On the Inauguration and Religion
I watched the Inauguration here in London with the other students in my program, a group of mostly non-Americans happy about Obama’s election and ready to join in the celebration. The experience was not particularly different from what it would have been like to watch with a group of friends in the US, with one notable exception: the surprise and distaste for the religious overtones throughout the ceremony.
“Distaste” is perhaps too strong a word – it was almost more like amusement. At first there was a smattering of boos for Rick Warren, from Americans and non-Americans alike, which wasn’t particularly surprising given the controversy surrounding his selection. But then came this sentence in Obama’s speech:
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.
And, to my surprise, several students burst out laughing. It seemed the sort of sentiment this crowd would endorse, and of course it is. The laughter, I later learned, was provoked by how absurd they felt the statement was in the context of the rest of the Inauguration. For the day had begun with a Christian prayer from an Evangelical preacher, and only a few minutes earlier Obama himself had invoked “the words of Scripture.” And of course later the event was closed out with more prayer. And in the middle comes this ecumenical statement from Obama about our “patchwork heritage” in which the final words “and non-believers” are spoken in a tone mixing defensiveness with condescension. To the non-Americans in the audience, the prayers were unseemly and even shocking, and Obama’s words rang hollow.
It’s no secret on this blog that I don’t take the friendliest view of religious belief and that I’m a strong advocate of separation of church and state. But even I was taken aback by this reaction. Watching at home, I would have barely noted the Biblical quotations in Obama’s speech, and I would have marked the recognition of “non-believers” as progress – which, in the American context, it is.
It made me realize how ingrained religion – and Christianity in particular – is in American public life. It also made me realize a previously unnoticed cost of that intermingling: we look like fools.
I should note that I don’t wholeheartedly endorse their reaction. I think Obama’s invocation of scripture, for example, is at least partly a way for him to nod in the direction of the black civil rights heroes who came before him by emulating their rhetoric, which often carried religious overtones. But watching the invocation and benediction among a group of people who found it so utterly bizarre for them to be taking place at a political event made me realize that it is utterly bizarre. And it does undermine Obama’s statements of inclusiveness when they take place in the midst of such open displays of Christian piety.
There’s a sense in which this isn’t that big of a deal, and I recognize that. But it becomes at least a little bit bigger of a deal when it’s noted that it taints the message we try to send to the world – and based on the reaction of the people I’m hanging out with, it does so to a degree more significant than I would have thought.
Comment by James Prescott on 23 January 2009 at 1:29 pm:
Ok, this is just lame. You and your friends need to get down off your collective high horses before you get a nose bleed. You also need to remind your European friends that the inauguration wasn’t for them, it was for the citizens of the US.
The plain unassailable facts is that all of Western society is premised on Christian ideals, originally conceived of and drafted by men who drafted in contemplation of Christian ideals. Paying homage to that is not necessarily a bad thing. The greatest thinkers of Western thought have also referenced the Bible, not necessarily due to the spiritual implications but a) regardless of its origin it does contain some truths that are pertinent to the human condition and b) it offers a common frame of reference to the audience. I am willing to bet that more American citizens are familiar with biblical passages than those of the Bhavagad Gita or the Koran. Whether that is good or bad is a conversation for another time, but it is probably true. For the sake of conversational expediency, the Bible as device is valid. As for the prayers, we prayed to do the right thing and to grow to be better people. If your European counterparts have a problem with that, well, I just don’t know what to say about that. We didn’t see to prosletyze (yes, I know butchered the spelling) or convert, but merely to take a minute to focus and dare I say hope that things will be better in the future.
Finally, I would remind you that you are currently living in a monarchial system, a system which has been justified as an expression of the Divine Will of a Christian God mind you. These are people refer to themselves, not as citizens, but subjects. To a lot of Americans, that seems pretty laughable too. Those who live in glass palaces, shouldn’t throw stones.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 23 January 2009 at 2:18 pm:
Your last point about the monarchy is both funny and well-taken, though I’d just note that (strangely) none of my fellow students are actually British – other parts of European, Australian, Canadian, Brazilian, and Singaporean, but no Brits. But making a somewhat similar point to yours, I was going to note that Europe of course has its own problems with religious tolerance and in particular Islamophobia, so it’s true that there’s more than a grain of hypocrisy going on here (though not so much for the Canadians and Australians).
I also think some of your comments are an appropriate response to any criticism of Obama for quoting scripture – the stuff about truths pertinent to the human condition and a common frame of a reference.
I think you get a lot less persuasive arguing that the prayers are okay – obviously nobody has a problem with what we prayed FOR, and it’s great that nobody was trying to convert anybody, but that has nothing to do with the genuine problem that opening and closing with prayer at all (and in particular overtly Christian prayer) undermines two important messages: first, that we are an inclusive society that embraces people of all faiths and no faith at all; and second, that we sincerely believe in separation of church and state.
I also take issue with the notion that this nation is conceived by men “in contemplation of Christian ideals.” It was conceived by men in contemplation of Enlightenment ideals, a fundamental aspect of which is that religion and public life need to be separated in order to escape from the turmoil and dischord of the previous centuries.
Finally, the most absurd thing you say is that the address wasn’t for my “European friends” but for “the citizens of the US.” Um…no. To suggest that this was not a global event and that Obama did not conceive his speech as having a global audience is absurd. The first words out of the first speaker were about how this peaceful transition of power should send a message to the world about how great liberal democracy is. Of COURSE it was for my European friends, among many, many others.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 23 January 2009 at 3:35 pm:
When Britain collapses because its secular society cannot compete with the vigorous Islam of its immigrants, who will look foolish?
Comment by Brian Pierce on 23 January 2009 at 4:25 pm:
Yes, if only Europe embraced a more fiercely Christian culture, all its problems with Islam would be solved.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 23 January 2009 at 5:24 pm:
That doesn’t follow, Brian–it would have to be neither fierce nor Christian. It would, however, have to be one that served as a moral compass–unlike secularism, which allows anything that a person conceives of by himself (or steals from Christianity after removing the few things that they personally object to, like most atheists do for their morals).
Atheist secularism in the 20th century led to close to a hundred million deaths. Personally, as a witch, I feel a lot safer with Christianity around right now than I would with Islam.
Comment by Joshua on 23 January 2009 at 11:21 pm:
I liked the religious imagery in Obama’s speech, but I think it was inspired as much by Lincoln as by civil rights leaders. Most of Lincoln’s speeches were infused with religious imagery, and our President had been reading a lot of Lincoln, as had his speech writers, and Goodwin was consulted and asked for comments.
It did seem to me that bookending the ceremony with prayer seemed a bit excessive, but BJP, I suspect that if you compare the % of americans who are “believers” with the home countries of your comrades, it may be a bigger part of our culture. I’m almost certain Brits are much less religious (though I read that you weren’t watching with Brits). The speech had ample text for the rest of the world, had Obama said gods will would guide our foreign policy your point would be more valid. I tend to think he was reaching back to lincoln and the founders when using the rhetoric of scripture and the prayers were both appreciated by big segments of the american populace, though there may not have been a significant overlap between the two. Part of Obama’s message of post partisan inclusiveness will include gestures to reach those who are on the religious right and hopefully persuade some of them to approach social problems more progressively by making an argument based on their values and sometimes their rhetoric, helping the poor, “brothers keeper,” “least among us”, and sometimes, yes, giving their leaders the spotlight to trumpet the administrations message. What matters is changing minds. Our country would be a much better place if christian conservatism meant more than being abrasively pro life, advocating intelligent design/creationism, opposing gay marriage, and denying the promise of embryonic stem cell research.
Also, I think your characterization of Obama’s tone as “a tone mixing defensiveness with condescension” is off. I can’t really ask you to support that, because its so subjective, but I’d be surprised if 2 people in 10 would agree with you.
I mean this with lots of love, but sometimes you border on being mean spirited in your atheism. And sometimes you step a little over the border.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 24 January 2009 at 12:02 am:
I have never met an atheist that was not mean spirited. The non-mean ones all consider themselves agnostics.
I just figure that declared atheism is a demonstration of social autism, as Vox would call it.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 24 January 2009 at 5:37 am:
I’ll again note that with regards to Obama’s religious rhetoric, I don’t personally object. Others did, but the points Prescott and Joshua (and I) made on that subject all seem pretty valid. What does strike me as inappropriate are the prayers.
Certainly it’s true that Europe is less religious than the United States, and certainly that has a great deal to do with the different reactions. But it seems to me that there are political values that are fundamental to both our cultures and which are logically independent from how many or what kind of believers happen to populate our societies. That’s sort of the whole point of those political values – no matter how strong a religious majority is (and especially when it is very strong), the institution of religion ought to remain separate from the institution of government.
I’ll concede that I may at times border on being mean-spirited, and for that I apologize (sincerely), though if I was at all mean-spirited in this post, I’d ask you to point out where and why you think that. This post really isn’t about whether religion is bad, it’s about whether and to what degree religion at a political event is bad. Skimming over the post again, I can see that the “we look like fools” line could be misread in a way that is mean-spirited. But I’m not saying we look like fools because we’re religious, I’m saying we look like fools because we surround statements of religious inclusion with loud displays of Christian piety.
Comment by Joshua on 24 January 2009 at 10:02 am:
I guess I’m guilty of misreading “we look like fools” which I thought made that section seem a little mean spirited. Do you stand by that characterization?
Tom, I’ve met a few atheists that aren’t mean spirited about it, and Brian usually isn’t, but I’m much more skeptical of atheists than I am of agnostics, probably because their absolute conviction that there is no god seem as intellectually unreasonable as they claim the convictions of devout religious practitioners are.
BJP – Regarding the church/state divide: I think if you read the federalist papers you would determine that the founders most likely intended that we not have a national religion. While our policy aspirations may be to continually move to a regime with less and less “entanglement”. How does Justice Pierce construe the entanglement clause? I tend to support, much like the court, a certain permissible level of secular deism in public life. I thought Rev. Warren’s Jesus Jesus Jesus and Lords Prayer segments were a little inappropriate for the occasion, and it wasn’t nearly inclusive enough.
Also, regarding the inaugural week and gay inclusion – for all the complaining gay activists did about Rick Warren, I heard very little support for what they did right in other parts of the ceremony. Comments?
Comment by Brandon on 24 January 2009 at 10:10 am:
Brian you’re a power tool. I’ve wanted to say that for a long time. Get off the religious thing. Seriously man. You’re living in a country where school children have MANDATORY PRAYER. On a continent where most countries have a CHRISTIAN democratic party of some sort. With kids from a country that is even more overtly nutty religious than the US (Australia) and others who are from a country that can’t solve the problem of what to do with a francophone province. “Let he who is without sin . . .”
There is absolutely nothing wrong with invoking religious language as a means of connecting with people in a way that they will understand. Using their own values to convince them they’re right. If you try to persuade someone you disagree with on unfamiliar terms, they won’t even listen to you. It is much better to draw on their mythic structure and moral compass to show them the contradictions than to explain to them how the world works under your values. You will always be obnoxious and your opinions irrelevant unless you can pull your head out of your ass and engage people you disagree with in terms they can relate to and under conditions in which you aren’t smiling smugly because they just “don’t understand” your oh-so-enlightened point of view. That’s not to say that you should let them trap you in their ideological framework, but you’d come across as far less of an elitist prick if you’d condescend to enter their frame of reference and engage with them on more familiar terms.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 24 January 2009 at 11:54 am:
Brandon,
I like that your lecture about engaging people I disagree with in a way that isn’t obnoxious and condescending is filled with insults and douche-baggery.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 24 January 2009 at 12:07 pm:
Josh,
I wasn’t really using “separation of church and state” in this thread in a legal sense, just as shorthand for the idea that there’s something unseemly about blatant religious displays at a public political event. But to answer your question, I’d probably take a little bit more of a hard line on these issues (I’d support getting rid of “In God We Trust” on the money, etc.), but it’s not an area I’m all that well-versed in.
I’m not sure what your referring to about the “stuff they did right” for the inaugural week. What other stuff happened?
Comment by James Prescott on 24 January 2009 at 12:23 pm:
Regardless of the tone, a lot of his points still stand. Australia opens up their legislative day with the Lord’s Prayer. Canada with a non-denominational prayer that prays to a monotheist entity. The presence of Christian based parties that are by no means an insignificant force in most European communities. All of this builds to a point that your friends are either incredibly ignorant of how their own countries deal with religion in public life or are incredibly hypocritical. The fact that this was all stated by someone who is a) not religious and b) strongly supports strong separation between church and state, and you might get the impression you overplayed your hand.
And when you throw out comments like “we look like fools,” if you don’t expect some backlash you are either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid. For those of us who are religious or who think that a quick moment taken in contemplation of what is going to be a hard four years job is not necessarily a bad thing, citing this opportunity as being devoid of good sense or judgment is a little strong and gets a certain response.
As for my comment saying it was not for the world but for us, and your summary dismissal, of course President Obama knew that the world would be watching. I just ferverently hope that it did not affect what he said. He is not the world’s president, he is ours. And while he may be a de facto leader of the free world, his responsibility is to the United States, not the United Nations, NATO, or to a bunch of foreign patriots watching the speech from a local pub. Unlike you, I do not want to buy the world a coke, hold their collective hands, and sing Kumbayah. History shows that the United States is not followed by the EU in general, and when it does, it is begrudgingly and with all deliberate delay. President Obama has to secure his base first and that is not Europe. If this speech was meant to target Europeans, then in my mind that is the first strike against President Obama. As for that first line? If you think that was meant for the rest of the world and not as a “gee aren’t we great” sentiment directed to the american citizenry, you are out of your mind.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 24 January 2009 at 12:35 pm:
The arguments about hypocrisy are valid, as I’ve already said, but only to a point. It’s incontestable that much of the rest of the Western world is more strongly secular than the United States. Call that good or bad, but it’s the way it is. I think the hypocrisy argument does get at the point that if the United States engaged in this sort of public religious speech without at the same time having a Christian right that promotes, often successfully, backwards and discriminatory public policy, then the public religious speech might not be such a big deal. But I still think that separate from that, these sorts of religious expressions in public life – whether they occur in the United States or elsewhere – communicate an unfortunate message of exclusion to nonbelievers.
Comment by Gordon the Gnome on 24 January 2009 at 12:41 pm:
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. (And by napalm, I mean heated religious debate.)
First off, I have to say I really enjoy Tom’s two midnight comments: as an agnostic I’m flattered, and as a former atheist I dig the “social autism” comment.
The Christian element of American politics (right down to the Biblical phrases spoken by Presidents) is not going away anytime soon, nor does it have to. I’m amused by Europe’s amusement; while expressing a feeling of being condescended towards, that condescension is immediately returned. We’re all turning our noses down on each other or up at each other.
It’s wrong, however, for anyone to assume that religion has a monopoly on values. Atheists and agnostics may never create an organized moral code (for the same reason that Libertarians may never become a real political party), but secular types have just as much claim towards strong values as anyone else.
Comment by John Bambenek on 24 January 2009 at 4:10 pm:
I’m confused about this concept of inclusion you keep talking about, specifically that the public expression of Christianity is an afront to inclusion. What you are really saying is that to have this “inclusion” every hint of Christianity must be annihilated. How high-minded and diverse of you?
And can someone explain to me why preaching for “converts” is bad? Every day in every corner of this country someone is trying to convince someone else of something. Many times its over a matter of values. Why is making a reasoned advocacy of a position the pinnacle of free speech in every case except an advocacy of Christianity? Are you really that transparent of an advocate of mass censorship and thought crimes?
Comment by Joshua on 24 January 2009 at 9:56 pm:
JCB – On your 2nd point, a presidential inauguration is not the place for a revival. A certain amount of secular deism is fine w/ me, and Obama’s scripture-like rhetoric was too. A few references to christianity, biblical quotes, etc are fine w/ me, but that should be tempered b/c we are a people of many faiths.
I mostly concur w/ you on your first point, but prefer vaguer deistic references b/c they include without alienating.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 25 January 2009 at 8:07 am:
I agree with Joshua that an inauguration would be a bad time for an attempt at conversion, but more broadly I agree with John’s point. In a social context, I don’t think it’s a good idea to wall off religious debate as inappropriate. It should be what John said – a “reasoned advocacy” – but it should exist and be more commonplace.
On John’s first point, Christianity isn’t being excluded because people don’t happen to be talking about it during a public political event. In contrast, nonbelievers are being excluded when part of a public political event is a big group of people saying the Lord’s Prayer. Not having the prayer in no way sends the message that we are an atheistic nation (though it does send the message that we have a secular government, which I think is a message in keeping with this country’s values). Having the prayer does send the message, albeit implicitly, that we are a Christian nation.
Comment by John Bambenek on 25 January 2009 at 10:28 am:
Joshua-
I wasn’t saying an inauguration was the place for a revival, it was a general statement. For instance, one of the only forms of speech that is prohibited from being funded is “evangelical” speech… RSOs every moment of the day are advocating for every possible thing. Why is the advocacy of religion something that the long arm of the law needs to slap down? (And BTW the 7th Circuit has ruled that rule is unconstitutional at SIU, it persists here because no one challenges it). What is so absolutely horrible about trying to win converts (assuming of course you aren’t doing so by force or abuse).
Now, to be fair, I’m not defending the inauguration as it was done. I didn’t watch it because I don’t watch masturbatory displays of self-congratulation regardless of the victor. I didn’t watch either of Dubya’s inauguration. I read Obama’s speech, that was it (read not watched). I probably would have included a spattering of illusions myself to a variety of faiths, but that’s neither here nor there.
Brian-
I view this from the other way… no one cried about Muslim expressions, Jewish expressions, Eastern religions… but when Christianity is spoken all hell breaks loose. For instance, the Champaign Public Library made no reference to the holiday that is actually celebrated on Dec. 25th, but they had Kwanzaa celebrations TWICE. Where’s the ACLU? Nowhere. You only here these objections about excluding others when a Christian is speaking. If Obama at the inauguration had an atheist speak, I wouldn’t feel excluded. I have no problem celebrating the diverse patchwork that this nation is, but the only time I hear anything about Church and State is when it’s directed at shutting up Christians. To be fair, there are plenty of them that push the line constantly. But when universities can assigned the Q’ran as required reading for all students but fear even mentioning the Bible as an influential book on Western Civilization, we’ve got some serious schizophrenia going on.
Comment by HTA on 30 January 2009 at 5:03 pm:
First point, I find it puzzling that people bring up this point that America was founded on Christian ideals. It’s cited when a non-Christian attains office or when someone refuses to invoke God in the Pledge of Allegiance.
“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. The principles that this country was built on, that have made it great over these centuries, were Christian principles derived from Scripture. You know the Lord can make the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike.” Former Rep. Bill Sali
Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson, the Third President of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence that wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” In other words, if you aren’t causing harm, no one should care about what you believe. Thomas Jefferson was in fact a Diest. He viewed Jesus as a moral teacher, not a savior or a God.
To Tom, religion has no monopoly over morality (I wrote this before reading the Gnome’s post, but I think ‘monopoly over morality’ has a better ring than ‘monopoly on values’. I have known moral atheists. I think extremism, no matter what its form, is wrong. Perhaps there is such a thing as extreme atheism? If an atheist persecutes another person for believing in a God or gods, I would consider that as extreme behavior.
John, maybe if we didn’t have a bunch of redneck, conservative Christians railing against Islam and other faiths, there wouldn’t be so much religious sensitivity in the US. How many politicians have made Islamophobic or generally xenophobic remarks? I would also argue that a scholarly reading of the Quran does more good than harm. The West needs an understanding of the world view of over a billion people. Conversely, the Muslim world would benefit from a scholarly reading of the Bible.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 30 January 2009 at 6:07 pm:
HTA, I am just looking at the empirical evidence. Over the course of the 20th Century, avowed left-leaning atheists in power killed over one hundred million of their own and neighboring people, while the avowed religious did the same to perhaps two or three orders of magntude less.
Now, I will admit that these are a small sample. Nonetheless, the death toll has been so high that I would find it safer for me to assume that there’s some problem with the “morals” power-seeking, idealistic atheists adopt than to passively act as if there’s little danger there.
As far as extremism goes, if I am not mistaken, one of the “big four” atheists likened religious instruction of youth to child abuse. Since child abuse is a crime punishable by jail time, I would say that, yes, we may be in danger from those atheists in this century, just as people were in the last.
In other words, lack of a traditional, established moral code often leads to an “end justifies the means” morality (which has been demonstrated here by the secularists, often) which has led, time and again, to megadeaths. Religion, does, indeed, seem to have a “monopoly over morality.”
You may know a lot of professed atheists who claim to have a morality they’ve devised themselves. If you examine those closely, though, you’ll most likely find that their morality coincides 95% with Christianity, minus one or two things that get in the way of their fun. To me, that’s cheating. If atheists want to claim superiority, come up with a new, original, and better moral code, sometime.
Comment by HTA on 30 January 2009 at 9:16 pm:
Tom, there’s a severe flaw in your logic. If I accept your un-sourced facts and atheists have murdered more than religious fanatics, I still can’t support your conclusion. Your evidence does not mean that all atheists are immoral. It might say that there are more immoral atheists, or when atheists are immoral they are immoral to a greater magnitude. It does not necessarily say that all atheists are immoral.
Also, who is to say that Christianity didn’t borrow its morality? Technically, it’s based on Jewish law. Even then, “Thou shall not kill”, is nothing new. You honestly think that was an idea that originated with the Jews? Moral codes have been borrowed and altered over and over and over again.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 30 January 2009 at 10:03 pm:
HTA:
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao were all avowed atheists. Do I *really* need to source that statement or one stating that they were responsible for the deaths of 100 million?
I don’t care if *all* atheists are immoral, even if I *could* say that (see below). I only care about the ones who threaten to gain governmental power or are my neighbors. The other ones don’t bother me.
The important fact is not merely the borrowing by atheists from religion. The important fact is the *extent* of the borrowing. If there wasn’t such a complete match, I would propose that the atheists might really be interested in improving the human condition. Do an experiment, HYA, for me. Go to your atheist friends and list the differences they have in their morality from the mainstream. I would wager that the vast majority of the differences are ones that personally impact either the atheist’s pleasure or prosperity.
How can I possibly state that atheists are immoral if there is no overall standard by which to judge morality (as they claim)? I state instead that they, like Satanists, are perverted Christians who took that established morality and twisted it to their own selfish ends.
Without God watching over one’s shoulder, humanity has a tendency to do its worst. I have no problem whatsover with agnostics–hell, I don’t particularly believe in dark matter, dark energy, or anthropogenic global warming and figure God is probably a game designer. My beef is with those arrogant enough to believe that they know how the universe works, without any doubt whatsoever in their minds. Ten years at Fermilab sure as hell never showed me that knowledge and I doubt if they’re as well versed as I am in either cosmology or philosophy.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 31 January 2009 at 7:51 am:
I really don’t want to get back into this debate with you, Tom, as we’ve covered it before, but the “arrogant enough to believe that they know how the universe works, without any doubt whatsoever in their mind” statement is off base. Being an atheist doesn’t mean you’ve never experienced doubt any more than being a person of faith means you’ve never questioned that faith. Being an atheist means you say, “There is not sufficient, convincing evidence that god exists, therefore I will operate based on the assumption that there is no god.” That statement does not prohibit any sense of wonder or mystery about the universe, it just argues that a belief in a higher power – and in particular very specific claims about that higher power and how it behaves and what it wants from us – does not make a great deal of sense. Regardless of the impression you might get from a Christopher Hitchens book, most atheists don’t wake up every day trying to prove the non-existence of god. They try to find the same answers everybody else tries to find to the moral problems in the world, they just think a train of thought that involves adhering to a belief in a supernatural entity is a distraction and a wild goose chase.
Comment by Karen Pierce on 31 January 2009 at 11:11 am:
I would consider myself to be agnostic. I believe people should be treated humanely….murder, rape, robbery, torture, humiliation, etc. are wrong and that people’s basic needs should be met. I don’t need to believe in God to believe those things are wrong.
However, if the rest of you do, if you would kill and torture other people unless God commanded you not to, then so be it….believe in God. I don’t have any problem with your believing.
What I don’t like is homophobia, sexism, and war based on religion and the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools.
I wouldn’t spend my time trying to prove whether God exists. If the only way to get people to stop killing each other is to threaten them with Hellfire, then by all means, threaten them. It’s just that there are a lot of us who don’t need to be threatened.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 31 January 2009 at 5:06 pm:
Karen, you’re an agnostic. You are smart enough to realize what you don’t know and your comment shows me that you understand the utilty of religion–its ability to prevent those who would otherwise commit heinous acts from doing so.
I have no beef with you in this case except for your third paragraph.
Homophobia means fear of gay people the same way as ailurophobia means fear of cats–I don’t know any religious people who are afraid of gays, whatsoever. Might think they’re sinners, but all of us are, if you take the Christian concept of human imperfection. Only Shari’a punished gays simply for being who they are.
Religion reduced existing the sexism of the time when it was introduced. It was the same Islam mentioned above that promulgated the first religious laws protecting women’s lives, well-being, and property–and this was a thousand years before the European civil courts caught up. Quaker Christianity, enforced by the British Empire ended slavery over most of the world, if you want to talk about human rights of everyone, not just women.
War, as I’ve shown before, is ten times more likely to be over a non-religious subject than religion. This is so consistent over history that it might be possible to prove that religion mostly *inhibits* wars, as in the case where the Pope divided the world in the 16th Century and thereby prevented a Portuguese-Spanish war.
I don’t think public schools should teach Intelligent Design, Evolution, Anthopogenic Global Warming, Keynesian economics, English, Spanish, Math, or anything else for that matter–I think they should be closed immediately to stop their destructive effect on the youth of American and replaced, hopefully, with something that teaches useful things without raping their souls.
Comment by HTA on 31 January 2009 at 6:05 pm:
Tom,
You’re frankly a bit crazy for me. It’s hard to take you seriously when you bust out on random tangents. Close down schools? How is that even germane to this discussion?
On the homophobia bit, I’m pretty sure that God, in the Christian Bible, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and its inhabitants. I’m also pretty sure that King Edward II was killed for being gay by having a hot poker shoved up his anus. Regicide by being cooked from the inside out. So, I’m pretty sure that Christianity has, at least in the past, argued for punishing homosexuality.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 31 January 2009 at 6:21 pm:
Tom, I don’t understand why you target atheists rather than just having a general stance against people being dogmatic and crazy, whatever their religious beliefs.
Comment by Karen Pierce on 31 January 2009 at 6:44 pm:
I’ve never thought the word homophobia was entirely appropriate….I think it’s more of a hatred than a fear.
I think religion, like most things, can be used for good or bad. When religion inspires people to be virtuous and compassionate, it’s good.
I don’t think you can deny that a lot of people rationalize their homophobia by quoting Biblical passages.
I don’t think this argument should be about whether God exists or doesn’t exits. We should accept religion as something that’s a fact of life and insist that it be used for good. That means we should challenge it and hold it accountable when it’s being used in a bad way, such as a basis for homophobia.
I wouldn’t mind hearing Tom’s ideas for an alternative to the public school system, maybe in a separate post.
Comment by the magic bullet on 31 January 2009 at 11:19 pm:
Tom, I don’t understand why you target atheists rather than just having a general stance against people being dogmatic and crazy, whatever their religious beliefs.
I don’t understand why you hold contempt for religions when you, and many liberal atheists, are just as dogmatic and crazy.
I would consider myself to be agnostic. I believe people should be treated humanely….murder, rape, robbery, torture, humiliation, etc. are wrong and that people’s basic needs should be met. I don’t need to believe in God to believe those things are wrong.
Karen, religious teaching are not about merely treating other humanely. Simple rules about murder or theft may make up the foundation of the moral system, but the essence to religion is the call to act more than humanely. The most subscribed to religions don’t teach “do not steal bread from your neighbor,” they teach “feed your neighbor even when you are hungry.”
Comment by Brian Pierce on 1 February 2009 at 4:37 am:
I don’t hold them in contempt, I disagree with their logical underpinnings. I’m open to religious people changing my mind, and I would hope they’re open to me changing their minds. That doesn’t strike me as dogmatic or crazy.
Comment by Karen Pierce on 1 February 2009 at 1:44 pm:
I don’t think you need to be religious to “feed the hungry even when you are hungry”. Most of the people I know, whether they are religious or not, are eager to help others.
My objections to religion are:
1. If two people are debating if gay people should be allowed to marry, the non-religious person bases her argument on the pros and cons of allowing gay people to marry. The religious person bases it on Biblical passages or “what God wants”. Two rational people can debate a matter and change their minds, but the religious person will never change her mind. I don’t want the laws of this country based on religious beliefs.
2. I want my kids being taught evolution in school and not Intelligent Design or any other creation stories, unless they’re being taught in literature classes.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 2 February 2009 at 1:55 pm:
HTA:
The Old Testament God of the Jews knocked off a lot of folks for varying reasons, including burning alive false priests of its own religion for making an offering that wasn’t *just* right. As I (and I believe Karen) has said in here before, that has had little to do with Christian dogma or action for the last two thousand years because of the new covenant of Christianity.
As an aside, while the Sodomites were in trouble for wanting to bugger visiting angels, we are never informed of what the hell the other “cities of the plain were up to.” I might point out that the good Jew, Abraham, pled for his God to spare the cities, even if there were only ten good men there.
Now I could find ten good men in Las Vegas on a Saturday night(and I’m no angel), so I think that it is a reasonable assumption that the author of this particular piece was not commenting on the *degree* of their wickedness, not merely their preferences.
Do you really think that Edward II was killed because of his sexual preferences rather than for his crown? I don’t.
Even if religious fanatics killed some gays during the Middle Ages (or in Iran today), those numbers are a mere shadow of the systematic murder of 55,000 gay men by the Nazis or the likely higher, but yet uncounted numbers by the Soviet and Chinese regimes. It took modern, atheistic, idealistic regimes to make murder of homosexuals an industry.
If you’ve ready my columns over the last two years, you can see that the education comment was not a tangent, but a passing reference to an ongoing theme of mine.
Brian:
I will not take a stance against all dogmatic and crazy thought because often that’s perfectly harmless. A person can believe that cats are out to take over the world or wear tinfoil around his head because he believes aliens are beaming novel ideas into his head. Not much comes of that.
Dogmatic and fanatical thought on the part of a Quaker former slave-trader resulted in slavery beging ended over much of the world. In that case, it can be argued that such thought was beneficial to the progress of human rights.
Dogmatic belief in atheism, however, when coupled with political idealism and power has shown a repeatable tendency, even with three completely different starting cultures, to result in megadeath democides. Therefore, I must in this case speak up to try to prevent more.
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