Posted inPolitics

God-o-Meter rates presidential candidates’ religiosity

With seventeen candidates still in the running (or, at least, walking), it's tough to decide who I want to vote for in the 2008 presidential election. Fortunately, Belief Net has come up with a way of thinning the herd for me: a God-o-Meter. This provides a regularly updated religious wackiness score – though what I derisively call "wackiness" a disturbingly large percentage of Americans would fondly term "faith." I'd already began to tilt away from my initial favorite, Barack Obama. Seeing that Obama presently rates a "9," almost a full blown theocrat on the 1 to 10 scale, turns me…
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Posted inPolitics

“Wall of Separation” looks like an American history con job

It's a plain and evident fact that the United States' founding fathers were deeply concerned about this country becoming a religious theocracy. That's why we have a godless constitution—the title of a book I'm reading. So given what I know about how strongly George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other leaders of their era felt about keeping religion out of government, my ears perked up when I heard mention of a PBS pseudo-documentary, "Wall of Separation," that suggests the wall may really have been an open door. The PBS web site says: But is this conventional wisdom of "secularized"…
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Posted inPolitics

Christopher Hitchens rips on Rev. Falwell – and religion

The recently deceased Rev. Jerry Falwell probably was nice to his dog. But there isn't much else good that can be said about him. So yesterday I hugely enjoyed listening to an Air America replay of Anderson Cooper's interview of Hitchens on CNN. Hitchens starts off snarky and sarcastic. Then warms up from there. Exactly what a fundamentalist hate-monger like Falwell deserves. Alive or dead. The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Texas governor says non-Christians are going to hell

On this election day eve, let us remind ourselves why it is so important to send a message to the Christian Taliban in this country: we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore! What aren’t we going to take? Intolerance. Sanctimoniousness. Attempts to turn the United States into a hateful Christian nation. When the Republican governor of Texas agrees with a sermon where the pastor said that non-Christians are “going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket,” it’s long past time to scream bullshit. Governor Rick Perry’s weird religious beliefs are his own business. But he…
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Posted inPolitics

Bush’s stem cell veto harkens back to the Middle Ages

Today President Bush vetoed legislation that would have loosened federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. In so doing he continued the not-so-fine tradition of elevating nonsensical religious doctrine above scientific fact and human compassion. Here are some remarks from Sen. Arlen Specter that I caught on C-SPAN. I have to fault Specter for his lack of knowledge about Galileo (whose heresy was for claiming that the Earth revolves around the sun, not that it is flat), but otherwise his sentiments resonate with my churchless soul. We have seen in our historical perspective where Galileo was imprisoned because he believed…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

“Thou shalt doubt,” the first commandment

Proving that there is a churchless God, yesterday I turned on the TV for my morning cable news fix just in time to hear Andrew Sullivan speak on C-SPAN about the genuine form of faith: doubt. Sullivan is my favorite conservative essayist and blogger. I thought that his recent piece about the dangers of Christianism (as contrasted with genuine Christianity) was great. It was a treat to hear him on a Book Expo of American lunch session panel with fellow book floggers Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, and Frank Rich. His book, “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Beware of the Christianists

Islamists use Islam to further their narrow political agenda. Christianists use Christianity in the same way. Hearty churchless thanks to Andrew Sullivan for sharing this insight in his recent TIME magazine essay, “My Problem with Christianism.” Your problem is my problem too, my friend. I like Sullivan. Politically, he’s conservative on Iraq and other issues. But culturally he’s progressive. And not coincidentally, gay. He’s appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO program several times. Sullivan is well-spoken, humble, and clearly a nice guy. Which helps explain why he dislikes so much the cocky certitude of Christianists who believe that they, and only…
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Posted inFundamentalism Politics

Amazing! I agree with William Bennett.

Over on my HinesSight blog I’ve shared the astounding news that right-wing moral pundit William Bennett and I agree about something: the Muhammad cartoons that are freaking out the Muslim world. In my post, “State Dept. wrong about Muhammad cartoons,” I agree with Bennett that when terrorists use Islam to justify their actions, then that religion becomes fair game. For cartoonists, lampooners, comics, politicians, ranters and ravers, editorialists, whoever. (Oh, I almost forgot: bloggers too.) Actually, religion should be fair game under any circumstances. There’s nothing special about religious belief that makes the First Amendment inapplicable to it. Freedom of…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Politics

Assisted suicide is moral, Scalia isn’t

Most of us here in Oregon were thrilled when the Supreme Court upheld our state’s assisted suicide law. Tuesday’s decision was a victory both for state’s rights and common sense. Twice, Oregon voters have affirmed their belief that terminally ill people with six months or less to live have the right to end their life if they come to feel that it isn’t worth living. I can’t understand how anybody could argue with this. Who else should be in control of the life of an adult who is capable of making his or her own decisions but that person? No…
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Posted inGod Politics

One nation under God?

It’s good to see that a federal judge has ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional, because it sure seems so to me. Since the pledge includes the words “under God,” how can anyone say that this isn’t a state-sponsored affirmation of religion? Probably the conservative-stacked Supreme Court will end up saying just that, of course. I won’t care much when this happens, since I don’t have strong feelings about this issue. However, I’d just as soon have the words “under God” stricken from the pledge, thereby getting it back to its godless pre-1954 state.…
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Posted inMorality Politics

Keep religion, individual morality out of lawmaking

It was a joy to read an article with this “right on!” title in yesterday’s Salem Statesman-Journal. Mary Ridderbusch is just 18, a recent high school graduate who will be attending the University of Oregon in the fall. But she’s wiser about religion and politics than most adults— and certainly the entire Bush administration.

I’ve attached her article in its entirety as a continuation to this post, since the Statesman-Journal’s free access to stories fades away after a week and I want people to be able to read Ridderbusch’s thoughts for a lot longer than that. She’s an excellent writer, knowing how to jump right into her subject:

One cannot legislate morality. These should be words to live by for the U.S. government. I hold a particular distaste for the legislation of religious beliefs and for the defense of this practice. “America is a Christian nation.” This claim is overused and overgeneralized.

I’ve frequently echoed her ideas in my politically-oriented Church of the Churchless posts. As I said in “Religious values have no place in politics,” we live in a real physical world, not in an abstract realm of faith-based ideas. Lawmaking has to be based on facts and values that flow from experience of a shared reality. Otherwise, democracy and individual rights are a sham.

Recently there was a lot of controversy in Salem about whether a historic black walnut tree should be cut down. Debate was vigorous and often heated. However, I didn’t hear anyone argue that because fairies live in the tree, it should be kept alive. That would have been a ridiculous argument for saving the tree, right?

Yet Ridderbusch points out that without a similar improvable belief in a unseen entity, the soul, stem-cell research would be a non-issue. Religious faith muddies the waters of political debate for it isn’t possible to have moral clarity when you’re blinded by fundamentalist preconceptions that have no grounding in the real world.

In the same vein, creationists are fond of saying that “evolution is just a theory,” which is what global-warming deniers say about climate change. This reveals a complete misunderstanding of what “theory” means in science. A letter by Roger Plenty in the August 27-September 2 issue of New Scientist says:

If educational institutions were required to label books “Evolution is only a theory,” as George W. Bush recently suggested, it might be a good idea to add a further label with a definition of “theory.” The Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives “a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment and is accepted as accounting for known facts.”

Science and politics both have to be founded on facts. When faith-based beliefs are substituted for shared experience of the real world, society is in trouble.

Many thanks to Mary Ridderbusch for warning of the danger the United States faces from religious moralists who want to shove their personal views down the throats of everyone.

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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics Religions

Fundamentalism is religious racism

Racists erroneously believe that there is proof one race is superior to another. Fundamentalists erroneously believe that there is proof one religion is superior to another. Thus there’s a natural affinity between fundamentalism and racism. This is one reason, among many, why fundamentalism in any form—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, whatever—can’t be tolerated by tolerant people. On my other weblog, HinesSight, I recently wrote about the danger of “Religious right on a crusade.” Now, many people would accuse me of overreacting to the attempts by Christian fundamentalists to take control of the political, educational, and judicial systems in the United…
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Posted inPolitics

John Roberts’ religious faith matters

Since the Bush administration has no problem with religion being part and parcel of public policy, it’s strange that Republicans don’t want John Roberts to be questioned about his Roman Catholic faith during his confirmation hearings. Hey, you can’t have it both ways. If the right-wing wants politicians and judges to be free to express their personal religious beliefs in the course of their official duties, then those beliefs should be considered when assessing their competence to perform those duties. In Roberts’ case, he’s a devout member of a religion that doesn’t let an elected official (such as John Kerry)…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics Religions

Universism, a kindred unfaith

A few weeks ago I became a Universist. I didn’t have to give up my churchless faith to do so, for Universism is a marvelously kindred philosophy. The Universists just are a lot more organized than the Church of the Churchless ever will be and have a much cooler web site. They actually sign people up who are willing to affirm that they fit the definition of a Universist. I figured, “What the heck?” and proclaimed my allegiance to Universism (pronounced “universe-ism”). I’d already joined the Unitarian Jihad, so signing on to another uni-philosophy seemed right in line with the…
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Posted inPolitics Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

“I” is a humble word

I’ve never been one to shy away from the use of “I.” Obviously. This puts me at odds with the powers-that-be who set forth the guidelines for giving talks (a.k.a. satsangs) at meetings of the spiritual group, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), where I still hold forth once a month or so. Until I’m fired for heresy by the powers-that-be, that is—an ever present possibility. Last Sunday I glanced at a memo from the Western RSSB representative, Vince Savarese, which said that it isn’t good for a speaker to say “I” very often. I disagree, so I quickly stopped reading…
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Posted inMorality Politics Radha Soami Satsang Beas

In defense of uncertainty

This month TIME essayist Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece called “In Defense of Certainty.” Well, I’m certain that Krauthammer is wrong. He thinks that it’s entirely appropriate to publicly advocate political views founded on religious belief. Actually, it’s entirely inappropriate to do this. Last year I wrote about why religious values have no place in politics, arguing that “you can’t debate with someone who doesn’t have a defensible reason for why they believe what they do. You can’t debate with someone who responds to a reasoned argument with ‘Because the Bible says so’ or ‘Jesus condemns sinners.’” Religious belief is…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism Politics

Unitarian Jihad needs to get rolling

Just a day after Laurel and I joined the Unitarian Jihad, Senate majority leader Bill Frist demonstrates why this campaign against religious extremism is needed so badly. The New York Times reports that Frist, my least favorite U.S. senator (especially after he outrageously dared to “diagnose” Terri Schiavo’s condition from videotapes and medical records) “has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees.” Senator Frist, I have some news for you: there are lots of “people of faith” who are pleased that the Democrats…
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Posted inPolitics

More about Terri Schiavo

I can't stop thinking about Terry Schiavo. On my other weblog I've written that we all are Terry Schiavo. With all the divisiveness surrounding her situation, we need to remember that death unites every man and woman. Where Terri goes, we all will go.
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Posted inPolitics

Jeb Bush’s neurologist has no credibility

Why, what a surprise! (Not.) The New York Times says this about the neurologist who Florida Governor Jeb Bush claims has new information about Terri Schiavo’s condition: his life and work have been guided by his religious beliefs.

Gosh, that’s just the sort of person you want to have making objective, scientifically sound, patient-centered judgments about the condition of someone in a persistent vegetative state. (Not.) The physician, Dr. William Cheshire, has never published an article on the subject he claims to know so much about. He didn’t find any compelling evidence to support his new diagnosis of a “minimally conscious state,” but made it anyway.

What a farce.

Here’s an excerpt from the article. The full article can be found in a continuation to this post.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, “I have no idea who this Cheshire is,” and added: “He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You’ll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she’s not vegetative.”

He said there was no doubt that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. “Her CAT scan shows massive shrinkage of the brain,” he said. “Her EEG is flat – flat. There’s no electrical activity coming from her brain.”

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