214. coterie

Goodness, so much has been happening the last couple of weeks. It’s been hard enough keeping up with my own personal writing, so I haven’t had as much time to blog. I’ve started a new job in document control with a construction company, and the learning curve of both a new environment and a new industry has been challenging.

In case you missed it, yesterday morning the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Town of Greece v. Galloway. Spoilers: it didn’t go very well for religious liberty.

Brief summary on the case: From time immemorial, city council meetings in the town of Greece, NY, have opened with prayer. Specifically, Christian prayer. Then Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens sued the town, arguing that the prayers violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the town, so the issue that came before the Supreme Court last year, and that they ruled on yesterday, was whether the prayers were constitutional.

And yesterday, the Court decided that the Town of Greece may open each legislative session with a Christian prayer, so long as they make a reasonable effort to reach out to all religious groups within city limits and invite their leaders to open sessions as well.

Justice Elena Kagen wrote the dissenting opinion, beginning with an acknowledgment that our country has a tradition of opening legislative sessions with prayer, and that we also have a diverse religious landscape. “I believe that pluralism and inclusion in a town hall can satisfy the constitutional requirement of neutrality,” she wrote. “Such a forum need not become a religion-free zone… when a citizen stands before her government, whether to perform a service or request a benefit, her religious beliefs do not enter into the picture.”

However, she notes on page 57 that

Greece’s Board did nothing to recognize reli­gious diversity: In arranging for clergy members to open each meeting, the Town never sought (except briefly when this suit was filed) to involve, accommodate, or in any way reach out to adherents of non-Christian religions. So month in and month out for over a decade, prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits. In my view, that practice does not square with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government.

By intentionally or unintentionally favoring one religion over all others and forcing a citizen to “make her dissent from the common religious view, and place herself apart from other citizens, as well as from the officials responsible for the invocations,” religion becomes a dividing rather than unifying element.

Kagen again: “When a person goes to court, a polling place, or an immigration proceeding… government officials do not engage in sectarian worship, nor do they ask her to do likewise. They all participate in the business of government not as Christians, Jews, Muslims (and more), but only as Americans.”

Justice Breyer also dissented from the ruling, noteing that “Greece is a predominantly Christian town, but it is not exclusively so,” and that a map of the town “shows a Buddhist temple… and several Jewish synagogues just outside its borders.”

He also noted on page 51 that “during the more than 120 monthly meetings at which prayers were delivered during the record period (from 1999 to 2010), only four prayers were delivered by non-Christians. And all of these occurred in 2008, shortly after the plaintiffs began complaining about the town’s Christian prayer practice and nearly a decade after that practice had commenced.”

Those actions and inactions included (1) a selection process that led to the selection of “clergy almost exclusively from places of worship located within the town’s borders,”  despite the likelihood that significant numbers of town residents were members of congregations that gather just outside those borders; (2) a failure to “infor[m] members of the general public that volunteers” would be acceptable prayer givers; and (3) a failure to “infor[m] prayer-givers that invocations were not to be exploited as an effort to convert others to the particular faith of the invocational speaker, nor to disparage any faith or belief different than that of the invocational speaker.”

The decision handed down yesterday by the Court seems to assume that the vast majority of Americans will treat each other with fairness and without prejudice. It assumes that, given a plurality of religious views in a given setting, leadership will take the high ground in making sure that all views are represented.

Which is why, I suppose, in 2007, when Rajan Zed, the first Hindu priest to open a session of the U.S. Senate, began his invocation, three protesters immediately interrupted him.

Lord Jesus, forgive us for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight. This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You. Lord Jesus, have mercy on our nation for allowing this abomination, this idolatry, for violating the First Commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ God forgive our nation!

The first man was taken out, loudly quoting Bible verses as he was dragged from the chamber. Another shouted, “Father, forgive us for betraying your Son Jesus!” before she, too, was escorted out. As they left, they shouted directly at Zed, “No Lord but Jesus Christ!” and “There’s only one true God!”

According to the Wikipedia page on the incident, the protesters were there “to lobby against a hate-crimes bill that would extend certain protections to gay people.”

The fact is, religion isn’t going anywhere for a long time. I’m willing to work with religious people to find ways to live together peaceably. And a vast number of religious people are happy to do the same.

It’s a vocal minority (fundamentalist Christians, mostly), however, who refuses to come to the table and is resisting change and stirring things up. How are we supposed to work together when they won’t even budge?

212. cuittle

On Sunday, in the Wall Street Journal online, writer Dave Shiflett penned an opinion piece about the upcoming American Atheists convention in Salt Lake City, Utah — on Thursday, in fact: “Where Atheists Meet to Evangelize: Telling believers they are rubes may not be the best recruitment strategy.”

Frankly, I’m still not sure what to make of it. I don’t know what Mr. Shiflett’s personal religious views are, but his article contains a number of mordant jabs. “… deity-dissing group,” he calls American Atheists at one point.

“… suggesting that the uninitiated are delusional and feeble-minded might not be the wisest way to expand your brand.”

I’m reminded of what Julia Sweeney reports in Letting Go of God, what her mother says in a phone call after Julia is accidentally outed to them: “Everyone knows that there are those few people out there who don’t believe in God, but they keep it quietly to themselves!”

The timing of Shiflett’s article was curious, because on April 11, Kellie Moore wrote a piece in the Washington Post about the growing number of secular communities: “Don’t call it atheist church; secular communities are growing.”

Moore notes that many of the secular groups are geared towards families with young children, and that the children’s activities don’t include “teaching atheism.” In fact, they try to steer clear of any kind of indoctrination.

“Teaching atheism”? What would that even look like??

In my own Evangelical upbringing, a fair amount of time in church was spent teaching us theology and Christian apologetics, the systematic field by which Christians learn how to present a rational basis for the Christian faith and defend it against objections. Everything from having us memorize Bible verses to lessons on Sunday mornings about the Christian life were intended to prepare us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Going between these two articles, it’s interesting to see how religious people superimpose their models of church and community onto atheist assemblies. To paraphrase Queen Victoria: “Whatever do atheists do?” They assume that, like them, our goal is to make more atheists; to break down the deeply held beliefs of Christians with cold, hard, scientific logic and rational arguments.

The popular image of an atheist is based on media figures like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, aggressive and vituperative voices bent on destroying any belief that isn’t founded in hard science or reality. We are portrayed as angry, bitter loners without a moral foundation or compass. A recent study covered today in Pacific Standard confirmed that Americans intuitively judge atheists as immoral.

One article on Crosswalk.com claims to expose “Chilling Strategies of Neo-Atheists.” If you’re paying attention, this is how Evangelicals portrayed Communists in the 1950s—godless, immoral atheists mobilized by Stalin to turn the United States just as Communist and atheist as the U.S.S.R.

Nicoll claims that part of the atheista strategy is to target the young and turn them into god-hating, anti-religious clones. (Transference much??) He then quotes philosopher Richard Rorty, who described his dream that students might enter college “as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists” and leave full-fledged atheists.

“… we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.”

It’s true that some atheists share this view; that religious people are feeble-minded and that religion must be stamped out if humanity is to survive and thrive. Yet what Nicoll accuses us of sounds more like what Evangelicals having done since the inception of Christianity. “Give me the child of seven,” said Francis Xavier, “and I will give you the man.”

This is the distorted view of atheism that we have to contend with, just as many liberal Christians try to distance themselves from their bigoted brethren.

Honestly, how often does the average atheist think about religion? Probably not much. For those of us who follow the news (politics in particular), it’s difficult to ignore the presence of Christofascism, the kind of belief that seems eager to wield a sword to spread and enforce Christianity far and wide.

So were it not for city councils opening meetings with Christian prayers, daring anyone to bring a lawsuit; wedding photographers and bakers making martyrs of themselves in their increasingly bizarre war on marriage equality; and politicians trying to write their religious views about women’s bodies into law… well, most of us wouldn’t think much about religion.

The new Cosmos (with the amazing Neil deGrasse Tyson) is a reminder that there’s more than a lifetime’s worth of amazing things to think about and ponder!

Yesterday, I posted an article with the musing that punishing those who hold (increasingly) unpopular views about marriage equality “seems to run counter to the very message of the LGBT movement, which is that there’s room at the table for all. The real question is whether equality opponents are willing to sit at the same table.”

This is where I’m also at with Evangelical Christians.

The fact is that, until we invent spaceships to whisk us away to other planets, we’re stuck learning to live peaceably together on this one. The atheists I know are willing to reach out, to build a table where there is space enough for everyone, their views and beliefs (however strange). Because right now, outside of academia, we’re rarely invited to join the party. True, we often self-segregate, but mostly, that’s because we’re accustomed to not even being recognized.

We don’t want to necessarily make atheist converts. We don’t want to dash anyone’s hopes and dreams. Rather, we desire a renaissance of critical thinking—and less dogmatism. We want children (and adults) to be free to consider every possible idea and facet of human knowledge, and decide for themselves what they believe instead of being told that they must accept one particular narrative, without question, or burn forever in Hell.

That’s all.

Because it’s about time we started celebrating the wonder of being alive.

115. doyenne

My plan for February is to write a post each day, the topic taken from/inspired by Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. I’m trying to venture outside of the usual subjects I write about (i.e., religion), and this seems like a good exercise to get new ideas going.

Doyenne. noun, a woman who is the senior member, as in age or rank, of a group, class, profession, etc.

It’s always interesting to see which Facebook posts of mine go relatively unnoticed, and which ones cause an uproar. The other day I posted this YouTube video from Second City:

In case you hadn’t heard, last month Rick Santorum gave an interview with Piers Morgan where he attempted to “clarify” his position on abortion (especially in the case of rape and incest) in which he said the following:

As horrible as the way that that son or daughter was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. . . And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time I think [is] the right approach [;] to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. . . I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

In short: Rape sucks. Give her a hug and tell her to buck up and push. Then ask what she’s planning to name the baby. Does it have its father’s eyes/nose/chin?

The gist of the flurry of comments that followed was that while the sentiment may sound harsh, it’s a complex issue, but abortion is never right, and children are a gift from god. If there’s one topic Evangelicals will never fail to speak up about, it’s abortion.

Even a year ago my own position on this was evolving. Up until last year, or maybe a bit before, I’ve always been solidly pro-life. Life was a gift from god and humans have no right to make those kinds of decisions concerning it. This is ironic, considering how many Christians are pro-death penalty and how many people their god has commanded other people to kill in horrific ways over the centuries.

It’s one of the many areas of ethics that has undergone significant revision since my coming out as an atheist. And right now, it’s this: while life is a rare thing in the universe, we seem to be the only species on earth that is able to manage its own sexual reproduction. Unlike animals, we can choose how, when and if to reproduce. We are under no divine mandate to bring each and every fertilized ovum to full-term.

Now let me stop a moment and point out that I currently have a four-year old roommate (the son of my two married, adult roommates). My younger sister has a one-and-a-half year-old son. Most of my friends have multiple kids. Hell, I have friends who have kids going into kindergarten and first grade. This isn’t a neutral, academic issue for me. My views have palpable, real-life ramifications.

Basically, I don’t believe human life has any purpose other than that which we as humans define it with. A shorthand way of saying this might be: Humans are made, not born.

What I think is happening here is that we’ve confused ‘potential’ for life with the ‘right’ to life. By the Christian definition, every miscarriage should be prosecuted as manslaughter, but functionally, a fetus is neither innocent or guilty. At the moment of conception it’s a conglomeration of mutating cells, and by the time that a pregnancy is detectable, it’s still largely animal—pre-human, void of consciousness. We anthropomorphise that grouping of cells and project intentions and feelings on to it that likely aren’t there. It’s all Instinct.

This may sound like rationalization for abortion, and perhaps it is. But from a logical standpoint, the simplest solution is to terminate a “rape/incest pregnancy” before the situation becomes more complicated than it already is. By any definition, the fetus is not yet “human.” There is no god to bestow automatic personhood, and no one’s rights are being violated. The zygote does not have opinions, and the fact is that we can’t ask it if it would like to live or not. We are under no divine obligation to protect it, especially in cases where the pregnancy was induced by force rather than by the woman’s choice.

The only person whose rights are being violated is the woman who is being forced to carry the fetus (a parasite by any definition)  that she never asked for to full term. And, to be sure, this is a huge decision for the woman. Santorum claims that a rape victim just needs the support and care of her community. But no one can take on the radical physiological changes that take place during pregnancy—not to speak of the wild hormonal changes—or the agonies of labor and childbirth for her. She must face these alone. To be realistic, women have faced this reality since the beginning of time, when there was no rape. Males “took” women without impunity, and getting pregnant was just a hazard of being female.

And we know better now.

However sympathetically they couch it, Santorum and those who share his views on this issue fundamentally view women in this barbaric way. Ironically, it’s godless atheists and humanists who have women’s best interests in mind—not theists. The only person who should have a say over what happens to a woman’s body is the woman herself.

It’s funny how different this issue looks outside of the Christian bubble. It’s much more nuanced and shaded out here.

And that’s the point. We can’t just decide these issues for each other. Each case is unequivocally unique. We have to decide together.