This is probably a minority of Christians who are like this. A significant minority, mind you, not just some extreme fringe, but probably a minority nonetheless.

As to this not being inline with Jesus’ turn-the-other-cheek, man, that’s just for starters. I’m still baffled how these Prosperity Gospel people manage to avoid thinking about that whole thing about the camel and the eye of a needle. The Christian Religious Right in America holds pretty much the exact opposite philosophy as Jesus.

(Please note I am not one of these “Jesus was a great philosopher” atheists. Legitimate doubts about the historicity of Jesus aside, even the Jesus character in the gospels is a clear douchebag a lot of the time. Look no further than the story of the fig tree. Quick summary: Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance and decides he’s hungry. He gets there and there’s no fruit, so he’s all like, “What the fuck, fig tree?!?” And his apostles are like, “Uh, Jesus? Figs are out of season, yo.” So Jesus gets all pissed and he goes, “Ain’t no fucking fig tree gonna mess with THE JESUS,” and he curses the fig tree so that it will die and nothing will ever grow there again. WTF?!?!??)

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

Between union busting and uterus busting, are you Baggers ever going to do any work on jobs?

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

So 20- and 30-somethings are leaving—but why? When I ask church people, I receive some variation of this answer: moral compromise. A teenage girl goes off to college and starts to party. A young man moves in with his girlfriend. Soon the conflict between belief and behavior becomes unbearable. Tired of dealing with a guilty conscience and unwilling to abandon their sinful lifestyles, they drop their Christian commitment. They may cite intellectual skepticism or disappointments with the church, but these are smokescreens designed to hide the reason. “They change their creed to match their deeds,” as my parents would say.

I think there’s some truth to this—more than most young leavers would care to admit. The Christian life is hard to sustain in the face of so many temptations. Over the past year, I’ve conducted in-depth interviews with scores of ex-Christians. Only two were honest enough to cite moral compromise as the primary reason for their departures.

In reply, Jeff writes:

I’d like to introduce him to a church that preaches that setting one’s hair on fire is the highest moral virtue, the way to communicate with Burninghead, the supremely virtuous supernatural overlord of all. These pious churchmen, facing apostasy in their own ranks, would gladly echo back his words to him:

Tired of dealing with a guilty conscience and unwilling to abandon their sinful lifestyles, they drop their Haironfireist commitment. They may cite intellectual skepticism or disappointments with the church, but these are smokescreens designed to hide the reason. “They change their creed to match their deeds,” as my parents would say. I think there’s some truth to this—more than most young leavers would care to admit. The Haironfireist life is hard to sustain in the face of so many temptations. Over the past year, I’ve conducted in-depth interviews with scores of ex-Haironfireists. Only two were honest enough to cite moral compromise as the primary reason for their departures.

Oh, those backsliding, hedonistic apostates who just want to enjoy the not-on-fire lifestyle. If only they knew how much we care, they’d come back and light up again.

This should be enough to highlight the unrecognized false assumption on which his whole line of thinking is based. But maybe he still wouldn’t get it.

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

I think the answer to your question comes down to a few fundamental things. To what extent do parents have the right to decide what their children should be taught? And does the country in question have some sort of legislation which protects religious freedom?

My answer to the first question is: a very, very large extent. Parents, no matter how ignorant or blind or stupid or doctrinal or whatever have a right to decide how their children are educated. In exchange for helping to perpetuate the human race, parents get to make fundamental choices in how they raise their children. If a parent wants to educate their child in a religious school, they should be allowed. Now, I don’t think that this is absolute – just extremely far reaching. If a parent wants to send their child to a school that teaches that the Holocaust never happened that is regrettable, but well within the rights of the parent. If the parent wants to teach their child to go to school and beat another child to death – that is aiding and abetting the commission of a crime and is manslaughter. I also feel that when a parent entrusts a child to a school, then they give up some of their rights as to what a child can be taught. So many parents, for example, complain that schools teach about condoms and stuff in schools and that they don’t want their children taught that. But if you want to benefit from free state education, you have to accept some of the things that will happen in public school. Similarly, if you don’t want someone teaching your child that Jesus is God, keep them out of Christian schools. Otherwise, though, I think the burden of proof should be on proving what situation is severe enough to remove a parent’s right to decide her child’s course of education and not in what situation the parent should be granted the right.

Second, is that if your legislation or constitution protects religious freedom – as the First Amendment does in the United States – then the government should not outlaw the teaching of religious doctrines in religious schools. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Considering that practicing religion and perpetuating religion is incumbent upon educating people in religion, then it is a violation of the constitution to prevent people from teaching doctrine as truth in religious schools. If, however, the state in question doesn’t have any laws practicing the exercise of religion, then perhaps it is OK. But I think that most western countries recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which Article 18 discusses the right to practice religion as being a fundamental human right.

Schools based around schools of thought have existed since the ancient world and I don’t see how a government can justify removing a private school’s ability to perpetuate a viewpoint. So long as the students are taught the same basic skills in reading, science, writing, mathematics, etc. that are part of the national standard, there should be no reason to impose upon the curricula in those schools.

This is also an impractical move. Perhaps there are no historians of religion in Sweden, but anyone with any knowledge of the history of religion should know that if there is one way to inspire growth in a religion it is to persecute it. Outlaw the teaching of doctrine in religious schools and the schools will teach it anyway. Except instead of it being the class that 90% of the students sleep through, it will be coercive and a martyristic (word?) practice of a fundamental human right. It will become scary and interesting, much like it was for the first students who were subversively taught evolution, and it will become more popular. This December the Westboro Baptist Church came to protest my Catholic high school for being filled with “fag lovers and pedophile priests.” When I went to school hearing “you’re a f**king fag” ten times a day was normal and hearing people talk about how “gay” it was that we had to go to mass and learn religion was common. But as soon as an outside source threw hate speech at the school and questioned the school’s ability to practice it’s Catholicism, suddenly all the students are “United Against Hate” and vehemently interested in the outward Catholicism of the school. The fervor will die as the memory of the visit from the Westboro Baptist Church dies, but it is one small instance of how persecution fuels participation. If you outlaw religious schools then students will meet in private. Parents will begin to home school but in reality they will send their children off to a religious institution. It is what my own parents would have done if the same situation happened in America and it is exactly what I would do with my own children.

So if the goal is to stop the spread of radical Islam then I have a feeling it’s going to create more heroes and martyrs than apostates.

Which leads to my question: when IS it right to limit someone’s human rights? If people have a right to think, feel and believe according to their own consciences, at what point are you allowed to curtail that? When is it moral to infringe upon that right? If the answer is, “I’m afraid of Muslims taking over” then I think you have to examine how committed you actually are to human rights. If you are only committed to human rights insofar as you’re not afraid of other people, then you aren’t committed at all. There are ways to stamp out the violent actions of radical Islam without stamping out people’s right to practice religion.

Europe is becoming rapidly more secularized as the years go by which is curious because it has vastly growing fundamentalist Islamic sects growing within it. But a great social scientist (whose name I don’t know) showed that the religions which thrive the most are the ones which are the most counter-cultural and when you create a culture which makes religious people “other” and seem stupid or morally evil and uninformed, you open the door for zealous fundamentalist sects whose goal is to oppose the very culture you are trying to protect.

There is a reason people preach tolerance and that is because when people feel free to be the people they want to be (obviously not absolutely but within reason), they don’t feel the need to attack other people for being who they are. I can see this in my own behavior. I think I am generally tolerant of other people and what they believe, but once I heard an uninformed Methodist unintelligently bashing Catholicism and I pounced on her. I normally feel no real call to Catholic apologetics but in that instance I did. Why? Because she made the space I was in uncomfortable for me to be who I am. It is human nature.

So in conclusion my answer is that it is unjust to outlaw the teaching of religious doctrine in private religious school – unjust and an overall bad call.

I came close to saying “‘Nuff Said” again to Mary’s remarks here, but remarkably thorough, incisive, and well written as they are (and as much as they make the case she should start her own blog already!), I do want to raise the question to the readership whether parents really should be seen to having a right to as near absolute control over what their children are exposed to as she insists they do.  Even as she concedes they need to tolerate exposure to safe sex education if they take advantage of public education, the question still remains whether it is fair to children for their parents to control their thought to such an extent as to send them to a school that has indoctrination as one of its aims?

Is it fair for parents to presume the right of prejudicing their children to such an extent where not only are the children exposed to religion in the home and places of worship, as are obvious rights, but even in their formal education they are isolated from having any space to think outside their parents’ faith?   Or at least from their parents’ hostility to established facts of science (like evolution!), from their parents’ horrific racist beliefs (like Holocaust denial!), and from their parents’ homophobia (which come with insidious threats of hell in the hereafter and misery on Earth!).

And if Mary is to be consistent, then why should she accept the right of public schools to enforce secular policies about sex education, condom use, evolution-teaching, etc. when many poor parents who would otherwise seek sexual ignorance and creationism for their kids are stuck sending their kids to public schools?  Are vouchers for private schools necessary to accommodate some parents’ religious needs to fight scientific education and sexual health and awareness in their kids?  And if those vouchers do happen, then how is this not state funded indoctrination?  Just how much should the state accommodate irrational, dogmatic, and authoritarian beliefs and values among the religious, beyond just not interfering with free assembly and speech outside of people’s roles as executors of public offices?

I question whether this nearly absolutist view of parents’ rightful control over their children’s minds—though extremely common in America to the point of being an axiom—is not a prejudice which deserves serious questioning.  I pose that question to you to consider in the comments, along with the rest of Mary’s powerful case.

Richard Dawkins makes a related, lengthy case against state funded faith schools in Britain in a documentary you can watch here.

Your Thoughts?

The driving force behind what calls conservatives (religious or not) to critique government based welfare and wealth redistribution programs is the endless, insatiable, idolatrous need to consume. I think this is evident in many ways.

First, many of the most effective faith-based charitable organizations are partially government funded and the amount to which they are funded by the government changes according to how much their locality has in its ability to donate. My boyfriend is a campus minster in Ithaca, New York and he volunteers some time at the Catholic Worker which, in Ithaca and the surrounding region, provides basic necessities like deoderant, diapers, toothpaste, soap, toilet paper to literally thousands of people. It’s basic function is to provide the things which are not covered by standard foodstamps and welfare subsidies. They are funded partially by the diocese of Rochester which has little money, partially by the federal government, partially by the county and obviously private donations. The county agrees every year to match 1/2 of what the federal government pays. This year, the Catholic Worker in Ithaca lost $80,000 due to conservative push to stop having the government fund charities. And the Catholic Worker isn’t the only religiously-based charitable organization or otherwise private charitable organization to suffer such cut backs. If a private charity organization is going to function at all in a way that respects human dignity it cannot, for instance, deny service to certain individuals. It cannot draw arbitrary geographical lines of outreach but should, instead, attempt to reach as geographically far with its services as possible. This requires workers, volunteers, transportation, bills to pay etc. Only the luckiest or greediest of private charitable organizations could survive purely on their private donations. The most effective private charities have government aid.

So conservatives claim to come from a religiously-based point of view in regard to government charity and welfare, but they cut off the life blood to the very organizations they believe should be the arbiter of charity.

Hiding behind the “religious charities do a better job” mask is just a way of putting the issue out of sight and out of mind. The vast majority of the people who say that have no intention of donating any money or time to those charities and they don’t care if they are effective or not. Some religious-based charities (but not all) are exactly as you said – closed-minded and proselytizing and do good only if people agree to listen to Bible readings or participate in services (as just a few examples).

Second, the claim that government based welfare contributes to the lack of meaningful human interaction involved in charity is just a nice way of saying, “if people are given an opportunity to have a fair shot in a largely capitalist system and are not plunged into desperate poverty because of my tax dollars” then those people cannot know that they are subjected to the charitable whim of the wealthy. Redistributing wealth removes a person’s ability to consume the things necessary to show outward displays of wealth which in turn show to the lucky poor person they decide to be charitable to how much richer than rich person is than the poor person. Conceivably, without anyone over whom to lord wealth, there would be no reason to mindlessly consume and so government-based welfare and wealth redistribution systems threaten what people love the most about consuming – the outward effect it has on one’s status.

Charitable giving can be the most impersonal system of all. I went on GO! West while I was at Fordham and we went to a place in Alamosa, Colorado called La Puente which I believe began as a religious organization but is no longer religious. It operates a homeless shelter/soup kitchen, a thrift shop whose proceeds benefit the homeless, a place where people can buy food and other necessities at an extremely discounted price, a coffee shop whose profits benefit the charity and which has free access to the internet for the large majority of the people in the town who have no internet. From what I could see, it was one of the most dignified ways to do charity I’d ever seen and their services were invaluable to the hundreds of migrant workers who came through the town and the people who lived on the outskirts of the valley with literally no access to resources. The daily meals at the homeless shelter were open to the public and no one was denied a meal. Even if the week before you had tried to strangle a volunteer, you would still be given a meal to take with you. As for the charitable distribution of food and necessities, families were given points based on how many children they had etc. and they could actually go to shop in the store. They had a cart and choices and it was like real shopping. The people who lived in the valley, unfortunately, had to receive boxes with supplies because they could not reach town. Everything about the way La Puenta runs itself is aimed at allowing the people they serve to be on the same level as the people who contribute to the service and allowing them to feel as if they have a choice. But we both know and I’m sure everyone who is involved knows – they don’t really have a choice. They are still dirt poor and they are still living off of the kindness and generosity of the people who give private donations to the organization. It is extremely impersonal because it necessarily subjugates the person receiving charity. The people who donate the “personal charity money” are not the people who work there or volunteer there. The organization tries to get people jobs and things like that, but it can’t single handedly fix a broken system that makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. If you asked any of the volunteers at La Puenta if they would rather the government operate in such a way that the people in Alamosa didn’t need their services, they would say “yes.” It is the same as many more liberally minded private or religious charitable organizations which is why so many of them campaign for better government aid.

Charity is dehumanizing – at least being the recipient of it is, especially if you are repeatedly the recipient of charity. Small instances of help in a time of extreme need are appreciated, but in the long-term it ruins the spirit of the person who received it. When my parents were first married they were extremely poor and my mom always talks fondly about how people would help them with things, sometimes family and sometimes total strangers, so that their life could be a little more comfortable. But my parents weren’t from the poor class – though they may have been poor at the time – and with better means of employment they no longer need to receive charity. Those instances of charity were personal and meaningful but imagine if they had to raise all four of their children purely on the kindness of strangers. I think their attitude would be different.

Conservatives want a more impersonal system. One that places the poor in shelters and not on street corners and keeps them where they belong – at the bottom. Anyone who tries to question this system is a communist as we learned from the violent and often fatal struggle of many religious and non-religious organizations who worked in Latin American in the 80s and 90s.

Even if, like me, you have no a priori objection to religious institutions doing charitable work in society, you should still see how charity should really be the last resort. We should prefer a system that calls for no charity and with the wealth that flows through private individuals in this country, it should be no major threat to personal comfort if the tax system better benefited the poor. But that limits the extent to which we can extravagantly spend and it closes the gap between rich and poor which, frankly, makes the rich seem not quite as interesting.

I am always skeptical of a conservative who talks about how charity should be with private or religious organizations. If they ever spent any time at those organizations they would know that many of the people who work in them (at least work in the less conservative organizations) would support the wealth redistribution program they despise.

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

For years I’ve heard liberals say the media is too conservative, and the conservatives say the media is too liberal. I’ve always thought some parts of the media were like that kid on the playground that said “Psst! Did you hear what so and so said about your mom?” Controversy sells and to sell it sometimes you need to provoke someone. Sad.

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

My thinking is that Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians in this country have a problem. They worship two masters: God and America. Intuitively, they know this can’t stand. America was founded as a country where the state (the people) is first and religion may operate so long as it doesn’t militate against the good of the whole. In other words, religion is secondary, behind the interests of the country. To Christians of a certain stripe this is intolerable, so they’ve tried to find ways for the church to co-opt the state, to annex it. Americanism simply becomes an element of their version of the Christian religion. They solve two problems in this way. First, God returns to his rightful (according to them) position of overall supremacy. Second, they no longer have to worry about the problem of worshiping competing masters. God expects them to worship America, because worship of America has become de facto worship of God.

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

In reply to Andrew Sullivan’s accommodationism, which came out in his discussions of this debate, one of this readers wrote the following:

It sounds as if you think that the two forces, Atheism and Religion, need to be kept from fighting. But the idea that some ‘middle ground’ can be reached and held is fallacious. This conflict is going to happen. Both sides hopefully will keep civil of course, but promoting a middle ground here is similar to saying gays shouldn’t demand marriage when they can settle for the easier civil unions. Or that African Americans should accept segregation instead of fighting for full freedoms and equality.

As an atheist I’d be very happy if all theists took up Armstrong’s fluffy definition of God, we’d all be safer for sure, but Dawkins point isn’t that compromise is bad, the point is that it is untenable.
Our disagreement is with the dangerous parts of religion, but you and I come to different conclusions with how to defeat them. You think they can be convinced that their God is more abstract then they think so they’ll be less judgmental, and we think they should let go if it completely like many of us have done happily.

Either position, however, is just as opposed to a serious theist. It is natural and expected in social conflicts like this for there to be peacemakers like Armstrong who hope to diffuse the conflict by recasting the terms of the debate. But Dawkin’s criticism is not because Armstrong wants to play peacemaker, but because her abstract concept of God will not end the conflict. Armstrong’s position is weak theology, and weak theology is easily used by fanatics to ‘purify’ the faith and return to the fundamentals. Dawkins is trying to promote a world view that many think is much better suited to protect against man’s ability to delude himself that a Supernatural wants him to save the world from ‘the others’. This conflict, like gay rights, will play out over decades upon decades, but to try hush the debate by offering up confusing and poorly defined middle ground is in the end not helpful, even if well intentioned.

I understand where you’re coming from I really do, but Dawkins is staring down a monster and Armstrong thinks we should just put it in a cage for display. But a cage will not hold forever.

‘Nuff Said.

Your Thoughts?

In reply, Vorjack writes:

Are you, the observer, something other than human? Did you not read the last half of my post?

A Hindu sage from a non-dualist, pantheistic tradition will observe, meditate and experience the universe, and the come to the conclusion that Vishnu has made itself totally one with the universe. A Hindu sage from a non-dualistic, panENtheistic tradition will do the same things and come to the conclusion that Shiva is one with the universe, but not exhausted in the process, remaining something more than the universe. A Hindu sage from the Dvaita dualist tradition with go through the process, and come to the conclusion that Vishnu is completely apart from the universe.

Do you not see how one’s tradition shapes how one interprets one’s experience? Let me put it this way, Francis Collins supposedly had a religious moment when he saw a frozen waterfall whose three-part structure reminded him of the trinity. If it had been a two-part structure, do you really think he would have become Zoroastrian?

‘Nuff Said.