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Diary Archive 2003
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November 5, 2003 I think the thing that bothers me the most is the arrogant assumption that everyone who matters believes in the Christian God. I was subjected to an uncomfortable five minutes last evening at, of all places, a PTO meeting. Apparently Pack 37 of the Cub Scouts has a parent liaison in my child's school and that parent invited the Pack's leader to proselytize at the meeting last night. References to God abounded (and we know which god she was talking about because it was capitalized on all the posters) and she was kind enough to point out to the public school parents in attendance that religion plays an important role in her pack; each meeting is opened with a prayer. Gee, I wonder in whose name those prayers are said? Hello! Public school. The BSA discriminates against homosexual and atheist boys. I was forced to sit and listen to this woman tout her organization knowing that my child and my family (as we were told that family involvement was big with Cub Scouts) would not be welcome. And to top it all off, she proudly told us that the town of Malabar sponsors her Pack. Can that be? Is it appropriate for a town (representing the people who live there) to sponsor an organization that discriminates against young people because of their sexual orientation or lack of religious beliefs? Well, seeing as they open their council meetings with a prayer, I guess it follows.
September 4, 2003 What a few weeks it's been, eh? The editorial pages have been inundated
with letters regarding the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama. The vast majority of Christians
sounding off on the issue commit the usual errors in reasoning. 2. They claim the Founding Fathers were Christian. Aside from the fact that Christians grossly misrepresent and generalize the beliefs of the Founders, the Founders religions are of no consequence in this discussion. If the Founders had meant to set up the United States as a Christian nation, they'd have made it so in the Constitution. However, there is no mention of God, Jesus, Christ, the Bible, or Christianity in our Constitution. This isn't good enough for the Christians in favor of inserting Christianity into our government. No, they reach back to a document written before we were a country, before our Constitution was drawn up and ratified: The Declaration of Independence. Even here their argument lacks punch. The Declaration doesn't mention the God of the Bible, but Nature's God. It neither mentions Christ, the Bible, Jesus nor Christianity. It mentions our Creator, which could be any god, or no god at all. Such grasping at straws gives their cause no respect. It must really rile them that they have so little ammunition. 3. They claim it is an atheistic minority behind the push for a secular government. Yet, Americans United for Separation of Church and State was begun and is led by a Christian who understands the necessity of keeping government distinctly separate from religion. I have yet to hear any of the attorneys or judges arguing for separation declare their atheism. It is unfortunate that the vast majority of Christians who speak out on this issue see nothing wrong with our government representatives favoring Christianity above other religions. Again, as is usual, the supposed liberal majority Christians who are tolerant of others, the kinder and gentler folk who strive for peace and love and denounce hatred and violence, again they are barely heard from. The few who do speak keep telling me the fundamentalist, radical, intolerant extremists are the minority in their religion, but they are the ones you hear from. If the loving, tolerant Christians are out there, they are letting the radicals give them a bad name. 4. They claim this atheistic minority wants an atheistic government and an atheistic country. Please. (Excuse my exasperation.) We want a secular government so everyone can be fairly represented. What really bothers me, gets me riled, &*@@es me off (as you can see), is their inability (or refusal?) to understand the difference between asking that government refrain from supporting any religion and the ridiculous suggestion that it support atheism. What is it that causes people to so blatantly and continually misrepresent their opponent's argument? Stupidity? Intolerance? Hatred? Fear? What? What is it? Let me explain it for the umpteenth time: Only a secular government can fairly represent a religiously diverse population. Not an atheist government. Secular doesn't mean atheistic. Secular means leaving religion to individuals and churches, where it belongs. Why isn't that okay for the Christians? Why do they insist that their god be represented in monuments and prayers? They sometimes offer a nod to inclusion by being forced to let people of other religions say their own prayers during government meetings or put up their own holiday symbols on government property. But for the most part, Christians want it known that they consider their god to be the only real god and the rest of us are going to hell anyway so who cares if the government treats us fairly? 5. They don't understand the difference between the
government and individuals. One man, in a letter to the editor of a Florida
newspaper, claimed that if the monument of the Ten Commandments is illegal, it
must be illegal for him to pray in his car while driving on a tax-paid highway.
Was he serious? You wouldn't think so, would you? But, yes, he was. Is this the
epitome of dense? Or is this part of the fundamental difference between tolerant
people and intolerant people--they can't see details, shades of gray, subtleties
of difference, more than the two extremes, etc. 6. They claim the Ten Commandments is the basis of our laws. Have they read the Commandments? Where is the law that says I can't be an atheist? Where's the law against Paganism, Wicca and Buddhism? There isn't one. Where's the law about the Sabbath being kept holy? What about adultery? Where's the law? And the one about honoring our parents? The Ten Commandments, wait...all 600+ Commandments supposedly handed down to Moses have nothing to do with our laws. They're not even great laws. Hammurabi's code is a far better basis for law. The only reason people think the Ten Commandments are the basis of our laws is because they've been duped by the rhetoric coming out of the churches and apologetic propaganda machine. I can't do anything to educate anyone who purposefully seeks to be misinformed. But you'd think they could use their own heads and just read their holy book and compare it to our laws. Well, that's been enough to rile me good for weeks. I just don't get it. It's hard enough trying to figure out how someone could believe the mythology of the Bible and claim it's literally true. But I also must contend with understanding how people can be so frightened by the possibility that it may be false.
Let freedom ring...The recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court on the Texas sodomy laws stunned me. I was, absolutely...shocked. And, as usual, there is a lesson to be learned. (As an aside, I must say, I wonder if I bothered learning anything at all before the age of thirty-five. I've learned so many lessons since then it's as if I only began to live when I came to realize I was an atheist...as if the world was suddenly lit.) We tend to get bogged down under our pet projects--obsessing this way colors our view. I've begun reading the Florida dailies and some of the top newspapers in the United States--scanning actually, the opinions pages, looking for columnists' and letter-writers' views regarding religion, separation issues and atheism. Sometimes what I read makes me laugh out loud; sometimes I feel hurt personally; sometimes I am horrified and sometimes angered. I study Christianity, because I write about it. My first book, Like Rolling Uphill, as you will know if you've been reading, is complete though as yet unpublished, and is a general guide to my realization of atheism and what I think about religion, Christianity in particular. My next book will be a guide to prophecy in the Bible. So, naturally, I am reading apologetics books on prophecy. I also continue to read other apologetics books and books on atheism by atheists. At times I feel overwhelmed by the issue of the presence and influence of religion in our government, which often puts me on the defensive--I feel as if I live in an enemy state, that our freedoms are eroding very quickly--and before I know it, sometimes, I start feeling as if we're heading for a police state, a tyrannical regime, and I begin suffering little bursts of depression or anxiety. They're short-lived...but they lead me to think hard, to inspect closely the goings on in politics...something I never thought I'd grow into. Remember when we were children? We started reading the newspaper for the comics and thought we'd never want to read all that boring news? I don't know when it happened but I certainly did begin to enjoy the news sections and have, forever it seems, been reading the entire paper. But the politics still didn't interest me that much. I suppose I felt too tiny and insignificant; I felt that the only thing I could do was vote and that didn't always seem to make a difference. I remember a time when it seemed everyone in the country thought pretty much like I did. I picked a few winners, lost a few. But I never felt isolated; never felt abandoned by my government. And I always beamed with pride at the flag and the singing of the anthem. This didn't all change simply because I realized atheism. (That is a problem with these blogs; you're only getting bits and pieces of me and I can't control your assumptions.) My realization of atheism occurred at a very interesting time in the Republican party, though I didn't realize it until the last year or so when I read a book and had one of those Aha! moments. I understand it was just before or during the Reagan administration that the religious right began taking control of the Republican party. I graduated high school during Carter's administration and didn't realize anything was wrong in the party until Bush's election. The take-over happened without my knowing it, probably because I didn't pay enough attention. Only after I realized I was different was I able to take a look at what was happening in the party and even then I thought it had just begun, that it somehow had something to do with a sudden upsurge in religiosity in America that got hold of the Republican party and also caused me to realize atheism. But, in actuality, it was all just coincidence and my lack of knowledge of recent history that made me think there was more to it. All this has drawn me more and more into watching the political landscape. Yes, I have a point and I'm getting to it. So, I realized I was atheist and started to see the change in the Republican party while other people I knew didn't seem to notice...or worse, to care. I remember sharing my concerns over candidate George Bush's religiosity with someone who didn't seem to think I had a legitimate complaint and I wonder what she thinks now. Because as far as I am concerned I'm vindicated. After the election, which was a fiasco, and the faith-based initiative shocker, I was getting calls from the Republican party thanking me for my support and urging me to help them further the cause of eroding the separation between state and church. I recall one during which I laughed out loud at the caller. I knew I had to leave the Republican party. I felt I didn't fit in anywhere. I started fighting for my right to a secular government. We all must fight in our own ways--we must find out what we can do and do it. I knew I was no leader. I'm rather shy, prefer written communication and the company of my computer and cats to human interaction. I like my life this way, though I admit I spent many of my earlier years trying to make myself into a social butterfly because I thought that was the only right way to be. (Another lesson learned after thirty-five.) So I knew that my efforts in the "cause" would be of a personal nature. I put a bumper sticker and a Darwin Fish on my car to alert people that I was not likely Christian and certainly not a Biblical literalist. I started being more open with people about what I didn't believe. I determined never again to pretend I was Christian to avoid discomfort. Of course, I avoided the "A-word" like the plague. I remember saying to a mother of my son's classmate that we weren't "church people." She looked at me funny--I still wonder what she thought about that. Now I am more likely to come right out and say I am not Christian. Let them work that over in their heads. And I sometimes refer to myself as a Bright, but only when I want to invite questions because that term begs for them. If I'm feeling particularly confident, I'll use that dreaded word: atheist. The more we use it, after all, the less shocking it will be. Activism needn't be grand; it can be as quiet and personal as letting one's neighbors, who know you as a good citizen, know you are also atheist. It can be as little as a personal website, a button, a calm statement of nonbelief. Still, any kind of activism may lead a person to feel as if they are fighting their way alone through a strong current of opposition. While all of this behavior (outing myself in public and immersing myself in the controversy) on the one hand has an empowering effect, it also has, on the other, the tendency to isolate me within the issue...to cause me to sometimes make too much of the problem...to become inappropriately fearful. I remember once, some time ago, reading an email on one of my many lists. The poster said that there has been a trend, throughout history, toward liberalism, toward personal freedom. Yes, there are steps backward and there are pockets of fundamentalist conservatism. But the whole picture is one of a concerted flow toward further enlightenment. I forgot this for a while. Until I heard about the Supreme Court ruling on homosexual activity. Now, you may wonder what the Supreme Court's decision has to do with atheism and I'm not sure I can explain that part of it. I can say that Justice Kennedy's words sparked a feeling of calm in me. He said the men in the suit "are entitled to respect for their private lives" and that "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny..." I read here tolerance of difference, not just of behavior but of opinion and belief. Maybe I read too much into it; maybe I'm too optimistic. But his words were like a beacon in a fog at midnight to me. There is no going back, not in the long run. There is only forward movement, if you choose to concentrate on it...it can be charted. I don't mean we ought to ignore the backward steps, no. We must and will continue to fight for the forward movement. But, even if we didn't, I believe humanity would continue forward...though perhaps at a slower pace. There are still so many people who don't understand what freedom is. They are only concerned with their own; they are fearful, still, of others, and desperately want the world of humans to think like they do. It's not going to happen. There are too many of us who are not afraid of difference--too many of us who realize that no one is really free as long as we don't allow freedom for absolutely everyone. The only way we can have freedom for all to believe as they wish, or to not believe, is by establishing a strictly secular government. We must get government out of religion, and get religion out of government--completely. Too many people still do not understand this very simple idea. They try to confuse others by saying that secularists want to erase any mention of religion from public life and that our ultimate goal is to ban religion. They are wrong. But we are not stupid; we are mindful of the power of freedom. We are not completely free to not believe in deity as long as our government gives tacit nods to Christianity and religion through its Pledge, its money, its chaplains, its prayers before sessions, all paid for with our tax dollars. As long as it is subtly reinforced that this is a nation of Christians, the rest of us are marginalized. Therefore, we understand what freedom is really all about. We do not want the Pledge to say: under no gods. We do not want "we trust in no gods" on our money. We do not want our legislative sessions to begin with a refutation of deity. We want religion completely out of the government equation. Religion is a personal matter of belief--the only way to a free society is to keep it personal. A letter writer in Florida Today once responded to my opinion saying I was wrong to expect our legislators to leave their religion at home when they came to do their work. As is usual with emotion-laden arguments, his missed my point completely. Legislators needn't leave their religion at home, they simply need to leave their practice of it there. Let freedom ring. The surprise I received from the United States Supreme Court decision of late has reminded me that it will, and I, for one, will keep helping it along.
Nothing like a good diatribe against all that is fair and American published in the newspaper, in one of those authoritarian columns where they print the author's picture and everything, to get me writing in my beloved online diary! Here is the link to Joseph Perkins' column, as published in Florida Today, at the San Diego Union Tribune: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/perkins/20030502-9999_mz1e2perkins.html It's been some time since I dashed off a quick and haughty letter to the editor of Florida Today. I can only hope they will print it. I did, shamelessly, mention Space Coast Freethought Association and its yahoo groups page...that may throw them off. I spent Easter (from the goddess Oester...fertility, eggs, spring, you know?) weekend in the company of some of the most fascinating, intelligent, and caring people in the world. I was at the Atheist Alliance International convention in Tampa. I briefly met and had the pleasure of listening to Michael Newdow (He sang! I bought his CD and he autographed it for me...blush), James Randi, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins (gotta love that accent!), Darrell Lambert (what a polite young man!), Margaret Downey (you go girl!), Nancy Powell (you go too, girl!), Reginald Finley, Dale McGowen and Pastor Deacon Fred. I love being in the presence of Brights. I love it so much that I have decided I will attend the Freedom From Religion Foundation's convention in October in Washington, DC and I will commit to attending AAI's conventions regularly. I have finally, really this time, for that last time, completely, and I mean it, finished my book. The title has been changed, for the last time, I promise, to Like Rolling Uphill: Realizing the Honesty of Atheism. I will be publishing it very soon and will advertise it on my web page. Like Rolling Uphill discusses my experiences upon realizing atheism, especially my experiences with Christians. I reveal all the strange things they've said to me, the evidence they've presented to me for their beliefs, why I don't buy it, and why I don't even like Christianity. It was very cathartic to get it all off my mind. I'm already moving on to my next projects and look forward to getting more research done on the curious dogma of Christianity.
I had a most wonderful dream the other night. I was sitting at a table with a group of about eight people that I didn't know very well. I was talking about being an atheist, saying something about how difficult it is to feel comfortable in expressing myself to others because so few people understood atheism and so many despise the very idea. Everyone at the table agreed and each one talked about his or her experiences; naturally they all reflected my own. If I had to analyze this dream I would say it was brought on by the excited anticipation of my upcoming trip to Tampa to attend the Atheist Alliance International convention next month. I well remember the exhilaration I felt attending the American Atheists convention in Orlando in 2001, and the Godless Americans March on Washington last November. Feeling a comfortable comaraderie in a crowd of people isn't something I've experienced often in my life; it's fabulous to feel like we "belong"--I can hardly wait to enjoy it again. Something observed: I read the daily opinions column in Florida Today. I am still having difficulty in understanding the human mind. I can understand how different people will have differing opinions, view things from different perspectives and disagree. But I don't understand why it is that some people exhibit a brick-wall mentality with respect to differences. With the latest controversy, the war against Iraq, I have witnessed the explicit disparity in extreme conservatives and everyone else. It has only been extreme conservatives who grossly and repeatedly misstate or mischaracterize the opposition's view and who viciously attack the patriotism of those who would disagree with their own position. I don't understand this. Is it so difficult to open one's mind and listen to the real words of those who share an opposing opinion, rather than hear only what you expect to hear? Is it so difficult to state correctly what your opposition has said or written? How can patriotism be so much maligned by people without their realizing it? These conservatives claim that speaking out against war, against the president or congress, is un-American, when to me it is the core tenet of American freedom. If not in time of war or crisis, when shall we speak our minds and why would it be necessary? I feel compelled to state that I am neither liberal nor ultra-conservative. I don't like either extreme and lean more toward conservatism than in the other direction. So, don't attempt to label me a bleeding heart ranting against the patriotic, flag-waving righteous because I'm a dictator-loving pansy. Quite the opposite, what you are reading is the awe and revulsion this skeptic feels when looking at what an extreme view of her own opinion leads to. It's shameful. But can anything be done about it? Can people who are taught that there is a fearful, vengeful god and we are to follow him as servants and glorify him in deed ever be taught to embrace the freedom of dissent? Can people who are taught that there is only one true religion and all others are immoral and blindly (whether willfully or not) following the "evil one" ever be taught to tolerate and understand other people's opinions? Don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying that all opinions are equal. Some opinions are wrong--some destructively so. But the first step in learning to distinguish the right from the wrong is being able to admit that we may be the ones in the wrong. Ultra-conservatives, in my opinion and evidenced by their actions and words, are unable to broach the possibility that what they think is true may not be true. Staggering thought that...that some members of our society are so entrenched in their own rightness that they are convinced they are the sole bearers of truth, decency, honor and patriotism. Any dissent to their claim is heresy by definition. That alone is reason enough to stand against them, because dissent is freedom. Without it, we are slaves to the fanatic in power.
An email correspondent sent me quotes from the Koran in which Muslims are directed to murder all infidels. He called Islam an enemy of Christ. True, the Judaic religions (the original and the spawn) are built upon violence, their original god being a volcanic god of war. The Hebrew God has a gruesome history, if the Bible is to be believed, of causing mayhem and slaughter (often doing the dirty work himself). Is Christianity so different from Islam? Certainly its book is not quite so straightforward. Islamic dictates, in the Koran, to kill all apostates are direct and unflinching. The Muslim who would not do so is forced to concede (one would think) that he does not follow his own holy book. But, he doesn't concede, does he? He just claims that true Islam is non-violent and we are all to nod and agree. Christianity is a vague religion; everybody seems to have his own ideas regarding what it all means. But the Bible is pretty clear that only people who believe in Jesus are saved and all others are "enemies." Jesus said, "whoever is not with us is against us." Small-minded, hateful people can easily find adequate support for their wars, bigotry and intolerance in their holy book. And peaceful, loving people can find enough good words to follow as well. Sometimes the peaceful, loving people claim that heaven may be populated with nonChristians, claiming that true Christianity isn't divisive. And we are all supposed to just nod our heads and agree. The interesting thing in my friend's email was his own statement that Islam is "the enemy of Christ" which, in my opinion, makes his hate little different than theirs--certainly it appears to be based on the same elitist idea that only one way (one's own by chance of birth) is the right way. Jesus tells a little story about a nobleman who leaves his servants with a bit of money while he's gone. He expects them to enrich themselves and his kingdom with it. He chastises the servant who buries it. Then he says, "as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me." If the nobleman is God/Jesus and the money is god-given talents, the parable is a nice one, until the nobleman (Jesus) tells his servants (Christians) to slay all those who don't want him as king (non-believers and believers in other gods). Christians have tried to place this parable in its historic context so as to neutralize the viciousness of Jesus' words. Muslims will say the same thing about the passages in the Koran calling for the killing of nonMuslims, that they are taken out of their original context or must be read with historic perspective in mind. What is that saying Christians have? Something about removing the plank from your own eye first? It's a good thing, if you ask me, that Jesus spoke in parables so that we can argue about the real meaning of his words instead of it being clear that entering villages of infidels and slaughtering them down to their babies and cows, except for virgin girls whom you get to keep as war booty, is moral and just. We can tell what sort of people we are dealing with by figuring out what they think of the Bible. Muslims are no different. Those who are peaceful and loving will not adhere to the kind of Islam that calls for murder of nonbelievers. Only hateful warmongers will take the Koran literally. So, you see, we have just as much to fear from Christians as from Muslims. What is the Christian name for Taliban? |