State of Protest

Haven’t you heard it? If you’ve ever visited an atheist or skeptic forum, it’s quite likely that you have. It’s the “why won’t you leave us alone?” retort from believers. “Why do you hate us?” “Why do you hate God?” The more profound and underlying question we’ve been asked, and the question we should be asking ourselves, is, “How far should my activism reach, and why?”

You can scale the relative level of activism in most atheists similarly. Starting off as a believer, or at least a follower, we are quite often sure of ourselves. Perhaps we haven’t encountered any opposing points of view. Perhaps we’re stubborn. Perhaps we’re overwhelmed by the religious beliefs and practices of our families. Whatever the case, many of us start off on the theist end of the spectrum, and are quite often advocates of that way of life and belief.

Then we’re hit with some sort of doubt. Bart Erhman, for instance, was awstruck by the fact that the icon of his belief system, the Holy Bible, was severely flawed with contradictions, rewrites, and surreptitiously inserted new passages. How could the bible be inerrant, how could a real god endorse such a mishmash of not only contradictory but also violent and cruel edicts? Doubting is the catalyst that causes us to self-reflect, and to analyze all that we know about what we’ve been told. It’s required for the next stage of development - agnosticism.

Perhaps I’ve intentionally skipped a few minor middle steps, but the phase between doubt and disbelief encompasses a variety of positions, depending on the individual, from confusion to agnosticism to denial to relapse. I like to call this phase the “I don’t know” phase, which is why I associate it with agnosticism.

Eventually, hopefully, we reach a point at which we question why we’re even bothering with the question of “is there a god?” We realize that, since there’s no empirical evidence of the existence of, at minimum, the divine beings alluded to in every god myth, we narrow our scope of world view to two main areas:

First, the area of spirituality. This isn’t to say that spirituality exists or it doesn’t. It’s a concept, and there comes a time where most of us in some way address whether it has meaning to us. When a loved one dies, do you think he or she “goes to a better place?” How do you fit that into your world view? Do you think there is something invisible that is greater than you? Do you think there is destiny, fate, karma? These are things that even agnostics question, even after having rejected their former god of choice, and it’s something that, until all our questions are satisfactorily answered by science, we will be inclined to address.

What matters about that area of interest is that it may help determine your level of acceptance of certain types of activism, because even without a god or doctrine to guide you morally, you may reach for a more metaphysical state of moral choice based on your concepts of spirituality. Hardline skeptics and atheists tend to eschew this point of view, but they cannot deny that people are habitually, if not naturally, sentimental toward the supernatural and spiritual potential in the world.

Second, the area of society. This is not what you think, but how you deal with what others think, and how they deal with what you think, and the acts based upon such thought. This is your relationship with, essentially, the rest of the world. More specifically, it’s what’s mutually tangible. What kinds of laws, regulations, taboos, etc., affect you, and what kind of effect you can have. On our scale of development, this is often a stopping point (or sometimes a starting point for those who were never theists to begin with). It’s a plateau representing a static world view, with no inclination to have that world view affect society.

Beyond that plateau, there is a minority of skeptics, rationals, atheists who attempt to influence society in a variety of ways. The extent to which one is active is often based on the extent to which one has rejected religion. So, there are varying degrees of activism (degrees of intensity) and varying methods of activism. And there’s at least one person or group of people out there in the world opposed to every single type. Surprisingly, many are from the set of non-believers.

The degrees of intensity can be described in another abridged scale: start with the “closet” atheists, who, although in their own minds are atheists, either deny that fact to others, or try to hide it, lest they be reprimanded, punished, or shunned by family, work, friends, or others. Sometimes these closet atheists end up creating alternate identities for use on the Internet, a place in which they can freely express opinions without coming under personal attack. The next level is the avowed atheist — someone who isn’t afraid to tell others, but who doesn’t necessarily seek out others in order to tell them. Next is the conversational atheist — someone who actively tells others, perhaps seeking them out, in order to tell them about non-belief. That category can be split between those who seek just to converse and share ideas, and those who are on the fringes of being active deconverters.

Proactive deconversion is the next level, and it shares its spot with proactive lobbying — efforts either to convert believers into non-believers, or efforts to create a society where law, the government, and public places are secular. My opinion is that this is where most non-believers choose to draw the line. Beyond that line lies anti-religious activism. This is an activist state that actively attempts to purge society of all (or most) things religious. This category can be split between targeting only religious activities that cause specific harm, and targeting all religious activities, regardless of perceived harm (with the idea that all aspects of religion are harmful, because they’re religious).

An example of the latter point of view is where, recently, the Swedish government is making it illegal for any school, public or private, to teach religion as if it were true.¹

There are two more primary levels of activism. Next is targeting everyone, treating religion as a disease, in a sense, and trying to disinfect everyone, even parents who want to teach their children about religion. In 2001, Richard Dawkins wrote a letter to the British secretary of state, asking that the faith status of existing schools be removed, allowing children to choose for themselves what to believe, in a non-religious school environment.² Essentially, wipe away religious schooling institutions, and eliminate faith-based labeling for children, despite parental wishes. This is a step further in the direction of activism because, unlike Sweden’s attempt to eliminate teaching of religion “as if it were true,” Dawkins (at least then) advocates eliminating religion as a label of any sort — no religious institutions at all, no parental force-feeding of religion, and especially no state-based advocacy of religious belief.

Christopher Hitchens is even a more ardent supporter of this “no religion” point of view. Even from the title of his best selling book “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” one can infer that Hitchens decries all things religious, and would probably, if in a position to do so, wipe the world clean of religious practice (but for the sake of scholarship, not religious history, I’m sure). Some would call this “militant atheism.” My view is that that term is misused, and should apply only to the final niche in the spectrum of activism.

Real militant atheism is literally taking up a weapon and fighting those who support religion, and in some cases those who merely don’t support real militant atheism. Consider the Crusades. Real militant atheism is similar. It’s a purge of religion, similar to what Hitchens seems to desire, but instead of doing so through legal means, it’s doing so with violence. Have we seen much of this? Hardly. Perhaps none at all, at least in what’s commonly displayed on the news. There are countries, though, that will torture and kill some believers.³ There are also, assuredly, individuals and factions worldwide who, like their religious counterparts, would take up arms in order to fight for what they consider to be freedom from religion (especially if they think that a purported secular government has overly mingled its affairs with religion, effectively creating a theocracy).

Inevitably, those who fall somewhere on the active side of the scale will be directly or indirectly criticized for such activism by those who believe they are the targets. Here’s a fine, succinct, example of what I mean, thanks to Atheist Eve:

To be an activist at any level, one must expect some criticism. My analysis here isn’t about criticism, however, it’s more about ethics. Obviously, the more advanced on the activism scale, the more criticism, but is there a point on the scale that clearly goes too far?

One potential way to analyze what’s an appropriate level of activism is to consider what “the other side” is doing or has done to promote religion. Religious groups have been spending centuries sending missionaries all over the world, establishing churches, shrines, meeting places. They’ve been creating supposed charitable organizations and activities, hospitals, (and in Mother Theresa’s case, places to go suffer and die), youth organizations, private schools, camps, heavily funded lobbying groups, and more. They’ve started and perpetuated military campaigns, sometimes backed by governments, sometimes by radical militants outside of the government. Entire nations currently sway with the religious breezes blown by zealots on both sides. What hasn’t been done in the name of religion? If we are to take the religious as examples of anything, it’s that they have overwhelmingly dotted the landscape of history and the world with religious activism spanning the entire scale. Therefore, citing what the religious are doing or have done is not a good way to measure the ethicalness of our own activist behavior.

Another way to think about where we should fall on the scale is from the consequentialist point of view. Let’s not think too much about what we’re doing on the small scale (whether it be handing out atheist pamphlets or assassinating religious zealot leaders), but what we’re trying to accomplish for the sake of humanity. This point of view may require the activist not only to believe that religion is wrong, but also that religion is so harmful that it must be eliminated by any means necessary. However, that is not the only side one can take as a consequentialist. It could be believed that a well-balanced world is, in the long run, more beneficial for humanity, and that the actions that must be taken should be limited to those which would ultimately treat religion and non-religion as essentially equal. There are those who already think this is the case, and there are those who think that we have a long way to go to accomplish something even close to a balance. Consequentialism, is, then, too ambiguous and subjective to use as a guideline. The same could probably be said of any utilitarian theory — they’re all quite subjective, and goal-oriented.

Let’s just say that I carried on with an analysis of every ethical theory that I could come up with. I don’t think I would find a satisfactory answer to my query. The reason? I don’t know all there is to know. I don’t know and I cannot know what’s in store for humanity. I only know what I’ve seen, what’s occurring right now, and what has apparently occurred in the past, with regard to the rife between secularism and religion, and the firm grasp that religious groups have on so many aspects of the world today. I’m not advocating violence or war on behalf of non-religion. What I’m saying is that I’m not quite sure that it’s unethical, depending on the situation, and from whose point of view it is making the decision.

Most assuredly, though, if the religious zealots of my nation stood up in arms and attempted to create a theocracy by force, I would retaliate in kind. I think that’s essentially happening in some parts of the world today. What’s happening here is that the religious have infused themselves into the government and essential positions in society in order to perpetuate that hold on power and control, and we, as rationals, as skeptics, as atheists, need to do at least the minimum of what it takes to reverse that trend and keep it reversed, regardless of any criticism from any source. I just can’t tell you exactly how that’s to be done, and how far we need to go in order to get it done.

1. God’s Honest Truth, Andrew Brown, Guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/18/godshonesttruth [↩]
2. Children must choose their own beliefs, Richard Dawkins, Guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/dec/30/schools.religion [↩]
3. China, among others, has had a blemished history of military-backed opposition to religion. [↩]

Dear Procrustes,

You are a moron, with your liberal anti-Christian views, and you’d better shut your site down, or I’m going to find you and your family and I’m going to crack your skull with a baseball bat and mutilate your family.

Signed,
Hypothetical

Yes, fortunately this is still a hypothetical situation for me, but it’s certainly real enough for a number of rational activists out there, including, fairly recently, PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who blogs at Pharyngula.¹ On July 13, PZ Myers received an email with the subject line: “your short life.” The sender went on to state that if PZ Myers did not cease and desist his job (for the sake of his children), the PZ Myers would get his “brains beat in.”²

I’m not going to bother addressing the fact that someone who purports to follow a higher spiritual code is threatening the life of someone (and his kids) who follows a code of reason. Instead, I’d like to cite a few more examples, and then ask the readers if anyone else has had similar experiences, what have they done in those situations, and what can be done if we ever find ourselves in such a situation.

Before I jump into other examples, I’ll give some closure to the PZ Myers issue. First of all, PZ Myers made it quite clear that he reserved the right to post any emails (in full, with metadata) that contain threats of violence. What, pray tell, must have someone endured to require such a disclaimer! Word got around, and AIGBusted, from Answers in Genesis Busted, sent an email to the threatener’s employer³ (since the email threat was sent from a work address). It turns out that the threatener, Melanie Kroll, who, ironically, worked for 1-800-Flowers, was fired over the matter.⁴ Although it’s unknown how many readers possibly sent similar emails, AIGBusted appropriately feels no guilt over the firing. “I don’t feel guilty about reporting her. I think it is important for atheists to realize that large numbers of us wield a fair amount of power in these situations.”⁵

Apparently that is true. We have shown that we have the ability to do more than just sit idly by, wondering how valid a threat is. But how many of us (and by us, I mean anyone in the non-believing, rational, atheist, etc., community) are actually being threatened, how consistently, and, most importantly, how viable are these threats?

Where to begin? Of course, with the blog post that prompted Melanie Kroll’s threat.

July 12, 2008:
PZ Myers wrote, in a blog entry: “Christian Lunatics Issue Death Threats Over a Cracker… Unlike those nutty Muslims who are always taking offense over cartoons, these people have serious grievances.” And went on to describe and criticize the overreaction by the Catholics, media, and others, to Webster Cook’s forcible removal of The Body of Christ from a church.⁶ Accused of having “kidnapped” the equivalent of Jesus Christ, Cook began receiving death threats shortly after the media exploded the issue beyond repair, and PZ Myers, in turn, received a death threat for reporting about it. (Yes, I’m anxiously anticipating my day in the sniper scope.)

July 17, 2007:

Professors in Colorado Receive Death Threats for Teaching Evolution
Letters from a Christian extremist last week threatened the lives of evolution biology professors at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The letters claimed to be on behalf of a group, but newspapers and at least one blog have reported that an individual, Michael Korn, a Jew-turned-Christian extremist, is likely behind the threats (an image from his web site is at right). CU police spokesman Brad Wiesley told me they haven’t officially named a suspect but the Colorado Daily wrote that others “close to the case” named Korn.⁷

July 7, 2007:
J.K. Rowling announces the end of her beloved Harry Potter series of books, indicating that although it was a wonderful experience for her, there was a darker side to writing something Christians didn’t agree with: “Rowling says her success has been “the experience of a lifetime.” But it also has brought an intense level of pressure, scrutiny and criticism. In the United States, her book tours have attracted thousands of screaming children, but also death threats. Some Christians have called for the books to be banned, claiming they promote witchcraft.”⁸

March 28, 2008:
“Popular video site LiveLeak have been forced to remove the controversial film critical of Islam FITNA [by Geert Wilders⁹] after it received death threats from primitive, violent intolerant muslims.”¹⁰ Both Geert Wilders and some LiveLeak staff received a variety of threats of death and violence.

July, 2008:
Army Spc. Jeremy Hall’s “sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.”¹¹

June, 2002:
Michael Newdow, a TIME Person of the Week, received multiple death threats for his attempt to challenge the constitutionality of the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, which was recited every morning at his daughter’s public school. ¹² (As a side note, I met Mr. Newdow during that time period, and heard him discuss his various issues. He has also advocated for the removal of “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency,¹³ and he has won the Freethought Hero Award.¹⁴ )

October, 2006:
Robert Redeker is “a writer and high school philosophy teacher who has been under police protection and in hiding with his family since the newspaper Le Figaro published his op-ed piece about Islam on Sept.19. Entitled “Faced with Islamist intimidations, what should the free world do?”" “Redeker writes that he and his family are being forced to move every two days. “I’m a homeless person,” he complains. “I exercised a constitutional right, and I’m being punished for it right here on the territory of the Republic.” Redeker is only the latest in a lengthening list of Europeans who have been subjected to death threats from Muslims outraged by criticism of their faith and prophet.”¹⁵

1988:
Salman Rushdie had a fatwa issued against him for his publication of The Satanic Verses.¹⁶

November, 2004:
Mohammed Bouyeri shot Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director and critic of Islam, eight times, killing him, and then nearly decapitated him by cutting his throat. Then Bouyeri stabbed van Gogh in the chest. A few weeks prior to the murder, Imam Fawaz of the as-Sunnah Mosque in The Hague gave a sermon, calling van Gogh a “criminal bastard” and beseeching Allah to inflict an incurable disease upon him. ¹⁷

These examples are frightening and real, and they can all be Googled rather easily. But are the numbers of threats against the rational much higher? Have you ever received a threat of violence, death, or other retaliatory act for something you’ve done or that you’ve believed in? Please share!

If you’ve received a threat, did you take it seriously? How did you react to it? (did you reply, post the message, contact the authorities?) Regardless of whether you’ve received a threat, do you have any advice or suggestions for those who do?

Is this a trend we should be worried about?

1. Pharyngula, “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.” http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ [↩]
2. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/mail_dump.php [↩]
3. Did I Get a Woman Fired? Answers in Genesis Busted. http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-i-get-woman-fired.html [↩]
4. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/071608-woman-fired-over-death-threat.html [↩]
5. http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-i-get-woman-fired.html [↩]
6. Christian Lunatics Issue Death Threats Over a Cracker, AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/91269/ [↩]
7. Professors in Colorado Receive Death Threats for Teaching Evolution, Wired.com. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/professors-in-c.html [↩]
8. Rowling bids her boy wizard goodbye, USATODAY.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-07-19-rowling-potter_N.htm [↩]
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders [↩]
10. LiveLeak Remove “Fitna” After Death Threats, GBG Atheist News. http://godbegone.blogspot.com/2008/03/liveleak-remove-fitna-after-death.html [↩]
11. Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination, CNN.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/atheist.soldier/index.html [↩]
12. Person of the Week: Michael Newdow. http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,266658,00.html [↩]
13. Michael Newdow’s “In God We Trust” Lawsuit Dismissed, Austin’s Atheism Blog. http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/06/13/michael-newdows-in-god-we-trust-lawsuit-dismissed.htm [↩]
14. Freethought Hero Award, Freedom From Religion Foundation. http://ffrf.org/awards/special/2004_newdow.php [↩]
15. Did a Critic of Islam Go Too Far?, TIME.com. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1541776,00.html?cnn=yes [↩]
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie [↩]
17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28film_director%29 [↩]

Look up rational activism in the encyclopedia, and you should find Sean Tevis. If not, slip his bio in there.

Last week (on or about July 16), Sean created a web page with some stick-figure action figures resembling Frank Miller’s “300.” These stick figures were yelling something about how the Internet could change the face of political history. Well, it did, and it’s still going strong.

Arlen Siegfreid is a Kansas state representative, a right-wing conservative who is anti-abortion, pro-censorship, anti-same-sex marriage, pro-surveillance, and pro-creationism (in public schools). Although Representative Siegfreid seems a shoe-in for the next election, Sean, a non-politician “Information Architect,” wants to run against him.

With a common sense platform, mostly designed to oppose Siegfreid, Sean readied himself to play the political race game, until he stumbled upon a hurdle that would seem insurmountable for most would-be activists: he needed name recognition cash. According to Sean’s entertaining stick-figured explanation of the situation, 93.4% of the time it’s the candidate with the most advertising money who wins an election. It’s mid-July, and Sean asks, “How much do I need?” The verdict: $26,000. By July 28.

Game over, man! Game over!

No, not for Sean! See, Sean is an educated man. Sean knew that it would require 52 donors, donating $500 each, to meet his goal. However, having spent some time learning basic math in school, Sean figured that he could reduce the amount of individual donations required by increasing the number of donors. Brilliant! Reminds me of the idea I had as a child to send a letter to every resident of the U.S., asking for them to send me a dollar each. I’d have been a millionaire for sure! Except that I wasn’t so great at math, and I didn’t account for the fact that it would actually cost me money to send those letters, and I would have to offset any earnings made by the cost of those letters, and I wasn’t guaranteed to get any money. Even if half of the U.S. sent me a dollar, I’d still end up with a negative return. But, as Sean says, This is the Internet!

Instead of trying to find a handful of very generous donors, Sean would seek out great gobs of very slightly generous donors, via the Internet, which is practically free.

His goal was to acquire 3000 donors, donating $8.34 each.

He drew his stick-figure story, and posted his request website page, with a little button link to donate via PayPal. He even listed the basic campaign finance rules and a list of perks for higher than requested donations (campaign t-shirts, coffee mugs, and Kansas flags, among them).

And then he waited. (I’m sure the waiting involved a bit of “alerting the press”)

BoingBoing (one of my favorite must-visit-daily websites), and a few others got the word. I got the word from BB, and spread it to the Atheist Think Tank forum. I monitored Sean’s website, watching the donors increase slowly. I was getting worried. When I first started watching, he had only acquired a hundred or so. But, probably because of all the latency created by the flood of visitors to his website, I was likely not seeing what was really happening. My forum friends informed me that they had either donated or that the website was sluggish. We started passing out Sean’s direct email so that we could donate via PayPal without going through his website. We sat and watched and cheered and rallied. And, apparently, so did a hell of a lot of others.

And today, July 21, the number of donors is 5,298.

That’s five-thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight donors.

Screw 3000, make 6000!

Apparently no state representative in Kansas history has ever had more than 644 donors.

WIN!¹

But you know what has gotten me really excited about all this? It’s not Sean Tevis specifically, although I think he’s established himself as a hero. It’s that this has given us an example of how we can use our resources to make progressive change, to rally against the incumbents who want to tell us that the way to live our lives must conform to their twisted ideologies. It shows us that there are people out there who give a shit, and although they might not all individually be able to stand up and fight, they sure can click a button and send a real representative a few bucks to help do something about this strangulation we’re enduring. And that representative can do what needs to be done without worrying about not being related to an oil tycoon. If you want to phrase that in popular terminology (that, in its spiritual sense, doesn’t necessarily correspond to my rational belief system, but is a close enough word), it gives us rationals some hope.

Sean Tevis needed 3000 of us to help him kick some ass.

What we need is 3000 Sean Tevises.

First, go visit Sean Tevis by clicking these words, and see what he’s done, and maybe donate a little.

Second, do something about something. I can’t tell you exactly what to do. All I know is that if we even had ten, twenty more people like Sean Tevis, we could start reversing this trend of government-sponsored, taxpayer funded perniciousness. Donate to a Sean Tevis, run your own campaign, start a local paper or a blog, get active.

1. or “PWN!” if that suits you [↩]

There seems to be a free pass for all politicians when it comes to matters not directly related to their rhetoric. While this has applied to all politicians, and therefore this could easily be about John McCain or Hillary Clinton, I would like to point it out about Mr. Barack Obama.¹ Mr. Obama has been given a free pass concerning his Church and his various friendships with people of extreme viewpoints. I believe that this should not be the case. Even though they are not directly related to his specific rhetoric, they do become an issue by the very nature of what you consider worth being around ends up affecting you.

I don’t believe that Mr. Obama thinks America is the evil that his Pastor (now former pastor) says it is, but at the same time, if you hear negative things about America for 20 years, how can it not affect your viewpoint? I don’t believe Mr. Obama shares the ideology of his more extreme friends (comrades?), but how many times can you hear their viewpoint, without at least letting some of it inside? Whether it is right or wrong may be a different issue, but the bottom line is the lack of judgment in these issues either shows a fairly obvious deficiency in the basic ability to discern “problematic things” or that he in some way is implicitly “endorsing” those views on some levels.

I think we all agree that Mr. Obama was playing the Politician role when he claimed he never heard his pastor say unkind things about America. We are expected to believe him when he says, “I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally, either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew. He always preached the social gospel and was sometimes controversial in the same way that many people who‘d speak out on social issues are controversial.”²

Given that he did sit through these sermons, and I personally believe he must have over the course of a twenty year period, then he should absolutely be held accountable for that. How much “accountability,” or what should be done? In my opinion these things are not overly huge, and all other things being equal they are minor with respect to the “bigger fish to fry type issues” in and of themselves. The problem however is that it seems that we are used to giving people free passes when it comes to faith and that simply should not be.

“The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.” –Sam Harris

Sam Harris describes how we give a free pass as long as the religion is close to home. Presidents (and people running for any office) should be held accountable for their beliefs. They should be asked something along the lines of “If you were praying to your God, and felt that his answer was to bomb (Insert any place here), would you do it? Why or why not?” This shows the idiocy of the situation. Because if they are truly getting the word form God, then who can fault them for blowing up a country based on what God says? And if they say they won’t, then it shows just how much their belief in God means.

Either Mr. Obama was in a church for 20 years and chose to ignore the appointed by God minister, or he believes what that minister says and ultimately will let it affect his decision. To be quite frank, I am not sure which of these is worse. If Mr. Obama does not believe his own God should be listened to (That he chose to spend his valuable time with in accordance to “God’s Word”), then how can we know what Mr. Obama will do to something less sacred, like for example the Constitution? And if he does accept the sermons as being sent from God via this minister, then to close with a slightly inappropriate phrase, God help us all.

Disclaimer: I am an active duty military member, but anything I write is simply my opinion and in no way is expected to be coming from the military. I am acting as a citizen in anything I write. Also to be clear, No matter who is elected president, I will gladly serve them with pride, as I have served both President Clinton and President Bush. I may or may not agree with any or all of their respective politics, but I will follow the orders they give. This specific article is to be absolutely clear, not designed to be an attack on Mr. Obama. If I were voting for him, this issue would give me pause, but would ultimately be minor. If I were not voting for him, this would not be why, as I have stated that all of the candidates in various ways are given free passes on most areas of Personal responsibility when it comes to “faith” specifically.

Post script: I would like everyone to think on the Bomb question.

“If you were praying to your God, and felt that his answer was to bomb (Insert any place here), would you do it? Why or why not?”

Let’s assume the place was Iran during a war with them, where they have aggressively attacked American soil. But keeping in mind, what made you decide yes, according to this scenario was “God”, not the prevailing logic behind it. Most people would not bat an eye if you admitted this.

However if for some reason, You decided as a result of prayer with “God” to bomb Washington D.C. for no reason other than God told you to in prayer, I think we can all agree that this would be unacceptable.

There is only one conclusion. Your God is not what makes things “right or “wrong”. It is the prevailing wisdom behind your decision. Point of fact, Your God is simply an excuse to shift personal responsibility from you to somewhere that can not be attacked. Accept responsibility for your actions. Demand that others accept responsibility for theirs. This will make the entire world better, one paradigm shift at a time.

1. This is not to imply he is or is not the best candidate. I am using him as the example, but keep in mind with different example this could apply to every candidate in the last 20 years at a minimum. [↩]
2. Found on the folling link taken NBC Keith Olbermann show. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23675485/ [↩]

TSA and the Feds, fighting your freedom every step of the way!

If you haven’t been paying any attention:

10 airports install body scanners — Devices can peer under passengers’ clothes

and

Shock bracelet for airlines?

Part II of the Post Hoc and the Finicky Chickens video is up!

Human beings seem to have a natural desire to want to be rewarded for their good deeds and punished for the bad (well, to see others punished, anyways).  The comforting concept of an end to all suffering after we die, of an infinite paradise, is simply not enough.  People want justice.  They want to know that all the rapists and murderers, the drunken fathers, the bullies that picked on them in school, the neighbors who have wild parties while they abstain, and of course the heathen unbelievers (especially them) are all going to have to someday pay.  Let’s take a look at some of the different ways in which people believe their fellow humans will eventually suffer.

Judaism

Although Judaism does not have a specific doctrine regarding an afterlife, the Tanakh makes many references to Gehenna, or Sheol, which is believed to be a sort of purgatory for the dead, and there is a mystical tradition of describing it.  The word Gehenna was derived from the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, which was where the ancient Israelites sacrificed children, and later it was used as a dump for burning garbage and had a terrible stench.  This fiery place became a metaphor for the entrance to Hell.¹  Gehenna is not considered to be a physical place, but rather a feeling of intense shame and awareness of one’s sins.  Some believe that the soul is purified in Gehenna, which allows the soul to ascend to Olam Ha-Ba, which can be compared to the Christian Heaven.²  Very few Jews believe that existence in Gehenna can be permanent, with most believing the longest stay possible is eleven months.  The Kabbalah describes Gehenna as a “waiting room.”

Christianity

The Christian concept of Hell stems from the apocalyptic sections of the New Testament.  Revelation 20: 11-15 describes a “great white throne” before which all the dead must stand to be judged on their actions in life.  Those who do not make the cut are thrown into a lake of fire to burn eternally.  Many portrayals of Hell depict demons who torture the damned.  Matthew 13: 42 states there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Many Christians believe Hell is located in the Earth’s core, since Ephesians 4: 9 mentions the “lower parts of the earth.”  Some actually believe that the screams of the tormented can be heard in erupting volcanoes.³  Satan is considered to be the ruler of Hell in most denominations, although some believe Saint Peter is Hell’s keeper.  Few denominations can come to a consensus on which sins make a person worthy of Hell’s fiery torture, but it is almost universally believed that anyone who is not a Christian will meet that fate.

Islam

The Islamic concept of Hell is called Jahannam, and it is very similar to that of Christianity in that it is generally portrayed as hot and fiery.  However, Hell’s fate is not considered to be infinite but rather a basis for spiritual rectification, and the devil (shaitan) is not its ruler, just a tortured soul like the rest.⁴  Also, there are considered to be many levels of Hell depending on the degree of a person’s transgressions in life.  The lowest pit of Hell is called Hawiyah, and it is reserved for those who exhibit hypocrisy, which is considered to be the worst of all sins.  According to the Qur’an, anyone who claims to believe in Allah but denounces Him in his or her heart will end up in Hawiyah.  There is also one pit of Hell, called Zamhareer, which is not fiery but freezing.  The tree of Zaqqum is believed to bear thorny, bitter fruit, which the souls of the damned are compelled to eat, furthering their torment.⁵

Buddhism

Several different versions of Hell, or Naraka, are believed to exist in the major Buddhist schools of thought.  A person with enough negative karma can be reborn into one of these Narakas.  Existence in these realms is temporary, although beings are thought to be held there for vast stretches of time.  One of the most common schemes for describing the various torments is that of the Eight Cold Narakas and the Eight Hot Narakas.  The cold Narakas depict such tortures as being naked and alone in perpetual blizzards, shivering uncontrollably, forming blisters which burst open, and having the skin or even the entire body crack open, leaving one raw and bloody.  The hot Narakas include suffering such as being attacked with iron claws or fiery weapons, being sliced into pieces, being crushed into a bloody jelly by molten metal, being impaled on a fiery spear, and being roasted in a blazing oven.  Buddhists also believe that Hell can be a state of consciousness in which one suffers because of one’s actions.⁶

Hinduism

Hindu literature also speaks of Naraka (Neraka in Hinduism), although not in quite as gory detail as the Buddhist literature.  It is believed that at the time of death, souls who have sinned may be captured by the servants of Yama, the Lord of Justice.  Yama will deem the appropriate punishment for the sinner which, as in Buddhism, is temporary.  When the punishment is complete, Hindus believe the soul will be reborn on Earth in a human or animal body.  Some Hindus do not accept the existence of the Nerakas, or consider their descriptions to be metaphorical.⁷

1. http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gehenna.html [↩]
2. http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm [↩]
3. Haraldur Sigurdsson, Melting the Earth, The History of Ideas on Volcanic Eruptions, p. 73 [↩]
4. William C. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-Arab and the Problem of Religious Diversity, 1994 [↩]
5. Qur’an 44.43-46 [↩]
6. http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?showtopic=32187 [↩]
7. http://vedabase.net/en1 [↩]

I’d like to add a bit of perspective to the commentary I read the other day by Roger Severino, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The article is divided into quote boxes, my comments follow.

Legalizing gay marriage will spark lawsuits against churches ¹

Apr 7, 2008 3:00 AM (1 day ago) by Roger Severino, The Examiner

WASHINGTON - After years of litigation and debate, the California and Connecticut supreme courts are about to decide the question of marriage. If, as some suspect, the courts redefine the institution to include same-sex couples, they will have entered a minefield of unintended consequences — especially with regard to religious liberty.

The experience of legalizing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, and of civil unions elsewhere, cannot be ignored. It shows that, even with the best of intentions, legalizing same-sex marriage will seriously undermine the religious freedom citizens have enjoyed since the founding.

This hyperbole has become all too well known in arguments that appeal to tradition. This was the same argument used in the iconic Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, where in the earlier trial, the trial judge stated:

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”²

Apparently allowing races to mix in marriage would “seriously undermine the religious freedom citizens have enjoyed since the founding.”

Severino, continued:

Although the First Amendment protects dissenting houses of worship from being forced to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies against their will, that is not the end of the story — it is barely even the beginning.

Mr. Severino apparently ignores the fact that although there is an optional ceremonial and religious aspect to marriage, with regard to the state, it is a legal issue akin to a contract in the eyes of the state, covered by its laws, and that can be processed fully by a non-religious government entity such as a justice of the peace or someone else authorized to conduct a marriage. In other words, religious institutions are not required to perform marital ceremonies — these religious rituals are optional, based on the desires of the members of the respective churches.

Simply changing the definition of marriage opens the door to a flood of lawsuits against dissenting religious institutions based on state public accommodation and employment laws that prohibit marital status and sexual orientation discrimination.

Is what’s being asked for a simple change in definition of marriage, or is it a change in application of marriage? I think it’s the latter. The same way a black and white couple could live together as if married, prior to Loving v. Virginia, two men or two women could live together as if married. Loving allowed states to recognize the black and white couple as a union under law, afforded the same rights and privileges as other couples. Apply marriage more broadly and reject more tradition, and it would include same-gendered couples. As F.C. Decoste states, “Of course, if this be so — if the only arguments against same-sex marriage are sectarian — then opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage is invidious in a fashion no different from supporting anti-miscegenation laws: each is a fundamental assault on equality, and neither has any rhyme or reason beyond sectarian commitments which would foist one’s own diseased, personal morality on the whole of the polity.”³

Additionally, religious institutions that refuse to recognize a new state-imposed definition could be stripped of access to government programs, have their tax exemption denied and even lose the ability to solemnize civil marriages.

Here we embark on an interesting and, I’m sure, controversial issue — should religious institutions even have tax exemptions, or is that a violation of the First Amendment? And why should religious institutions be treated any differently than any other charitable organization that refuses to comply with government rules, and that ends up losing access to government programs? Is the adherence to religious tradition and homophobia important enough to religious institutions that the lesser of two evils is to reject government assistance?

We need only look at Massachusetts for a preview of what to expect. There, in 2004, justices of the peace who refused to solemnize same-sex unions due to religious objections were summarily fired.

And a doctor who refuses to perform a life-saving blood transfusion because it conflicts with his religious beliefs should be praised? If a person hired by a government entity has a personal problem performing an administrative task according to the rules and regulations of the government, then the person should not be an employee of the government.

It did not matter that other justices of the peace were available to do the job because, by Massachusetts law, same-sex unions were now entitled to equal treatment. A religious belief became a firing offense.

No, the belief did not become a firing offense. The manifestation of that belief by refusing to comply with a government mandate while being employed by that government became a firing offense.

It is but a small step for the state to impose this rationale on churches and other houses of worship and end legal recognition of religious marriage ceremonies that do not comply with the state’s expanded definition of marriage.

As has always been the case anyway. If a Church of Satan has a marriage ceremony, the government doesn’t have to recognize it if it doesn’t comply with state law. So, the rationale has always been imposed. Even a church recognized as an entity that can perform legal marriages doesn’t get a free pass if the person actually performing the marriage is not authorized to do so. Why should there be a special exemption for religion for anything violative of the law?

This is not the only example of what is to come. Massachusetts, like many other states, strictly regulates private adoption agencies through licensing. Historically, this has not posed any difficulties for religious institutions, but Massachusetts now demands that all licensed adoption agencies be willing to place children with legally married same-sex couples.

However, Catholic Charities, the largest private social service provider in the state, could not in good conscience place its orphan children into homosexual households. After a bitter struggle, Boston Catholic Charities was forced out of the adoption business because it refused to embrace the state’s new definition of marriage. The result was doubly tragic because both orphan children and religious liberty took the hit for this misguided attempt at equality.

It seems more like the orphan children took a hit because of Catholic homophobia and irrational adherence to tradition in not even considering the viability of a same-sex set of parents. Is it so important that the couple be man and woman that the next best option for Catholic Charities is to perpetuate the orphanhood of the children? Should the civil rights of couples be ignored for the sake of the homophobic?

Two more real-world examples illustrate the danger. In New Jersey, the city of Ocean Grove recently yanked a Methodist institution’s real estate tax exemption because it refused to perform civil unions in its outdoor wedding pavilion.

In Iowa, the Des Moines Human Rights Commission found the local YMCA in violation of public accommodation laws because it refused to extend “family membership” privileges to a lesbian couple that had entered a civil union in Vermont.

Based on the ruling, the city forced the YMCA to recognize gay and lesbian unions as “families” for membership purposes, or lose $102,000 in government support for the YMCA’s community programs. Equal provision of benefits to all couples was not enough — only the YMCA’s explicit adoption of the state’s new definition of family fulfilled the government’s requirements.

Again, governments are effectively giving taxpayer money to religious institutions in the form of exemptions because those institutions follow government regulation. When the institutions refuse to follow government regulation, the government stops the exemptions. Are the coffers so empty that churches cannot go private and run things the way they wish? Isn’t the Catholic church one of the most wealthy entities in the entire world? So wealthy that it could feasibly ignore the lack of tax exemption, and facilitate the finding of homes for orphans, or buy out the YMCA and privatize it?

This list barely mentions the avalanche of employment discrimination lawsuits religious institutions will face, if, for example, employees at religious institutions publicly enter same-sex unions in violation of the institution’s teachings and employment policies.

Likewise, religious colleges and universities would run afoul of housing discrimination laws if they were to offer housing benefits for husband-and-wife couples but decline to do so for married same-sex partners.

Yet again, government money (which is taxpayer money) for adhering to the law. Not adhering to the law results in no government money or enforcement of the law. If churches don’t like it, they can go private.

Are we better off as a community if religious charities are forced to close their doors because the state redefines what is and is not a marriage? Are we better off if, for example, the Salvation Army is forced to close because of employment lawsuits, or if Catholic adoption agencies are forced to shutter their offices? What would such a result say about tolerating diversity and respect for religious liberty?

Lawmakers and judges need to consider all the consequences, intended and unintended, before embarking on this path.

There are plenty of non-religious charities that would be happy to take on the tasks of former religious charities that are destroyed due to their own arrogance. Respecting religious liberty is not equivalent to allowing religious institutions to do whatever they want with taxpayer money without being accountable to the taxpayers or the government. As a society, we can respect or refuse to respect religions as beliefs, but that has nothing to do with accepting the behavior of religious institutions. However, the government, the entity that takes and redistributes our tax money, is held to a higher standard. Remember, Congress shall make no law respecting….

-Procrustes

1. http://www.examiner.com/a-1324540~Roger_Severino__Legalizing_gay_marriage_will_spark_lawsuits_against_churches.html [↩]
2. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) [↩]
3. The HalpernTransformation:
   Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Society, and the Limits of Liberal Law, F.C. Decoste, http://www.marriageinstitute.ca/images/decoste.pdf [↩]

Every year, the U.S. experiences as many as 850,000 teen pregnancies. Those under the age of 25 contract an average of about 9.1 million STDs. 70% of females and 62% of males lose their virginity by the age of 18.¹ In a study commissioned by Congress, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. concluded that abstinence-only programs have no effect on the age students first have sex and no effect on their number of sexual partners.²

Clearly, education is the key. When northern Virginia began requiring “family life education” as part of their public school curriculum in 1987, teen pregnancies dropped by fifty percent, and teen abortions went down sixty percent.³ Students receive instruction in “family living and community relationships, abstinence education, the value of postponing sexual activity, the benefits of adoption as a positive choice in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, human sexuality, human reproduction, dating violence, the characteristics of abusive relationships, steps to take to avoid sexual assault, and the availability of counseling and legal resources, and, in the event of such sexual assault, the importance of immediate medical attention and advice, as well as the requirements of the law and the etiology, prevention and effects of sexually transmitted diseases. “ Yet, an important aspect of sexual education has been missing from this curriculum, i.e. information on birth control.

Last Wednesday, February 6^th, the Virginia Senate rejected a bill, SB 155, which would have added to the curriculum the requirement for education on the various methods of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Senate’s education and health committee cleared the bill with a 9-6 vote, but on the floor the bill narrowly missed passage with a vote of 17-22. It seems common sense that our children should be given proper information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs, and a recent survey showed that 82% of parents in the U.S. support programs that would discuss these methods,⁴ so why was this bill rejected?

Republican lawmakers accused the FDA-approved list of contraception of being too broad and unreliable. “Quite frankly, this list is rather staggering in terms of its scope, and in terms of its relative effectiveness or ineffectiveness,” Sen. Mark D. Obenshain said, referring to a spermicide on the FDA list that is not supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The spermicide he was referring to does have a comparatively high failure rate,⁵ but that is exactly the reason we need to educate students on these methods. Does the Senator really believe that the potential failure rates would not be discussed alongside the benefits? That, of course, would be one of the most important aspects for students to learn about. The patron of the bill, Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Richmond, responded, “How better should our children be introduced to this laundry list? Should they go into the store, whether it’s the CVS or some other place, and guess at the efficacy of these products or guess how to use these products or guess as to whether these products are appropriate or not, or should they learn it in a classroom setting?”⁶

Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, one of two Democratic Senators who joined with Republicans to kill the bill, said he worried about Catholic students in public schools. “This was one of those efforts where the intent was right, but it could get in the way of families’ beliefs,” Houck said. This is a poor argument, as parents have always had the right to remove their children from the program if they feel it is inappropriate or conflicts with their religious beliefs.

The “Some Families” Foundation, while rallying for opposition to the bill, wrote in an action alert, “The bill…would replace current abstinence-based Family Life Education programs with a controversial contraception-only curriculum.”⁷ This is a blatant untruth! All the current teachings of the benefits of postponing sexual activity would remain in place. The education on contraception would merely be an addition to the existing criteria. In an action alert email, they stated, “This bill is the highest priority legislative initiative for Planned Parenthood. That pro-abortion group had close to 500 people here yesterday to argue for its passage. Some of their activists were still in high school. Are we going to let them go into our schools to recruit the next generation of pro-choicers without putting up a fight? These are our children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren and great grandchildren. No! We cannot let them win this critical battle. The education of our children is too important to trust to ineffective and dangerous contraception-based programs.” Ineffective and dangerous? Study after study confirms the inefficacy of abstinence-only education. Teenagers are going to have sex. To think that telling them “No” is going to somehow stop them from behaving contrary to their nature as human, sexual beings, is both naïve and the real danger to our students.

Based on the blaring inconsistencies in the opposition’s arguments and their willful ignorance of the hard evidence against them, could there be another, underlying reason for their vicious attack on this bill? In October 2007, Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine submitted plans to close a budget shortfall. One of the ways in which he accomplished his goal was to eliminate a $275,000 matching grant for a federal program which provided funds for fourteen nonprofit groups that taught abstinence only, making Virginia the fourteenth state to refuse to support abstinence-only education. Kaine’s communications director, Delacey Skinner, stated, “The governor supports abstinence-based education, but the governor wants to see us funding programs that are evidenced-based.” Kaine cited recent studies which have found that in order to truly protect teenagers against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, sex education programs must include information about contraceptives as well as abstinence.⁸ Social conservatives reacted very angrily to the Governor’s decision and accused him and Planned Parenthood of hiding the decision until after the November election. Their accusations were unjustified, as Kaine’s budget amendments had been public for six weeks prior. Considering the close timing between these two incidents, it seems highly likely that Republican’s residual anger over the Governor’s decision had a considerable impact on their decision to reject SB 155.

Statistics aside, studies aside, evidence aside, the bottom line is that we have a responsibility to provide accurate, useful information to our students at a time when they need it most. When students are well-informed, they can make well-informed decisions. Withholding that information is tantamount to lying to our children and can only cause confusion and detrimental consequences. Please take the time to write to our politicians and express your support for comprehensive sexual education for our students. We owe it to their futures.

1. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fssexcur.htm [↩]
2. http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf [↩]
3. (Sen. Barker, D-Fairfax) http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/measure … nia-senate [↩]
4. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15603764/ [↩]
5. http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/1997/babytabl.html [↩]
6. http://www.examiner.com/a-1206268~Contraceptive_education_bill_killed.html [↩]
7. http://www.vbdems.org/?p=2177 [↩]
8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01716.html [↩]

As humans, we’ve generally been taught that lying isn’t good. Now, sometimes it is used to spare feelings, or soften a blow, but in generally, to lie is to willfully ignore the truth for some reason, generally to the liar’s advantage. I personally don’t like lying because it tries to refuse reality which is pointless. Tim Mazur has a similar idea, though based on the Kantian idea that humans have intrinsic worth, something that I don’t particularly agree with wholeheartedly. “Lies are morally wrong, then, for two reasons. First, lying corrupts the most important quality of my being human: my ability to make free, rational choices. Each lie I tell contradicts the part of me that gives me moral worth. Second, my lies rob others of their freedom to choose rationally. When my lie leads people to decide other than they would had they known the truth, I have harmed their human dignity and autonomy.”¹ I don’t think morals have anything to do with it, but I do agree that lies are harmful. Now, I do agree that there are times when lies are necessary, e.g. to save one’s life if one has to promise something to a killer, to keep a confidence, etc. I still do not like them, but human nature, being what it is, does seem to require them.

Now, in my opinion, religion is a great lie. And I do appreciate the irony of finding Mr. Mazur’s quote on a Jesuit university’s website. None of them can demonstrate that they have any type of great ‘Truth’. The few similarities that exist between religions, oft pointed to by theists who want to think that their particular deity is the one behind all religions or all ‘good’, are simply from the fact that we are humans and humans function in similar ways and have similar societies. Religion promises proof but never provides it. I have found it amazing that people can pass around a story that no one knows the true provenance of, which promises much but provides nothing, and how they can keep believing in it. I believed Christianity for a while because I was taught to trust my elders. However, trust can be destroyed when reality raises its head.

Lies have become endemic in religion. Since they cannot rely on any truths, they must make up reasons for why something is or isn’t so. These ‘reasons’ change with society, not the other way around. These are no better than Rudyard Kipling’s Just-so stories and considerably less well-thought out. Since each religion depends on being the only ‘correct’ one, they all do what they can to keep their flocks in line.

This culture of lies also seems to influence the actions of their believers. I had the opportunity to see this first hand recently. I was responsible for the attendance at an invitation-only conference held by my employer. We had a limited budget for food and a limited space to fit people into. The rsvps went out to our invitees approximately 3 months in advance of the conference. Three days before the conference, I received an RSVP from an invited member of a Christian organization that had a note on it saying that they intended to also bring along 6 other people and that I was to call if this would be a problem. Being that we had long run out of space, I called and said that we would be unable to accommodate those invited and definitely no room for anyone else extra. I could tell by the woman’s voice that she was taken aback by my answer, especially when she asked me several times if what I said meant that no one of their group could come. Several days later, I was then contacted by another organization that these people, including a pastor, said that they had been invited by my organization’s president and that we had subsequently dis-invited them. This was a lie. The only people invited were three from their organization, contingent if they got their rsvps back in time just like everyone else, and that we had not told these people they could bring whomever they wanted. I was quite indignant about this. However, from my prior experience with Christians, I accepted it as business as usual. In my experience, Christianity does nothing to make a person any better than they would be without religion. It only seems to give excuses to those who are unpleasant people to begin with.

The day of the event rolled around and I was working registration with our hired event planner. Things were busy but I noticed a group of people well decorated with crosses approaching the registration table. By either chance or intent (I had a name tag on) none of them came to me to get their badges. However, I was familiar with enough names to know who they were. The ‘good Christians’ decided to come anyway. I reported this to my bosses but to no avail. No one had the nerve to tell them that they were unwelcome. I would have dearly liked to but I also wished to keep my job. By luck, it wasn’t the problem it could have been since a winter storm had been forecast and that few people came than we had thought. While not privy to their thoughts, I am reasonable sure, from prior experience, that these Christians were praising their God for allowing them to get in and that other people hadn’t come because of the storm. I’m reasonably sure that they also forgot that at least 7 people died because of this storm before it got to us and weakened. I had told other people that we had no more room and those people respected our decision. These people did not. They lied about the circumstances of their rsvps, they ignored my politely given denial of their request, and they could have caused a very unpleasant situation with their arrogance. They forced an occasion where they did not want to follow the rules. They wanted special rights, not equal rights.

I see on various forums that Christians are often aghast that anyone could possibly think bad of them. It is for reasons like my situation above, the circling of the wagons when televangelists are ignorant and intolerant, the simple words of the Bible, etc, that people often regard Christians as arrogant, willfully ignorant hypocrites who want nothing more than to force their will on others. Being a theist, whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroasterian, Wiccan, Hindu, etc., doesn’t automatically mean you are a good person.

1.  http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ … lying.html [↩]