Blog Against Theocracy 2013

Its been a long time dear readers. One of my earliest posts took part in the 2007 blog against theocracy. When I saw there was no organized blog against theocracy this year, I felt called to write. There is a great need to address this topic.

This past week has seen a historic awakening – a cultural awareness of the validity and importance of recognizing gay rights. It is a big moment, but underneath it an even bigger moment waits to be discovered: Religious belief alone is not a valid source of law. If your belief in the unity of all beings or the importance of love for they neighbor drives you to do good work – that is a beautiful blessing. But when your beliefs force those who do not share them to act as if they do: you cross a line. We see this play out in the absurd arguments against gay marriage. We see it in the obsessive drive to control and repress female sexuality. Increasingly though, we see it burrowing into harder to reach places. As America becomes less religious, as America pushes back on church incursions into state, we are going to see religious influence look for other ways to retain (and expand) power.

That is at play in this effort to push Bibles into public schools.

The foundations of knowledge of the ancient world—which informs the understanding of the modern world—are biblical in origin.

A statement like that ignores the prolific writings of ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian sources. It ignores the musings and discoveries of the Islamic Golden Age. The thoughts of Chinese writers are also missing. It also ignores the more interesting contributions of Christian thinkers like St Augustine and St Anselm. I speak from experience when I say you can understand their wonderful and engaging philosophical musings without having read the bible.

If you really want to expose the underbelly of the effort to bring bibles into the classroom, ask if they think students should study the koran. After all, the koran is foundational to much of modern society (just not in the US). Better yet, see if Roma Downy and Mark Burnett would support including critical views of the bible. Is it to be read as is, without the criticism found in English or History classes? Or do they imagine students free to dissect the many logical errors and contradictions found within? More than likely not, since that would defeat the purpose of their effort, similar in spirit and aim to efforts to install the ten commandments at courthouses.

The highest promise of religious thought is to inspire acts of great compassion and vision. When it is instead used as an aggressive evangelical power grab, its value is demeaned and lessened. The strongest and most vocal ally in the fight against theocracy should always be the religious believer. For religion is worth far more than its current use – as a tool for social control.

Trading Jesus for Caesar

Andrew Sullivan has a provocative thought: That the politicization of Christianity in the US is turning people away from the faith (hat tip Pam).

I think there is a lot of truth to this.  The union of conservative politics and conservative Christianity has created a brand. A very strong brand that is associated with denying women access to health care, and reproductive choices. A brand associated with the Duggars and the Quiverfull movement – aimed at trading away agency and free thought for obedience and servitude. Conservative Christianity is tied tightly to the battle against gay rights. A battle that is losing the cultural war with each passing year. A battle with young casualties for gay youth growing up in caustic religious environments. In Rick Santorum the religious right has a champion who is bold enough to publicly attack pornography and pre-marital sex. This union of church and state – this theocratic movement – has a very strong brand with a very simple message: A return to a time where women were second class citizens, homosexuality was hidden or “treated”, and religion enjoyed unelected power.

That brand is costing believers. It is a trade, as the dominionist army gives up their goal of “saving souls” for Jesus in return for taking from Caesar what is Caesar’s.

So to the religious right I ask: Is it worth it?

Assumptions of Believers and Post Death Sports

A very popular post death sport of believers is to foist their beliefs upon atheists – those sexy little blank slates.  In life atheists “have a faith in science!  ZOMG They worship science!” but in death there are secret prayers to assign, desperate conversions to gloat over (Pandagon):

humans have invented thousands and for all we know, millions of deities. Since you have so many to pick from, and you, being a naughty atheists, aren’t beholden to the one you inherited at birth, the field is wide open. Personally, for my secret moments of desperate prayer that I supposedly have, I’m definitely not going to go with the Christian god, who is mainly characterized in the Bible as a patriarchal dick. Seriously, fuck that guy.

This reminds me of debates I used to have with Campus Navigators and such at UMass, where I’d ask “if you start from scratch, how could you know which holy book to believe in?  Each claims to be the truth, none present evidence”. Without having been raised in a faith, there isn’t a compelling reason to join one outside of marriage, convenience, or intense social pressure.

For the believer, the assumption is always “oh an atheist will of course secretly believe in MY god.”  There are better alternatives out there.  Amanda Marcotte has chosen Tefnut – goddess of moisture, born of a holy wank, giver of sticky liquids in our times of need.  A wise choice, and she asks, who would you choose?  I’d like to invite fellow non-traditional-theists (like yours truly) into the fun, since doubtless true believers will speculate over our beliefs when we die – whether it is evangelical family members or celebrity religious nuts if we are lucky enough to grow famous.

I choose Zaltrog the Unbeliever – pictured above (src).  Zaltrog is frankly shocked at epistemic certainty of any kind, and demands contextualist cuddles.

Jim DeMint Wants to Compete With Skype

Finally a politician with the courage to go up against Skype.  A Republican – Doctor* DeMint – who loves government regulation has come out of the closet in favor of barring Skype users from discussing abortion with medical professionals.  No word yet on if he will allow an exception if you are skyping with your anti-choice priest.  What is clear, now Skype will face competition from SkypeDeMint.  SkypeDeMint – for all your abortion discussing needs.

Via Think Progress:

Now Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), one of the most die-hard anti-choice lawmakers, has jumped on the bandwagon by sneaking a radical anti-abortion amendment onto a completely unrelated piece of legislation. DeMint’s amendment would ban women and their doctors from discussing abortion over the Internet:

Anti-choice Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) just filed an anti-choice amendment to a bill related to agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs. The DeMint amendment could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing, even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care.

Under this amendment, women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said DeMint is essentially mandating “an abortion-only version of Skype.” She points out that a woman with high-risk pregnancy talking to her doctor through video conferencing would have to somehow switch to a separate communications system if abortion came up at all. “It is impractical, ridiculous, and, most importantly, bad for women in rural or remote areas who would not be able to discuss the full set of options with their doctor,” Keenan said.

In keeping with the anti-choice strategy of inching towards complete lack of reproductive choice, I wonder what the follow up to this amendment would be if it passes…

PS If you cannot discuss abortion over the internet, I wonder what impact this would have on blogs?

* Jim DeMint received his medical degree in the form of an MBA from Clemson.

At the Mercy of the Church

Franklin Graham’s assertion that the government needs to leave the care of the jobless and the needy to the Church asks us to cede the care of all Americans to religious authority.  This brings us to an appropriate topic for this Blog Against Theocracy 2011  post: Charity vs Social Justice and how it feeds into the power hungry tendencies of organized religion.

Charity is about giving to those in need, Social Justice is about addressing the reason people are in need.  There is a story about a man who comes upon a river, and sees a child drowning.  He dives in, and pulls the child to shore.  As soon as he reaches the shore he see’s two more children drowning.  Upon rescuing them, he see’s three coming down the river.  At some point, we need to ask what is going on upriver.

So how does this connect to Graham’s statements, and the role of the Church?

Charity can exist within the right-wing theocratic dream society, social justice cannot.  Charity allows us to help the visibly suffering temporarily but keeps us from addressing the systemic roots of the problem.  Charity puts the have-nots at the mercy of the haves.  The poor depend on the whims of the rich.  This is precisely what happens in Graham’s ideal world:

If you didn’t have a job, you’d go to your local church and ask the pastor if he know somebody that could hire him. If you were hungry, you went to the local church and told them, “I can’t feed my family.” And the church would help you. And that’s not being done.

Where does that leave atheists?  Where does it leave Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists?  At the mercy of the Church.

Which is precisely where right wing theocrats want us – at the mercy of wealthy and the ostensibly holy.  Without the equality of a safety net by the people and for the people, help could be tied to church attendance (or come with a heavy evangelical price tag: “You want to eat?  Sit through a lunch hour advertisement for Jesus”).

a hundred years ago, the safety net, the social safety net in the country was provided by the church.

…

But the government took that. And took it away from the church. And they had more money to give and more programs to give, and pretty soon, the churches just backed off.

For those churches that backed off – it is an indication of their character and commitment to their fellow man (contrary to implication: not all churches backed off providing a safety net).  Our national character must be made of still deeper compassion and wisdom.  Not only must we continue to fight for social justice on an national level, but in our own lives work to address the systemic suffering in our world.  For that we don’t need religious authority – only our own innate sense of right and wrong.

Huckabee – Jesus in Every Home

If Huckabee does end up running again – in 2012 or 2016 – remember this guy is going to use his position of power to push Christianity into our legal system, into our policy, and onto our citizens.  He consistently “jokes” about forcing Christianity on citizens in the same way Bush used to joke about wanting to be a dictator.

TSA’s Bigotry Towards Wicca

The TSA – apparently deciding it wasn’t doing enough to earn the active hate of the public – has decided to indulge in a little anti-Wiccan bigotry.  And come on, who hasn’t wanted to spend a lazy Sunday hating on “those witches” and their evil witch powers?  We’re only human for heaven’s sake.  MSNBC via Jesus’ General:

Here’s a situation for all you aspiring managers: If you were the boss at a U.S. government agency and one of your employees complained that she was afraid of a co-worker’s religious practices, what would you do?

Would it change your decision if the religion were Wicca, and the employee feared her co-worker because she thought she might cast a spell on her?

Here’s how the Transportation Security Administration handled it:

It fired the witch.

NICE.  As seems to be the usual luck in prejudiced firings, they took out one of their best employees:

She was in the top 10 percent in Albany at catching weapons on the X-ray machine.

As a patriotic god fearing Christ warrior American, I’d rather fly with a few more deadly weapons on board than know there’s an evil witch parading around the airport – not believing in Jesus.  Turns out the TSA is firmly in my corner there.  Good on them.

First They Came for the Muslims

And then they stopped, because we said ENOUGH. You come for the Muslims you come for all of us and we will not stand silently by and just let you:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has promised to launch a series of investigations of Muslim Americans beginning in February. “I’ve made it clear that I’ll focus the committee on counterterrorism and hold hearings on a wide range of issues, including radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism,” he told Newsday. King has repeatedly said that he only wants to single out “Islamic terrorism” in his hearings on domestic security, and has even claimed that there are “too many mosques in this country.”

This man should not be in public office, he belongs in a museum on pre-World War 2 fearmongering in the leadup to the holocaust.  I say that as a Jew who lost a section of his family to the nazis.  How do you think it started?  Launching investigations into the target community, attacking their patriotism, their honor.  Establishing them as a dangerous other.

This is of course utter bullshit, but what else do we expect coming from a Republican like King?

As of 2006, some 212 Muslim-American soldiers had been awarded Combat Action Ribbons for their service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seven had been killed

Remember the attempted Times Square bombing?  I do.  Foiled by a Muslim.

Why does a man slinging bullshit at the entire Muslim community have any responsibilities regarding our security?  Instead of a phobic hate filled lunatic, a sane, intelligent and experienced person ought to be the chairperson of the Homeland Security Committee.  You know, someone who will go after actual terrorists and not spend his time huddled in a corner asking law enforcement to rough up some Muslims for him.  Is that really too much to ask?  While I’m at it – asking for sensible things – why isn’t a prominent politician on the air right now pointing out that Rep King is a nutjob, unqualified for his position, and utterly full of shit?

Yahoo on Ricky Gervais: Oh No ATHEISTS!

Quick Hit, Tara Ariano’s end to her write up of Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes ended with this:

But, being Ricky Gervais, he seemingly couldn’t stop himself putting a button on his performance that would practically guarantee that he’ll never be invited back: “And thanks to God for making me an atheist.”

Good call Tara, nothing worse or more rare than an atheist comedian.

Actually Bryan Fischer Has a Point

I’m an unabashed liberal, and stand firmly for the separation of Church and State.  The rest of Bryan Fischer’s worldview is morally repugnant in its blatant support of theocracy.  That being said, Karoli and John Amato of Crooks and Liars are wrong, and Bryan Fischer is correct, in this particular argument.  They are discussing the case of a Mr Cranick, who refused to pay the Fire Department until his house was literally on fire, at which point the Fire Department refused his last minute offers to settle the bill and let the house burn down.  He writes:

What angry folks fail to realize is that if Mr. Cranick had been able to get away with this – if he’d been able to wait til his house started to burn, then offer $75 and immediately get help – it wouldn’t be long before everybody else stopped paying. Why bother if you can wait until the emergency hits? If you pay when you don’t need to, that just makes you a sap. Pretty soon nobody would have fire protection at all since the city can’t afford to fight fires at $75 a pop. The city would have to withdraw its offer to the county, and everybody, especially responsible folk, would be less safe.

(Essentially what Mr. Cranick wants is “guaranteed issue” for fire protection. This is the same thing that is going to destroy the health care industry, as it is already starting to do under RomneyCare in Massachusetts. If you can wait til you get sick before applying for insurance, and the insurance company has to provide it, everybody will just wait til they get sick to get insurance and pretty soon nobody will have insurance or health care, either one.)

This is a very good point.  What does our school system look like when only the parents of children attending a given district paid?  That situation leads to huge disparities between districts.  Now imagine going a step further and only paying when their kids actually attended.  Would that work everywhere?  What would the tax burden for those particular families be?  Now imagine pay as you go applied to the police, fire department, hospitals, etc.  Some services are essential and require infrastructure and investment to operate effectively.  Pooling resources allows us, as a society, to get more (or in some cases anything at all) for our buck.  This is where Karoli misses the point:

No, actually what Mr. Cranick wanted was grace — the ability to pay whatever he needed to pay at that moment and in that time to get them to turn on the damned hoses. What he wanted was someone to say yes, we will accept your perfectly good money and turn the water on for you. What he wanted was forgiveness, which is above all else, the foundation of Christian values and principles. That’s what Mr. Cranick wanted.

His money wasn’t perfectly good.  Again, if everyone acted that way, there would be no Fire Department.  Now perhaps if we ran a Christian society where grace and forgiveness were law, then the Fire Department would have been obligated to respond.  Ironically, Bryan’s argument is a secular one – one which does not rely on any sort of religious precept to make its point – it works just fine with logic.  Bryan doesn’t seem to get that himself:

This story illustrates the fundamental difference between a sappy, secularist worldview, which unfortunately too many Christians have adopted, and the mature, robust Judeo-Christian worldview which made America the strongest and most prosperous nation in the world. The secularist wants to excuse and even reward irresponsibility, which eventually makes everybody less safe and less prosperous. A Christian worldview rewards responsibility and stresses individual responsibility and accountability, which in the end makes everybody more safe and more prosperous.

Actually that “sappy” worldview is Christian.  The view that suggests Mr Cranick should have paid properly isn’t one that stresses individual responsibility.  It is a pragmatic one that says “if we want x, we need to do y”.  Simple, no god-magic needed.

Don’t get me wrong, John and Karoli are dead on in their criticism of Bryan Fischer and his religious-political views.  One would not have to stretch the imagination to call them anti-Christian, and they are clearly anti-American.  We are not a theocracy, no matter how hard extremists like Mr Fischer might wish it.

That being said, Cranick’s actions expose a gaping flaw in the reality challenged perspective of the libertarian.  Sometimes – not always – taking a communal approach to resources and services is a far wiser move than leaving them to the unstable winds of the market.

It leaves one with some interesting food for thought though.  What would a truly Christian country look like?  With tithes – there would surely be taxes.  With grace and compassion, there would surely be a social safety net.  Christian conservatives can count on opposition from secularists who respect freedom of and from religion as a founding precept of this country of ours.  Its only a matter of time before their own argument bites them in the ass, as the heart and soul of Christianity is anything but violent, fearful, reactionary, or conservative.

Anti-Burka-Crusaders and Anti-Choicers: Common Threads

As the Anti-Burka tide rises in Europe (hahaha, Anti-Islamic politics?  What religious minority will those wacky Europeans go after next?), I was struck by problems in the law’s reasoning, as well as similarities with the anti-choice anti-abortion nuts here at home.

The law is ostensibly about protecting dignity and equality:

“Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place,” the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May.

Much like anti-abortion folks are all about protecting women and their weak little women brains from themselves, this carries an element of that sexism firmly entrenched in the law.  Even if a woman makes the choice freely, there is something wrong about it, and she needs to be forcibly freed from her choice by legal means.

Look, I’m personally not a fan of the Burka.  I also don’t go around aborting fetuses (well, every weekend anyway).  You don’t see me crusading against a woman’s control of her own damn body now do you?  Take a lesson from that Europe.  Hell, if you hate Muslims THAT much just pass a toothless resolution and be honest about your bigotry.  You handled your anti-semitism phase so well, the world is just dying to see how you manage this little hate-fest.

When Religious Insanity Maims and Kills Children

Religion – throughout history – has on occasion stoked the fires of ignorance, hate, and violence.  The attacks on witchcraft – often a cover for overt misogyny or the elimination of competing religions – are a particularly brazen example.  Witch hunts continue to this day in Nigeria.  Specifically targeting children (nytimes – may prompt you for registration – if so visit bugmenot.com):

Those disturbed by the needless immiseration of innocent children should beware. “Saving Africa’s Witch Children” follows Gary Foxcroft, founder of the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, as he travels the rural state of Akwa Ibom, rescuing children abused during horrific “exorcisms” — splashed with acid, buried alive, dipped in fire — or abandoned roadside, cast out of their villages because some itinerant preacher called them possessed.

…

some have read her book “Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft,” where she confidently writes that “if a child under the age of 2 screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan.”

…

in her sermons, Ms. Ukpabio is emphatic that children can be possessed, and that with her God-given “powers of discernment,” she can spot such a child. Belief in possession is especially common among Pentecostals in Nigeria, where it reinforces native traditions that spirits are real and intervene in human affairs.

…

Since “Saving Africa’s Witch Children” was first shown in Britain, in 2008, Mr. Itauma’s home state has adopted a law against accusing children of witchcraft. But Ms. Ukpabio went on the offensive by suing the state government, Mr. Foxcroft, Mr. Itauma and Leo Igwe, a Nigerian antisuperstition activist.

In the lawsuit, Ms. Ukpabio alleges that the state law infringes on her freedom of religion. She seeks 2 billion naira (about $13 million) in damages, as well as “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents” from interfering with or otherwise denouncing her church’s “right to practice their religion and the Christian religious belief in the existence of God, Jesus Christ, Satan, sin, witchcraft, heaven and hellfire.”

In other words, in the name of religious freedom, Ms. Ukpabio seeks a gag order on anyone who disagrees with her.

This is Christianity at its very worst.  The strategies employed by Ms. Ukpabio mirror those we see in the US from conservative Christians – claim persecution and vigorously defend their “right” to persecute and vilify others – often with violent results.

In general one wants to say people have a right to preach and spread ignorance.  One’s will to defend this right begins to erode when that ignorance clearly leads to violence.  What is absolutely clear is that we do have a right to criticize that ignorance and do our best to counter it.  That means everything from explaining the difference between autism and witchcraft to tackling a belief system that was founded on bronze age fears of the unknown – and fears of competing belief systems.

Religious Conservative Incestual Rape Apologists

Sharron Angle is making public a textbook psychotic position on the horrible matter of incestual rape that leads to a pregnancy.  Digby Reports:

Sharron Angle has a plan for girls who are raped by their fathers and get pregnant. Force the little girl to have a child and then adopt both of them out to a new family!

Angle: I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade. Well one girl in particular moved in with the adoptive parents of her child, and they both were adopted. Both of them grew up, one graduated from high school, the other had parents that loved her and she also graduated from high school. And I’ll tell you the little girl who was born from that very poor situation came to me when she was 13 and said ‘I know what you did thank you for saving my life.’ So it is meaningful to me to err on the side of life.

No word on what happened to the incest victim, but that’s really not something anyone should waste much time worrying about.

And anyway it just shows that God provides many good alternatives to abortion for for young girls who are raped by their fathers — perhaps we could just bend the rules a little bit and the little girl could marry her daddy so they could make a new family all their own.

That she leaves out the rape victim – aka the baby carrier (you know, the non-woman as per fellow Republican Christianist David Vitter) – is telling.  Nuts like these really don’t give a shit about mothers.  They aren’t anti-choice, they are anti-mother.  And God help you if you become a mother against your will, or if becoming a mother poses serious health risks.  Because they sure as hell won’t.  At that point you cease to be a woman, cease to be a rape victim, and become an incubator.

Let’s put the positions of these religious nuts who advocate forcing raped girls to bear their father’s children into context.  Consider the biblical story of Lot and his daughters.  He offered them up to be raped by strangers, and later had offspring with them.  Is this what religious conservative mean when they suggest using the Bible as a basis for law in our country?

The AP and Soft Support of Theocracy

Lightning struck down a giant statue placed alongside a public highway in Ohio.

No author is listed for this piece, which is just as well.  It is an embarrassment.  It softly offers up uncritical support for the religious statue (emphasis mine):

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

Oh?  Many said they want more Jesus statues in public?  How many, dear anonymous AP writer?  10?  50?  1 in 10 people surveyed out of 6,000?  Or 3 of the 10 people you called on the phone but didn’t bother to source?

In the very next sentence the reporter is at it again, uncritically mentioning that church official had to build a walkway, on account of so many people stopping.  How many is so many?  Was the walkway built do to a massive outpouring of support for Jesus and the church?  Was it built to accommodate the few people who did stop?  Was it built later on regardless of the number of people coming, simply as a wise addition to the church?  No answers are provided, just the presumed word of church officials without a hint of sourcing, evidence or what lay people might call proof.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation, and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.

Are statues built to either help or impress?  How about persuade?  The clear evangelistic angle of the statue looming over a public highway is left entirely out of the equation.  Surprising since earlier in the same article the church is referred to as the “evangelical Solid Rock Church”.  (As of this writing their website is currently down).

The article makes it seem as though the giant Jesus statue intruding into public life was either a surprising curiosity or a welcome reminder of religion, which enjoyed wide support.  Perhaps appropriate for an article concerning religion, no proof was offered.

The Compelled Birth Movement

I get email! A reader (Liz) took issue with my post “The Problem With Calling Abortion Murder“.