Religion

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God wrote the Constitution

The idea that the Founding Fathers were god-like and that their words are carved in stone is out there, and I’ve ranted against it many times (here and here and here, for example).  People who have this idea are political fundamentalists who, like their religious counterparts, know exactly what the (insert one:  Constitution/Bible) means and amazingly it always lines up exactly with their own views.  constitution_quill_pen

But to say that “God wrote the Constitution” — well, that’s just delusional.

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay believes it, though.  Apparently God, through his angels on earth, wrote the Constitution, including all those parts justifying slavery, not to mention those parts that prohibit the establishing of any religion in this country.  Even more amazingly, God chose a bunch of deists to this.  Prominent among them was Thomas Jefferson, who had edited the Bible to remove all the fantastic miracles he didn’t believe in.

I could ridicule this forever, but the point is this:  People who are convinced that God guides American politics and that they personally know exactly what God wants for America are a huge problem.  It’s why it is impossible to compromise with these radicals.  God is against abortion, so therefore anyone who has a different position isn’t just on the other side of the political aisle — they are agents of the Devil.  Any sort of compromise will surely place the compromiser in Hell.   This gets expanded to the point that any view that the “Devil politician” stands for has to be fought, because if they like it, it must be evil.  Higher taxes?  Has to be Satan’s plan.  No compromise!

Maybe the root of many of our political problems isn’t in politics as much as it is in religion.

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Corporations are people, just like Soylent Green

Hobby Lobby claims they are being discriminated against because they are being forced to provide health care which could provide birth control to those heathen women — you know, those hussies who can’t control their libido that Mike Huckabee warned us about.

hobby

Hobby Lobby claims to be a Christian corporation. They refuse to even sell Jewish merchandise in the store. (“Want Hannukah gifts? Go elsewhere, Christ-killer!”) They have no problem whatsoever in buying cheaply-made crap from China because after all, the Bible approves slavery.

Most importantly, they claim they have the right to force their religious views on their employees.  Amazingly, a federal judge in Oklahoma agreed with them and held, for the first time that I can see, that a corporation can actually have a religious view.

Fortunately, this is now on appeal, and hopefully clearer minds will prevail.   Many groups are filing briefs opposing Hobby Lobby.

The issue is whether a business can refuse to give health insurance to its employees because of religious reasons.  I am shocked that some of my friends think that this is perfectly fine.  What’s next?  Will they refuse to give you your salary if you buy alcohol with it against their religious views?  Will we have to reduce our own freedoms to make our employers happy?

As I said previously:

This is an absolutely ridiculous decision. Hobby Lobby is not a religious organization; it’s a for-profit business. A business owner should not have the right to decide health care decisions for his or her employees. This is not comparable to a church, for instance, being forced to disobey its beliefs.

Should I, as a business owner, be allowed to force my beliefs on my employees? What if my religion believes women should wear burkas and never speak? Should I make all my female employees wear burkas?

The Court apparently believes employers have powers to ignore laws they don’t like. “If you work here, you have to live by my beliefs, not yours. Don’t like it? Tough!” I think we instead should say to business owners, “These are people who work for you, who have the right to make their own decisions about health care. You will give them the option, because this is America where we value individual decisions. Don’t like it? Tough!”

Your religion does not give you the right to disobey the law. There are Jamaican religions that believe in smoking marijuana during their ceremonies — tough, that’s illegal. Animal cruelty in the name of religion is illegal. Refusing to give your child medicine in the name of religion is illegal. Religions shouldn’t be exempt from the law just because they “really really believe” something. That’s not what America is about.

Look, if you start a business in America, we expect certain things from you. You have to pay a minimum wage; you have to have a safe working environment; you have to pay business taxes; you have to pay for worker’s compensation; you have to provide health care. Keep in mind that your employees may decide to use their money or benefits to do things you personally disagree with. Don’t like it? Tough. Don’t open a business.

If you don’t like the fact that we have freedom from religion in America, then maybe you should open a business somewhere else, like Iran. I understand they have no problem with you forcing religion on people who work for you.

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Pope and change

The new Pope just keeps amazing me.  Not that I’m going to suddenly turn Catholic or anything, but it’s so nice to see the church turning away from its old image as a corporate business hiding child molesters mostly concerned with abortion and gay marriage. pope

Since taking office, he has done the following:

Set up a committee to fight child abuse in the church and to root out the abusers;

Removed cardinals from the corrupt Vatican bank (after hiring independent banks to handle some aspects of the church’s functions);

Removed a cardinal who had refused to give communion to Democrats who supported abortion rights;

Removed a bishop who had spent millions on himself, only to turn the bishop’s luxury mansion into a soup kitchen;

Said that the church should be more concerned with the plight of the poor, while attacking trickle-down economics;

Said that the church should be less concerned with issues like gay marriage and abortion and “shouldn’t judge.”

Some of it is purely symbolic, such as getting rid of all the rich trappings of previous popes; living humbly and paying his own bills; going into public instead of hiding behind popemobiles and windows; and treating everyone with respect and dignity.

It’s almost as if this Pope had read the Bible or something!

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Equal time for satanists

“This is a democracy!” cried the religious person on the Fox News interview.   He then went on to explain that since 90% of the population agrees with him that therefore it was OK for them to force their religion on the other 10%.  Satanist MonumentYeah, you know that 1st Amendment?  It only applies to the majority view.

Ah.  This is apparently a new definition of democracy for which I was unaware.

The discussion was about a bunch of Satanists who are demanding equal time in Oklahoma.  The Christians placed a Ten Commandments display on public property.  The Constitution demands that the government take no preference concerning religion.  Therefore, the Satanists get to put up their silly goat-head statue.

Many religious people, of course, are only in favor of freedom of religion when it’s their own religion.  In a recent debate on Fox News, they tried their best to deny the 1st Amendment applied.  David Silverman, head of American Atheists (and a friend of mine), tried to point out that the law demands that you allow them to place their own displays.   And then he had to once more clarify to the idiots that atheism is not Satanism.  “They’re all bunk to me,” he said.

There is a very, very simple solution to all of this.  Simply get your religious statue off of government property.  Then they don’t have to give “equal time” to Hindus and Satanists and Atheists and Pastafastarians.

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Not all charities are equal

Libertarians don’t like welfare because they think the free market can solve all our problems even though that has never been the case anywhere in the world at any time.  I guess it gives them the ability to say no to things like unemployment benefits, food stamps, and social security disability without feeling guilty or selfish when they say “But private charity can solve all those problems” even though that has never been the case anywhere in the world at any time.

No, what really bugs me is when they say, all superior-like, that conservatives give more to charity than liberals.  While that is true, the key question is who the charity benefits.

Conservatives give more to religious-based charities.  If you only count non-religious-based charities, then liberals give much more.  New York state jumps from #18th most generous to #2, and Pennsylvania goes from #40 to #4.

While some religious-based charities certainly help the poor (soup kitchens and homeless shelters are a great use of charity funds), churches also spend a lot of money on churches.  Take the Mormons.  

The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City

The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City

 Have you seen their religious monuments and churches?  All from “charity” and all tax-free.  Those things don’t help the poor at all, but are included when people talk about “charity.”

And then the Mormons (and the Knights of Columbus and other religious groups) spent millions over the last few years in politics — filing lawsuits, buying ads, and campaigning against gay marriage.  All of that was considered tax-free “charity” (while those of us on the other side had to consider our contributions as “political” which the IRS does not consider “charity”).

Not all charity is equal, and no one should say, “I give to charity so therefore I don’t have to worry about homeless children.”   Your contributions may protect the kids against the horrors of two people in love getting married, but it won’t protect them against starvation.

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Satanists Protected by the First Amendment

Some politicians don’t understand that the Constitution covers freedom of religion but also freedom from religion.   (I’m looking at you, Rick Perry.)

There are two parts to the 1st amendment. The Free Exercise Clause allows you to worship in your own way (well, within the laws that apply to everyone). But there’s also the Establishment Clause, which says that the government cannot promote religion or favor one religion over another. Oklahoma_monument

This is the one that many Christians ignore. “Well, they don’t mean our religion!” they argue illogically. They think that it’s perfectly fine to have government promote their religion and their religion’s laws concerning, say, abortion or gay marriage, but scream angrily at any thought of someone else’s religion being imposed through our laws (or no religion at all).

Lately, other religions (and non-religions) are demanding equal rights, as the Constitution provides. If a Christian group is allowed to put a monument to the Ten Commandments up in a public park, then the atheists cannot be denied the right to place their own monument up in the same park.

The latest incident is occurring in Oklahoma, where both Satanists and Hindus are demanding equal space on the State House grounds after the announcement of a huge Ten Commandments display. This has astounded some politicians who have never read the Constitution.

Oklahoma legislators are outraged at this. “This is a Christian nation and Oklahoma was founded on Christianity!” they say, ignoring the fact that (a) the United States specifically was not founded on Christianity and (b) Oklahoma specifically was formed as an American Indian state (well, at first…).

If you don’t want to see satanist or atheist displays on our public property then the obvious solution is to stop placing your own religious monuments there. The Establishment Clause requires that the other beliefs get equal time. Instead, use the money that would have been spent on this monument in other ways — you know, feed the poor or establish an orphanage. Wouldn’t that be the Christian thing to do?

And best yet, because of the Free Exercise clause, the government would not be able to do anything about it.

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Merry War on Christmas, Everybody!

OK, here’s my challenge:

Find me one example of anyone trying to prevent people from celebrating Christmas.grinch1

What you’ll find are a bunch of whiners complaining that they don’t get to force their religion on everyone else.

Every example Fox News gives for a “War on Christmas” always boils down to something like “They won’t let us force kids to sing our religious songs!” or “They want to be polite and acknowledge that not everyone is a Christian by saying ‘Happy Holidays'” or “They are refusing to allow us to use taxpayer dollars for a religious display.”  (And yes, I used Fox News specifically because absolutely no one spoke of a “War on Christmas” until Fox invented it and saw their ratings boost.)

I submit to you that every so-called attack on Christmas is, in reality, fought in defense and wouldn’t even exist if these Christians weren’t trying to require everyone to obey their beliefs.*

Instead, there are some Christians who apparently are so insecure in their beliefs that if you say something like, “I respect your beliefs even though I do not share them and sincerely hope you have a happy holidays,” they are convinced that you are out to destroy everything they believe in.

So there’s my challenge.  Find me an example where that’s not the case — where someone is trying to prevent Christians from celebrating Christmas.

(And I mean real examples, because no matter what, there will always be some lunatic who is trying to prevent his neighbors from displaying a religious symbol because they wrongly think the Constitution requires it or because aliens told him to or something.  No matter what, there will always be one or two idiots on every issue.)

* and yes, I acknowledge that most Christians are good people who do not act this way, and are more concerned with keeping the Christ in “Christian” than the Christ in “Christmas.”

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Mixing religion and politics? How dare he!

Outraged! Right wing columnists and reporters are outraged that the Pope is speaking out about inequalities in our system. papaOutraged that he thinks governments should do more to stop the huge divide between rich and poor.

Rush Limbaugh warned of this Pope promoting “pure Marxism.” Fox News’ Stuart Varney criticized the Pope’s mixing of religion and politics. Sarah Palin called the Pope the worst name she could think of: “Liberal.” All of them said that the Pope had no business discussing politics.

You all remember how mad these right-wing pundits got about religion intermixing with politics when churches lobbied for laws against abortion, fought to prevent gays from getting married, and pushed to have creationism taught in public schools? (If you do remember, please remind me, because I can’t think of a single example — but clearly there must be, or else these people would be raging hypocrites now, wouldn’t they?)

Meanwhile, the Pope, ignoring them all, is doing his job, which includes sneaking out at night dressed as a normal priest and administering to the poor. Clearly, he is an evil, evil man that must be stopped.

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Can the Pope change American politics?

American conservative leaders have often argued that greed is good, and controls on capitalism are ungodly.  The logic is thus:  Stalin was an atheist.  Stalin liked socialist policies.  Ergo, socialism is against religion.

This, of course, makes no logical sense whatsoever but the Powers That Be in the economic world gladly used it in the same way Stalin used communist promises to keep the people in their place.  The right used religion to further its aims.  People who believed that abortion and gay rights were against God could easily be swayed to also believe that welfare and controls on capitalism were also evil, since look, the same people who are on God’s side are also on the side of the bankers and billionaires. papa Clearly, therefore, all bankers and billionaires were Godlike.

Well, this new Pope is throwing all that out the window, and boy, is the right wing up in arms.  Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are now attacking religion with a fervor never before seen, and are apparently claiming that they have more authority than the Pope about what Jesus would want.  (You remember Jesus — that guy who threw the moneylenders out of the temple and said that the rich could not get into heaven?)

For years, the right has proclaimed that we are a “Christian nation” (despite all evidence to the contrary) and yet now, when the leader of the largest Christian organization in the world tells us what we should be doing, suddenly Christian values are not important to us.

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” the Pope said.  He’s talking about uncontrolled capitalism, about markets that crash and hurt the poor because the rich are gambling with our future, about the ridiculous idea that money “trickles down” to improve everyone’s lot.

Maybe it’s time that the Christian right started acting like Christians.

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Is the Pope Catholic?

Apparently so, which is something I’m not sure could be said for some of the Popes who came before him, who seemed more interested in gathering wealth, sitting in gold-covered thrones, and hiding pedophiles.popes

This new Pope appears to have even read the Bible.

Today, he released a treatise where he basically called trickle-down economics evil, and called governments who protected the rich at the expense of the poor (that’s us, in case you weren’t paying attention) as not serving Jesus’ teachings.  “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?” he asked.  No, seriously, he really said that.

This is a guy who said he really didn’t care that much about prosecuting gays (“Who am I to judge?”) and worried that the Church had lost its way fighting over things like abortion when the real issue was fighting injustice and poverty.

I mean, he still has a way to go — for instance, he refuses to let women be priests — but it looks as if he is taking the Church in a good direction.