. Open your mind – just a crack. Let some reality in.

The Pew Survey shows that most Americans realize that ours is a pluralistic society, religiously and in many other ways. People believe all kinds of things. There's no unanimity of belief even among Christians.

So if we're going to talk and debate with each other, about abortion or any other sensitive social subject, we've got to go beyond narrow theological confines. As soon as you start citing Scripture, I'm going to tune you out. And so are countless other citizens who don't have the same view of the Bible as you do.

How would you like it if I demanded that you agree with the teachings of the Tao Te Ching, because they're obviously the way society should be governed. No debate possible. I'm a Taoist fundamentalist.

That would irk you no end, wouldn't it? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Sound familiar, Mr. Dobson? Check out Matthew 7:12. Some parts of the Bible are worth taking seriously.

Obama recognizes limits of faith

This is a great speech by Barack Obama on the proper place of religion and faith in public policy. He should get the churchless vote with these sentiments. Obama certainly has mine.

I just wish he'd repeat it now, saying the same things he did in 2006, since he has a much bigger audience as the Democratic presidential candidate.

For the broadband impaired (I'm not aware of a transcript of this video), here's some of what Obama said in the five minutes. These aren't quotes, just a summary of main points.

--This is a nation not only of Christians, but also of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, many faiths. It's also a nation of unbelievers.

--In the public arena, we need to focus on universal rather than religion-specific values. Values that everyone can understand and accept, no matter a person's variety of belief or unbelief.

--Arguments about public policy have to be based on reason, not faith. Religion doesn't allow for compromise, but in the public sphere compromise is essential.

--People are tired of seeing faith being used as a tool to attack.

I enjoyed the comments on the Pharyngula post containing the video. Steve liked it, but didn't want any compromising on faith.

Pretty good, up until the end, when he says, "they don't want faith to belittle, they don't want faith to divide."

Faith is inherently belittling and divisive. It belittles the intellect of those who subscribe to it -- "don't think, just believe." It divides, because those who subscribe to faith invariably see their subscription as a virtue, and thus, those who don't subscribe, as lacking that virtue.

Faith sucks completely and utterly and is without a single redeeming feature.

But to hope for a politician to say as much, and remain a viable politician, is to hope for too much, too soon.

So, good enough, and far better than what we've had recently.

For sure. Probably he's referring to Bush, but here's John McCain blathering on about the United States being established as a Christian nation.

I'm praying that he loses. Big time.

I’m so proud of Oregon

Way to go, Obama-loving churchless Oregonians.

Curse the National Day of Prayer

Here on the West Coast there's still a few hours left to take part in the National Day of Prayer (May 1). My recommendation: swear at it.

That's the tack one of my favorite web sites, Pharyngula, took. In the midst of a post on this ridiculous religious observance I found a well-spoken pithy piece of advice. "Fuck the National Day of Prayer."

Now, that might seem a bit harsh. What's wrong with warm fuzzy prayer?

Well, nothing. So long as you're into having one-sided conversations with imaginary people. But a few minutes of browsing the official web site of the National Day of Prayer revealed its dark side – just as I expected.

For one thing, this "national" prayer effort leaves out much of the nation. Namely, anyone who doesn't believe in the Judeo-Christian God.

The web site explains why Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and other heathens aren't welcome under the not-so-inclusive National Day of Prayer tent:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values… The Task Force represents a Judeo Christian expression of the national observance, based on our understanding that this country was birthed in prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible.

Right at the top of the home page you can see in some Flash video what the National Day of Prayer really is all about: politics.

I'm told that prayer is America's strength and shield. Gosh, who knew? I thought it was the Constitution, which calls for the separation of church and state.

But, no, it's prayer. And what should we pray for? What a silly question. Election Day. This gets the primo position on the National Day of Prayer web site.

Not world peace, reducing poverty, alleviating disease, helping the hungry, bringing people together. Election Day.

Again, silly me. I didn't realize that Election Day needed praying for. I didn't even know that it had problems requiring God's intervention. Won't Election Day take care of itself this November?

Apparently not.

I dutifully watched the video on the election page. It was mercifully short. I learned that red is the color of America. Funny. The flag is red, white, and blue. But the video only mentions red as representing American values.

Oh, I get it!

Red states and blue states. Republican and Democrat. Vote red/Republican. So the National Day of Prayer not only is limited to Jews and Christians, it looks like Independents and Democrats also aren't part of God's prayer family.

Who clearly are focused on just on a few political issues.

I clicked on a National Day of Prayer link that led me to a helpful Voter's Guide. This will tell me what I should ask God to make happen on Election Day.

Wow, what a non-surprise! Neither Clinton nor Obama gets a "yes" on any of the issues I'm supposed to care about. but a guy in red, John McCain, scores five out of seven (Huckabee, bless his soul, was all "yes").

Human Life Amendment
Traditional Marriage
Gun Rights
Business Freedom
Limit Taxes
Opposes Gay Pride
Iraq War
Moral Education

These are the things to pray for, the Judeo-Christian values that make our country great. Killing. Hatred. Discrimination. Ignorance.

So it's a no-brainer for me to decide what to do on the National Day of Prayer: tell it to go to hell.

Bitterness and religion: some advice for Obama

I've been doing some thinking, from my churchless perspective, about the controversy over Barack Obama's remark that people in struggling Pennsylvania towns are bitter and cling to religion (among other things).

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Clinton has seized on the words "bitter" and "cling" in blasting Obama for his supposed elitism. On cable news today I kept seeing her new ad being played.

In the ad a Pennsylvania woman says that she doesn't cling to her faith out of frustration and bitterness; she finds it very uplifting.

Well, maybe that's true. If so, she's rare.

How many people are drawn to religion purely out of positive motivations, not because they're looking for solace, salvation, or some sweetness that life hasn't been giving them?

Very few, I'd say.

Buddhism teaches that life is suffering. So does country music. Where do you turn when your woman has left you, your dog has run away, and your pickup's been repossessed?

Beer – that's one option. Or, religion. "Jesus has a plan for me." That thought takes some of the sting out of a sucky situation.

Here's my advice for Obama: use this controversy as an opportunity to start a dialogue about religion, just as he did with the topic of race after Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments set off a firestorm.

In his race speech, Obama painted the subject with a pleasing shade of gray. He talked about religion also, but didn't address why people are so attracted to religious belief. This is a sensitive subject. But it needs to be brought out into the open.

There's nothing wrong with someone clinging to religion because it makes him or her feel better. I've done that myself – for a long time.

I've never been conventionally religious, but when times were tough, I found myself praying in my own non-Christian fashion. When my mother had a major stroke, before I could get on a plane to see her I pleaded with Whoever is in charge of such things to give her whatever good karma I had.

Ditto when I feared that my wife had a serious health problem. My faithlessness temporarily turned into faith as I asked for some sort of divine intervention. I knew I was almost certainly talking to myself, but I was drawn to do the asking anyway.

If Obama would speak honestly about this, it would resonate with most believers. Something like…

"I realize that when I said people cling to religion to explain their frustrations, that rubbed some the wrong way. They feel that their faith springs from love, from devotion, from a desire to serve God – positive motivations.

Sometimes this is true. However, religious belief also helps us cope with pain, suffering, disease, death, unemployment, poverty – the negative side of life. When we're looking for answers, for reasons, and none are forthcoming, it's natural to find solace in our faith.

Life is tough. Some people get through it without religion. They're sustained by something else. But we all need support from somewhere when what we thought we could count on, no longer does.

I'm not ashamed to say that I've clung to my faith in those times. And neither should anyone else, including the Pennsylvanians I've been talking to these past weeks."

Understand, I'm not going soft on churchlessness. To me, it's preferable to see problems as they are in their naked reality, without viewing them through a prism of religious belief.

Losing one's job can be just that – a stint on unemployment and little cash in the wallet. It doesn't have to be suffused with divine meaning ("God is teaching me a lesson.")

However, if someone feels better by framing their problems within a religious belief structure, that's fine. Feeling good doesn't need any justification. Like I said before, it's when we say "I'm right" rather than "I like" that problems arise.

Along that line, I like that a recent poll is showing that Obama is actually gaining ground over Clinton in Pennsylvania and Indiana. This seems to show that voters aren't upset with Obama's "clinging to religion out of bitterness" remarks.

Probably, because they realize what he said is true.

Obama paints a pleasing shade of religious gray

There's too much black and white in the world. Especially when it comes to religion.

Believers adore crisp, clean demarcations between right and wrong, faith and faithlessness, truth and falsity, sacred and profane.

Me, I'm increasingly into gray. Not that there's anything wrong with black and white. After all, their mixture produces the subtle shades that I like.

Politicians, though, are under a lot of pressure to stake firm positions. "You're either with us, or against us" is a simplistic example.

So this morning I was eager to read Barack Obama's speech on race and religion to see how he handled the controversy over inflammatory remarks made by his spiritual mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Since Obama has known Wright for more than twenty years, he couldn't claim ignorance of the pastor's America bashing. If Obama rejected Wright now, he'd look hypocritical. But if he accepted him, he'd look unpatriotic.

Solution: paint those shades of gray. Which is the color of the real world, mostly (as contrasted with the fictional black and white domain inhabited by dogmatic fundamentalists and rabid politicians).

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

… But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

I was a member of a "church" (loosely speaking) for thirty-five years. Every Sunday I'd sit and listen to speakers say things that I didn't agree with, or believe in.

Yet I stayed involved with the organization, because for a long time the pluses outweighed the minuses. Then, the equation changed. That was a personal calculation, not anything mathematically objective.

Understand: this isn't a post about how marvelous Barack Obama is, though I support him. I simply want to point out how Obama managed to steer clear of the this or that, my way or the highway fallacy.

Reverend Wright isn't all good or all bad. Neither is his Trinity United Church of Christ, Christianity, and religion as a whole. Or, the United States, Barack Obama, me, you, and everything and everyone else in the world.

It was refreshing to read a speech by a politician that recognized this so clearly.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

I don't know how Obama's speech will play across America. I liked it, but I enjoy nuance. As a New York Times story said, Obama took a gamble on trying to bridge a divide when so many voters want a politician to stand on one side or the other of an issue.

Presidential politics usually requires candidates to either wholly adopt or reject positions and people. Mr. Obama did neither with his pastor, rejecting his most divisive statements but also filling in the picture of Mr. Wright and his church.

"The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America," Mr. Obama said.

It was one of several times that Mr. Obama seemed to be quite purposefully arguing two ideas at once — another dangerous tactic in presidential politics, in which statements are sifted for hints of contradiction and every speech is an attack ad waiting to happen. He admitted that his pastor is both a divisive figure and an inspiring one. He said that his candidacy should not be viewed through a merely racial lens, though racial reconciliation is one of the reasons he ran.

Like I said back in 2005, "Reality is shades of gray." I sounded a bit like Obama with my talk of black and white, red states and blue states, rich and poor.

I hope he'll be our next president. But if he isn't, may whoever leads the United States share his understanding that nothing is wholly this, or wholly that.

Subtle gradations make the world go world, not firm divisions.

Irreligious questions for the presidential candidates

Oh, if only the press would have the balls to ask the twelve questions John Allen Paulos wants posed to our presidential candidates. A sampling:

For Huckabee:

Do you really believe, Mr. Huckabee, that the Earth is only a few thousand years old and that humans and dinosaurs cavorted together?

For Romney:

Do you not see an implicit religious test in your statement that "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom"? Furthermore, are not, respectively, most of Europe and some Islamic countries obvious counterexamples to your statements?

For others:

Do any of you think God speaks to you, only to Gov. Huckabee, or to none of you? And, if I may, does God have a tax policy, a health care policy, a policy on Iraq, Iran, gay marriage, Guantanamo or the Riemann Hypothesis?

How literally do you take the Bible or other holy book? Do you subscribe to any argument(s) for God's existence other than the one that God exists simply because He says He does in a much extolled tome that He allegedly inspired?

Looking into the future, it seems obvious that these strangely religious 21^st century days will, before too long, appear as superstitious hangovers from humanity's pre-scientific lineage.

As Paulson points out, it's freaking weird that the United States elects people to high office who hold such bizarre unproven and unprovable beliefs.

Good god. There's a chance this country might be led by a Mormon president who believes that special underwear confers religious benefits.

At the end of the PBS series, "A Brief History of Disbelief," philosopher Colin McGinn is interviewed. He foresees a time when questions of religious belief and disbelief simply are irrelevant to people, much as debates about the nature of phlogiston have vanished.

I'd like to distinguish atheism from anti-theism. Anti-theism is opposition to theism. I'm an anti-theist because I believe that religion is harmful. I'm not just an atheist who my only values are, that I don't agree with it. I'm actively opposed to it.

I'd distinguish that from I'd call post-theism or post-atheism. Which is the healthy state of mind where you've put all that behind you. Now we can't do that yet because there's lots of religion in the world and lots of bad results of it.

To me the ideal society would be one in which the question of religion didn't really arise for people. Or if it did, it wasn't a heavy question for them.

They would say to each other, "You know, those humans used to believe back there in 2003, some of them believed there was this god who did this, others didn't, and there were TV programs about why they didn't. What a funny debate that was, you know."

So it'd be a post-theist society where it just wasn't an issue.

May it come sooner rather than later. Like, tomorrow.

Huckabee wants Constitution to be “God’s standards”

Only in America. And Iran. Few countries in the world would entertain the idea of founding their constitution on a religious standard. Sadly, I live in one.

It's astounding. A leading contender for the presidency of the United States, Mike Huckabee, says:

I have opponents in this race who 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. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.

If ever there was a reason to embrace churchlessness, here it is.

Huckabee is an engaging guy with a good sense of humor (I enjoyed his recent repartee with Stephen Colbert), but he's also deeply troubling.

I prefer Christian crazies like Pat Robertson, who are so obviously loony that few take them seriously. Huckabee appeals to the Christian faithful, but his likable personal style has the potential of reeling in unsuspecting moderate voters.

Hopefully they'll notice his talk about bringing the Constitution in line with "God's standards" and realize that this is horribly un-American.

But wonderfully Iranian. In the early 1980s Ayatollah Khomeini revised the Iranian constitution along the lines Mike Huckabee salivates over.

Article 2
The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in:
1. The One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no god except Allah"), His exclusive sovereignty and the right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands;
2. Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws;
3. The return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God;
4. The justice of God in creation and legislation . . .

So before we amend the Constitution, this country needs to debate which God gets to set the standards. Christian? Jewish? Muslim? Sikh?

And if we add some quotation marks, "God" includes the divinity of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and lots of other "ism's."

It's going to be tough deciding which religion has the best connection with God, and so can be trusted to guide our Constitution revision efforts.

Naturally I favor the Religion of Me. Which has a significant advantage over Huckabee's Christianity: I'm not trying to impose my faith on anybody else.

Founders’ faith was pretty much faithless

Listening to conservative talk radio before Christmas, to hear what the uninformed and clueless have to say, I wasn't disappointed when the subject turned to how the founding fathers of the United States supposedly were devout Christians.

That's a bunch of hooey. The main evidence that usually is dragged out for this crock of historical B.S. is the reference in the Declaration of Independence to the Creator.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It's well known, of course, that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin were deists who believed in reason, not revelation, and in a God detached from the creation, not a God who intervenes and takes an interest in human affairs.

Columnist David Ignatius echoes this truth in an excellent piece I read today, "Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists: What Jefferson and Adams Might Tell Mitt Romney."

A bracing text for this Christmas week is the famous correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Their letters are a reminder that the Founders were men of the Enlightenment -- supreme rationalists who would have found the religiosity of much of our modern political life quite abhorrent.

It's not that these men didn't have religious beliefs: They were, to their deaths, passionate seekers of truth, metaphysical as well as physical. It's that their beliefs didn't fit into pious cubbyholes. Indeed, the deist Jefferson took a pair of scissors to the New Testament to create his "Jefferson Bible," or, formally, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," which cut out the parts he regarded as supernatural or misinterpreted by the Gospel writers.

Yes, the founding fathers were not Christians. At least, not in any sense even remotely connected with the hateful, closed-minded, dogmatic, anti-science Christianity prevalent in the United States today. Ignatius has it exactly right.

One theme in this year's political campaign has been whether the United States will move from the faith-based policies the Bush administration has celebrated to a more rationalist and secular approach. In this debate, religious conservatives like to stress their connection to the Founders and to the republic's birth as "one nation under God." But a rereading of the Adams-Jefferson letters is a reminder that in this debate, the Founders -- as men of the Enlightenment -- would surely have sided with the party of Reason.

Interestingly, it seems that the original draft of the Declaration of Independence didn't use the word "Creator." The language said: "…that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation… ."

Sure, we're all created. In our mother's wombs. Out of physical matter and energy. Which comes to us courtesy of the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago.

If you want to call whatever lies behind the grand unfolding of the universe "Creator," I've got no problem with that. Just don't expect me to equate this force with any religious entity, Christian or otherwise.

Questioning a politician’s religious belief isn’t unconstitutional

In a recent column, "An Overdose of Public Piety," Charles Krauthammer gets the issue of religion in politics partly right and partly wrong.

That's pretty good for Krauthammer, because usually I find myself disagreeing with his conservative world view. But in this piece he appropriately decries how Republican presidential candidates, like Mitt Romney, feel that the only source of genuine inspiration for "values voters" is religious belief.

Romney has been faulted for not throwing at least one bone of acknowledgment to nonbelievers in his big religion speech last week. But he couldn't, because the theme of the speech was that there was something special about having your values drawn from religious faith. Indeed, faith is politically indispensable. "Freedom requires religion," Romney declared, "just as religion requires freedom.

But this is nonsense -- as Romney then proceeded to demonstrate in that very same speech. He spoke of the empty cathedrals in Europe. He's right about that: Postwar Europe has experienced the most precipitous decline in religious belief in the history of the West. Yet Europe is one of the freest precincts on the planet. It is an open, vibrant, tolerant community of more than two dozen disparate nations living in a pan-continental harmony and freedom unseen in all previous European history.

However, Krauthammer also says that it's wrong to question a candidate about his or her religion. He decried a questioner at the Republican CNN/YouTube debate who held up a Bible and asked, "Do you believe every word of this book?"

Krauthammer considers that the candidates should have replied, "None of your damn business." Actually, it is.

It's every voter's business, every citizen's business, every person on Earth's business – because each of these guys wants to be the president of the United States, with tremendous influence over national and world policies.

Many of the candidates say that religion is the most important thing in their lives, that it guides their every waking moment, that they look to their faith for guidance in matters large and small.

Well, then, I want to know what sort of religious beliefs would influence you if, god forbid, you should beat out the Democratic candidate next November. I want to know if you do indeed believe every word in the Bible: if you think that creationism is true and evolution false; if homosexuality is a sin; if prostitutes should be stoned and slavery is OK.

Krauthammer says that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a religious test for office. Yes, it does. The founders of this country didn't want belonging to a particular religion to be a requirement for being elected.

However, the framers of the Constitution didn't intend religion to be off limits when considering a candidate's qualifications. The Republican presidential candidates, though, want to have it both ways.

They bring up their religious beliefs at every opportunity. Then when someone asks them to answer some specifics about those beliefs, such as whether every word in the Bible is to be taken literally, they're offended that this oh-so-personal aspect of their lives is being brought out for public scrutiny.

Well, if you don't want your religious belief scrutinized, keep it to yourself. If you're running for office, say "I'm a religious person, but my beliefs won't have any impact on how I go about deciding political or policy questions."

If you can't say that, then you've got to expect some serious questioning about what sort of unsubstantiated, subjective, and unscientific world view is going to support your decisions if you're elected.

Will Zeus guide your thoughts and actions? Or God? How about Jesus? And how will you know what your divine source of inspiration requires of you? Do you pray? Study a holy book? Hear messages from above in your head?

These are important and valid questions. I just wish they were asked more often at press conferences and debates.

Mitt Romney’s weird religion is relevant to voters

If someone who was running as a serious candidate to become president of the United States said, "I believe in the Tooth Fairy," wouldn't that be a reason to question his qualifications to lead our country?

I sure do. That's why I answered my own question on my other blog the way I did. To the query "Mormon Mitt Romney believes in really weird stuff. So?" I said:

We currently have a faith-based presidency. George Bush has absolute faith that Jesus Christ is the son of God who died for our sins. He also has absolute faith that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It's difficult, if not impossible, to separate these faiths.

When you're repeatedly willing to deny evident facts about reality in favor of a dogmatic belief, this points to a fundamental mindset. Lots of people do this. I have myself, back when I was a true believer in a religion.

But I wasn't running for president. Romney is. A politician's religious belief definitely shouldn't be off limits for questioning. I'd love to hear a reporter ask Romney, "Now, tell us what you think about those golden plates…"

In 1827 the golden plates supposedly were dug up in New York by the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. They'd been protected by an angel named Moroni and engraved by Mormon, a pre-Columbian prophet-warrior. Smith translated the plates by looking into seer stones called Urim and Thummin.

And Romney believes this crap.

Which is even more disturbing than if he believed in the Tooth Fairy, because the Tooth Fairy doesn't take positions on important social issues like gay rights, abortion, stem cell research, and teaching creationism.

Yesterday Romney gave a speech, "Faith in America." It provides even more evidence why this guy, along with every other Republican presidential candidate, would be a disaster if, god forbid, he ever became president.

The speech has been criticized by the Portland Oregonian in an editorial, "Your America is too small." It's right on.

He could have articulated a vision of religious freedom so broad, so all-encompassing – and so confident in itself – that it could embrace even skeptics. But he didn't. Instead, he took a predictable slap at "the religion of secularism." And he failed to offer even a stout defense of his own faith, barely mentioning the word "Mormon."

I also liked a Washington Post editorial, "No freedom without religion?" Astoundingly, Romney said "freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom…freedom and religion endure together or perish alone."

Huh? This makes no sense at all. Why the heck does freedom require religion? The Post pointed out:

But societies can be both secular and free. The magnificent cathedrals of Europe may be empty, as Mr. Romney said, but the democracies of Europe are thriving.

"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government," Mr. Romney said. But not all Americans acknowledge that, and those who do not may be no less committed to the liberty that is the American ideal.

In his speech Romney said that he believes in his Mormon faith and he endeavors to live by it.

So Romney holds that Mormonism is believable, despite this description (by Christopher Hitchens in his book "God is Not Great") of what happened after Joseph Smith's wife destroyed the first 116 pages of her husband's revelation, which took place behind a blanket.

Mrs. Smith was having none of this, and was already furious with the fecklessness of her husband. She stole the first hundred and sixteen pages and challenged Smith to reproduce them, as presumably—given his power of revelation—he could. (Determined women like this appear far too seldom in the history of religion.)

After a very bad few weeks, the ingenious Smith countered with another revelation. He could not replicate the original, which might be in the devil's hands by now and open to a "satanic verses" interpretation. But the all-foreseeing Lord had meanwhile furnished some smaller plates, indeed the very plates of Nephi, which told a fairly similar tale.

With infinite labor, the translation was resumed, with new scriveners behind the blanket as occasion demanded, and when it was completed all the original golden plates were transported to heaven, where apparently they remain to this day.

Now, all religions are unbelievable. If they weren't, their tenets would be known as "science." In other words, founded in reality rather than fantasy.

So every presidential candidate who professes to be religious should be questioned as closely as he or she would be if a fervent belief in the Tooth Fairy had been proudly communicated to the voters.

Romney was interviewed on NPR a few days before his faith speech. He didn't like being asked if he has a literal belief in the Genesis version of creation. Yet Romney said that the Bible is the word of God, and he tries to live by it.

Meaning, he does believe that the universe was created a few thousand years ago in seven days. And his presidential actions would be founded on such astoundingly unscientific beliefs.

This disqualifies him to be president. Along with every other fundamentalist candidate. Hopefully the American voters will agree with me.

It's OK to believe in the Tooth Fairy when you're five years old. But if you want to hold onto the religious equivalent of that belief into adulthood, you shouldn't be seeking the presidency of the United States.

Blind belief in religion and politics: bad, bad, bad

Often I hear people say, "What's wrong with belief unsupported by facts if it makes someone feel better?"

Well, the explosive popularity of truthiness (way beyond Stephen Colbert, originator of the term) points to the common human propensity to believe that you know something even when you don't.

And there is indeed a lot wrong with it. This isn't an innocent frailty, though it's harmless enough when not taken to extremes.

I believe that some hair in my bald spot is growing back. I don't have any solid evidence for this, other than the feeling I have when I occasionally take a rearview glance at myself using a handheld mirror. But, hey, it's my head. My bald spot belief doesn't affect anyone else.

On the other hand, the Bush administration's belief that it's justified to trash the Constitution in the name of "war on terror" decidedly does affect other people. Like, every citizen of the United States.

Last night I read a Newsweek story, "The Constitution in Peril." I was struck by how similar blind belief is in both politics and religion. Of course, in Bush's brain there's a close connection between the two.

As in bin Laden's, Ahmadinejad's, and a disturbingly large number of other world leaders whose "reality is whatever I want it to be" attitude is a major threat to the rest of us.

Here's an excerpt from the story, which focuses on recently published books about the Bush administration's wars (at home and abroad):

In these books, apocalyptic delusions got us into Iraq and misjudgments have helped keep us there.

…And if there is a recurrent theme, it's that this administration set out to create its own reality, whether approaching the Bill of Rights like a classified document to be redacted or girding itself for war in Iraq with a steady diet of dubious intelligence.

The Bush and Cheney who emerge from these pages cherish secrecy, they deplore constraint and they sneer at dissent, so nothing and nobody can dissuade them from their chosen course. Reality checks are not allowed.

This is what blind faith, or belief, does. It splits the True Believer off from normal feedback mechanisms that could introduce a healthy dose of factuality into his or her truthiness.

Sure, secular blind believers can be as resistant to reality as religious types. I've given up trying to open the eyes of some people who keep telling me, "The Bush administration planned 9/11."

OK, dude. Whatever.

The difference between them and El Presidente, however, is that their ill-founded beliefs don't have major consequences for others, whereas Bush's do.

And secular blind beliefs divorced from religious dogmatism are more amenable to vision improvement. I know progressives who are unwilling to see anything positive in what the Bush administration does, they hate our president so much.

But they're not a lost cause, whereas Bush is.

When I point out to them that their leftish blind belief is similar to a neo-con's myopic view of the world, they usually agree that they're unwilling to look at any bright spots in the vast expanse of Bushian darkness.

Openness. Receptivity. Ever-fresh awareness.

Pretty tough to cultivate. However, the world desperately needs these qualities. Especially in national leaders. Where, in the United States, they're horribly lacking at the moment.

God-o-Meter rates presidential candidates’ religiosity

With seventeen candidates still in the running (or, at least, walking), it's tough to decide who I want to vote for in the 2008 presidential election.

Fortunately, Belief Net has come up with a way of thinning the herd for me: a God-o-Meter. This provides a regularly updated religious wackiness score – though what I derisively call "wackiness" a disturbingly large percentage of Americans would fondly term "faith."

I'd already began to tilt away from my initial favorite, Barack Obama. Seeing that Obama presently rates a "9," almost a full blown theocrat on the 1 to 10 scale, turns me off more. Hillary's a "7," which is probably as good as I'm going to get this God-filled election season.

I thought Obama was more spiritual than religious. But there he is, sucking up to evangelicals with talk of how he has accepted Jesus and being an instrument of God.

Lord Almighty, even John McCain is just an "8." And he believes that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation – a fallacy nicely demolished today by a local newspaper columnist.

A plain reading of the Constitution shows that McCain, and apparently much of the country, is 180 degrees wrong. No religious polemics, no histrionics of the religious right, no obfuscations and no wishes of the majority can change this fact.

The Constitution does not create the United States of America as a Christian nation.

Candidates often say they are strict constructionists when it comes to the Constitution. No more of this judicial activism they say. Yet here McCain is rewriting the Constitution to suit his own religious beliefs or his own political necessity.

If God is on anybody's side, breaking Oregon news reveals that it is…gays. Opponents of recently passed domestic partnership legislation in my state tried to gather enough signatures to block the bill from going into effect.

It turns out that they were 116 valid signatures short of the 55,179 needed to suspend the law and put it on the November 2008 ballot for a popular vote.

Amazing: 116. The gay rights crowd is jubilant, as am I. I love it when miracles happen, and God steps in to prevent discrimination against people attracted to their own sex.

If any of the presidential candidates learn of this Oregon news and say, "Praise the Lord," I'll seriously consider voting for them.

“Wall of Separation” looks like an American history con job

It's a plain and evident fact that the United States' founding fathers were deeply concerned about this country becoming a religious theocracy. That's why we have a godless constitution—the title of a book I'm reading.

So given what I know about how strongly George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other leaders of their era felt about keeping religion out of government, my ears perked up when I heard mention of a PBS pseudo-documentary, "Wall of Separation," that suggests the wall may really have been an open door.

The PBS web site says:

But is this conventional wisdom of "secularized" government exactly what our Founding Fathers intended when they established our nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Some scholars think so. Other scholars claim that a contextualization of Colonial American culture and politics reveals a radically different definition of religious establishment and church/state relations than we have today. Some even claim it is the exact opposite of what the Founders intended. This is an ongoing debate that has continued to polarize Americans to this day.

This is the same sort of B.S. attitude that allows for the claim that "some say" evolution is true while "others say" intelligent design is how the world came to be, conveniently ignoring the fact that "some" includes the consensus of the scientific community, while "others" is limited to a few religious true believers.

Similarly, I strongly suspect that "Wall of Separation" isn't going to accurately reflect the views of most historians. As Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State points out, the program has its roots in the religious right.

And likely is tied into Christian Reconstructionism. This is a thoroughly creepy attempt to have American society dominated by Christian beliefs, legally and otherwise. I'm not sure why "reconstruct" is in their name. Probably they're trying to reconstruct the Middle Ages in the United States, when the Church controlled almost every aspect of life.

If he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would be urging us to resist this theocratic movement with every bit of our secular muscle. Here's some Jefferson quotes from "The Godless Constitution."

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity," Jefferson wrote, "have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned." What, he asked, has been the effect of this slaughter? "To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites," he answered, "to support roguery and error all over the earth."

…"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

…All priests, Jefferson claimed, "dread the advancement of science as witches do the approach of daylight." They preach "bigotry and fanaticism" at the expense of human reason. "The mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus" spread "impenetrable darkness…and there they will skulk." A "band of dupes and impostors," they sponsor "ignorance, absurdity, untruth, charlatanism and falsifications."

Christopher Hitchens rips on Rev. Falwell – and religion

The recently deceased Rev. Jerry Falwell probably was nice to his dog. But there isn't much else good that can be said about him. So yesterday I hugely enjoyed listening to an Air America replay of Anderson Cooper's interview of Hitchens on CNN.

Hitchens starts off snarky and sarcastic. Then warms up from there. Exactly what a fundamentalist hate-monger like Falwell deserves. Alive or dead.

The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend.

Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification

People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.

Sometimes I think I'm too hard on religion and that some commenters on this blog give true believers too hard a time. But when I hear Hitchens speak the ungodly truth, echoing the sentiments in his "God is Not Great" book, I'm struck by the power and the glory of faithless passion.

Like Hitchens says, society pretty much gives a free pass to the religious, no matter what sort of ridiculous crap they spout.

If you are a Christian who believes that someone unseen to you or anyone else is putting thoughts in your head, you're praiseworthy. If you're an atheist, you're considered to be loony.

I used to believe there was something called a "private faith" that should be immune to criticism so long as you didn't try to impose it on others. But now I side more with Sam Harris, who views religious moderation as the wellspring of the deep waters of crazed fundamentalism.

Like they say, draining the swamp is the way to get rid of alligators. Jerry Falwell wannabes probably always will be with us, sadly. However, we don't need to encourage them with "everyone is entitled to their own beliefs" apologetics.

No, everyone isn't.

Not when those beliefs threaten the life and limb of innocents. Falwell and his fundamentalist ilk are responsible for many thousands, if not millions, of deaths. Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever, true believers have done far more harm to the world than the faithless.

We've got lots of problems to deal with. AIDS, other diseases, regional conflicts, looming environmental disaster, social breakdown. The subtitle of Hitchens' book is How Religion Poisons Everything. Absolutely true.

Can't distribute condoms in AIDS-ravenged Africa because that would encourage sinful unwed sex. Can't fund stem cell research because that would destroy a (hypothetical) soul. Can't broker a truce between Israel and the Palestinians because each believes God is on their side. Can't deal with global warming because the Second Coming makes it irrelevant. Can't find common ground on cultural issues because religious folks are right and everybody else is wrong—debate over.

Hitchens is marvelously erudite. He's got the sort of biting British wit that is lovable when you agree with him, and horribly annoying when you don't. Watching him defend the Iraq war on Bill Maher's HBO show, sarcastically shredding the arguments of Bush critics, I wanted to strangle the guy.

But when I finished reading page 18 of "God is Not Great" Hitchens had become my churchless buddy.

A week before the events of September 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America's better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a "straight yes/no question" and I happily agreed.

Very well, he said, I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching.

Now—would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer it as if it were not hypothetical.

"Just to stay within the letter 'B,' I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance."

Hitchens then proceeds to describe how religion has poisoned the atmosphere in each of those cities, exacerbating tensions that would either be much minimized or non-existent if it weren't for religious fundamentalism.

Yes, religion poisons everything. And Falwell was a leading Christian poisoner. Hitchens said, "I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to." Amen to that.

Texas governor says non-Christians are going to hell

On this election day eve, let us remind ourselves why it is so important to send a message to the Christian Taliban in this country: we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

What aren’t we going to take? Intolerance. Sanctimoniousness. Attempts to turn the United States into a hateful Christian nation.

When the Republican governor of Texas agrees with a sermon where the pastor said that non-Christians are “going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket,” it’s long past time to scream bullshit.

Governor Rick Perry’s weird religious beliefs are his own business. But he needs to keep them to himself when he’s acting in his role as a political leader. He was among 60 mostly Republican candidates for tomorrow’s election when the pastor made his remarks.

Perry should have said something like, “I represent all Texans, Christians and non-Christians alike. Theology is one thing, democracy is another. I’m not going to comment on a matter of personal religious belief.”

How would Perry feel if he were a Christian living in Saudi Arabia and heard that nation’s leader say, “Every follower of Jesus will be judged harshly by Allah”? (This doesn’t require much of a stretch of the imagination.)

Could he be confident that justice would be applied equally to him and to Muslims? I doubt it. So how does he think Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christian Texans feel about his own intolerant remarks?

Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said, “He doesn’t think very differently from the Taliban, does he?” No, he doesn’t.

Unfortunately, Perry has lots of Christian company. Check out these quotations from the American Taliban.

I often hear it said, “Oh, these sorts of hateful people aren’t real Christians. The Bible teaches us to love, not hate.” Sorry, but that’s also bullshit.

The Bible is full of hatred. The haters of sodomy and homosexuality at godhatesfags.com say that they are merely preaching the Gospel. And, judging by the scripture they cite, they are.

These members of the Westboro Baptist Church have put together a persuasive PDF document: “God Loves Everyone.” The Greatest Lie Ever Told. 701 Passages Proving God’s Hate & Wrath for Most of Mankind.

It turns out that the Bible does say that non-Christians are going to hell. The Christian God isn’t full of love, as the document points out.

Have you ever wondered how many times “God loves everyone” is found in the Bible – 20, 50, 100, 200? Have you ever wondered if it appears in the New Testament or Old Testament or both? Have you ever wondered who said these words or who they are attributable to? Have you ever wondered how many times Jesus said “God loves everyone?”

As a matter of uncontroverted fact the phrase “God loves everyone” never appears in the Bible. You can search from Genesis to Revelation, including looking in all 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses and 774,746 words and you will never find this phrase. Period. In other words, the most famous Christian notion of God that is repeated without measure or limit in this evil and adulterous generation is never found in the Bible.

And that’s one reason I’m not a Christian. And why I urge you to vote Democratic tomorrow. The Dems are by no means perfect. But at least they haven’t been hijacked by the American Taliban like the Republicans have.

Bush’s stem cell veto harkens back to the Middle Ages

Today President Bush vetoed legislation that would have loosened federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. In so doing he continued the not-so-fine tradition of elevating nonsensical religious doctrine above scientific fact and human compassion.

Here are some remarks from Sen. Arlen Specter that I caught on C-SPAN. I have to fault Specter for his lack of knowledge about Galileo (whose heresy was for claiming that the Earth revolves around the sun, not that it is flat), but otherwise his sentiments resonate with my churchless soul.

We have seen in our historical perspective where Galileo was imprisoned because he believed that the Earth was not flat, that Boniface the 8th stopped the dissection of cadavers which retarded medical science for centuries, where women were denied anesthesia by the Scottish Church in childbirth because it was God’s will that they not have that kind of relief.

And a century from now people will look back on what we are doing today in wonderment at how there could be any doubt about using these stem cells to save human lives and save human suffering.

Amen to that. There will come a time—and I hope it is much less than a century—when the sanctimoniousness of right-wing fundamentalists in the year 2006 will seem as bizarrely closed-minded as the Church’s indictment of Galileo in the year 1630 does now.

If you, a friend, or relative has diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, a spinal cord injury, or any of a host of other medical problems for which embryonic stem cell research holds great promise, come November remember that the Republican Party is anti-life.

As I wrote yesterday on my other weblog, Bush considers that using microscopic embryos for stem cell research, rather than discarding them, is murder. Yet there simply is no rational basis for believing that eight cells growing in a piece of lab equipment is a human life.

But reason and clear vision are deactivated in the minds of those who cling to theological fantasies. Which includes not only George Bush, but everyone else who elevates faith to an undeserved position on the scale of human values.

The faith that God is more pleased that a few embryonic cells remain frozen in an in vitro fertility clinic than used for research aimed at preventing human death and suffering obviously is a dangerously misguided faith.

Yet just as stem cells are able to become many different kinds of organs, so can faith morph into many different forms of superstition. The seemingly positive faith that “Jesus saves” and the clearly negative faith that “research on a microscopic embryo is murder” flow from the same well of gullibility.

We have not yet evolved out of a Middle Ages consciousness. Not by a long shot. Not so long as United States Senators can open up a book written in pre-scientific times and orate with a straight face, “I cannot vote for this bill because it is contrary to the Bible.”

The Inquisition is no longer with us in a manifest form. However, its spirit lives on in the narrow fundamentalist minds of a disturbingly large proportion of our nation’s leaders. Sadly, our President is among them.

“Thou shalt doubt,” the first commandment

Proving that there is a churchless God, yesterday I turned on the TV for my morning cable news fix just in time to hear Andrew Sullivan speak on C-SPAN about the genuine form of faith: doubt.

Sullivan is my favorite conservative essayist and blogger. I thought that his recent piece about the dangers of Christianism (as contrasted with genuine Christianity) was great. It was a treat to hear him on a Book Expo of American lunch session panel with fellow book floggers Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, and Frank Rich.

His book, “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back,” won’t be released until October. I expect I’ll be buying it. Not because I want to get back my conservative soul, but because I enjoyed Sullivan’s take on faith and doubt. Here’s some of what he had to say:

The soul, when it is beleaguered by fear, has two options. It can create a certainty, an ideology, a mantra, that it will cling to with white knuckles. To make sense of the world, to reassure itself, to tell itself it’s safe, regardless of the empirical evidence, to suspend rational judgment, and to capitulate to a form of psychological and spiritual fundamentalism.

That, I think, is what has happened to conservatism. It has been high jacked by fundamentalism. The emergence of the religious right in this country, and in the middle East—fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity—gearing up for what the extreme elements on both sides actually literally regard as an apocalyptic battle, this is the great question of our time.

The waging of war between two absolute certainties where doubt is banished, where all dissent is regarded as treason, when empiricism is regarded as a threat, and where individual freedom is always sacrificed on the altar of security and paternalism.

What I try and do in this book is to restore and to remind conservatives that there is another conservatism. There is another tradition, within the conservative political tradition, that resists fundamentalism, resists certainty, and is rooted fundamentally in doubt. Against the conservatism of fundamentalism, we have and must advance the conservatism of doubt.

And there are two areas in which that doubt must be allowed to grow and flourish. The first is religion. You know, there are two kinds of religious faith. And the great lie of today is that the only genuine form of religious faith is fundamentalist. That the only real form of religion and faith is adherence to a set of doctrines that cannot be questioned and which must merely be imposed.

There is another kind of Christianity and another kind of faith that understands, first of all, that God, if God exists, must by definition be unknowable to us. We cannot know for certain what God’s ways are and what God is telling us to do at any given moment in time.

We cannot know, at any moment, what God wants us to do, let alone believe as some people do that God has a position on stem cell research, or capital gains, or welfare reform. These are emanations of an enormous hubris and a betrayal of faith as it is properly understood.

Because the root of all faith is doubt. No human being would ever come to think of God unless he asked questions of the meaning of life and questioned himself.

The kind of faith I’m talking of is, I think, actually held by a majority of Americans who have had their own faith high jacked in public by fundamentalists. And the mainstream media which has not been alert enough to what real Christians and real faith is in this country has swallowed their line and had religion actually defined by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Now the faith I’m talking about is one that looks at God and feels humility. That believes in service, that practices mystery, that engages in wordless sacraments that manage to describe the ineffability of the divine. It is a faith that is always interwoven with doubt. It is a faith that asks, “What should I do?” not what someone else should do.

It is a faith that finds it hard enough to impose our own beliefs on our own actions, let alone want to use government and law to coerce the actions and beliefs of other people.

Beware of the Christianists

Islamists use Islam to further their narrow political agenda. Christianists use Christianity in the same way. Hearty churchless thanks to Andrew Sullivan for sharing this insight in his recent TIME magazine essay, “My Problem with Christianism.”

Your problem is my problem too, my friend. I like Sullivan. Politically, he’s conservative on Iraq and other issues. But culturally he’s progressive. And not coincidentally, gay. He’s appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO program several times. Sullivan is well-spoken, humble, and clearly a nice guy.

Which helps explain why he dislikes so much the cocky certitude of Christianists who believe that they, and only they, know what God wants of us. This just happens to be precisely what the right wing of the Republican Party wants. Amazing. God only speaks to conservative Christian ideologues.

Sullivan makes a lot of sense here:

And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple?

Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

Naturally the Christianists are threatened by a devout Catholic who refuses to accept every bit of Church dogma and the right-wing party line. Gregory Borse considers that there is no room for individual moral choices in Catholicism. He says that he belongs to the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church doesn’t belong to him.

OK. Agreed. I belong to the American Automobile Association. I don’t believe that AAA belongs to me. But I can disagree with some of the central policies of that organization and still be a member. Tell the Pope to shove it on abortion, gay marriage, and female ordination, and you’re not going to be welcome at the Vatican.

That’s why Christianism, or any “ism,” is so dangerous. It is intolerant and authoritarian. If you mistakenly believe that you’re carrying out God’s will, like George Bush does, any and all evidence that you’re on the wrong track is going to be ignored. I talked about this in “Religious values have no place in politics.” Andrew Sullivan makes a similar point in his blog:

I'm not arguing that faith should have no role in political discourse. Someone's faith will affect her politics. My faith informs my own positions on torture, the death penalty, gay dignity, the Iraq war, and so on. But in the political sphere, mere recourse to religious authority is insufficient, because, by definition, it cannot persuade those of a different faith or no faith at all.

And so religious doctrines need to be translated into moral arguments, applicable to any citizen with good will and an open mind. When Tom DeLay, at a Republican gathering, invokes Christ as his ally; or when the Catholic hierarchy comes close to barring votes for Democrats; or when Jesse Jackson uses the pulpit to garner Democratic votes, they have crossed an important line. It's important to defend that line - for the sake of politics, and for the sake of faith.

In another post Sullivan observed that the Christianists are fighting back against his eminently reasonable suggestion that religion should focus on spirituality, not politics. Hugh Hewitt is worried that others are going to pick up Sullivan’s term.

Be worried, Mr. Hewitt. Be very worried.

Christianist. Christianist. Christianist. I’ve picked it up.

Amazing! I agree with William Bennett.

Over on my HinesSight blog I’ve shared the astounding news that right-wing moral pundit William Bennett and I agree about something: the Muhammad cartoons that are freaking out the Muslim world.

In my post, “State Dept. wrong about Muhammad cartoons,” I agree with Bennett that when terrorists use Islam to justify their actions, then that religion becomes fair game. For cartoonists, lampooners, comics, politicians, ranters and ravers, editorialists, whoever. (Oh, I almost forgot: bloggers too.)

Actually, religion should be fair game under any circumstances. There’s nothing special about religious belief that makes the First Amendment inapplicable to it. Freedom of expression applies to speaking about religion as much as anything else.

If you haven’t seen the blasphemous cartoons yet, I found a site that has more readable versions of them (compared to the image I posted previously). Take a look here.

Assisted suicide is moral, Scalia isn’t

Most of us here in Oregon were thrilled when the Supreme Court upheld our state’s assisted suicide law. Tuesday’s decision was a victory both for state’s rights and common sense.

Twice, Oregon voters have affirmed their belief that terminally ill people with six months or less to live have the right to end their life if they come to feel that it isn’t worth living. I can’t understand how anybody could argue with this.

Who else should be in control of the life of an adult who is capable of making his or her own decisions but that person? No answer comes to mind. People should be left free to live, and people should be left free to die—if that is their choice. Government shouldn’t butt into moral choices that affect no one but the individual making the choice.

Justices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas disagreed, however. Scalia wrote what a Portland Oregonian editorial called a “peevish dissent.” Wanting to cast my eyes directly upon its peevishness, for the first time in my life I ventured into the legalistic wilds of the Supreme Court web site, where I found both the opinion and the dissents.

Boring. Reading further, still boring. It wasn’t until I got to the very end of Scalia’s dissent, pages 24-25, that I could sense peevishness under all the legalese. Scalia admits that assisted suicide falls within “the realm of public morality” which is traditionally addressed by the states.

Yet somehow he reaches the tortured conclusion that the Attorney General of the United States is better able to decide what is moral for the people of Oregon than the people themselves. Scalia supposedly has a great legal mind, but he is reduced to leaning on his utterly personal opinion when he writes:

If the term “legitimate medical purpose” has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death.

Surely not, Mr. Scalia. Have you read the New England Journal of Medicine article, “Physician-Assisted Suicide—Oregon and Beyond”? Probably not. If you had, I don’t see how you could claim that aiding terminally ill people to make their own carefully-chosen end of life decision isn’t a legitimate medical purpose. Susan Okie, M.D. says:

Oregon’s seven years of experience with this law have been, for the most part, reassuring: medical and legal safeguards established during implementation appear to have prevented abuse, and most patients have had the expected outcome…The law has not had the dire social consequences that some opponents predicted. There is no evidence that it has been used to coerce elderly, poor, or depressed patients to end their lives, nor has it caused any significant migration of terminally ill people to Oregon.

Compassion in Dying of Oregon deserves a lot of credit for helping make Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act such a success. Back in my health planning/policy days I was deeply involved with bioethics issues in this state. It warms my heart to see that Oregon is still leading the fight to keep end-of-life decisions in the hands of the person whose life is ending—not the government.

What worries me, though, is that the religious right will continue to try to push their brand of Christian fundamentalism onto to everybody. This happened in the Terri Schiavo case, it is happening in the debates over abortion and the teaching of intelligent design, and I have little doubt that it will happen in the halls of Congress as attempts are made to overturn Oregon’s assisted suicide law legislatively.

Betty Rollin, author of a LA Times opinion piece, “In the end, peace of mind,” says:

An April Harris Poll showed 70% of respondents answered "yes" when asked if terminally ill people should be allowed to die with a physician's help. If Oregon loses the battle to preserve its law, the comfort Oregonians now have will be lost to them — and most likely to all of us.

The title of a USA Today story about Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act sums it up: “The dying, not the feds, deserve final say on life.”

That surely sounds moral to me, Mr. Scalia.

One nation under God?

It’s good to see that a federal judge has ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional, because it sure seems so to me. Since the pledge includes the words “under God,” how can anyone say that this isn’t a state-sponsored affirmation of religion?

Probably the conservative-stacked Supreme Court will end up saying just that, of course. I won’t care much when this happens, since I don’t have strong feelings about this issue. However, I’d just as soon have the words “under God” stricken from the pledge, thereby getting it back to its godless pre-1954 state.

Alternatively, how about adding a question mark after “under God”? Grammatically this would be a problem, but pledge-sayers could be taught to put the question mark in via a spoken inflection.

There have been four versions of the Pledge of Allegiance already. So why not five? This way the words “under God” could stay in the pledge, while encouraging some much-needed classroom discussion.

I mean, right after saying the pledge teachers could say, “Now, children, let’s talk about what “under God” means to you, and why we say it with a question mark in our voice.” I’d be happy to volunteer to help out with these discussions.

“Assuming God exists,” I’d say, “what are some other ways this nation could relate to God other than being ‘under’ him, her, or it?” We’d talk about how a nation, or a person, could be “with God,” “distinct from God,” “akin to God,” or “above God”—plus other spatial-relational possibilities.

We’d also discuss the possible meanings of “God:” Is this entity a person or a power? Is it objectively or subjectively real? Is God something separate from the laws of nature and physical reality? Is God the same thing as ultimate reality? How does the meaning we ascribe to the word “God” affect whether we perceive our nation as being under, next to, part of, or above God?

Once you add a question mark to “under God,” making it “under God?,” I don’t have much of a problem with leaving these words in the Pledge of Allegiance. The words aren’t a problem; the problem is religious dogmatism, believing that this nation somehow is under the control, domination, or special favor of a personal Christian sort of God.

The atheist plaintiff in this case, Michael Newdow said "Imagine every morning if the teachers had the children stand up, place their hands over their hearts, and say, 'We are one nation that denies God exists."'

Yes, imagine. Imagine the outrage. Yet indisputably there is much more evidence in favor of God’s nonexistence than of God’s existence. Everyone directly experiences the absence of God, while few people claim to have experienced God’s presence. And even they are unable to provide any definitive proof that God exists.

What gripes me the most about “under God” advocates is when they claim that the rights granted to citizens in the Constitution come from God, and that if “under God” is eliminated from the Pledge of Allegiance those rights will lack a firm foundation. That’s ridiculous.

Morality, ethics, and human rights emanate from human beings, not from God. Further, there’s absolutely no evidence that a belief in a personal Christian God leads to better morality, better ethics, or better human rights. Witness the Dark Ages and the Inquisition, when Christianity really was in control of society.

And witness Eastern cultures infused with Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian belief systems. Are they less committed to morality, ethics, and human rights than Western cultures? There’s simply no relation between belief in a personal father-figure God and decent human behavior.

Except, perhaps, an inverse relation. The longer the words “under God” have been in the Pledge of Allegiance, the more godless our nation has become. I agree with Meister Eckhart that getting rid of the idea of “God” is necessary to truly be godly.

God, save us from “God.” It seems that God has heard this prayer, given the judge’s ruling concerning the Pledge of Allegiance.

Keep religion, individual morality out of lawmaking

It was a joy to read an article with this “right on!” title in yesterday’s Salem Statesman-Journal. Mary Ridderbusch is just 18, a recent high school graduate who will be attending the University of Oregon in the fall. But she’s wiser about religion and politics than most adults— and certainly the entire Bush administration.

I’ve attached her article in its entirety as a continuation to this post, since the Statesman-Journal’s free access to stories fades away after a week and I want people to be able to read Ridderbusch’s thoughts for a lot longer than that. She’s an excellent writer, knowing how to jump right into her subject:

One cannot legislate morality. These should be words to live by for the U.S. government. I hold a particular distaste for the legislation of religious beliefs and for the defense of this practice. “America is a Christian nation.” This claim is overused and overgeneralized.

I’ve frequently echoed her ideas in my politically-oriented Church of the Churchless posts. As I said in “Religious values have no place in politics,” we live in a real physical world, not in an abstract realm of faith-based ideas. Lawmaking has to be based on facts and values that flow from experience of a shared reality. Otherwise, democracy and individual rights are a sham.

Recently there was a lot of controversy in Salem about whether a historic black walnut tree should be cut down. Debate was vigorous and often heated. However, I didn’t hear anyone argue that because fairies live in the tree, it should be kept alive. That would have been a ridiculous argument for saving the tree, right?

Yet Ridderbusch points out that without a similar improvable belief in a unseen entity, the soul, stem-cell research would be a non-issue. Religious faith muddies the waters of political debate for it isn’t possible to have moral clarity when you’re blinded by fundamentalist preconceptions that have no grounding in the real world.

In the same vein, creationists are fond of saying that “evolution is just a theory,” which is what global-warming deniers say about climate change. This reveals a complete misunderstanding of what “theory” means in science. A letter by Roger Plenty in the August 27-September 2 issue of New Scientist says:

If educational institutions were required to label books “Evolution is only a theory,” as George W. Bush recently suggested, it might be a good idea to add a further label with a definition of “theory.” The Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives “a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment and is accepted as accounting for known facts.”

Science and politics both have to be founded on facts. When faith-based beliefs are substituted for shared experience of the real world, society is in trouble.

Many thanks to Mary Ridderbusch for warning of the danger the United States faces from religious moralists who want to shove their personal views down the throats of everyone.

Fundamentalism is religious racism

Racists erroneously believe that there is proof one race is superior to another. Fundamentalists erroneously believe that there is proof one religion is superior to another.

Thus there’s a natural affinity between fundamentalism and racism. This is one reason, among many, why fundamentalism in any form—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, whatever—can’t be tolerated by tolerant people.

On my other weblog, HinesSight, I recently wrote about the danger of “Religious right on a crusade.” Now, many people would accuse me of overreacting to the attempts by Christian fundamentalists to take control of the political, educational, and judicial systems in the United States.

“Why don’t you just let those on the religious right do what they want and focus on your own spiritual path?” goes the argument. I can understand this point of view, but I can’t accept it.

I try to be a tolerant person. However, it’s extremely difficult for me to be tolerant of intolerance. That’s when I become an extremist—when I see that someone else’s basic human rights are being attacked by an intolerant “ism” such as racism or fundamentalism.

There are clear connections between the two. This study found a positive correlation between fundamentalism, authoritarianism, homosexual discrimination, and racism, noting that “Results support the previous research of the fundamentalism-authoritarianism-racism relationship.”

The Fundamentally Aware web site discusses the connection between fundamentalism and racism, as does the article “A theology for racism: Southern Fundamentalists and the civil rights movement.”

So toleration of fundamentalist faith-based religions is dangerous. For anyone who blindly believes that his or her religion is superior to all others will find it easy to blindly believe that his or her race (or sex, country, sexual orientation, etc.) is superior to all others.

As I noted in my afore-mentioned other post on this subject, fundamentalism is inherently opposed to reason. So scientific facts aren’t going to convince a closed-minded fundamentalist that races and religions are much more similar than they are different, and that there is no basis for considering that one race or religion is superior to any other.

Fundamentalism is based on faith. Thus faith is the root of prejudice and intolerance, as Sam Harris persuasively argues in his book “The End of Faith.” Faith isn’t a positive thing. It’s horribly negative, responsible for countless instances of killings, tortures, hatred, discrimination, and such.

Fundamentalist extremism is kept afloat by an ocean of faith. Eliminate the faith and the extremism would be left high and dry. For example, the August 8/15 issue of The New Yorker quotes a Marine lieutenant general:

“This is no more a war on terrorism than the Second World War was a war on submarines. The decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world.”

If this is true of the Muslim people who tolerate Muslim extremists, it is equally true of the Christian people who tolerate Christian extremists. The intolerant fundamentalist religious right in the United States is being supported by the passive tolerance of what likely is a majority of Christians who are opposed to Christian theology being forced down the throats of unbelievers.

Just as the Ku Klux Klan remained a powerful force until the broader culture disowned racial intolerance, religious intolerance will be with us until believers of all faiths say to the extremists among them “We won’t put up with this any longer.”

I hope that day is coming soon. I fear that it is a long way off.

John Roberts’ religious faith matters

Since the Bush administration has no problem with religion being part and parcel of public policy, it’s strange that Republicans don’t want John Roberts to be questioned about his Roman Catholic faith during his confirmation hearings.

Hey, you can’t have it both ways. If the right-wing wants politicians and judges to be free to express their personal religious beliefs in the course of their official duties, then those beliefs should be considered when assessing their competence to perform those duties.

In Roberts’ case, he’s a devout member of a religion that doesn’t let an elected official (such as John Kerry) take communion if he or she supports abortion rights. It wouldn’t be surprising if a Catholic was more concerned about keeping his immortal soul out of hell-fire than with judging a case involving abortion on purely secular legal criteria.

So, yes, it is absolutely appropriate that Senators question Roberts about how strong his allegiance is to Catholic dogma. I’ve argued before that religious values have no place in politics. No place on the Supreme Court either.

If there’s a good chance that Roberts will judge a case on the basis of his Catholicism rather than the Constitution, he shouldn’t be confirmed.

The United States is pressing Iraq to keep Islam from dominating that nation’s constitution. I just wish the Bush administration was equally concerned about keeping the United States constitution free of Christianity.

Universism, a kindred unfaith

A few weeks ago I became a Universist. I didn’t have to give up my churchless faith to do so, for Universism is a marvelously kindred philosophy. The Universists just are a lot more organized than the Church of the Churchless ever will be and have a much cooler web site.

They actually sign people up who are willing to affirm that they fit the definition of a Universist. I figured, “What the heck?” and proclaimed my allegiance to Universism (pronounced “universe-ism”). I’d already joined the Unitarian Jihad, so signing on to another uni-philosophy seemed right in line with the trajectory of my spiritual evolution—which some would say is heading straight for hell.

Well, I’ll have some interesting company there. Such as John Armstrong, assistant director of the Universist movement. Last Tuesday I listened to a radio interview with Armstrong on the arch-conservative national Lars Larson show. The Universists had sent me an email about the show, saying that Armstrong’s interview had been moved up a day because of Bush’s impending announcement of his Supreme Court nomination.

I liked Armstrong’s style a lot. As I often not-so-humbly say about someone, “He made a lot of sense, since he sounded an awful lot like me.” Except, Armstrong was more calm and collected than I suspect I would be if I ever conversed with the hugely annoying Lars Larson. And Armstrong had a rich supply of quotes on hand about the Deistic beliefs of this country’s founding fathers, a subject I know little about.

You can peruse these quotes at Deism.org, a related Universist web site that Armstrong was able to plug shamelessly throughout the interview. I do have to give Lars Larson credit for having Armstrong on his show (this was a repeat appearance), for Larson and most of his regular listeners are devout fundamentalist Christians.

Armstrong persuasively argued that George Washingon, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, among others, were Deists, not believers in Jesus. The Universists say that Deism is “belief in God as revealed by nature and reason combined with a disbelief in scripture, prophets, superstition and church authority.” The founding father quotes they’ve assembled certainly seem to support Armstrong’s assertion, which didn’t go over well with Larson (to my great delight).

I can’t recall the exact Jefferson quote Armstrong read on the show, but I think it may have been this one: "One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Armstrong skillfully pointed out that the Universist skepticism about organized religion is exactly in line with the virtues of freedom and independence that this country was founded on. “Don’t tread on me.” “Give me liberty or give me death.” He said that Russia became free (or, at least, freer) when its people rose up against the power of the state dictating every aspect of their lives.

Yet now the United States government is trying to force religion, in the guise of Christianity, down citizens’ throats. This is un-American, Armstrong said. The United States Constitution doesn’t mention religion at all, except to say that it must be kept out of public affairs.

Larson didn’t have much of a response, other than to bring up the pitifully weak argument that I’ve heard him use before: “But the last words of the Constitution say, ‘In the year of our Lord…’”

Good God! God damn closed-minded conservative talk show hosts! My use of the name of God just now doesn’t mean that I’m a Christian; it’s just a way of speaking. The same is true with “In the year of the Lord,” Armstrong said.

The Universist FAQs are worth perusing if you want to know more about this intriguing movement. I applaud Armstrong and his fellow Universists for their efforts to make personal reason and experience the foundation of a spiritual (or non-spiritual) world view.

Still, I sympathize with John Horgan. He wrote in his “Keeping the Faith in My Doubt” essay that he wouldn’t be joining the Universists or any other areligious group:

“First of all, I’m just not a joiner, more out of laziness than anything else; I avoid commitments that might jeopardize my sports- or sitcom-watching time. An organization for freethinkers--one of the Universists self-definitions--also strikes me as oxymoronic, like an anarchist government. Isn’t the point of being a free-thinker eschewing categories like Satanist, Scientologist or Universist?”

Yes, it is. Horgan concludes that each unbeliever could form his own personal “ism” with its own name. He says, “Since Universism is taken, I’ll call mine ‘Horganism.’ You can revile it, admire it, or ignore it, but you can’t join it.”

Amen to that.

“I” is a humble word

I’ve never been one to shy away from the use of “I.” Obviously. This puts me at odds with the powers-that-be who set forth the guidelines for giving talks (a.k.a. satsangs) at meetings of the spiritual group, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), where I still hold forth once a month or so. Until I’m fired for heresy by the powers-that-be, that is—an ever present possibility.

Last Sunday I glanced at a memo from the Western RSSB representative, Vince Savarese, which said that it isn’t good for a speaker to say “I” very often. I disagree, so I quickly stopped reading the memo. From my days working in state government I remember the value of being able to respond to criticism from a higher-up with an “Oh, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that. I must not have gotten the memo.”

On our local public broadcasting radio network, OPB, I recently heard an interview with John Danforth. Danforth is a moderate Christian Republican who used to be a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He said that while he agrees with most of President Bush’s policies, he doesn’t like how fundamentalist Christians are inserting themselves into the political process.

Danforth has written two excellent op-ed pieces for the New York Times on this subject. You can read them here and here. The paragraph I like best in his “Onward, moderate Christian soldiers” is:

To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that only I know God's will, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility. By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth.

Which gets me back to why “I” really is a humble, not egotistical, word. Consider the difference in tone between saying “I am searching for the truth” and “This is the truth.” There’s no “I” in the second sentence, but it is hugely more self-assertive—especially when the truth being referred to is religious or spiritual, not scientific or material.

I’m sure that I often sound as if I’m sure about what I’m talking about. For that, I apologize. I should be writing “I believe…,” “I think…,” “I suspect…” and the like more often than I do. In my defense, I assume that the reader knows that what I’m saying is just how I see things, and not how things really are. My spiritual vision is blurry, like most everyone else’s.

Even those regarded by some as Perfect. Such as the Indian guru Charan Singh, and his successor Gurinder Singh. Yesterday three issues of a new RSSB magazine, “Spiritual Link,” arrived in the mail from India. I’ve thumbed through them but find it difficult to resonate with the articles.

For one thing, the frequent use of the phrase “perfect living Master” jars my sensibilities. In the past I’ve used these words in my own writings, so I understand that they reflect an ardent devotion to a spiritual teacher. The devotion is understandable. However, it doesn’t need to be expressed in words that can’t be defended, for they neither reflect a directly experienceable reality nor a loving, humble attitude toward spirituality.

In his other essay Danforth says, “At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive.” In my opinion, using the word “perfect” to describe a spiritual leader is highly divisive. For it strongly implies that anyone who holds views that are different from those espoused by the Perfect One is, by definition, wrong: imperfect, deluded, uninformed, misguided.

It would be another thing if a devotee were to write, “I look upon _____ as being perfect.” Adding “I” to a statement in this fashion converts it into a profession of personal belief, not a proclamation of universal truth. Strangely, though, in the aforementioned Spiritual Link magazine all articles written by devotees are anonymous, while quotations from spiritual greats are identified by name.

I’ve unsuccessfully argued with the editors that the magazine’s policy should be just the opposite: those who are least likely to be speaking spiritual truth should be named so the qualifications of the “I” doing the saying can be assessed by readers. Also, this would permit mistakes, questionable assertions, and the like to be brought to the attention of the author.

It’s humble to say, “I think… . Now tell me what you think.” It’s egotistical to hide behind a curtain of anonymity that allows you to say whatever you want without being questioned or challenged.

Nobody on this plane of existence is perfect. This is one statement where I’ll omit a prefatory “I believe that… .” Perfection implies unchangeability, or at least perfect harmonization with changing conditions. The human body changes all the time and so does the human mind. It isn’t possible for either body or mind to perfectly mirror the truth of the cosmos, however we might view the nature of that truth.

Yesterday I saw a CNN report that Spain has made gay marriage legal, joining Belgium and the Netherlands (and likely soon, Canada). That made me think about the comment by the supposedly “perfect” guru Charan Singh that I wrote about in my previous post: Homosexuality is contrary to all laws of Nature and no decent society approves it.

Well, now three decent societies have approved of gay marriage, desiring to extend the rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples to homosexuals. Does this mean that Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands aren’t really “decent” societies? If you believe that Charan Singh was perfect and every utterance of his reflects ultimate spiritual truth, then apparently this is the case.

Naturally I hold a different opinion: Charan Singh had his own views on lots of subjects, as do we all. Some of those views were defensible; others weren’t. His personal opinion about homosexuality was, in my own personal opinion, one of the latter.

I just wish he had been more inclined to say “I believe” and “I think.” For then gay people like Steve, who left a moving comment on that post, would have been less likely to take Charan Singh’s personal opinions on this subject seriously.

Humility is realizing that our “I” doesn’t encompass the big picture, the Eye of God, if you like. It’s honest to say “I.” It’s dishonest to purport that our own individual views reflect the whole of reality.

In defense of uncertainty

This month TIME essayist Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece called “In Defense of Certainty.” Well, I’m certain that Krauthammer is wrong. He thinks that it’s entirely appropriate to publicly advocate political views founded on religious belief.

Actually, it’s entirely inappropriate to do this. Last year I wrote about why religious values have no place in politics, arguing that “you can’t debate with someone who doesn’t have a defensible reason for why they believe what they do. You can’t debate with someone who responds to a reasoned argument with ‘Because the Bible says so’ or ‘Jesus condemns sinners.’”

Religious belief is a conversation stopper. That’s why it is so injurious to political discourse. People who are absolutely certain that they are right aren’t interested in listening. All they want to do is talk. Preach. Proselytize. Pontificate. Since they can’t offer rational reasons for their political positions—faith isn’t rational—the simple question “Why?” is viewed as an attack.

More accurately, questions which follow the religious believer’s answer to the initial “Why?” are considered to be unseemly. For example, I ask a True Believer “Why do you think that gays shouldn’t be able to marry?” I am told, “Because homosexuality is a sin.” And that supposedly settles the matter.

Now, from my point of view that response doesn’t end our conversation; it’s just the beginning. I want to ask follow-up questions. Lots of them. “What do you mean by sin?” “Who decides what is sinful?” “How can you be sure that what you think is a sin, really is?” There are all kinds of directions our conversation could go. Naturally I’d be asked questions too and would have to defend my own answers.

Krauthammer completely misses the point when he says, “Instead of arguing the merits of any issue, secularists are trying to win the argument by default on the grounds that the other side displays unhealthy certainty or, even worse, unhealthy religiosity.” No, it is just the opposite: the religious believers are the ones trying to win political arguments by default, not the secularists.

When someone tells me, “I’m certain,” and he really means it, that’s the end of our discussion. I’m not going to waste my time trying to engage him in an open debate when his mind isn’t open. If he believes that everything written in the Bible or some other holy book is true, and no matter what facts I bring up he quotes scripture to me, I’ll walk away from this one-sided conversation. He doesn’t want to talk with me; he wants to preach to me.

Krauthammer sings the praises of moral certainty. Yet moral certainty only is a virtue when there are good reasons for holding an ethical position. Blind, thoughtless, unquestioning moral certainty is more likely to be a vice than a virtue, because ethics requires a delicate sensitive touch—not a ham-fisted slam on the table and the cry “Believe!”

I’ve never belonged to a genuine fundamentalist religion, thank God. But over the decades I’ve associated with many people who have treated the utterances of a guru in a fundamentalist fashion. That is, they accepted as gospel what the guru said even when it didn’t make sense. Now, I’ve got no problem with this display of blind faith when the supposed gospel truth is purely spiritual with no political implications.

However, every time I read this passage in “Quest for Light,” a book containing extracts from letters written by an Indian guru, Charan Singh, I’m reminded of how simple-minded fundamentalism is as likely to be found in Eastern mysticism as in Western religion. The guru wrote:

Please remember that anything that is against Nature is always improper and inadvisable. Nature has created the two sexes for the continuation of the species and for the satisfaction of the sex instinct within proper limits. If we go against it, it means we are doing something unnatural of which the laws of Nature do not approve. Homosexuality is contrary to all laws of Nature and no decent society approves it. The act is humiliating and degenerating not only in the eyes of others, but also in the eyes of those who are involved…There are no habits which we cannot break if we have the will and determination to do so.

There are many untruths and irrational conclusions in that paragraph. It makes no sense. Yet because the guru said those words, many (if not most) of his disciples took them seriously. Their desire for spiritual certainty led them to accept without question statements that should have been met with an emphatic, “What?!” Every sentence in the quotation above begs for deep questioning. And then, in my opinion, rejection.

I understand the appeal of certainty. I’ve fallen into the trap of the True Believer myself. I once thought that questioning the pronouncements of a guru would be detrimental to my spiritual progress, no matter how ridiculous those statements were when viewed in the lights of reason, compassion, and scientific facts.

Now, I’ve concluded that uncertainty is an always-open door. Uncertainty allows us to escape from the confines of rigid beliefs that have no basis in reality.

I’ve come to believe in the power of don’t know. When in doubt, doubt.

Take a stand, don't go to church tomorrow

I could have written this for the Church of the Churchless, but I just finished a rant--I mean, a passionate well-reasoned essay--called "God must be a Buddhist" on my HinesSight weblog. I concluded that not going to church tomorrow would be taking a stand against the demons.

Unitarian Jihad needs to get rolling

Just a day after Laurel and I joined the Unitarian Jihad, Senate majority leader Bill Frist demonstrates why this campaign against religious extremism is needed so badly.

The New York Times reports that Frist, my least favorite U.S. senator (especially after he outrageously dared to “diagnose” Terri Schiavo’s condition from videotapes and medical records) “has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees.”

Senator Frist, I have some news for you: there are lots of “people of faith” who are pleased that the Democrats are preventing a few unqualified nominees from getting lifetime appointments to a federal judgeship.

I am one of those people. It isn’t necessary to be a Christian to be a person of faith. There are many varieties of faith. Some don’t even have a name, not being associated with an organized religion. These might well be the truest faiths.

It’s a strange conception, this notion of Christian right’ies that only people who have a belief in God exactly like theirs have high moral and ethical standards. The New York Times article says that Christian conservatives consider that the battle over the nominees is part of a 30-year culture war.

I don’t understand what culture and religion have in common. I’ve always thought that the eternal God and all things divine were far above ephemeral cultural comings and goings. But if the Christian right wants a culture war, we of the Unitarian Jihad are prepared to fight for truth, justice, and the universal way.

Universal. Not Christian, not Islamic, not Jewish, not Buddhist, not Taoist, not anything with an “ian,” “ic,” “ish,” or “ist” attached to it. The American government represents everybody. Christians are part of that everybody, but just a part. No part should be able to run rough-shod over the whole, even if it is a majority part.

I have no problem with politicians who have strong religious beliefs. I do have a problem with politicians who don’t recognize the relativity and subjectivity of those beliefs, mistaking them for absolute commandments From On High. No, they’re just beliefs. And they have to be rationally defended in the court of public debate just like any other beliefs.

The most annoying characteristic of religious fundamentalists like Frist and his Christian allies is their sense of entitlement. “Because I believe it, it must be so.” No, it doesn’t. Again, your beliefs are just beliefs. You may believe that Terri Schiavo should have had her feeding tube reinserted, abortion is a sin, and gays shouldn’t marry. Fine. Just remember that other people have valid reasons for believing differently. Argue about your differences, but don’t claim that you have a direct line to God.

The first communiqué of the Unitarian Jihad says it nicely:

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

Sounds good to me. Bring on the Jihad.

More about Terri Schiavo

I can't stop thinking about Terry Schiavo.

On my other weblog I've written that we all are Terry Schiavo.

With all the divisiveness surrounding her situation, we need to remember that death unites every man and woman. Where Terri goes, we all will go.

Jeb Bush's neurologist has no credibility

Why, what a surprise! (Not.) The New York Times says this about the neurologist who Florida Governor Jeb Bush claims has new information about Terri Schiavo's condition: his life and work have been guided by his religious beliefs.

Gosh, that's just the sort of person you want to have making objective, scientifically sound, patient-centered judgments about the condition of someone in a persistent vegetative state. (Not.) The physician, Dr. William Cheshire, has never published an article on the subject he claims to know so much about. He didn't find any compelling evidence to support his new diagnosis of a "minimally conscious state," but made it anyway.

What a farce.

Here's an excerpt from the article. The full article can be found in a continuation to this post.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, "I have no idea who this Cheshire is," and added: "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."

He said there was no doubt that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. "Her CAT scan shows massive shrinkage of the brain," he said. "Her EEG is flat - flat. There's no electrical activity coming from her brain."

Religious zealots run amok in Terri Schiavo case

Anyone following the Terri Schiavo situation with an open, rational, compassionate mind can see that religious zealots are some of the most immoral people on earth. Who else but Congressional religious zealots would subpoena a woman in a persistent vegetative state to come “testify” (as if she could) on Capitol Hill? And now it appears that the same zealots are rushing through half-baked emergency legislation that would overturn longstanding principles about how end-of-life medical care decisions are made.

This is happening while other religious zealots are trying to break into the hospice where Schiavo is being cared for, trying to bring her bread and water—even though they know that she can’t eat on her own. I feel like puking.

But I won’t. For I’ve just eaten a large, tasty, healthy pancake, topped with strawberries and whipped cream, in honor of Terri Schiavo and her brave husband, Michael. I did this to counter the ridiculous call for a “Fast for Terri.” This is more hypocrisy from those who think that they alone know what is moral.

Michael has it right when he said, after Terri’s feeding tube was removed, “It felt like some peace was happening for Terri. And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord.” Amen.

My wife and I can’t understand why those who claim to believe in Christian everlasting life are so afraid of letting death happen naturally. Methinks their lack of faith betrays itself in their reluctance to let Terri pass to the other side, where Michael, her legal guardian, is convinced she wants to be.

Note what often gets forgotten by the zealots: Terri’s husband is her legal guardian. As Arthur Caplan, one of the nation’s leading bioethicists, wrote last October:

“No court has ever been persuaded that Michael Schiavo should be disqualified from making medical decisions on behalf of his wife. And no court has ever been persuaded that Terri has any hope of recovering from her severely brain-damaged state. So the courts have sided with Michael Schiavo using a well-established rule of law, which states that when a patient cannot communicate and has left no written instructions about their wishes, spouses have discretion about continuing or stopping medical care.”

A Fox News poll found that 59% of Americans agree that Terri’s feeding tube should be removed and say that if they were in the same situation, they wouldn’t want to be kept alive artificially. So what the hell is Congress doing trying to interfere with what should be a private decision between Terri’s caregivers and her legal guardian?

The only bright spot in this depressing display of neoconservative/religious intrusion on individual rights is that it should spur more people to sign living wills and health care powers of attorney. In the late 1980s I was one of the founders of Oregon Health Decisions and its first executive director. (Here's a history of OHD) With Ralph Crawshaw, Michael Garland, Carolyn Lobitz, and others dedicated to helping Oregonians make wiser personal and political health decisions, we did a lot to make people realize that these “advance directives” need to be signed before you become seriously ill. If Terri had done this, the legal battles surrounding her wouldn’t be happening.

If you live in Oregon, you can order advance directive forms from the Oregon Health Decisions web site. A FAQ page has some useful information about advance directives. Before filling one out, you need to think carefully about what you want when the end of life nears. Laurel (my wife) and I have different opinions, but we each have advance directives.

Laurel is certain that she doesn’t want extraordinary measures like a feeding tube used to keep her alive if she is terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state, as Terri Schiavo is. So her advance directive makes this clear. I’d rather have Laurel making the decisions on the spot for me, so I’ve signed a health care power of attorney that authorizes her to do just that.

Laurel’s approach assures that she won’t be given extraordinary measures even if I get cold feet and want to keep her alive against her stated wishes. My approach is more flexible because I find it difficult to envision what I would want in a situation that I’ve never experienced.

Here’s an interesting bioethics blog that has some informative and moving posts about the Schiavo case. Glancing through them confirmed my suspicion that those who know the most about bioethical decision-making almost universally are appalled at how ill-informed religious meddlers have injected themselves into the private lives of Terri and Michael.

Another weblog dispels myths and misrepresentations being put forward by Terri’s parents, their attorneys, and fanatical groups such as the Christian Defense Coalition, which is listed as a domestic terrorist group.

Ah, behold the benefits of slavish adherence to religious fundamentalism. From a normal caring human being you can become a domestic terrorist. Count me out. Way out.

Reason unites, faith divides

Religious believers tend to assume that if more people had faith, the world would be so much better. Actually, it would be worse. For faith divides and reason unites. If our goal is a peaceful, harmonious, productive, safe world, reason will get us closer to what we want and faith will take us further away.

This is the central theme of Sam Harris’ excellent book, “The End of Faith,” which I’ve written about before. His opening chapter is called “Reason in Exile.” It’s a devastatingly accurate critique of faith-based religions. In other words, all religions. For a “religion” founded on reason is better termed a philosophy; going further, if founded on fact it would be a science.

Here are some excerpts from this chapter that will give you a flavor of Harris’ thesis:

While all faiths have been touched, here and there, by the spirit of ecumenicalism, the central tenet of every religious tradition is that all others are mere repositories of error or, at best, dangerously incomplete. Intolerance is thus intrinsic to every creed…religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse.

…I hope to show that spirituality can be—indeed, must be—deeply rational, even as it elucidates the limits of reason…It is time we recognized that the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.

Reasonable people can spend an evening together pleasantly conversing even if their views are widely divergent. Faith-based people can’t. True believers aren’t able to interact with non-believers in a genuinely humble and open manner. The reason is simple: they aren’t genuinely humble and open. True believers believe that only they possess the truth. They aren’t interested in opening themselves up to new ideas, new facts, new ways of looking at the world, new avenues of approaching God.

Ken Wilber, in his book “Sex, Ecology, Spirituality,” says: “It seems to be the case that the vast majority of the world’s population does not now need ways to get beyond rationality, but ways to get up to it…Thus the greatest world transformation would simply be the embrace of global reasonableness and pluralistic tolerance…Rationality is the only structure that will tolerate structures other than itself.”

It’s generally assumed that polite people don’t challenge the religious beliefs of others. If you’re at a party, making conversation with someone you’ve just met, and he says, “I worship the trolls that live under the earth because they are going to surface soon and reward those who believed in them,” most likely you’d respond with something like, “Hmmmm. That’s interesting” and look around for someone less crazy to converse with.

But a more appropriate response would be, “Trolls?! Are you kidding? That sounds ridiculous. What evidence do you have that this is true?” You’d now be engaging with your companion, sharing ideas, delving deeper into his (weird) worldview, possibly aiding him to embrace more reasonable conceptions.

I agree with Harris’ general view that religious moderation is to religious extremism as an open liquor cabinet is to alcoholism: one fosters the other. If something is dangerous, then anything which enables the danger to continue to exist is itself dangerous. Faith threatens to destroy the world. Witness 9/11. Witness the Crusades. Faith always has been a destructive force. The only difference in modern times is that faith-based people now have more power to use in trying to make others bend to their unreasonable will.

Harris says, “The very ideal of religious tolerance—born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God—is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.”

Reason is the cornerstone of public discourse. It is the primary means by which we communicate our needs, ideas, and desires to other people. We don’t stand on a street corner and scream at passersby (well, some do); we engage them in a conversation of some sort: face to face, or indirectly through media such as cyberspace. When public discourse is reasonable, everyone can participate in the forum. Open minds welcome other open minds. And open minds lead to open hearts.

However, faith is the cornerstone of private belief. Faith doesn’t require reasons, nor should it. Faith is what we cling to when fear, darkness, uncertainty, and mystery threaten us. There’s nothing wrong with faith—it’s a natural human way of coping with the unknown. But it should, no it must, be a private possession that is shared only with those willing to accept it.

Most importantly, personal faith never should be used as a justification for public action. If you act not for a clear-sighted reason, but out of blind faith, make damn sure that no one else will be affected by your action. In the same fashion, I have a right to expect that the fellow automobile drivers who are on the road with me know what they’re doing; if they want to get drunk, lose their reason, and drive out of control, they should do it by themselves on their own property where no one else will get hurt.

I often hear people saying that they respect a politician because he or she brings a personal faith into the elected position. I cringe at those words. I’d much prefer that we elect reasonable people of little faith instead of faith-based people of little reason. And I have good reasons for saying so.

“God’s Politics” a timely book

The author of “God’s Politics,” Jim Wallis, was on the Daily Show recently. I don’t often recommend a book before I’ve read it (or, in this case, even seen it), but I am now. Wallis struck me as intelligent, devout, caring, and open-minded. His cause is freeing religious involvement in politics from right-wing Republican confines.

Wallis called himself an evangelical Christian. He considers that the entire Bible, not just selected smatterings from here and there, should be the foundation for how a Christian melds religion and politics. He said that Jesus spoke about caring for the poor much more often than he did about condemning gay marriage or banning abortion (like, many times for the former versus zero for the latter.)

I’ve argued that religious values have no place in politics. But, the reality is that religion and politics are deeply intertwined in the United States. If this is to be, then broadening our conception of “religious values” is the best way of assuring that narrow fundamentalism doesn’t hijack political discourse and turn this land of the free into a theocracy.

I’m hopeful that Wallis will be able to make his book a springboard for a social movement, which, from comments he made on the Daily Show, seems to be his intent. Too many Christians believe that the Republican Party is the only political tent that will shelter their deeply-held religious beliefs. That’s hogwash.

Lying and deception isn’t a religious value. Turning your back on the poor and sick isn’t a religious value. Failing to be a wise steward of the natural world that God created isn’t a religious value. Needless killing isn’t a religious value.

Which political party is favored by God? I’m quite sure that “God’s Politics” answers, “neither” (I’ll let you know for sure after Amazon delivers a copy). This surely is a step in the right direction. Or rather, neither the right nor the left direction.

Lincoln, Bush, and God’s will

After I wrote my previous “Prayer is irreverent” post I came across a wonderful passage written by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, a meditation on the divine will. It begins like this:

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.

Contrast these elevated and subtle sentiments with our current president’s utterances. This is what Bush was reported to have said at a meeting in 2003 with the Palestinian Authority prime minister: “God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”

Lincoln felt that the will of God prevails and neither side in a conflict could justifiably claim God was on their side. Bush feels that God is talking to him and wants him to attack Al Qaeda and Iraq.

If a murderer said that God had told them to kill people, he or she would be eligible for an insanity defense. But in Bush’s case, this made him eligible to be re-elected president of the United States.

I look forward to the day when, in order to be elected, a political candidate has to assure voters that he or she isn’t hearing messages from God. This would give us saner leadership, that’s for sure.

Religious values have no place in politics

“I won’t curse in your church if you won’t pray in the polling place.” This saying, freshly coined by yours truly, never will be as well-known as a similarly phrased pithy epigram. But I wish it would. For the problem of people peeing in pools pales in comparison to the problem of religious believers polluting politics by voting on the basis of faith-based values.

U.S. News & World Report conservative columnist John Leo argues just the opposite in his November 29 piece, “Don’t discount moral views.” Per usual, much of his column makes little sense. But the last part of his final paragraph is the most nonsensical:

As [UCLA law] Professor Volokh argues, “All of our opinions are ultimately based on unproven and unprovable moral premises.” No arguments are privileged because they come from secular people, and none are somehow out of bounds because they come from people of faith. Religious arguments have no special authority in the public arena, but the attempt to label those arguments as illegitimate because of their origin is simply a fashionable form of prejudice. Dropping the “don’t impose” [your values] argument would be a step toward improving the political climate.

No, Mr. Leo, the best way to improve our nation’s political climate is to eliminate religious values in political discourse. Politics deals with observable physical reality where people bodily live, breathe, and die. Religion deals with an unobservable immaterial realm where, maybe, the souls of people go after they die. It is inexcusable, immoral, and unacceptable to make political decisions on the basis on unsupportable guesses about God.

Prof. Volokh obviously is wrong when he says that “All of our opinions are based on unproven and unprovable moral premises.” I believe that gravity exists, the earth orbits the sun, and water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. These opinions, better termed “facts,” aren’t based on moral premises.

Of course, Volokh might be speaking of other sorts of non-scientific opinions. But I can’t think of any examples of opinions about political issues that are incapable of being founded on either proven or provable factual premises. Consider abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage—three issues that are commonly considered to comprise the core of “values-based” voting in the last election.

Opinions about each of these issues can, and should, be founded on objective facts derived from social science and medical science research. There are costs and benefits to various individuals and society as a whole from the presence or absence of abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. These costs and benefits can be determined. They can be communicated. They can be discussed. They can be the basis for informed political decisions.

But you can’t determine, communicate, discuss, or decide anything on a religious or what-God-wants basis. The moral tenets of every religion are unproven and unprovable, using Volokh’s words. However, the moral tenets that flow out of political decisions founded on accurate real-world information can be proven, because the real world is provable.

For example, fetuses either feel pain or they don’t. If they do, then it should be possible to determine how much pain is experienced during an abortion. People could use this information to help decide when an abortion is justified and when it isn’t. Intelligent debates about the pros and cons of abortion could replace the frenzied moralistic “I’m right and you’re wrong!” screeching that now passes for political discourse in this country.

You can’t debate with someone who doesn’t have a defensible reason for why they believe what they do. You can’t debate with someone who responds to a reasoned argument with “Because the Bible says so” or “Jesus condemns sinners.”

Fantasy is a dangerous foundation for making societal decisions. A nation that forsakes reality isn’t going to prosper, because actions in the real world have real consequences. Blind faith is fine so long as it remains safely sequestered in a person’s psyche. But when it replaces the light of reason and science as a societal guide, there are going to be a lot of missteps, and even some falling over cliffs.

I’m a vegetarian. Yet I have no desire to pass laws forbidding meat-eating, notwithstanding my tongue in cheek Oregonian opinion piece of a few years back, “Vegetarians, honk your horns!” My point then, as now, is that someone’s religious beliefs have no place in determining how people other than that person live their lives.

Amen to that.