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
A Follow Up
This is a follow up to my post yesterday about the current contraceptive controversy. Jen McCreight has an interesting post on her blog about the whole contraceptive kurfulfle, It is opinion from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on a religious freedom case in a situation similar to that of the Catholic Church and others with the current contraceptive mandate of the Obama administrator. Just in case you don’t feel like reading it (although you really should), he definitely did not find this kind of issue to be a religious freedom issue.
Religion Gets A Pass. Again
Once again, religion in the U.S. gets a free pass. As you probably know, the Obama administration recently required all employers to offer free contraceptives as part of their employee health plans. This included religious employers who employe people who are not of that particular faith or are non-religious. This created a firestorm of protest from churches across the country, Catholic and Protestant. After weeks of outrage and complaints, the President announced that he will seek to allow religious employers to pass on the responsibility, and the cost, of providing contraceptives onto the insurance companies.
Now, I’m no economist, but it seems pretty obvious that the insurance companies aren’t going to like this very much. The result will probably be higher premiums, which religious employers will likely pass onto their employees. This means that people who are employed by religious organizations will be forced to pay more for “free” contraceptives. This despite the fact that religious organizations and churches are already allowed to operate tax free, even if they don’t use their money for charitable purposes, unlike other non-profits. Now they get to avoid the responsibility for the cost of contraceptives, unlike every other employer in the country.
The religious organizations claim that the rule to provide free contraceptives are an infringement of their constitutional right to religious freedom. This is blatantly bullshit. What it is in reality is an infringement upon their centuries old privileges. What if a white supremacist church, who believe that the Bible condones discrimination agains blacks and Jews, claimed that they didn’t have to provide health insurance for black and Jewish employees (assuming that they would employ them in the first place)? This would never be allowed, as it is blatantly discriminatory and against the law. Yet we allow churches to subtly discriminate against women who want, or sometimes even need, contraceptives. Not only do we them to discriminate against their employees (mostly women), but we allow them to pass on the cost of providing them as well.
The whole compromise it just a thin sheen of slime that allows religious groups to pretend that they aren’t providing contraceptives. Everyone is praising this sham as a great compromise that protects religious freedom, when what it really does is violate the rights of employees of theses organizations to equal access under the law.
I sincerely hope that someone brings a legal challenge to this and see how it plays out in the courts. Even if unsuccessful it will at least, hopefully, publicly shame these religious groups who continue to bend the law to allow them to perpetuate their immoral patriarchal privileges.
Christianity, The Religion of Hate
One Man’s Blog posted about a Fox News story describing a lawsuit to prevent a cross from being erected within the World Trade Center memorial without equal opportunity for memorials of other faiths. The comments on the Fox News site afterwards were filled with hate against atheists with the wish to kill all atheists, along with rape and other violence.
My favorite (if you can call it that) comment came from Sindy Clock who wrote,
“I love Jesus, and the cross and if you don’t, I hope someone rapes you.”
I’ve read the Bible through, several times. I studied the Bible on my own for years before finally dispensing with religion. I am pretty sure I never read about Jesus ever telling anyone that if they didn’t believe in him that they should be raped.
Michael Perii had this to say,
“these people are f’ing scum of the earth. can we start killing them now? few groups fill me with more hatred than atheists.”
Apparently, Michael seems to have forgotten that passage where Jesus tells his followers that they should love their enemies (granted, we aren’t his enemy, he seems to have made us his).
Hanns Anderson has a, well, interesting take on this:
“atheist has no rights a snail has more rights than a atheist has I say throw them out to the sharks let them eat them like the ate bin laden”
Apparently, being a Christian doesn’t require learning how to spell, punctuate, or even write at a grade school level.
Finally, Eileen Rourke thinks that atheists,
“…should go live in another country. You have taken enough of my rights away.”
This last comment is so common among Christians. Many Christians feel that their rights are being infringed upon because some of us dare to insist on equality, not just for ourselves, but for everyone.
Christians make up more than 70% of the citizens of this country. It isn’t their rights that are being eroded, it is their privileges. Being able to put crosses up where ever you want, to expect everyone else to pray to your god, is not a right. It is a privilege, and one that no one in a free and democratic society should be allowed to have.
These comments are not an aberration. We see these kind of comments constantly whenever their Christian privileges are questioned. For a group of people who like to preach about how their Jesus a god of love, they sure love to hate.
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.
The (Believers) Problem of Evil
Isaiah 45:7
King James Version (KJV)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
For those who believe in a god, especially a loving, merciful god, evil is a real problem. Some say that satan causes evil in the world, others that evil is god’s way of testing our faith.
As far as I can see it, these, and other arguments like them, all fall flat. I could write a whole book against these arguments (and many have), but instead, I think my position can be summed up with the following quote attributed to Epicuris:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
The first quote, from Isaiah, pretty much shows that the god who Christians like to claim as being a god of love, is also a god of evil. Their Bible is pretty unequivical about it: the LORD creates evil. It really can’t be any other way, if, as they say, their god created everything, for by default, he must have created evil as well as good.
To surrender the cause of evil to an unseen and amorphous entity is to refuse to take any responsibility for the evil that humans visit upon each other. When you accept that evil is a product of human activity, you can then look it straight in the eyes and tackle it head on, instead of pawning it off to an imaginary god or gods.
There are many reasons that I am an atheist; there is my love of science, my thirst for knowledge, and my instance on truth, no matter how ugly it may be. Still, the two quotes above make a very powerful, yet simple, argument against believing in any god or gods. They are a beginning point for shuffling off the imaginary coil of belief and moving onto a life of real responsibility those with who we share this planet.
More Cool Science and Skeptical Images
Here are some more cool science and non-theist images for your enjoyment!
They make as much sense as the Christian trinity.
It is just as plausible as the Christian version.
Science rocks!
The man who showed the world that science can be exciting and beautiful.
Probably the most influential scientist since Newton. Evolution baby!
His work greatly influence Darwin. He is the forgotten hero of evolution.
Pass the peas please! The theory of inheritance derived by his work with peas laid the groundwork for the science of genetics. I still remember this to this day from high school biology class.
Using Humor to Show Up Delusions
There is a well known example that supporters of science use when refuting the idea of a perfect creator. The example is the laryngeal nerve. This nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx. What is unusual about it is that, even though the larynx is located in the throat in most invertebrates, it follows a path down from the throat, into the chest, and back up to the brain, rather than the shorter and more obvious route of going straight from the throat and up to the brain.
In referring to Richard Dawkins use of the laryngeal nerve argument, Wikipedia states:
“The extreme detour of this nerve (over fifteen feet in giraffes) is cited as evidence of evolution as opposed to intelligent design. The nerve’s route would have been direct in the fish-like ancestors of modern tetrapods, traveling from the brain, past the heart, to the gills (as it does in modern fish). Over the course of evolution, as the neck extended and the heart became lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. Natural selection gradually lengthened the nerve by tiny increments to accommodate, resulting in the absurdly circuitous route now observed, which, if designed, could only be described as unintelligent.”[1]
I’ve heard this argument against intelligent design given many times and in different ways, some more effective than others, but as is often the case, humor and satire can serve to drive the point home much better than any physical evidence or well articulated argument can.
Jonathan Rosenberg draws the funny, topical, and skeptical Scenes From A Multiverse. Today’s installment address this particular augment with great hilarity and precision. It is a perfect surgical strike against the idea of a perfect creator, and leaves us with the conclusion that god either does not exist or, if he does, is just plain stupid. The next to the last panel says it all.
1. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2009). “11. History written all over us”. The greatest show on Earth. New York: Free Press. pp. 360–362. ISBN 9781416594789. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
The Burden of Proof is on You
Believers often ask me to prove to them that God does not exist. The only evidence that I can offer is that there is no evidence. Now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so just by saying that there is no convincing evidence that there isn’t a god doesn’t mean that there isn’t.
The real issue here is that I don’t have to prove anything. The onus is on the believer to prove that their god does exists. Most believers don’t see it this way. I could spend hours, and many a scientist, and atheist has, trying to explain how the scientific method and the rules of logic work to believers, but I’d get nowhere. They usually just don’t get it. It is for this reason that I have refused to try to tackle this issue of proving the non-existence of god, or anything else for that matter.
So, you may ask, why am I addressing this issue now? Because I found a lovely illustration that does one of the best jobs of showing why I don’t have to prove the nonexistence of god, and believers do.
By Shelly Rau at http://beautifullychaotic.deviantart.com/
Nuf said.
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)
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