Matters of Church and State (Reposted with Permission)

Lori has an awesome post up on her myspace page. I wanted to repost it here in hopes of a wider distribution.

As feeble as my understanding of how the government and politics work, I am desperately trying to educate myself, especially in the issues that directly influence and affect me and my family. There is one classic buzz-phrase that I have been acquainted with my whole life, and that is, "Separation between church and state". As a kid, this term was used to entice fear of the impending Sunday laws...a time when the government would tell us when we had to go to church and, essentially, if we didn't abide, we'd be hunted down and....

During the past year I have mostly shed the remaining charred skin of those beliefs and cleaned up my belief system. However, the phrase "Separation between church of state" still grabs my attention, but for a differently reason now. Instead of fearing that the "correct Sabbath", ( the Seventh Day Adventist belief of worshiping on Saturday, a distinct and core value and that sets them apart and makes them feel that they are Biblically "correct" and contain more "truth" than other religions ) was going to be the end of my time on earth, I now am interested in protecting myself from the conservative, fundamental Christian sect that wants to make their religious views and values into law.

Frightening, isn't it? I mean, if you tend to be sensitive to my attacks on fundamentalism, just step back and try to put yourself into a a free thinker, liberal, or non-religious persons' shoes. What if the government wanted to make animal sacrifice a required family practice? Or, circumcision of women imposed on all baby girls? Radical, yes, but taking away a young rape victim's right to end a pregnancy when she is incapable of caring for a child because someone believes that her act of an abortion is "sin" is also disturbing. In the case of government, choice is always best, no matter what YOU believe.
In the book Parenting Beyond Belief-- On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, edited by Dale McGowan, Dr. Ed Buckner makes 4 very strong points as to the logic behind the Separation of Church and State.


1.) "Not all U.S. Citizens hold the same opinions on religion and on imporatant matters related to religion (like whether there is a God and, if so, what god's nature is; or, how or when or whether to worship God; or what God says to us about how to live). Everyone thinks her or she is right when it comes to relgion. But, not all citizens have the same beliefs on the important religious matters."

2.) "Human judgement is imprefect. For Cathlolics, the Popes is sometimes considered an exception with regard to officala matters of doctrine, but even Catholics, like all the rest of us, don't believe that human voters and human legeslators always know what God wants us to do. The Bible is quite clear on this point: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Mt 7:1) Most other books held sacred by followers of different religions also make this clear. The question is not whether God's judgement is perfect--only whether man's is. "

3.) " Relgious truth cannot be determined by votes or by force. In the United States, neither a majority of citizens nor the government acting on the majority's behalf can make relgious decisions for individuals. Anyone who might disagree with this idea should consider this question: If a nationwide vote were taken this fall, and 99 percent of U.S. voters disagreed with you on a religious matter, would that change your mind? If 99 percent of the citizens wanted this country to adopt Catholicism or Methodidsm or Islam or atheism (***though please note that atheism is NOT a relgion***) as the "Right" relgious point of view, would you accept ther decision? Woud that convince you? And it's not just the voting, it's the law itself, the power of government, in question here. One need only consider the poor guy in Afghanistan who was almost convicted and put to death in 2006 for the "crime" of chaning his religious beliefs. "

4.) " Freedom, especially religious liberty, is worth having and protecting."

To touch on a side issue, it is for these reasons that teaching Creationism, or excuse me, Intelligent Design, in public schools is kind of against our country's idea of keeping religion out of schools. Creation is not a science based theory. It is a folk myth taken from the modern religion of Christianity. If that makes you uncomfortable, it is probably because this is a religious issue, and a core religious believe to conservative Christians, making my point about it being a religious and not belonging in the classroom, especially the science classroom very strong.

When the elections roll around, though we are given so few options, and voting for someone requires a leap of faith in their character, please consider what makes us free, not what makes us more moral by someone else's standards. You can still have your morals and be free. But, taking away freedom is not a very moral thing to do.

An Unfamiliar Side of the Discovery Institute

I'm an electrical engineer not a scientist. So, while I'm not overly qualified to argue evolution and cosmology, I try to do some civic duty by cultivating an interest in green energy. What specifically interests me is solar power and electric/plug-in hybrid vehicles. Naturally this article in the Seattle PI caught my attention. What I wasn't prepared for was the link to the Discovery Institute. (Seems I'm getting caught off guard a lot lately.) I'd never snooped around the DI site before. I thought I knew enough from their involvement in the Intelligent Design garbage. Now I'm worried that they are going to be putting some unscientific taint on conservationism. On the other hand they are based in Seattle, and there is the slightest chance that the Cascadia Center is legit. I'm skeptical, but I'll have to do some more looking around.

Evolution Denial Close to Home

Friday evening my wife and I joined our regular group of friends for dinner. This a is pretty standard weekend arrangement for us. I try not to be very vocal about political issues, because I don't spend the time to be well informed on everything. One buddy of mine does tend to pay more attention than I do, and he usually is my polar opposite in view point. We hadn't talked since the RNC, so I wanted to get his take on the Sarah Palin speech. I expressed my opinion that she gave a good speech and seemed charismatic enough, but her stance on creationism, religion and abortion were troubling to me. All our friends are at least nominally Christian, so I qualified my objection to creationism as being required in science class. (People can believe creationism privately, but it isn't science.

This is where the stories gets good.

My buddy comes back with a response that included "the religion of Darwinism" and "absolutely no evidence for creationism or Darwinism" and "after 150 years there are no transitional fossils." I was halfway through a can of Joose, so my social filters weren't at their normally restrictive levels and I laughed out loud. This may not have been an appropriate response, though I'm still not sure if he was sincere or playing for a laugh. It was a perfect example of Poe's Law. In a matter of seconds he hit the three main bullet points of the uninformed evolution deniers. I'm used to seeing these kinds of comments shredded on various online discussions, but I was totally unprepared to encounter them in person. Sadly, I'm thinking that he was sincere and parroting the talking points of creationism. I must admit that is much easier than having to question and support your beliefs.

I was ready to stage an intervention right there, but I was out numbered. The conversation moved on to strollers and hardwood flooring. I'm not sure exactly what to do next, but I can't let him off the hook that easily. Maybe I should send him a link to the child theory of development. At least next time this comes up (and I think I'll make sure it does) I won't be shocked into laughter.

I think the best thing to do is to come to some sort of agreement with him. If he really is past being open to evidence, I won't try to discuss it with him. I'll have to move on to someone who has a hope of an open mind. Until then I'll keep hoping he is open to evidence.

Just as a matter of reference a few links:
Talk Origins Response
Whale Evolution
Hominid Fossils
Human Ancestry

Answered Prayer at the DNC?

I need to post a quick follow up on the prayer for rain at the Democratic Convention. It looks like God's aim was a little off. No rain, but some fire sprinklers malfunctioned and soaked the Fox News press box. Maybe God isn't a conservative after all.

New Website

In my reading this week I came across a great website. Edger is a student initiative run through the Center for Inquiry.

"

Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and celebrates international freethought activism. Written in a youthful tone, but mature in content, Edger is sure to be a driving force in the new intellectual enlightenment"

I haven't completely explored the whole thing yet, but there is lots of commentary on current events, news items and opinion pieces. I especially like the Events all around the World sidebar, listing upcoming events and activities. This is a wonderful presentation of freethought, secularism and skepticism that really breaks out of the nerdy stereotype. I think this would be the first place I'd send some one looking for more information on a godless world view. It seems more accessible than some more strictly scientific based sites. I'm adding Edger to my list of favorites.

Fear the Flames

This last weekend I attended my first non-Christian funeral. It was for a kid in his 20's that died in a tragic accident. I had never met him, but was an acquaintance of his mother. Even though I didn't know the person it was a horrible loss and it did affect me emotionally. I can be slightly emotional and being a parent has accentuated that. At another level though I was curious how non-religious people would conduct the ceremony.

The ceremony turned out to be not that exotic. There were lots of wiccans involved, so I had imagined more ritual and pageantry. One thing I did find very nice was all the time spent telling stories. Stories about how one life impacts and brings happiness to another. In that sense it was a celebration of the person that was gone. I thought there was a lot of emphasis on how the happy memories could help deal with the crushing loss felt by those who knew him. There was grief and laughter. It was sad and funny. It felt therapeutic.

For me this was a contract to a lot of Christian services that I've attended. True there are often segments of sharing and memories, and rarely totally drab and dreary affairs. However, there is a element of denial at Christian funeral. The hollow reassurances that 'this is not the end' and 'he's going to a better place'. This doesn't seem healthy in working through the process of grief. There is also something darker. An unspoken implications that you had better appease the sky daddy so that you too can go to that better place. Rather than celebrate the a life and a memory, you leave burdened with guilt, fearing death and more firmly in religion's grip. Just the way it was designed to work.

While I was working through my thoughts on the topic of death this beautiful essay on death and the soul was posted by Danio over at pharyngula. I remember the fear of death was the hardest thing for me to deal with when I was coming to terms with my atheism. I already knew I didn't believe in any gods, but I didn't like what that left me with. There is so much I want to learn to see to experience to express. Life seems too short. Eventually I reached a level of acceptance, expressed well in this quote by Mark Twain:

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

What's more, the idea of immortality may seem neat on the surface, but it doesn't hold up to further scrutiny. Eternity is a long time. It is appealing to think about having time to explore all your interests, but really eventually the boredom would drive you insane. What will you do after you've skied every mountain in the universe a billion times, or had sex with every other life form a couple or trillion times? What will you do after you've experienced every possible thing so many times that you'd rather die than do any of them again, but you can't because you have eternal life? Not so appealing when you think about it that way.

So, I've come to accept that life is short and we are lucky just to be alive considering all the possible people that never did live. I do not really fear my own death other than the possibility of suffering, but I do fear the death of those who are close to me. My family and friends. I don't want to lose them. Unfortunately that is a fact of life, but it sure is better than eternal hell.

Prayer Power?

So a few people have pointed out a news story to me. It looks like Focus on the Family wants to wreck Obama's speak at the Democratic National Convention. They are encouraging people to pray for rain since the event will be held outside. This got me to thinking about the power of prayer.

I've come to the conclusion that even the True Believers and Focus on the Family don't really think prayer is worth much. A little research tells me that afternoon rain showers an pretty normal for Denver in the summer. They are just playing the odds. The expected rain falls at some point during the day in question and they get to shout, "Look our prayers work, God hates Barak Obama."

Now if they really had faith in the power of prayer shouldn't they pray for Obama to just loose the election. Focus on the Family really wanted Mike Huckabee to win, but that already didn't work out. Were they praying for his campaign or not? Or, if what they are really after in a demonstration of their god's power, why not have him swallowed up by the earth or eaten by a swarm of bears? You know, something that isn't very probable.

And really, if prayer is so potent, couldn't they be focusing on the big picture a little better? What about genocide in Darfur? African drought and the resulting starvation? No, these petty and immoral nut jobs would rather have their jealous god piss on the democrats shoes.