Religious Freedom: Your Rights Are Special; Your Religion Is Not
No one’s beliefs are beyond question or criticism. Insisting on special special status for your religious beliefs has nothing to do with your freedom of religion and everything to do with your belief that your religion is somehow better than everyone else’s. You have the freedom to believe what you choose and to live your life accordingly, unless you try to infringe upon the rights of others. You do not have the freedom to insist that everyone else live by your beliefs.
I respect your right to believe as you wish but that respect only goes as far as me not trying to stop you from believing as you do, or insist that you believe as I do. That respect does not include respect for your religion’s ideas, concepts, or particular moral code.
I expect you to question my beliefs and to challenge them. I have no problems or qualms accepting your challenges to my beliefs. I believe that if we don’t constantly question, we stagnate, then we stop learning and stop growing. I question everything, even my own beliefs, constantly. This brings a deeper understanding of myself and the world around me.
You, on the other hand, recoil in dismay when your beliefs are questioned and claim that you are being persecuted and that your right to freedom of religion is being infringed upon. You are wrong. Your beliefs are being questions, challenged, and even ridiculed. Your right to believe them are not being questioned. Your right to practice your beliefs and to worship are not being questioned.
Freedom of religion does not give your the right to insist that every public meeting or event be preceded with a prayer to your god. It does not give you the right to insist that laws be passed to restrict the actions and speech of others not of your faith just because they don’t hold to the same moral beliefs as you. Freedom of religion, as stated in the U.S. Constitution, also implies the freedom to have different religions, or even freedom from religion. It implies freedom of conscience.
The Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution was enacted in order to prevent this country becoming a theocracy, as were most countries of Europe at the time, where Kings reigned by the grace of God. The Founding Fathers, in whose memories of the vicious religious wars of scant generations past were still a powerful and terrible memory, created the Establishment Clause to forestall just such terrible religious inspired strife in this country.
Today we see our society polarized by religiously motivated groups on the right who would push their vision of a Christian nation under their particular god upon all of us. Their titular political arm, the Republican party, which once fought against religiously supported slavery, has now become a tool for those who breed hatred against, homosexuals, the poor, women, and the non-christian or non-religious. Their justification? Their religion. Their Bible.
Their belief that their Bible tells them that homosexuality is a sin worthy of death(1) that the poor will always be with us(2) and will be rewarded in heaven(3) and therefore somehow can be ignored here on earth); that women must be silent(4) and submit to their husbands(5). They claim that their god is a god of love and mercy. Their Bible, their words, and their actions show otherwise; that their God is an angry, merciless, and vengeful god and that they are a bigoted, racist, misogynistic people who use their holy book to foist their twisted view of morality on the rest of us.
We all have the right to our own religion, our own beliefs. We all have the right to worship as we wish. We do not have the right, none of us, is to have our beliefs put up on a pedestal that is above question, challenge or even ridicule. What none of us has is the privilege of having our special religious beliefs, modes of worship, and morals elevated above those of anyone else. The freedom of religion granted by the U.S. Constitution implies, above all, equality of all beliefs, where no one belief or religion, especially that of majority, is above any other.
1 Leviticus 18 and 20
2 Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, John 12:8
3 Matthew 5:3, Luke 6:20
4 1 Corinthians 14:34
5 1 Peter 3:5
Pro Life – A Satanic Plot
Edwin Kagin beautifully defends a woman’s right to choose in this tongue-in-cheek piece. It is funny, but powerful. Read it.
Atheists Raise $180,000 for Charity
It is said that this is the season of giving, and you don’t have to be religious to do good by giving. It was reported the other day that atheists have used crowdsourcing to raise $180,000 for Doctors Without Borders. I bring this up because there is this prevalent belief that atheists are amoral, hedonistic, and only concerned with their own self interests. I want to show that this belief is false.
I’m not going to try to pretend that atheists are more giving than their religious brethren, I just want people to realize that we, as a group in general, put a very high value on doing what is morally and ethically right. Our understanding that this in the only life we have leads us to cherish it and, since we don’t believe in any finally judgement where the bad will be punished and the good rewarded, we are greatly appalled at the suffering of others in the here and now. We see the huge injustice that millions are living lives of desperation, with no hope of relief, unless we, as fellow human beings do something about it, today. Nothing is more terrible than the thought that so many innocent people suffer and that a painful death is all that many of them have to look forward to. The waste of human life, of human potential is overwhelming. When you know that this time on earth is all that each of us has, this kind horrible waste and suffering is unconscionable.
The fact that this suffering of millions is often brushed aside because people delude themselves into believing that those who suffer will find peace some other future existence is what makes us so angry. We aren’t angry with god, or with believers in general. We are angry that human suffering is often minimized by reference to some insubstantial afterlife, or worse, justified by the whim of some invisible deity.
We give what we can to help those who suffer, not because we are told to by a holy book, or a church, but because we are moved by a shared sense of humanity to do what is right simply because it is the right thing to do.
There are plenty of charities that you can give to, if you are, like me, uncomfortable with the idea of giving to a religious charity, such as the Salvation Army, which espouses homophobic and bigoted beliefs, or a church where most of the money stays in the church rather than going to where it is really needed. My personal choice is Doctors Without Borders, which I believe is a great charity since they provide needed medical care anywhere in the world that it is needed, with no religious, ideological, or political agenda or strings attached.
Where ever you decide to give to, don’t do it because you expect some ineffable reward in a nebulous, unlikely afterlife, or to please your pastor. Do it because it is the right thing to do.
I Chose Not To Believe
I think that the one of the most compelling reasons that I have chosen not be believe in any supernatural god(s) can best be summed up by the picture below. Look at it. Think really hard about it. If you do you will begin to understand what lead me to shed my supersitious beliefs.
By hull612 (Otherwise known as Jon)
The Secular Humanist Anthem
My pick for a Secular Humanist (or agnostic, or atheist, or just plain sensible) anthem:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one- John Lennon
Of Animal Cruelty and Immorality
There was a very sad, disturbing article in the Omaha World Herald about 64 chihuahuas that were rescued from a home in Falls City, NE. While this is an upsetting story in itself, it isn’t the neglect of these dogs that I want to talk about. I want to talk about a comment that was posted about that article.
Posted by: Tea Party Tom on 08/18/11 @ 12:30 pm:
Here we go agian, more government on our back telling people how to live our lifes. I guess the govenment is never satisfied, now there tellign dogs how they have to life.
When another commenter said that, while they felt it was wrong to mistreat animals, the government should focus on taking care of people. Tea Party Tom responded:
Posted by: Tea Party Tom on 08/18/11 @ 10:03 pm:
To Concerned: why should government take care of people??? Let people take care of people and if they cant do it, to bad thats the way the cookie crumples. I never had the gorverment take care of me and I’m doing just find!
There are so many things wrong with Mr. Tea Party’s responses that I am not quite sure where to start. I suppose I’ll start with his comment that the government shouldn’t be telling dogs how they have to live.
The authorities are considering charges against the owner. The laws that may have been broken have nothing to do with telling animals how to live their lives, but with ensuring that animal owners treat the animals in their care humanely. If anyone is being told how to behave it is the owner, not the dogs.
As for Tea Party Tom’s contention that this is an example of more government on our backs, the fact is that the Humane Society (not a government agency, by the way) was called in because the owner called authorities to tell them that he could no longer take care of the dogs. So the authorities didn’t come out and raid the home or anything. They came in response to a call for help. They weren’t poking their noses into the owner’s private business, but responding to a legitimate call for assistance.
The most egregious comment of Tom’s, though, is his belief that if people can’t take care of themselves that it is their own fault. Basically, fuck the poor, they deserve it. Considering that the Tea Party is, by their own admission, openly Christian, his statement is completely contrary to the teachings of Christianity, which call for compassion and aid for the poor.
Finally Mr. Tea Party states that the government never took care of him. While I can’t say that’s not true for sure, given his atrocious grammar and spelling I can only assume that he attended a public school, a government funded institution that provide him with 12 years of free education.
This ill informed, bigoted screed is just another example of the moral bankruptcy of the Tea Party and its followers.
It has been shown that sociopathic killers often start their careers by torturing and killing animals when they are young. The same, I believe, holds true for a person’s attitude toward animal welfare. This is clearly illustrated by his comments. Tea Party Tom, and his cronies, show not just their indifference to human suffering, but their outright hostility and disgust of those less well off then them. To call themselves the party of family values and morality is more than disingenuous, but is grossly immoral and abhorrent.
Religion Weasels It’s Way into My Kids’ School
Tonight was open house at our kids’ Middle School. As we walked in the door, we were greeted by a woman handing out blue flyers about a before school program for kids who get there early to meet, have donuts and have “fun”. This program is to be held in the lower gym at the middle school.
Here is the front of the flyer. (Please forgive the poor quality, they were taken with my phone camera).
Here is the back of the same flyer:
At this point I was still reading this. I thought, considering that it said ”Campus Life” that it might be a program rung by one of the local colleges. The woman who was handing them out was standing right by the line where you had to get in to in order to get your child’s schedule. She told us that it was a before school program where kids could go, have donuts, hang out with their peers and have “fun”. Never once did she mention that she was with a Christian organization. Nothing in the literature that she handed even hinted at all that this was run by a religious group.
Fotunately, Lorraine noticed a table about six feet away from her that was set back and that had this flyer on it:
We proceeded to ask the woman who was handing the blue flyers out why they didn’t state on those flyers that the program was being run by a Christian group. She told use that their other information was available at their table. When I raised the point the the table was set back and several feet away from where she was handing out her flyers, she directed me to her director. I raised the same objection to him as I did to her and got the same response. I pointed out that the blue flyer was misleading because it didn’t in anyway let parents know that this was a program offered by a religious organization.
At this point, Lorraine spoke up and asked if the kids were going to be told how much their faith will save them and that that the must pray to god in order to be saved. After some prodding by Lorraine, te said that, yes, they do try to help the kids find their faith and open themselves to discovering god and how he can work in their lives. Basically, he told us that, yes, their goal was to convert children to their faith, although he was loathed to use the word “covert”, preferring words like “discovering their faith”, and “finding the faith inside themselves”.
We tried to find the principle to ask him why he was allowing this overtly religious group to meet every morning in the school cafeteria and indoctrinate children into their particular flavor of Christianity, but were unable to corner him. We plan on questioning him on this as soon as we can.
Many parents would likely read the first flyer, which has no mention whatsoever about this being a religious activity, and figure that it would be a great way to feel safe dropping their kids off early at school. What they probably wouldn’t know unless they had noticed the other flyers on the table is that their children would end up being encouraged to “find their faith” and pray for Jesus to save them.
The one good thing was that after our confrontation with them, the group were handing out a smaller yellow flyer that did state that they were a religious organization. I couldn’t tell if they were handing those instead of the blue ones or in addition to the blue ones.
Our public schools are supposed to be free of religious influence, but here, in the guise of a way for kids to “have fun” and get to know each other, and talk about issues that interest them, they are subtlety being indoctrinated into a set of beliefs that they, and their parents are unaware of and may disagree with.
Cruelty, They Name is Human
My friend, Brick Window, posted recently about a police raid on a puppy mill in Texas. Dozens of animal carcasses were found on site and most of the surviving animals were emaciated. I responded with:
With three dogs in the house and another one coming on Wednesday, this story, and others like it, just breaks my heart. I don’t understand how people can be so cruel. I know that the animal kingdom is cruel. but in a mindless, neutral way. In nature, there is no morality because it all comes down to basic survival; hunter and prey. Humans, however, are intentionally cruel and can actually derive pleasure from the suffering of other. It gives a whole different meaning to the word “civilized”.
Humans are one of the only species that are intentionally cruel to other species and members of their own. While we consider ourselves to be somehow more advanced and enlightened than our less sentient cousins in the animal kingdom, we can be purposely cruel. I was going to say “inhuman” instead of cruel, but inhuman assumes not human. Animals are not intentionally cruel, they just do what they need to do to survive. I think that instead of using “inhuman” to to describe cruelty, we should really use the word, “human”.
The War Against Woman Has Real Consequences
When will people realize that denying a woman an abortion has real life and death consequences? PZ Myers has a very sad and scary example on his blog.
It isn’t just that abortions are harder to get, but also that many health care professionals have been scared off by the terroristic activities of the anti-abortion crowd. This means that even where abortion is legal, when a woman needs a life-saving abortion, often there isn’t anyone available to perform one.
How long will we allow the elite, white, male, christian dominated right wing to dictate what a woman can and can’t do with her body? That a woman, any woman, should risk losing her life just because some religious zealots want to make everyone else live their lives according to their interpretation of an archaic, iron age text, is unconscionable.
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