Theocracy

So, I popped over to PZ's place to check out what was happening, and in the latest thread found a perfect gem of someone trolling for Jesus:

And this blog confirms what I have found in almost every atheist blog I've visited: atheists lose their moral foundation, when they jetison God, and eventually end up foul-mouthed, pornographic, hate-filled, humorless individuals. It's because the mind can't actually cope with the implications of atheism. The personality begins to deteriortate. It's a mentally unhealthy state of mind. PZ Myers simple confirms it.

Yes, I'd definitely have to say that PZ Myers is the perfect example of how your mind deteriorates when you become an atheist. Definitely.

Anyway, out of a somewhat perverse curiosity I clicked over to the Troll's Home. And found out that:

Our specific mission is to fight the spread of atheism in society...

Jeff Mullin is a "Senior Writer" for the Enid, Oklahoma News & Eagle newspaper. A few years ago he wrote an article "poking fun" at atheists for having the unmitigated gall to suggest that traditional god-belief was exactly the same as belief in an Invisible Pink Unicorn (blessed be Her unseen curly mane.) He subsequently received a letter from an atheist who asked him what gave him the right to ridicule atheists for their lack of belief?

Nothing, apparently. He just likes to ridicule atheists. So, nice Christian guy that he is, he decided to do it again. This time in a column dripping with insincere pity for the poor, deluded atheists.

How very thoughtful of him.

More below the fold...

Illinois state Rep. Monique Davis has apologized to Rob Sherman, who has graciously accepted her apology, for attempting to deny him his civil rights in a public hearing that he was invited to testify before last week.

Apparently it's OK to be a bigoted, unconstitutional, theocratic asshole if you're having a bad day.

Oh my, it's worse than I thought. All I can say is... ew!

And please boycott Nike.

A Christian theocracy in our country? How can you say that? You civil libertarians are all crazy!

[link] Witnesses said the presiding judge, Covington County Circuit Judge M. Ashley McKathan, told some 100 people, including members of the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and other spectators and officials gathered for a conference regarding the church records case, to join hands in a circle as he prayed.

At one point, witnesses said, the judge fell to his knees.

Pfft. What's the big deal? A judge orders more than a hundred people in a state courtroom to gather in a prayer circle while he falls to his knees and prays. Who cares? What, are you some sort of atheist commie pinko?

(This post is part of the Blog Against Theocracy Blogswarm.)

OK, now that I have your attention . . .

. . . let's talk about sex. Or, more accurately, how religious nuts want to control your sex life, your access to information about sex, and your sexual health - all through the government.

Theocracy, anyone?

Specifically, I want to talk about how some in the health-related professions think that they should have the "right" to deny you services or information if something about your sex life disagrees with their religious beliefs.

First off, here's a nice bit from Illinois:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A group of pharmacists asked the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday to throw out a rule that forces them to dispense emergency contraception despite moral objections, claiming it amounts to illegal coercion.

Hello, I'm reeling with a lot of new ideas gathered from you people, and this is a rewrite of my first blog entry which basically sucked.

Here's one of the main reasons I came here.

My brain was altered by the Methodists' "dogmagicians" starting when I was almost 6 years old.

Before then, my agnostic dad kept religion out of my life and off my back, but my mother couldn't live with herself, let alone anyone else, so she split and I got moved into her parents' home and church.

Something has to give, when the people you love and trust tell you with a straight face that a guy was killed and then a few days later, he woke up and walked out of the tomb and flew up to heaven where he's been hanging out ever since, waiting for the big day.

So what exactly is it that gives?

Kids in the cult I was forced into get the dogma drill around 5 or 6, by which time they've begun to feel good about their ability to figure things out for themselves.

A glimmer of light appears in the middle east.

[link] After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

"I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us," said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. "Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don't deserve to be rulers."

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: "The religion men are liars. Young people don't believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore."

Ayesha N. Khan, legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the AU have filed a lawsuit against the town of Greece, NY for it's unconstitutional practice of offering explicitly sectarian Christian prayers as an official part of their town meetings.

[link] Khan said that of 44 Greece meeting prayers reviewed by her group, only one was offered by a non-Christian. And, she said, the review showed that the vast majority of prayers delivered before meetings since 2004 were explicitly sectarian.

The U.S. Supreme Court has determined that governmental bodies may open their sessions with prayer, but only if the prayer is nonsectarian and does not reference a particular deity or the language and symbols specific to one religion.

The Americans United lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Greece residents Linda Stephens and Susan Galloway, seeks to have the court declare that Greece's current practice violates the Constitution and issue an injunction prohibiting sectarian prayer before the board meetings.

The citizen's reactions are what concern me the most:

[link] Please understand that the real issue is getting publicity for people and their anti-Christian agenda. I attend Faith Temple Church in Brighton and this is no different from when they didn't want the new expanded Christian based church expanding in THEIR town. I appreciate that the Jewish and atheiest can come together for something! The funny thing is they're both nonbelievers in Christ. I get that, but when people around you are believers and they are in power please respect YOUR place. When I come to Brighton I understand MY place as a Christian male. You need to realize in Greece we don't accept atheism or Judaism as the guiding faith in our town. We have predominately Christian places of worship throughout the town. Respect it or leave it. I am sick of this crap, we aren't Holland or Londonistan or any other place where Christians are made to feel dirty for their religion, this is America! We were founded by a country of white protestant Christian males, and as such are guided by that. I didn't complain all the time I had to spend in SS class learning about the holocaust ad nauseam. I respect what happened and hope it never happens again, BUT I don't call the ACLU and complain my children have to learn it and I am offended or whatever. Find these women and find out what they're real problem is and lets solve it, but it isn't prayer.

In other words, "Sit down, shut up, and get to the back of the bus while your betters run this town, you filthy, second-class, non-Christian scum." And what's the deal with the scary "find these women and find out what their real problem is" threatening comment? Find them and what? Beat them until they acknowledge that Christians are more human then they are? Find them and terrorize their families? What a despicable thing to say.

This is a depressingly familiar refrain from bigoted Christians in our country who have no clue what the Constitution actually says, and who would seem to be arguing for a Christian theocracy in a "might makes right" or "majority rules" sense.

What they don't understand is the fact that our First Amendment concept of the separation of church and state protects them too. Tyranny of the majority should be a real and valid concern for all Americans, not just the minorities - because one day you too could become a minority.

Kudos to the AU for fighting this very important fight to save our civil liberties from the absolute morons who want to strip them away.

The Christian Taliban are at it again. Yesterday, there was a protest held in front of ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. The kooks are upset over Dana Jacobson's jokes at a roast and anchor Chris Berman's use of the words "Jesus Christ" and "goddamn" in the workplace.

The Christian Defense Coalition accuses ESPN of having a "lack of sensitivity to persons of faith and a culture of religious intolerance." Un-freakin-believable. They want to sensor my speech now?

The latest attempt to drum up outrage centers around another video, of course. It's a video of Chris Berman going ballistic over incompetent co-workers in the studio. An important thing to note is that this is not part of a broadcast. It's a video of what happened before a show actually started. Berman might be a bit of jerk, but in all fairness, we don't know the circumstances and this is besides the point.

Many of these stats blew my mind, but the last one is downright scary to imagine.

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14% of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8% of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost 11 Dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year; A dentist $2,500 per year; a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year; and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.

90% of all U.S. doctors had no college education.

It's official. Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to bring it into "God's standards".

[link] "[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Huckabee often refers to the need to amend the constitution on these grounds, but he has never so specifically called for the Constitution to be brought within "God's standards," which are themselves debated amongst religious scholars. As a closing statement he asked the room of nearly 500 supporters to "pray and then work hard, and in that order," to help him secure a victory in Tuesday's GOP primary.

We are in deep trouble if this lunatic gets elected. Get out and vote, folks. Anyone is better than this guy. It absolutely floors me that in this day and age a Presidential candidate can make a statement like this - and be dead serious. This country is teetering on the brink, and will self-destruct if a religious fanatic like Huckabee is elected to the Presidency. It is up to us to stop it.

Damn. This scares the crap out of me.

(Video below the fold.)

Dawn Sherman, the 14 year old student in Buffalo Grove High School in Illinois who is fighting a mandatory moment of silence law, is getting hammered by the incredibly intolerant, misinformed, "persecuted" Christians who are willing to throw away their civil rights because they happen to be in the majority at this moment.

Stop by the comment area over there and show Dawn some support.

Romney's exclusion of secular and atheist Americans from his rose-colored vision of a happily religious "Stepford wives" America was despicable, to say the least. Now the Huckabee camp in the person of Huckabee aide Ed Rollins gets in on a little atheist-bashing action by using the term as an epithet against Romney aide Ron Kaufman on the Chris Matthews show Hardball. And they all have a laugh at how ridiculous it was to call Kaufman an atheist.

Hah hah hah! Chuckle chuckle, elbow in the ribs. Isn't it so silly to say that a top aide to one of the Presidential campaign's front-runner candidates is a dirty, stinking, filthy godless atheist? Why, what could be more far-fetched? Everyone knows that atheists can't be in powerful political positions!

Silly Ed Rollins - what a merry jokester you are!

Oh wait - I mean bigoted asshole. Yeah, that's what I meant.

Mitt Romney appeared on Meet The Press with Tim Russert, and immediately Russert hammered him with the atheist/atheism question. Romney stumbled a bit, but managed not to wedge his foot too firmly in his mouth, I thought.

But what in the heck is this "common bond of humanity" he says that he shares with atheists? Is the Mittster a Humanist now? He's trying too hard. He seems to be trying to be all things to all people, and that's just a recipe for disaster.

Transcript below the fold...

Alicia Colon, writing an op-ed piece for the New York Daily Sun, is upset that in the city of New York, Christian nativity scenes are not given parity with other religious displays on public property.

I actually agree with her on this point. If this is indeed the case, then it is a wrongheaded and illegal move by the school board. The Constitution protects all faiths - even Christians - and non-faith. To say otherwise is simple ignorance.

[Alicia Colon] The tyranny of a small but vocal minority has completely warped this time of year into a season of litigation and constitutional confusion. Our own Department of Education, which bans Christian religious symbols in schools, needs to educate itself on exactly what the Constitution says about God and country.

Well, the Constitution doesn't say anything about God. It does say a lot about country though.

A City Council member, Tony Avella, has introduced a resolution granting parity to Christians so that crèches will be permitted alongside menorahs and the star and crescent in city schools. At present, the education department will not allow it, though there is no constitutional bar to this nativity display. At a press conference at City Hall this week, Mr. Avella and other community activists demanded equal justice, but the mere fact that this is an issue demonstrates how little is understood about the First Amendment, which does allow the "free exercise of religion."

First of all, there is no city resolution anywhere in America that can "grant" anyone a right that is already guaranteed by the Constitution. If Councilman Avella thinks that he has this kind of power, then he needs to re-think his place in the world. I mean, thanks a bunch for trying to help, Councilman, but there is no reason to act like a fool doing it.

I also have an issue with the way Miss Colon attempts to support her contention about the city excluding Christians. She tries to make the case that because the founders said "God" a lot, and because they wrote about God a lot, then Christians should be free to place their own religious displays alongside other religious displays on public property.

She also uses Newt Gingrich's achingly dominionist film "Rediscovering God in America" as an argument for her position.

The thing is that she doesn't need all that stuff. The Constitution, and the First Amendment already give Christians "parity" to use the public square.

The U.S. Constitution is the only legal founding document we have. Other documents have undeniable historical value, but they do not carry the force of law. There is no dispute - the Constitution is the basic foundation of the laws of our land. Everything that is America flows from the ideas and concepts embodied within it.

So, how many times do you think "God" mentioned in the Constitution? How about "Jesus" or "Christ"? What about "Creator", "Supreme Being", "Thor", "Big Magic Ju-Ju Guy", or "Santa Claus"?

If you said "zero", you are exactly right. The Constitution is a wholly secular document by design. Our Founding Fathers were wise men to craft it as such.

The First Amendment guarantees us our freedom of expression, religion, and press. Inherent in that freedom is the freedom to not believe. That is what us atheists call "freedom from religion", and apparently what Miss Colon is objecting to in the headline of her column.

The very best course our government can take in this is strict neutrality. This is what the First Amendment means. That way, individuals may practice or not practice, believe or not believe, with our government staying strictly neutral - neither hindering nor helping. This concept has been borne out by more than 200 years of wildly successful religions and religious growth in our country, and lately in the rise of atheist, agnostic, and other secular people's voices, organizations, blogs, writings, and political awareness. We have the freedom to be religious - whatever we want to be - or not religious. There is no other country like this on the planet, with this type of unbridled religious freedom. And it is due to the secular, neutral stance that our government (should) take - the secular, neutral stance spelled out in the First Amendment to our Constitution.

The obvious example - especially at this time of the year - of what this means in practical terms is that you cannot allow a Christian Nativity scene on public property without also allowing everyone else the same privilege.

The problem here is that in most cases like this, the Christian majority wants to be "more equal" than the rest of us. They have enjoyed special preference by virtue of being the majority for so long, that they now consider it their right.

In some isolated cases like the one above in New York, the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. This is also wrong.

Alicia, you don't need a lot of god-talk to make your point. Our secular Constitution does it for you just fine.

Today Romney gave a speech on his Mormonism to squelch the effects of religious bigotry on his chances of receiving the Republican nomination for President. In the speech Glen Johnson of AP cites these three quotes in succession (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_el_pr/romney_religion_28;_ylt=...):

"Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

He assailed "the religion of secularism" he said was creeping into American life, and drew chuckles from his invited audience as he complained that Europe's picturesque cathedrals are largely empty amid societies "too busy or just too `enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer."

Romney said: "We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders, in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history and, during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places."

So let me get this straight. We should be tolerant of other people’s revelation of the divine.

But if your personal revelation should lead you to a secular worldview, then you should just accept that you are not a citizen. At least that is what I take from his condemnation of the enlightenment (which by the way the founders would have taken a dim view of) and his endorsement of the phrases In God “WE” trust (if you don’t trust God you are not part of WE) and “One nation” under God (if you don’t believe in God you are not part of this “one nation).”

Way to attack religious bigotry Mitt. By perpetuating that a significant percentage of the American public is less American than others because of religious beliefs.

Hypocrisy, thy name is religion.

Tully

Florida State Board Of Education member Donna Callaway gets it so wrong that it's painful to read.

[link] Donna Callaway, a former middle school principal from Tallahassee, told the Florida Baptist Witness that evolution "should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origins of life."

She also said she hoped Christians would pray over the issue. "As a SBOE member, I want those prayers," Callaway said. "I want God to be part of this."

Evolution is not a "theory of origins of life", number one, and number two, the Christian God cannot, by law, "be a part of" the Florida State Board Of Education - unless you rescind the United States Constitution, or secede from the union.

But you've all heard this before, time and time again. It's been said, over and over, a thousand times or more. The facts are always the same; ignorant Christian creationist who does not understand what evolution is, or what science is gets elected to the school board. Then they convince other ignorant Christian creationists on the school board to "teach the (nonexistent) controversy" by reading the religious tracts put out by the Discovery Institute, WoTM, or Dr. Dino. Overworked civil-rights defenders like the ACLU and FFRF take the school board to court and win. Many indignant news stories and op-ed columns are written about the evil atheist plot to persecute innocent Christians by teaching science instead of Christian mythology in - ahem - science classes. Overwrought email chain letters get forwarded to everyone and their grandmother shouting about the nasty atheists and their evil plan to barbecue all the Christian children in the public school system for the crime of being Christian.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Things like this make me tired. It feels like we're bailing out a leaky boat with plastic beer cups. I mean, were doing something, going through the motions, making a lot of noise and fuss, but the reality of the situation is that the boat is filling up too fast. I fear that we are sinking, and that there is not a lot we can do to prevent it.

Still, we'll keep on bailing because what else can we do?

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

Do you recognize the quote? Is it from some crazy militant atheist, some ACLU lawyer who hates this country's "Christian heritage"? Here's a bit more:

I believe in an America that is officia