…some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.—all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument—they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. “Science and reason are important,” says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. “But science and reason won’t visit you in the hospital.”
Many atheist sects are experimenting with building new, human-centered quasi-religious organizations, much like Ethical Culture. They aim to remove God from the church, while leaving the church, at least large parts of it, standing. […]
Founded by Felix Adler, the son of a rabbi, to drive social-justice initiatives and promote good without God, Ethical Culture walks like a church and talks like a church—congregants sit in pews, rise to sing hymns, and pass around a collection plate. But at one of their Sunday-morning meetings in January, their Senior Leader, in a very unchurchlike fashion, cited agnosticism as the only intellectually defensible religious position. More to the point, Epstein is eyeing the group’s building as a prototype for the church of New Humanism. Modeled on a Greco-Roman coliseum, Ethical Culture has semi-circular pews to promote conversation and a low stage designed to minimize the distance between leader and congregation. “I want to build big, beautiful buildings like Ethical Culture in every big city in America,” says Epstein. Unfortunately, his organization only brings in $200,000 a year. And while that’s up from $28,000 four years ago, it’s not enough to build a New Humanist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, let alone Central Park West.
Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living - their own, suitably embellished - is right for everybody. To be sure, atheism need not be a missionary creed of this kind. It is entirely reasonable to have no religious beliefs, and yet be friendly to religion. It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion. […]
Nowadays most atheists are avowed liberals. What they want - so they will tell you - is not an atheist regime, but a secular state in which religion has no role. They clearly believe that, in a state of this kind, religion will tend to decline. But America’s secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the US than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church. Contemporary critics of religion go much further than demanding disestablishment. It is clear that he wants to eliminate all traces of religion from public institutions. Awkwardly, many of the concepts he deploys - including the idea of religion itself - have been shaped by monotheism. Lying behind secular fundamentalism is a conception of history that derives from religion.
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
Will it be possible to persuade Western governments and public opinion that China is the victim of Tibetan ‘running dogs’? In this op-ed from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po, published before the voyage of the Olympic torch began, Hong Kong television commentator Dr. Qiu Zhenhai explains how the Beijing government can turn the public relations battle in its favor. Far more reasonable - even to the point of admitting error on the part of the Chinese government - the key, according to the author, is to understand the flaws and contradictions in Western thinking and to mount a massive new public relations campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Is there any hope at all that the West will do more than pay lip service to the plight of the downtrodden Tibetan people? Le Figaro’s Beijing correspondent Mével writes, “China has erred on Tibet. The West deluded itself about China - and the Tibetans are likely to pay dearly if their illusions lead them to expect more than dust in the eyes [a show of support] from the democracies.”
Analysis by Mével
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 26, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The powerful Communist Party machine certainly didn’t foresee this. Beijing wants to make the Games a showcase for its brilliant success. But at the start of this Olympic season, propaganda needs have forced a drawing of the curtain. Chinese television cut off a live broadcast of ceremonies in Olympia, Greece [the lighting of the Olympic torch WATCH ], depriving the images to hundreds of millions of spectators and signaling that support for the Games is far from unanimous. Read the rest of this entry »
“The article written by Mia Farrow confuses right and wrong and relentlessly discredits China, but even more frightening, it has begun to change the atmosphere of public opinion in the West. … She has wantonly brainwashed the public’s thinking by seizing the moral high ground. … Now is the time to expose the weaknesses of Mia Farrow and her ilk. They cannot be permitted to wantonly brainwash public opinion. This is not only unfair to China but to the entire world - and especially to Mr. Spielberg.”
By Shan Renping
Translated By Mark Klingman
February 29, 2008
Global Geographic Times - People’s Republic of China - Original Article (Chinese)
For the Beijing Olympic Games, the West seems to be showing us two completely different attitudes. On the one hand, most Western countries have given the Beijing Games a positive evaluation and oppose the “politicization of the Games.” But on the other, some non-governmental organizations and members of civil society still clamor to resist the Beijing Olympic Games.
Among these people, one cause of dissatisfaction is that they believe China hasn’t acted played a positive role in resolving the Darfur problem. So despite the fact that to date, the leaders of over sixty countries have announced that they will attend the Beijing Olympics; and opposing the “politicization of the Games” has become the message of the mainstream of global public opinion - we cannot ignore the voices of average Western people in this matter - especially the negative voices.
Not long ago, American director Steven Spielberg resigned as art director for the Beijing Olympics. On the surface it seems as though he had no choice, and although there is no chance that this will affect the success of the Beijing Olympics - the act does tell us something of the Western misunderstanding of China.
It’s fair to say that for some time now, the director has been under tremendous political pressure. Last year, on March 28, the American actress Mia Farrow wrote a commentary in The Wall Street Journal with language that maliciously accused the Beijing Olympics with being the “Genocide Olympics.” This article was the first time that the Beijing Games and Sudan were hung on the same hook - and beside condemning China, she sought to persuade Spielberg.
She wrote: “That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the Games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg … to sanitize Beijing’s image.” Even more provocatively, she linked the Beijing Olympics to Spielberg’s own Shoah Foundation for Holocaust-remembrance which he founded in 1994, asking him to be aware that “China is bankrolling Darfur’s genocide.”
Mia Farrow’s article not only confuses right and wrong and relentlessly discredits China, even more frightening is that she has begun to change the atmosphere of public opinion in Western societies: the question of supporting the Beijing Olympic Games has become a moral issue. Once again, Spielberg’s resignation undoubtedly proves that the pressure of public opinion is very strong. It can be inferred that in the next five months, these same people will turn up the pressure on athletes and sponsors alike.
People like Mia Farrow think they have found China’s soft rib - that is, they believe they have found the most opportune place to apply pressure to China. They are wrong! In fact it is their proposed solution to the Darfur problem that is the real soft rib! Now is the time to expose the weaknesses of Mia Farrow and her ilk. They cannot be permitted to wantonly brainwash public opinion …
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of issues that involve the United States.
This is just one of the allegations in Roger Faligot’s book, The Chinese Secret Services: From Mao to the Olympic Games. This specialist in intelligence retraces the history of the ties between the Middle Kingdom and al-Qaeda. According to this review of the book from Le Matin of Switzerland, the author writes, ‘The first negotiations with Osama bin Laden’s entourage are alleged to have been held in 2006 in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province … What has China promised to prevent a suicide bomber from blowing himself up during the finals for the 100-meter dash? And most importantly, what confidence can we give any commitment undertaken by Osama bin Laden? The answer will come next August in Beijing.’
By Ian Hamel
Translated By James Jacobson
February 23, 2008
Switzerland - Le Matin - Original Article (French)
Tomorrow, the word “Guoanbu ” will be as familiar as CIA, KGB or General Intelligence . China has not only become a great world power, it has also erected the most important secret services in the world. They comprise two million spies who scrutinize your acts and gestures, especially if you’re an athlete, a sports journalist or an opponent of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. For the latter, China has also established a center for special intelligence equipped with a budget of $1.3 billion.
Security has become a national priority in the Middle Kingdom, which dreads nothing more than dramas like the one that occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989 ; demonstrations by Beijing’s Uyghur opponents (a Muslim minority from West China ); or protests by the Tibetans, during the global festival of sport next August. In The Chinese Secret Services. from Mao to the Olympic Games, China expert Roger Faligot reveals that General Chen Xiaogong, the new coordinator of military intelligence, negotiated with al-Qaeda to prevent terrorist attacks during the Olympics.
MAO’S GRANDSON
There relationship between China and the Islamist movement are long-standing. At the end of 1979 beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the Chinese decided to help the Mujahideen. Beijing provided Simonov sub-machine guns and Kalashnikov assault rifles, which have the advantage of using the same ammunition as Russian weapons. Within the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, there is a military attaché named Kong Jining. This commander, who supplied the Islamists with weapons of war, was none other than Mao Zedong’s grandson.
“The choice of such an agent shows the importance that the Chinese placed on operations in Afghanistan. These good relations have continued with the Taliban. At the end of 2001 …
What do the Olympic Games and Steven Spielberg have to do with the U.S. elections? It all has to do with the calender. According to Pierre Rousselin, deputy editorial page editor of France’s Le Figaro, The rage of Steven Spielberg is not in itself conclusive. But it’s significant for what it announces. Spielberg is Hollywood. And Hollywood is an arm of the Democratic Party … The Chinese have no luck with the calendar. The Olympics open on August 8th, shortly before party conventions in the United States, when the political temperature across the Atlantic will be running very high.’
By Pierre Rousselin, Translated By Sandrine Ageorges February 15, 2008, France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The Olympic Games is the greatest event of global sport and one of the human activities that can best bring together the races and the continents. This summer the event is taking place in Beijing, and marks China’s return as one of the world’s major powers. A boycott of the event would be like rejecting a quarter of humanity. Read the rest of this entry »
So we’ve reached the point where Huckabee’s emergence into “serious contender” territory has officially stopped being entertaining to me, however amusingly much it might annoy certain conservative pundits who pandered to the Christian right when it suited their perception of their interests to do so.
Here’s one of the reasons I’m not laughing:
"[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 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. (MSNBC; emphasis added) )
In other words, forget the principles built into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, forget our country’s tradition of neutrality toward the religious views of individual citizens and principle of noninterference; forget separation of Chuch and State; forget that this is a democracy, not a theocracy.
As a person with strong Quaker leanings, I get very nervous when one version of Christianity concludes that it knows what God’s standards are and that those standards should therefore become the law for everyone else, including those who see God quite a bit differently. While I am modestly certain that I can muck in with the best when it comes to God-bothering and proficiency in prayer, I don’t force Mike Huckabee to go to my church and I don’t care to go to his. (”Horses for courses,” as my British husband—an atheist—tactfully puts it.) Or, as Christopher Hitchenshas said, "Mr. Jefferson, build up that wall!" It’s the only way to protect Christian denominations from other Christian denominations, not to mention the only way to protect Christians from Christopher Hitchens (and vice-versa, of course).
But Huck does want to build up one wall: the fence between Mexico and the US. Next: the Tower of Babel. We’re coming for you, Jesus, ready or not! Can I hear you say, "Hallelujah!"?
Fortunately, my silent prayers that Huckabee fade gently back into state politics have received what a religious person might view as a sort of provisional response. True, it’s not the answer I wanted: among the Republicans, I definitely prefer McCain to the others by the vague but presumably vast stretch known as a "moonlight mile." Even so, the Romney predominance in Michigan shows that Huckabee does not in fact have God’s unwavering endorsement, as a few weeks back his supporters seemed to be gleefully assuming. Perhaps God, like the Founding Fathers, believes in separation of Church and State?
That question has suggested itself for many reasons during the already too-long 2008 presidential campaign.
It’s a question of particular interest to me because I’m a lifetime political junkie, a student of history, and a Lutheran pastor.
There are, it seems to me, three main reasons we’re asking the question in a major way this year.
The first is the candidacy of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Personally, while I have the same disagreements with Mormonism as those advanced by evangelical Christians, I’ve never felt that Romney’s religion should preclude him from consideration for the presidency.
Article 6 of the Constitution says that there should be no religious test for holding federal office. As an American, I believe in the rightness of that provision.
But I also believe in it because I’m a Christian. Jesus’ command to love my neighbor entails appreciating the abilities and skills of all people, even those who don’t share my faith.
While polls show that there are some Christians who simply would not vote for a Mormon for president, I don’t think that this is anything like a majority view.
And frankly, I think that the question of whether a Mormon would be accepted in a position of political importance was answered in 1953. It was then that Ezra Taft Benson, a high official in the Mormon religion, was confirmed as Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower Administration. In those days, the post was a lot more important and highly visible than it is today.
In 1968, Mitt Romney’s father, Michigan governor George Romney ran for the Republican presidential nomination. His bid came to grief over what I thought was a vicious misrepresentation of something he told a New Hampshire radio interviewer about the Johnson Administration’s attempts to, as he saw it, brainwash him regarding the War in Vietnam. The media and Romney’s opponents, Richard Nixon among them, portrayed the former auto executive as susceptible to brainwashing, not strong enough to be president. It’s a tragedy that George Romney’s candidacy was brought to an end in that way. Despite the exaggerations of his son, the elder Romney was deeply committed to civil rights. He was a can-do guy. But it wasn’t because of his Mormon religion that Romney, who later served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Nixon Administration, failed to become president. His Mormonism wasn’t even considered. Nor should it have been.
Two factors have made Mitt Romney’s Mormon affiliation significant this year. One is the importance of the Religious Right in the Republican coalition. Frankly, I dislike the Religious Right. (And the Religious Left, for that matter.) There is simply no way to draw a straight line from faith in Jesus Christ or the Bible as the Word of God to a consistent political philosophy. As a Christian leader, it deeply disturbs me when pastors or other Christian leaders presume to say that Jesus is a Republican or a Democrat. Or that God is a liberal or a conservative. Christians who make such claims subordinate the Deity, the One I believe to be Lord and Creator of heaven and earth, to temporary, temporal philosophies and preferences. In effect, they shove God aside and instead, worship their parties or platforms. Nonetheless, the Religious Right has put a premium on candidates conforming not just to their political views, but also their claimed religious doctrines.
Romney’s Mormonism also became important because, quite frankly, he made it that way. Over a year ago, Romney supporter Hugh Hewitt asked Christian pastor-bloggers to say whether they felt that Romney’s religion should preclude his being considered for president by Christians. Mine was the first reply Hewitt published, I believe. Simply, I said that, no, Christians should not dismiss a Romney candidacy because he was a Mormon.
But clearly, the Romney campaign felt something like paranoia on this issue. The prime campaign biography, written by my friend Hewitt, is called A Mormon in the White House? It was one of many elements of an effort on the part of the Romney campaign to earn the support of the Religious Right.
Every politician, of course, wants to gain support with important constituencies by demonstrating that they hold common beliefs and values. But Romney has appeared to attempt to appeal to the Religious Right by blurring the very real differences that exist between Christian beliefs and Mormon teachings.
This, it seems to me, was an incredibly stupid thing to do, politically speaking. That’s because the Religious Right has changed. For all my criticism of it, the Christian conservative political movement has attained a certain maturity. One characteristic of that maturity is that voters who identify with the movement no longer move in lockstep with their so-called “leaders.” Another is that neither its leaders or its rank and file voters expect that politicians are going to agree with them on every issue. Pat Robertson, after all, has endorsed Rudy Giuliani. The movement is also wary of pols who give lip service to all their issues yet, like many Republicans for the past twenty-five years, have done nothing to change what they see as wrong in Washington and the United States.
Mitt Romney would have done better at appealing to the Religious Right if he had, instead of trying to appear to be a kind of Baptist Mormon, simply said, as John Kennedy did of his Catholicism in 1960, “I’m not a Mormon running for president. I’m an American running for president who happens to be a Mormon.” He could have then taken his own religious affiliation off the table and simply demonstrated common political cause with those to whom he’s been trying to appeal.
Romney, in his “Faith in America” speech, delivered at the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, seemed, in part, to deliver such a message. But then, he said that freedom needs religion and religion needs freedom. While I personally believe that the Judeo-Christian tradition fosters the kind of civility and respect for neighbor that allows for the functioning of democracy, Christian faith, in particular, hasn’t needed freedom of religion to grow. Indeed, it seems to grow best and strongest when its natural inclination for subversiveness is given full vent. Historically, Christian faith has always grown strongest under the threat and persecution of repressive regimes. Freedom, then, isn’t a necessary prerequisite for religious belief. Nor is it impossible for freedom to develop without religion.
Be that as it may, after seeming to want to take religion off the table, Romney put it back, appearing to arrogantly tell those who have no faith that their participation in the political process was unwelcome.
December 8th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
We’ve seen it every election year: the talking heads (which these days includes us bloggers) make all kinds of supposedly-learned predictions and then something funny happens. The voters make all these oh-so-smugly-certain predictions seem silly (so those who make them then move on and pretend they never made them at all).
Is a big upset of the 2008 Presidential nomination sweepstakes now brewing?
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has vaulted over his major GOP challengers to take a commanding lead in the race to win the Iowa caucuses, while Barack Obama continues to edge ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democrats likely to participate, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows.
The most dramatic result to come out of the poll, which is based on telephone interviews with 1,408 registered Iowa voters on Dec. 5 and 6, is Huckabee’s emergence from the shadows of the GOP race into the front runner’s spot in just two months. The ordained Southern Baptist minister now leads Romney by a two-to-one margin, 39 percent to 17 percent, among likely GOP caucus-goers. In the last NEWSWEEK survey, conducted Sept. 26-27, Huckabee polled a mere 6 percent to Romney’s 25 percent, which then led the field.
This is MAJOR news. Because as news spreads that it looks like Huckabee’s candidacy is on fire (and that other candidates could be fired) his “free media” coverage increases and more voters get to sample his political wares. Media stories lead to more media stories. And there tends to be a bandwagon effect as some pundits begin to adopt the line that, by golly, he may actually get the nomination. The Newsweek poll has to be good news for Huckabee’s camp:
Huckabee has also opened up a wide margin over the next three leading candidates, who all show signs of fading in Iowa: Rudy Giuliani, who dropped from 15 percent in the last survey to 9 percent in the current one; Fred Thompson, who fell from 16 percent to 10 percent; and John McCain, who slipped from 7 percent to 6 percent. “You rarely see anything like [Huckabee’s surge],” says Larry Hugick, who directed the polling for Princeton Survey Research Associates. Hugick added that the reason has as much to do with a leeriness of the other candidates among Republican voters as Huckabee’s folksy success on the stump. “He’s filling a vacuum,” Hugick said. “Nobody on the Republican side was getting strong support.”
Newsweek notes that YES Romney is indeed being hurt by his Mormon religion — just as Huckabee is being helped by his:
The survey was completed on the day of the former Massachusetts governor’s much-heralded speech in College Station, Texas, addressing his religion, though most respondents probably had not heard it. Still, only a small number of the 540 Republican voters surveyed in Iowa (10 percent) said they wanted to hear more from Romney about that issue, and close to half (46 percent) said at least some Iowa Republican voters will not consider supporting Romney because of his Mormon faith. More than a quarter (27 percent) said they don’t consider Mormons to be Christians, and one in six (16 percent) said they are less likely to support Romney because he is a Mormon.
Huckabee’s religious credibility, by the same token, appears to be a key factor behind his surge. Huckabee has opened up a huge lead among evangelicals, who are likely to make up about 40 percent of GOP caucus-goers on Jan. 3, the survey found. Among all Republican voters who identify themselves as evangelicals, 47 percent support Huckabee while only 14 percent back Romney. Among nonevangelicals, the two candidates are dead even at 24 percent apiece. Even so, a majority of Republican voters indicated that other issues, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration, health care and Iraq, are more important than religion.
It is a bit of an irony: Huckabee performs well on the stump, but the reality is that he is getting a chunk of his support from people who would not vote for Romney if Ronald Reagan himself rose from the grave and personally bestowed his blessing on him and if Rush Limbaugh embraced Romney and kissed him on Hannity and Colmes.
So there are several factors here: Huckabee’s skill as a campaigner (he has charisma) and good, old-fashioned bigoted feelings towards Mormons. JFK clearly had better luck with 1960s voters than Romney has had with 2000-era voters.
But, then, in these days of polarization where many people only want to hear and read views they already agree with, making inroads to change hearts and minds isn’t as easy as it used to be.
December 8th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
NOTE: The Moderate Voice runs Guest Voice posts from time to time by readers who don’t have their own websites, or people who have websites but would like to post something for TMV’s diverse and thoughtful readership. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers. This is another post by Matt Pearl and is cross posted from his own blog.
Why I’m An Atheist And What That Means
by Matt Pearl
If there is something that the people who know me know, I am a real stickler for logic and reasoning. That is, I will generally not believe something unless there is necessary and sufficient evidence for that belief. For example, I am not going to believe in Russell’s Teapot because there is no evidence for its existence.
Then we have the question of God…
In our culture, when someone has a belief, it is generally up to that person to justify that belief. If you believe that I murdered someone, then you damn well better have evidence. If I believe that gnomes sneak in to my room and steal my underpants at night, then you would think that I was crazy unless you saw the little bastards for yourself.
However, there is generally one set of beliefs that not only go unquestioned, they are untouchable by criticism. Those are mainstream beliefs about God and mainstream religious beliefs.
Why is that? Because there is no evidence, despite theists’ claims, that either necessarily or sufficiently proves the existence of God. To try to hide this fact, theists put the burden of the proof on atheists; atheists have to prove that something does not exist, which is impossible.
In science and statistics, a hypothesis is said to be accepted if you can say that you can reject the null hypothesis. You don’t prove the null hypothesis, because you can’t prove nothingness.
I am an atheist because I have not seen any evidence that either necessarily or sufficiently shows that there is any sort of supernatural being. I cannot reject the null hypothesis that there is no God, so I don’t. Now, if some such evidence were to come about, I would be open to it… I’m not closed minded. Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe Jeff Jacoby thought we couldn’t tell who this was about from the very first sentence. I will point out that more than 3 centuries have passed since Newton’s appointment.
DID YOU hear about the religious fundamentalist who wanted to teach physics at Cambridge University? This would-be instructor wasn’t simply a Christian; he was so preoccupied with biblical prophecy that he wrote a book titled “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.” Based on his reading of Daniel, in fact, he forecast the date of the Apocalypse: no earlier than 2060. He also calculated the year the world was created. When Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning,” he determined, it means 3988 BC.
June 25th, 2007 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
It’s going to make a lot of people shake their heads, but it makes you wonder too, does the Daddy-Court of the Land really get to have the final say-so? Ought all good children still continue to eat their peas without pause? Or should something else occur… the thundercloud so many carry inside nowadays, when put together with all other thunderclouds, could make a perfect storm… the kind that cleanses, blows away the dead and dry, makes way for new…
In the meantime, the zeitgeist for today is that Paterfamilias has just nailed its newest proclamations to our doors. The Real New Rules, of how we all ought live, looks like this:
–the Supremes said No to environmentalists (what’s the matter with those gopher-loving, clean-water-worshipping, lovers of things wild anyway? We can all get plenty of the wild by driving on any freeway.)
– No to speech/ images by adolescents,(those pesky teenage individualists, what do they think they’re doing? Trying to grow up in a rat maze made by adults, or something? And besides, how do we know that t-shirt wasn’t advertising Thorazine? And more so, just because you wear a name on a t-shirt does that automatically mean you’ve become what’s on your shirt? If there were true, wouldn’t everyone by now have turned into a schizoid version of Calvin Klein, no! I can’t be Calvin Klein, because I’ve got Johnny Weissmuller underwear on, I must be Johnny Weissmuller, No! I’m wearing Gloria Vanderbilt shoes, I must have turned into a woman when I put them on, No! that can’t be because I am wearing a Hermes scarf, I must be Hermes… )
–No to taxpayers wanting equitable distribution of their taxes because many do not want their taxes to go to support religions they don’t believe or partake in (Yes, those godless Deists and atheists, they oughter read the Constitution. Ahem, mutter mutter another voice: Ah, Sir? the Constitution was written by some who were ah, not Baptists that we know of. Some were even Freemasons. [oh sacre bleu, quick, hide the daughters!).
But, don’t you sometimes wish for a Penultimate Court over the Supremes, an even higher court that could uphold or overturn the lower “Supreme” court? (I can still say things like that in this country right? I mean, without getting “cheneyed” so someone accuses me of ‘terrible thought crimes involving livid imagination”? Yes, I meant to say livid. Is that okay? I mean, I don’t want to be accused of making ‘traitor fries,’ when I only just meant to be making ‘tater fries.’)
And don’t you wish instead of the Supremes cherry-picking amongst which cases they will hear, that at least once a year, they had to take ten cases decided ‘by the people,’ the ballot for which would NOT include any of the ‘litmus test topics’ some Johnny-One-Notes in this country have been forever screeching? diverting us from other matters that really do matter.
Here are the pithy posts the Supreme Court itself posted, in brief, today displaying its work product over these last many months (below). I am taken by the idea in my very small study of the law so far, that the law’s greatest bloodline intent is to keep as much peace as can be had under trying circumstances of persons sometimes hostile to one another, going head to head. But will these bring peace? Or just gather more thunderclouds? And could that be turned to good?
Quite an interesting article in the New York Times:
A wave of research shows that increasing percentages of Hispanics are abandoning church, suggesting to researchers that along with assimilation comes a measure of secularization.
Several studies show that Hispanics are just as likely as other Americans to identify themselves as having “no religion,� and to not affiliate with a church. Those who describe themselves as secular are, without question, a small minority among Hispanics — as they are among Americans at large. But, in contrast to many of the non-Hispanic Americans who identify themselves as secular, most of the Hispanics say they were once religious.
The Roman Catholic Church, the religious home for most Hispanics, is experiencing the greatest exodus. While many former Catholics join evangelical or Pentecostal churches, the recent research shows that many of them leave church altogether.
Ariela Keysar, associate director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford explained: “They come, they adopt the American way, and part of the American way is moving towards no religion.�
While some Christians harbor doubts about Christ’s actual physical resurrection, hundreds of millions believe devoutly that Jesus died and rose, thus redeeming a fallen world from sin.
Are these people a threat to reason and even freedom?
It’s a question that arises from a new vogue for what you might call neo-atheism…
As Dionne writes, neo-atheists are dogmatic themselves as well. They can also accuse religious individuals of being intolerant but it is quite interesting to note that these neo-atheists are incredibly intolerant and arrogant themselves.
Besides Dionne’s column, also be sure to read this article at CNN by Dr. Francis Collins: a Christian scientist.
Many atheists consider people who adhere to a religion to be ‘irrational’, at least in that regard. Well, if one wants proof that atheists can be irrational, and even extreme as well, I’d say go ahead and read Sam Harris’ column in the Los Angeles Times.
He has some good points and then wanders off into the world of the anti-religion atheist.
I linked to a review in the Washington Post of Stephen Prothero’s new book Religious Literacy a couple of days ago. The Washington Post now reports that Prothero will be online today at 3PM ET to take questions about the book.
Michael J. Totten interviewed Michael Oren, author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present - which appears to be a fascinating book and a must read for everyone interested in this subject.
From the interview:
MJT: So tell us, Michael, why does America’s involvement in the Middle East 200 years ago matter today? What does it have to do with September 11 and Iraq?
Oren: Well it matters, Michael, because many of the same issues that Americans are facing today in the Middle East were confronted by America’s founding fathers – Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington. For example, they had to confront the issue of state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. They had to face a threat to the United States, and decide whether to generate military power and then project that power thousands of miles from the United States. They had to decide whether to involve the United States in an open-ended and rather expensive bloody war in the Middle East. This was, of course, the Barbary War, America’s first overseas military engagement and America’s longest overseas military engagement. It lasted from 1783 to 1815. During the course of this engagement, as my book shows, the United States was confronting a jihadist state-sponsored terrorist network that was taking Americans hostage in the Middle East. It’s very similar to what is going on today.
Read the entire interview, it’s a very interesting read.
For now, however, I would like spend some attention to something that surprised me greatly.
MJT: You wrote about how Americans 200 years ago were thinking of the United States as their own Zion and comparing themselves to the Israelites. This long predates the founding of the state of Israel. This idea is much older than [founder of the Zionist movement] Theodore Herzl.
Oren: Much older. This goes back to the time of the Puritans, to the 17th Century. The Puritans had appropriated the biblical narrative. They saw themselves as the new Israel. They had escaped bondage in England, in Egypt, you know? They crossed the Atlantic Ocean, which was their Sinai. They inherited a promised land, which was the New World. They gave one thousand biblical names to their cities and towns. They gave biblical names to their sons and daughters. They made Hebrew a required language at their universities. James Madison was a Hebrew major.
As a result Americans felt a particular kinship with the old Jews, as though they were sort of cousins. They felt a very strong attachment to the old promised land of Palestine. And they concluded that as good Christians and good Americans it was incumbent on them to help God fulfill his biblical promises to the Jews to rescue them from exile and to restore them to the promised land. This was the notion of Restorationism. It was very common in colonial America well into the 19th Century and even into the 20th Century. And it’s the origin of today’s Evangelical support for Israel.
True enough, no surprises here… at least not to me:
MJT: Fascinating. I had no idea about any of this. Most Americans probably don’t.
Oren: I had no idea about it before I wrote about it.
What? “I had no idea about any of this”? It’s not my intention to insult or attack Michael J. Totten (who I greatly respect) and / or the majority of Americans, but this is amazing. It’s the very root of what is known as American exceptionalism: “City on a hill” and all that.
This is or at least should be basic knowledge. It’s the first thing they teach American Studies students, I assumed that this is something they teach all American high school students as well. Seemingly I was mistaken.
If Michael Totten is right, and I have no reason to believe that he’s not, it’s quite a sad state of affairs. If one wants to understand American society today, one should go back to its roots. To its very foundation.
Here is (part of) an account that’s a must read for all Americans: Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. You can order it, in book form here.
Bradford was an important man. He arived in the Americas in 1620, on the Mayflower. He and the other Pilgrims settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was soon elected Governor, etc.
If one reads and analyzes Of Plymouth Plantation, one realizes almost immediately that Bradford does all he can to equate the Pilgrims to the Jews and himself to Moses who led the Jews through the Sinai and into the promised land. One example (chapter IX):
What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say “Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity,” etc. “Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good: and His mercies endure forever.” “Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, show how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert winderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness and His wonderful works before the sons of men.”(2)
My Norton Anthology explains:
1. “And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor and our oppression: And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 26:6-8).
2. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north , and from the south” (Psalm 107:1-5).
Bradford constantly talks about the Pilgrims and, at the same time, the Jews. The reference is deliberate: Moses the redeemer leading the Jews out of Egypt into the promised land = Bradford the redeemer leading the Jews out of England / Europe into the new world.
They have now become God’s Chosen People. They are now important. Bradford has been chosen by God to lead the chosen people (the Pilgrims) into the promised land. It gives them a religious purpose. Obviously, this is very significant to the Pilgrims. They are not just a people… they are exceptional, they are special… American exceptionalism originated from them, from the Pilgrims and from the mythmaking by people like Bradford.
Whenever something good happens, it’s “God’s Providence” - God protects His chosen people.
Also interesting is this:
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, etc.
As my professor pointed out: make no mistake about it, the Pilgrims weren’t as much concerned with religious freedom as with establishing a theocracy based on their views. The religious covenant and civil contract (now the… guess? Constitution) are one and the same. It was not about freedom of religion / worship for everyone. They came for their own view of perfect worship. The only people who had ‘freedom’ where those who adhered to perfect Pilgrim ideology. Dissenters were often expelled and even killed.
What does this also mean? That an atheist could not become Governor (/ leader). Political leaders, civil leaders, were religious leaders as well, since the Pilgrims believed that they should form a holy community.
As we found out yesterday, that situation has not truly changed - most Americans would still never vote for an atheist.
If you want to order Of Plymouth Plantation click on the image below.
Holly sent me this link yesterday. Go check it out for yourselves. From the website of Trinity College:
WHO IS SECULAR IN THE WORLD TODAY?
A Symposium
A special pullout supplement to the Fall 2006 edition of Religion in the News (Volume 9, No. 2). It features nine articles contributed by international scholars on what it means to be “secular” in the world today. The pieces included are:
1. Introduction by Barry A. Kosmin
2. “Secular Americans: Freethinkers in a Free Market”
by Ariela Keysar and Barry A. Kosmin
3. “Understanding American ‘Nots’” by Frank Pasquale
4. “Is Anyone in Canada Secular?” by William A. Stahl
5. “Secularity in Great Britain” by David Voas
6. “Laicite and Secular Attitudes in France” by Nathalie Caron
7. “Secularism: The Case of Denmark” by Lars Dencik
8. “Secularism in India” by Asghar Ali Engineer
9. “The Secular Israeli Jewish Identity” by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
10. “Secularism in Iran: A Hidden Agenda?” by an Iranian scholar
I am afraid that I did not have the time to read every article yet. I read three of them, though, and I found it to be very interesting. Tomorrow I will have more time to read the articles and comment on it in length, but I wanted to share it immediately with you all.
From the article Secular Americans: Freethinkers in a Free Market of Religion:
The actual size of the secular population is open to interpretation according to the criteria one considers relevant for measuring or identifying secularity among the public. It can be claimed to be anywhere from 1 percent to 46 percent of Americans according to whether the criteria are strict and limited to atheists and agnostics or inclusive of anyone unaffiliated with a religious congregation.
One obvious social manifestation of secularity is being distant from or out of touch with religion. This can be measured by a lack of affiliation with organized religion. The causes or reasons for this unwillingness or inability to “belong� can vary widely from ideological attitudes to physical access issues. Nevertheless, the actual population of those who do not presently “belong� to a religious congregation or institution is very large. ARIS found that 46 percent of American adults or nearly 100 million people did not regard themselves as or claim to be members of a religious group in 2001.
An alternative measure of “belonging� with which to identify the non-religious population is the response to the key ARIS question on religious identification, what is your religion, if any? The responses that we categorized as “No Religion� amounted to 14 percent of the national adult population or 29.5 million people. The most common “secular� response, given by 13 percent of the population, was “None.� An additional 1 percent offered a “positive secular� response. The actual estimates were 991,000 Agnostics, 902,000 Atheists, 53,000 Secular (so stated), and 49,000 Humanists. In addition, over 5 percent of the sample, amounting to over 11 million adults, refused to answer the question. As we state in our book, there are indications to show that this group was mainly irreligious; certainly it did not feel a compelling need to assert a religious identity. This means we can identify a “No Faith� population of adults who either professed no religion or refused to answer the question amounting to 19 percent of adult Americans or over 40 million persons. The accompanying map clearly illustrates that there is a regional dimension to this social phenomenon.
The map:
More information:
If one counts as seculars those who have a secular or somewhat secular outlook and say they have no religion, then more than one in five adult Americans can be included. That amounts to around 46 million individuals. Interestingly, some corroborating statistics for the size of the secular population have recently appeared in a Gallup Poll on attitudes to the Bible. It found that 19 percent of Americans thought the Bible was a “collection of fables.”
Ariela Keysar and Barry Kosmin go on to write that ‘the seculars’ are highly independent: not just religion-wise, but also regarding politics. They are reluctant to join institutions, whether those institutions are religious or political. If the secular part of America’s population continues to grow, it will make it more and more difficult for either political party to focus on its own ‘base’, since ‘the base’ would be a too small part of the entire population.
Again, go check it out for yourself: I will read more articles tomorrow and I will comment on it then.
![[NZZ am Sonntag, Switzerland]](http://worldmeets.us/images/bushpope_nzzamsonntag.gif)
‘NO SMOKING’
![[The Independent, U.K.]](http://worldmeets.us/images/daliahu_independent.gif)
