Brain Damage–Is Religion Wrecking People’s Thinking?

(Hat tip to Religion Gone Crazy for this)

There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon – Pink Floyd, Brain Damage

 

The auto-response on this from the religious would be, “oh, wait, that’s just a video, it doesn’t count”. Countless excuses will ensue, mixed in deeply with cries of ‘persecution!’, accusations of confirmation bias, pathetic excuses, you know the drill.

Regardless, Scientific American released this article mid-2011, titled:

Religious Experiences Shrink Part of the Brain

The article, “Religious factors and hippocampal atrophy in late life,” by Amy Owen and colleagues at Duke University represents an important advance in our growing understanding of the relationship between the brain and religion. The study, published March 30 in PLoS One, showed greater atrophy in the hippocampus in individuals who identify with specific religious groups as well as those with no religious affiliation. It is a surprising result, given that many prior studies have shown religion to have potentially beneficial effects on brain function, anxiety, and depression.

A number of studies have evaluated the acute effects of religious practices, such as meditation and prayer, on the human brain. A smaller number of studies have evaluated the longer term effects of religion on the brain. Such studies, like the present one, have focused on differences in brain volume or brain function in those people heavily engaged in meditation or spiritual practices compared to those who are not. And an even fewer number of studies have explored the longitudinal effects of doing meditation or spiritual practices by evaluating subjects at two different time points.

In this study, Owen et al. used MRI to measure the volume of the hippocampus, a central structure of the limbic system that is involved in emotion as well as in memory formation. They evaluated the MRIs of 268 men and women aged 58 and over, who were originally recruited for the NeuroCognitive Outcomes of Depression in the Elderly study, but who also answered several questions regarding their religious beliefs and affiliation. The study by Owen et al. is unique in that it focuses specifically on religious individuals compared to non-religious individuals. This study also broke down these individuals into those who are born again or who have had life-changing religious experiences.

The results showed significantly greater hippocampal atrophy in individuals reporting a life-changing religious experience. In addition, they found significantly greater hippocampal atrophy among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation, compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again.

For those of you unfamiliar with the hippocampus:

The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is closely associated with the cerebral cortex, and in primates is located in the medial temporal lobe, underneath the cortical surface. It contains two main interlocking parts: Ammon’s horn and the dentate gyrus.

This makes for interesting reading:

Although it had historical precursors, this idea derived its main impetus from a famous report by Scoville and Brenda Milner describing the results of surgical destruction of the hippocampus (in an attempt to relieve epileptic seizures), in a patient named Henry Gustav Molaison, known until his death in 2008 as H.M. The unexpected outcome of the surgery was severe anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia: H.M. was unable to form new episodic memories after his surgery and could not remember any events that occurred just before his surgery, but retained memories for things that happened years earlier, such as his childhood. This case produced such enormous interest that H.M. reportedly became the most intensively studied medical subject in history.

This would go a long way towards explaining much of the flatline behavior of the true believer.

It also lends new meaning to the term, ‘shrinkage’.

Till the next post, then.

And The Twit Of The Year Race Is On! (Or Rather, The Republican Presidential Nomination)

And what a line-up it’s been!

The idiots have lined up, and it’s a cross between a spit-take, a face palm, a headdesk, and picking one’s metaphorical jaw off the floor.

We have the Right Honorable Newt Gingrich, he of the many wives, who right out of the gate, announced that he would dispatch US Marshals to arrest ‘activist judges’ Even his Republican peers (none of whom can rightfully called ‘rational’ by any standard) found this to be a tad…nuts. The likelihood of his getting the nomination is now out. (Phew!)

Sadly, the remainder is still scary enough. Rick Santorum alone is enough to eyeball a high-power rifle. This guy is seriously nuts. He’s the epitome of everything America is not. He’s intolerant of gay rights: his view of abortion is frighteningly anachronistic; he keeps using the code words ‘activist judges’ (a phrase that instills fear in conspiracy theorists galore, but translates to ‘not popular with the conservative crazies’). I don’t even need to cite anything more than his web page.

I’ve laid into Rick Perry before: his status as a fucknut changeth not. 

Ron Paul is a mixed bag of nuts: he thinks that ‘life begins at conception’, has the prevalent asinine dictate against abortion (touting himself as ‘an unshakable foe’), also thinks there’s a war against religion going on,  and proclaims global warming a hoax. What makes more moderate Republicans (almost an oxymoron, there) want to vote for him is that he actually sounds more rational than the rest of the monkeys in the zoo.

At least Ms. Monkey is off the ticket – never thought I’d ever be booing a woman running for president, but there you have it.

The last two are the least worrisome, which is weird, because they’re both Mormon.

Huntsman seems nearly intelligent – he doesn’t boo science or substitute crazy for reality (well, at least mostly). He doesn’t deny global warming, or evolution.

Romney is still an anti-woman’s choice, but is at least willing to change his opinion. Problem is, it’s usually way off into right field.

We can only hope that Obama gets re-elected. While he hasn’t been the best president ever, he still rates well above the baboons that ride the GOP elephant.

Till the next post, then.

The Madness Of Muslim–The Religion Of Peace Claims More Lives

(Hat tip to Pharyngula at FreeThought Blogs)

Nigeria Christians hit by fresh Islamist attacks

Nigeria has been hit by a fresh wave of violence apparently targeting the country’s Christian communities.

At least 17 people were killed in Mubi in Adamawa state as gunmen opened fire in a town hall where members of the Christian Igbo group were meeting.

There were also reports of a deadly attack in Adamawa’s capital, Yola.

The Islamist Boko Haram group said it had carried out the attack in Mubi and another in Gombe on Thursday night in which at least six people died.

The group has staged numerous attacks in northern and central areas in recent months – on Christmas Day it attacked a church near the capital, Abuja, killing dozens of people.

One Boko Haram faction has warned all southerners – who are mostly Christian and animist – to leave the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria.

Adamawa state borders Borno state, where Boko Haram emerged.

Last week President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Yobe and Borno states, as well as Plateau state in central Nigeria and Niger state in the west, following a surge in ethnic and sectarian violence.

But the pace of attacks has increased and he must now consider whether to extend the state of emergency into other states and beef up the military presence in the north in response, says the BBC’s Mark Lobel in Lagos.

Meanwhile, the government is also facing the bleak prospect of a general strike in two days’ time amid popular fury over its removal of a fuel subsidy which has seen fuel prices double for ordinary Nigerians.

As I have stated previously, Islam (which I have dubbed Ass-lame) seems to inspire more barbarism than the other two of the Big Mono-Three. We have all heard the apologia behind this: Islam once went through a golden age, it contributed to western civilization in various disciplines, some of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages were of the Islamic faith.

This, however, is a poor excuse for the current behavior of its constituents. Islam is a rape culture: it is a brutal boot used to grind the poor beneath into the ground: it bypasses anything vaguely resembling civilized action: it gives excuse to misogyny and promotes patriarchal bullshit.

It is, in short, YAUA (Yet Another Useless Anachronism). The sooner this nonsense it gone, the better off the species will be.

Till the next post, then.

Happy New Year

First of all , I want to say Happy New Year  and hope that 2012 is a good one for each and every one of you. Thank you for coming here to read and for providing continued support and  insightful comments which contribute to our debates and discussions.

Another year is over, and a new one begins, and it is yet another election year with the Religious Wrong Right pushing even harder than ever to get control of the reins of White House.

Simon Brown from American Atheist writes:

From the halls of Congress, where the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly urged public schools to post “In God We Trust” displays in classrooms, to the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., that was attended by 3,000 fundamentalist Christian activists, the Religious Right’s influence loomed large.

Since 2012 is an election year, we expect the Religious Right to use this growing influence to wage an all-out war to shape the U.S. government into a body that will do its bidding.

Here are 10 of the biggest challenges, issues and concerns that Americans United is expecting to confront in the coming twelve months

Improper Involvement of Religion in the 2012 Elections

Religion has infiltrated the run-up to the 2012 elections on an unprecedented level. Virtually all of the Republican presidential candidates have spent considerable time courting votes from the Religious Right. Nearly all of the major contenders spoke at the Values Voter Summit, and most of those candidates also appeared at a forum in November focusing on “questions of the soul” that was held at a fundamentalist church in Iowa.

The Religious Right is also making a serious push to pick the Republican candidate for president. The Alliance Defense Fund held its annual “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” in October, an event designed to encourage churches to engage in illegal campaign intervention. Last year’s version featured a record number of participants, and activists assume that even more will join in fray in 2012. The Religious Right is also planning to hold voter turnout drives and distribute “voter guides” that pretend to be unbiased but are not.

Religious Right strategists dream of forging fundamentalist and evangelical churches into a disciplined voting bloc to effectively dominate the democratic process.

Sadly, the presidential campaign has already included expressions of religious bigotry. Influential Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress said in October that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, is a member of a cult and cited his affiliation as a reason not to support his candidacy.

Critics have also questioned President Barack Obama’s status as a Christian, charging falsely that he is a Muslim or at best an opponent of the Christian faith.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution forbids religious tests for public office, and church-state separationists regard attacks such as these as a violation of the spirit of that provision.

School Voucher Onslaught in the States and Congress

The Associated Press reported that 30 states explored voucher subsidies for religious and other private schools in 2011, and that number is expected to grow this year. These efforts have been driven by wealthy right-wing organizations, such as the Alliance for School Choice, which advocates for vouchers nationwide and is run by right-wing activist Betsy DeVos. Her organization and its allies provide vast resources and public relations expertise to push for school vouchers in many states.

DeVos has lots of help from the Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy because parochial schools and fundamentalist academies would be the primary beneficiary of “school choice” programs.

There is an especially sneaky attempt at voucher legislation underway in Florida, where a ballot initiative set to be considered in 2012 would allow the state to give taxpayer money to religious organizations.

Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, president of the Americans United Board of Trustees, is a plaintiff in a case filed by AU and its allies to get the initiative off the ballot. He and others involved in the litigation say the proposed constitutional amendment misleads voters about its true effects.

Voucher bills may come up on the federal level as well. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) railroaded a voucher program for the District of Columbia through Congress in March, so it’s clear Americans United will have to carefully monitor federal legislation as well in 2012.

The Catholic Bishops’ Crusade for ‘Religious Liberty’

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched a formidable new lobbying unit known as the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. The committee claims to be defending religious liberty, but critics say it actually seeks to preserve taxpayer funding for church-affiliated agencies while maintaining overly broad exemptions from various laws.

A representative of this committee testified in October before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding the issue of religious liberty in America and made the case that Catholic-run organizations should be exempt from providing birth control or recognizing same-sex marriages but should still receive government contracts and funds. Republicans on the committee seemed willing to consider this position, but Democrats were very resistant to offering such broad religious exemptions and government money.

The Pew Research Center found that Catholic lobbying organizations are the most powerful among Washington religious lobbies as they comprise 19 percent of all faith lobbying. As a result, the Ad Hoc Committee will certainly be one to watch in 2012.

Improper Religious Proselytizing in Public Schools

Some elements of the Religious Right hate the public school system because it doesn’t allow them to indoctrinate students with their version of Christianity. As a result, they look to add prayer or other religious activities to the school schedule whenever they can.

In Missouri, for example, voters will face a religion amendment on the 2012 ballot that, if passed, would open the door for religious activities on any and all public property, including schools. The proposal is so open-ended that school children might have the right to refuse to do homework on religious grounds.

In Florida, a bill is advancing through the state legislature that would let local school boards allow students to offer prayers at school events. Originally the measure stated that the prayers must be non-sectarian but that language was removed. The legislation has been offered several times before and could pass, although AU’s Florida chapters, the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League all oppose the measure.

Moreover, the Religious Right is always trying to stack public school curriculum and textbooks with religious material and going on creationism crusades, which observers expect will continue in 2012.

‘Faith-Based’ Funding and Hiring Bias

Despite pleas from Americans United and allies, President Obama has yet to act on his campaign promise to make major civil rights and civil liberties improvements to the Bush “faith-based” initiative. Speaking in Zanesville, Ohio, in 2008, he said, “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.”

Americans United has written to Obama asking him to keep his promise, but he has yet to do so. This issue is likely to remain an ongoing concern in 2012.

Related faith-based funding controversies are also likely. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is considering a new rule allowing the use of taxpayer funds for the construction and repair of religious buildings overseas.

AU has submitted comments to USAID urging the agency to withdraw the proposed rule.

Government Promotion of Religious Symbols

In an election year, politicians often look for easy ways to show their religiosity and that has already begun at both the state and federal levels.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution in November that reaffirmed “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States and encouraged its display in public schools and other public buildings. The action came even though, as Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) pointed out, no one had suggested that this is not the motto of the United States.

That same month, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), introduced a bill that would order the Secretary of the Interior to add a Franklin Delano Roosevelt prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Roosevelt offered that prayer on D-Day as the United States began the military operation that liberated Europe.

Another religious display issue has arisen in Montana, where a large statue of Jesus erected by the Knights of Columbus sits on national forest land. The U.S. Forest Service had planned to remove the statue, but is facing resistance not only from the Knights but also from U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who wants to save it.

In Georgia, the state legislature will consider a bill that would require all vehicle license plates to be emblazoned with “In God We Trust” unless drivers pay extra to cover up the message.

As election season heats up this year, it is likely these types of efforts will only increase.

Attacks on Religious Minorities

The Religious Right says frequently that America is a Christian nation (despite ample evidence to the contrary), so anyone who doesn’t share that movement’s belief in its special brand of Christianity is often marginalized.

The best example of attempts by the Religious Right to marginalize minorities is anti-sharia legislation. In 2010, Oklahoma passed the so-called “Save Our State Amendment,” which bars enforcement of Islamic law. It received 70 percent of the vote.

Church-state experts note that the U.S. Constitution already bars government support for religion in most cases, so such legislation is unnecessary.

The law has been challenged in court on the grounds that it singles out Muslims for discrimination. Americans United filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in May, and it is now before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

While Oklahoma has taken one of the rashest stances in discriminating against Muslims, it is clear that many other elements of the Religious Right would like to see similar laws enforced nationwide and could make a push for that in 2012.

The Marriage War

The Religious Right, along with the Catholic hierarchy and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), are out to fashion state marriage policy so it reflects their doctrinal teachings. They are firmly committed to the idea that marriage is between one man and one woman only, and they are fighting in the courts, in the statehouses and in Congress to make sure the law continues to define marriage according to their theology.

The highest profile case is the challenge to California’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriage that is working its way through the federal court system. More than 40 states have already banned same-sex marriage, but the outcome of this case could set a precedent for reversing that trend. The Supreme Court may take up the issue in 2012.

There is also a referendum in the works in North Carolina that could be on the ballot in May and would, if passed, put a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution.

A referendum banning same-sex marriage is also on the November ballot in Minnesota.

‘Personhood’ Amendments Here, There and Everywhere

Multiple states have faced attacks from groups seeking to pass “personhood” amendments, and that trend looks to continue in 2012.

The latest state to consider one of these amendments is Mississippi, which voted it down in November. Had the measure passed, it would have declared fertilized eggs to be people, made abortion illegal in virtually all instances, including cases of rape and incest, and it would have banned some forms of birth control. So broad was the language of the amendment that women who miscarried could have been subjected to criminal investigations.

Keith Mason, co-founder of Personhood USA, which is a sponsor of these amendments, has said that his organization may attempt another shot at a Mississippi ballot initiative and that his organization is pushing for “personhood” amendments on the 2012 ballots in Ohio, Florida, Montana, Oregon, California and Nevada.

Religiously Based Censorship

The Religious Right is always on the lookout for books, movies, artwork and other aspects of culture to ban based on their religious convictions.

In late 2010, Speaker John Boehner and his allies called for the removal of an exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after they learned that it contains a short video of a crucifix with ants crawling on it, as well as works of art with sexual themes. The museum bent to Boehner’s pressure and removed the video.

In Missouri last summer, a school district banned Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Oeckler’s Twenty Boy Summer because a local professor complained that the books advocate principles that are contrary to the Bible.

These are only a few of the issues we are expected to go up against in the coming year.  We can expect to see many similar efforts by the Religious Right in an attempt to get their way and more claims are made that a candidate’s god chose him or her to lead our nation.

AU Executive Director Barry W. Lynn said, “This could be a uniquely challenging year for Americans United, with political candidates claiming God’s endorsement and lawmakers poised to vote on all manner of unconstitutional affronts to the First Amendment.”

This election year, we must remain as vigilant more than ever and not take anything for granted.

It’s Starting To Look A Lot Like…War? WTF?

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn’t.  – Leonard Cohen, There is A War

This is getting really, really old. Every year, instead of ‘turning the other cheek’ (as they were advised to do by their own damn holy book), the religious nutjobs bellyache as if they had storm troopers dragging them out of their home in the wee hours, their bloody religious channels are being shut down, and churches are being burned.

None of which is even comparable (or occurring) to what they’re actually whining about. Witness:

‘War On Christmas’ Declared In America

Rows about the display of traditional Christmas symbols have broken out across the country.

But one of the pressure groups accused of being partly responsible has told Sky News it defends its campaign on behalf of non-Christians and non-believers.

The usual debate over whether it is acceptable to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ has exploded into a much wider disagreement this year.

Thousands of people took part in a prayer rally in the city of Athens in Texas after an atheist group took court action to have a nativity scene removed from outside the courthouse.

They claim it promotes Christianity and excludes non-Christians but a judge has so far ruled the traditional Christmas scene can stay.

The usual debate has become a much wider disagreement

Becky Paul, who was among those at the prayer rally, said: “Christ is the reason we’re here. I mean this is his birth, and that’s why we need to be celebrating and we just pray for the people who don’t believe.”

Carla Barron, another of those who turned up to show support, said: “It is not about the nativity scene, it is about Jesus. It is the reason we celebrate Christmas, Jesus is Christmas.”

The row in Athens is just part of a fierce nationwide debate about the right and wrongs of displaying religious symbols in public places.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits the government from promoting any religion but also prevents it from interfering in the practice of religion.

The issue has even featured in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Candidate Rick Perry produced a widely-parodied television commercial in which he said: “You don’t need to be in the pews every Sunday to know there is something wrong in our country.

“When gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As president I will end Obama’s war on religion.”

The debate has taken a bizarre twist in Solana Beach City near San Diego in California – officials have removed the star from the top of the municipal tree just in case they get complaints about it.

The executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, one of the groups accused of being behind the “war on Christmas”, has dismissed the suggestion.

Barry Lynn told Sky News: “There is no war on Christmas. We have a dizzying level of obvious holiday displays. You can’t walk ten feet in any city in America and not realise there is a holiday called Christmas and that there is some kind of religious significance to it.

“I think what’s important is that at a holiday season it is not up to federal government, state government or city government to embrace one religion – Christianity – and its holiday celebrations over the many other religions practising in the United States and many non-believers.”

Seriously, how is this nonsense even news anymore? It’s over a decade old, which makes it ancient by media standards. What the real issue is, is that it’s a holiday that everyone can share in, and not everybody’s a Christian in the USA anymore. And like whiny children, the Christians are crying in their cups about the ‘good old days’, when you could get away with anything Christian-related, and nobody would say boo. Now it’s boo-fucking-hoo, why can’t we sledgehammer everyone with our religion whether they like it or not?

Hell, last Thursday afternoon I was getting a root canal (been through so many, it’s old hat – the biggest part of the inconvenience is sitting in the blasted chair), and my dentists’ office had this tape loop of Xmas songs, and the constant lyrics about ‘king of angels’, ‘jesus our savior’ and all that other tripe started getting to my stomach acids, especially after the umpteenth reiteration.

The persecution complex routine is getting stale. It’s kinda hysterical, that they tend to reserve all their charitability for one week out of the year, and the other 51 weeks they just behave like all the other assholes out there.

It’s a holiday. It’s a holiday that’s supposed to be about sharing – sharing yourself with others, others sharing themselves with you, and yet these folks (who all claim some sort of mysterious ‘higher road’ morality) don’t seem to get the reason for the season whatsoever.

Imaginary wars are usually the figments of some psychotically over-active imaginations.

Anyways, I wish all of our readers a very, very wicked Winterval, and remember: be good to each other.

Till the next post, then.

The Road To Theocracy Is Often Littered With Broken Promises…

“Brad showed us that we had permission to speak out about the Judeo-Christian values that we believe in, that we don’t have to cower or back down, or we don’t have to spiritualize everything. We have every right as Americans to say, ‘I don’t believe in same-sex marriage.’ That’s what Brad reminds us.”

One of the consistently scarier elements of the religious in this country, is how they seem to mount a movement almost right beneath one’s nose, and suddenly pop out of nowhere. Granted, I tend to live in an internet-induced bubble for the most part, but these cats? Serious heebie-jeebie time.

Promise Keepers is an international conservative Christian organization for men. While it originated in the United States, it is now world-wide. It is self-described as “a Christ-centered organization dedicated to introducing men to Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, helping them to grow as Christians”. Promise Keepers is a non-profit organization, not affiliated with any Christian church or denomination. Their most widely publicized events tend to be mass rallies held at football stadiums and similar venues. They also sell a variety of promotional products to “help men keep their promises,” including clothing, books, and music. Dr. Bruce Wilkinson developed the widely-used video curriculum, Personal Holiness in Times of Temptation, as a part of “The Biblical Manhood” series for Promise Keepers.

‘Biblical manhood’? Talk about having a laugh.

Their statement of faith is fairly boilerplate. The ‘7 Promises’ is somewhat borderline worrisome. It’s obvious that they’re homophobic (while trying to appear to be anything but), as they vigorously oppose same-sex marriage. That right there places them directly in ass-clown county.

It was observed that they aren’t…quite right, as reported in this article:

However, critics of Promise Keepers charge its leaders routinely express views that are antithetical to the Bible’s teachings, and outside the realm of mainstream belief. They claim it has an unbridled ecumenicism, a charismatic leadership emphasis, and relies on an anti-God secular psychology.
They say Promise Keepers mimics new-age male bonding and self-discovery therapies, and endorses a book which suggests levels of initiation rites to manhood. They decry its emphasis on phallic symbolism and the fact that Jesus is presented as a sexual male. They note that PK requires submission to leaders and employs a pyramid structure in its organization, that it intrudes on the privacy of a man’s family life and sexual habits. They point out that the group encourages male domination of women, and is rooted in the Vineyard ministry, with strong links to the Kansas City Prophets — a controversial cult claiming visions and revelations from God.
Critics say they do not presume to judge the integrity or the motives of all those in Promise Keepers or question the salvation of these men. They concede that many involved with PK are sincere. Instead, they say they are concerned with the doctrine of the movement and the ministry being promoted. They stress that any group that claims to represent Jesus must 1) preach a pure Gospel, and 2) address man’s spiritual growth from an accurate interpretation of God’s Word. Critics say Promise Keepers fails on both counts.
They worry that the vast majority of men who attend PK rallies probably know very little about the beliefs or church affiliation of the speakers who appear. The lecturers are accepted as authorities on Christian living simply because they say they are Christians and believe the Bible.
“Since the ministry of these teachers runs the gamut from compromising new-evangelicalism and charismatic error, to ecumenical liberalism, it is clear that they [are] introducing the Promise Keepers to unscriptural doctrines and fellowships,” says Al Dager of Redmond, WA. “This is a very serious matter.”
Rev. Gil Rugh, senior pastor of Indian Hills Community Church in Lincoln, NE. agrees. “There is so much theological diversity among those involved with Promise Keepers that no in-depth discussion of Scripture or what it means to be a Christian could take place without tearing the movement apart.”
As one former Promise Keepers member remarked, “it’s so diluted and deluded, you can’t get very much out of it.”

And here is a particularly chilling little bit:

Yet the religious right pantheon behind Promise Keepers consists of men who think the Republican party is too liberal. Founder Bill McCartney cut his political teeth speaking at rallies of the violent anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. In impassioned speeches — which are especially chilling when viewed on videotape — McCartney and company have said things like: men must be leaders and women “responders,” lesbians and gays are “stark, raving mad,” abortion is a “second Civil War” and participants must “take back the nation for Christ.”

As Frederick Clarkson notes in “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” (Common Courage Press, 1997), Promise Keepers aims to create “men of integrity” while its leaders model opportunistic double-talk. Honor your wife, but take back your role as head and master of your household. Seek racial “reconciliation” with hugs and tears among the biblically correct, but ignore racial injustice when it comes to education, jobs and housing. March on Washington, but assert it’s not a political thing.

It is reminiscent of the way Promise Keepers backer Jerry Falwell claims he doesn’t condone anti-abortion violence but paid $10,000 toward Operation Rescue boss Randy Terry’s fine on a felony stemming from O.R.’s violent seige of women’s health clinics during the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

Taking a page from Falwell’s play book, a radical activist like McCartney insists his group itself is not at all political. Yet Falwell and other religious right doyens — Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson and Bill Bright — launched it financially, lent hundreds of staff members, continue to host and speak at Promise Keepers rallies, publish Promise Keepers books and sell their own politically packed treatises at Promise Keepers events.

Still not convinced? Try signing up as a Promise Keepers supporter, as an academic researcher did, and see if you, too, don’t suddenly start getting mail from the Republican party that you never got before. Lurk online in a Promise Keepers chat group, as one journalist did, and see if you, too, don’t note that abortion is the number one topic — not a woman’s right to choose but an abortion opponent’s right to kill women and doctors.

At this juncture, the Promise Keepers are relegated to little more than an historical footnote – they lost bundles, had major layoffs, and Joe (oops! I mean Bill) McCartney resigned in 2003, but returned in 2008 to become the chairMAN. So while not a big-time contender anymore (like the AFA, or Focus on the Family, or those other delusional fucks), they bear watching as well.

So keep an eye peeled. They may not be the barbarians at the gate we are accustomed to, doesn’t mean they’re not equally dangerous.

Till the next post, then.

Nobody Makes Hitchens’s Point Better Than Believers

We knew it was coming, and on Thursday night, December 15, 2011, it came.  Christopher Hitchens died at the age of 62 of esophageal cancer.  Countless words have been and are being written about him, and deservedly so.  He was a great thinker, a great writer, and his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything articulated what many people felt but were afraid or unable to say.

Hitchens’s body of work isn’t going anywhere.  He has left behind a legacy that people will be reading for generations to come.  But his death has done something his writing could not.  Ever since he was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, the very fact of his illness and impending death managed to create a vivid and living illustration of all the points he made in God Is Not Great.  More effective than his writing on the subject of religion and how it poisons everything was the behavior of believers in response to his illness, and then to his death.

When Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer, the response from Christians on the internet ran the gamut from gleeful delight to questions about whether or not they should pray for such an unrepentant atheist.

In an article in the Washington Post’s section “On Faith,” Dr. Francisco Contreras discussed the cancer diagnoses of two people: Hitchens and evangelical Christian celebrity Joni Eareckson Tada.  Of Hitchens, he wonders “if his illness could be the result of god’s judgment.”  He wonders no such thing about Tada and remains silent about the possible reasons she might have gotten cancer.

Tada was paralyzed in 1967 when she dove into shallow waters in Chesapeake Bay.  She’s written books, recorded albums and played herself in a movie about herself.  When I was a boy, her book Joni was required reading … although I never finished it.  Her entire claim to fame was that she was paralyzed and a Christian.  Contreras wonders if Hitchens’s cancer was a punishment from god and points out that Christians were asking if they should pray for him.  But of Tada, he writes:

“Meanwhile, the Christian community has offered up its prayers for Tada, who has been paralyzed since 1967, and praised her ability to ‘show us how to suffer’ once again, this time with breast cancer.”

Suffering is big with Christians.  If you’re not a Christian — or if you’re a bad Christian — your suffering is a punishment from god.  But if you believe Jesus is your savior and you say your prayers, your suffering is a way to witness to others for Jesus and be a good example, and it gives your fellow Christians a chance to praise Jesus — and to praise you, of course.  Suffering is to Christians what breast implants and rehab are to Hollywood celebrities.  So Contreras doesn’t wonder if Tada had it coming.

The funny thing about Contreras is that he’s an oncologist.  He’s a doctor who treats cancer patients.  And yet he writes nonsense like this:

“As an oncologist and man of faith, I am convinced that there is no substitute for a firm grounding in Christ for people managing disease.  The powerful peace that stems from right relationship with god and man as outlined in scripture cannot be found anywhere else.”

The implication is that Tada will be just fine because she knows how to suffer (she’s a professional!) and has Jesus on her side; Hitchens, on the other hand, is in for a world of hurt.  Contreras’s article was smarmy and passive-aggressive, but it was pretty mild compared to some of the other responses.

NJ Voices blogger George Berkin claims that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to Hitchens and was a gift from god — “A cancer,” he writes, “which god didn’t ‘give,’ but certainly permitted.”  (Can anyone tell me how permitting cancer but not giving it is a distinction that somehow makes god a good guy — or how it’s a distinction at all?).  He writes:

“If god really wanted to ‘get’ Hitchens, god would just ignore the man, and let him go his blissful way, unchallenged, to a peaceful death.  At which point Hitchens would stand, face-to-face and unreconciled, with that very god.”

It would have been a punishment for god to ignore Hitchens?  But “permitting” him to get cancer is a gift?  If you can make sense of that, you’re way ahead of me.  He gets very bitchy in the article, even whining about the fact that Hitchens does not capitalize the “g” in “god.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of Hitchens’ non-belief has a whiff of the village atheist about it.  First off, there’s the title of his best-known anti-god book: god (sic) is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  Why the little ‘g’ for god?  It’s his name, after all, and we capitalize proper names.  The little “g” feels like the gratuitous disrespect rebellious small children are fond of.”

“God” is not a “proper name.”  There are many gods, and each of them has a name.  Each of those names is a proper noun and should be capitalized.  Zeus is a god, for example, as are Vishnu and Odin and others.  There is a certain arrogance in behaving your god is the god and that no proper noun is needed to identify him, that simply capitalizing the word “god” is sufficient.  Yahweh is the name of the god to which Berkin refers, not “god.”  I have taken the liberty of correcting Berkin’s arrogant (and sadly common) capitalization of the word “god” in these excerpts.  Why is it always an atheist who has to explain this sort of thing to Christians?

Berkin goes on to point out that Hitchens’s atheism had its roots in something he heard in childhood.  Then he makes a statement so breathtakingly stupid and ill-considered that the mind reels:

“For me, there’s something inane about an adult beginning to base their adult worldview on something wacko recalled from childhood.”

Has your head exploded yet?  According to studies by Nazarene Church Growth Research and the International Bible Society, 85% of all Christians “make their commitment to Jesus between the ages of 4 and 14, that is, when they are children or early youth.”  That’s because once people are beyond that age group, it gets rather difficult for them to swallow the Christian teachings about a talking snake, a pregnant virgin and a traveling magician who dies and then rises from the grave.  Christian leaders are well aware of this and call it the “4 to 14 Window.”  Entire programs are devoted to targeting for indoctrination children int his vulnerable age group.  According to Berkin, it’s perfectly acceptable for people to become Christians and be baptized while they’re still children, it seems — but when the seed of atheism is planted during childhood, it’s “inane” and “wacko.”

The point that Berkin is trying — so clumsily and stupidly — to make is this:

“It is a cliché that there are no atheists in foxholes — or in cancer wards.  It is a cliché because, human nature being what it is, there is a lot of truth to it.  People do tend to wait until they are in big trouble (foxholes) or until the last minute (cancer wards) before they get serious about spiritual, end-of-life, matters. …

“Atheism is a fun game (and profitable, too) when you’re healthy, because there are no really serious consequences.  Not so when you might be terminally ill, because then you’re about to make an eternal bet.”

Wait a second — “profitable?”  Is Berkin really inviting the comparison of bestselling books about atheism to Christianity’s long and rich history of con artists who have bilked countless millions — billions probably would be more accurate — out of credulous followers?  Does he want to bring up Christian extortionists like Oral Roberts, who, in January of 1987, claimed that god had told him to raise eight million dollars by March or god would “call him home?”  Books have been written about how “profitable” — and wildly corrupt — Christianity has been throughout history.  But … atheism is “profitable?”  As the kids these days say, “Bitch, please.”

It’s not a “cliche” to say that there are no atheists in foxholes or cancer wards.  It’s an outright unmitigated lie.  Those who choose to believe this lie do so out of fear, and they can’t imagine how anyone else might not harbor the same fear.  It’s a fear of what comes after death — that eternity of endlessly worshiping a god who is so insecure that he must constantly be told how great he is by his own puny creations, or that eternity of agonizing suffering promised by the “prince of peace” to those who didn’t worship him … or didn’t worship him correctly … or ate the wrong foods … or wore the wrong clothes … or read the wrong books … or thought the wrong thoughts.

The thing is, the people who believe in those two destinations are never quite sure which one will be theirs.  Oh, sure, they say they’re saved and they’re going to heaven.  They even say it with certainty.  But it’s a certainty they can never really feel because both destinations are promised by the same “loving” god.  If the possibility of suffering in flames forever is an expression of “love,” then … well, anything can happen.  The only way to find out is to die.  That makes death a terrifying thing to a lot of believers.  Believe me, I’ve known people who hold this belief and live with that fear.  I was one of them.

My friend Karen Leonard was a death care activist.  She worked as Jessica Mitford’s researcher on the 1997 update of Mitford’s hugely popular book, The American Way of Death.  Christopher Hitchens was a dear friend of Mitford’s and delivered her eulogy when she died of cancer at the age of 78 in 1996 and Karen was fortunate enough to have met Hitchens.  But that’s not why I’m bringing her up.  Karen worked for more than 10 years as a private death and dying aide.  She was often the only person to witness the deaths of some of her clients because family members simply weren’t there.  She made some astute observations.

“People are a distillation of who they really are when they’re dying,” she told me.  “If they’ve been meek in life, for example, they’re meek in death.  The ego is the last to go.  The more they believe in god and heaven and hell — particularly hell — the more frightened they are of death.  When that fear comes upon them, they think it’s because god has abandoned them.  And that’s a horrible, horrible thing because that fear is perfectly natural.  The more pious they are in life, the more fearful they are in death.  I didn’t deal with many atheists.  They were afraid, too, because everyone is afraid at that time.  And angry, too, quite often.  But the atheists weren’t afraid of or angry at god, so their fear was not as intense.”

The cackling delight so many Christians showed when they learned that Hitchens had terminal cancer was rooted in their certainty that when he finally came face to face with the end of his life, he would collapse in terror and cry out for Jesus to save him.  Although they already believe, that’s exactly what they are going to do because with their belief comes uncertainty and fear.  Many predicted that he would cave in at the end and experience a last-minute deathbed conversion.  They were certain of it — in the same way they are certain of their salvation.

And they were wrong.

When Hitchens’s death was announced Thursday night, I went on Facebook and Twitter.  There, I knew I would find others who were feeling the loss in the same way as I.  And I really did feel it.  I never met him, but Hitchens (along with Richard Dawkins) had an enormous impact on my life.  He made me feel not so alone.  God is Not Great gave me goosebumps when I read it the first time because it read like it had been written by someone who had reached inside my head, rummaged through my thoughts and knew exactly how I felt.  Like so many others — enough to make it a worlwide bestseller — I got the eerie feeling that the book had been written specifically for me.  I was not crazy for thinking that religion was a bad thing!  I was not an evil person for being unable to believe in a monstrous, tyrannical god who made no sense — especially when he was called a “loving” god!  Hitchens’s death was not only the loss of someone who was doing something extremely important, but someone who had been inside my head.

But on Twitter, I discovered some people who did not share my feelings.  A lot of them.

As people began to discuss Hitchens’s death and mourn his loss, they tagged their tweets with the title of his most famous book.  So many people did this, in fact, that #GodIsNotGreat showed up in the list of Twitter’s trending topics.  Then Christians and other believers began to respond.

Some tried to spin the trending topic in the direction they wanted it to go with tweets like, “#GodIsNotGreat HE’S THE GREATEST.”  Some either feigned ignorance — or really were ignorant — about the book: “Why is #GodIsNotGreat trending … they must have made a typo … and meant to say #GodISgreat!”  But relatively innocent tweets like these were washed away by a wave of vitriolic hatred toward Hitchens and his supporters that included threats of violence and death like, “I seriously wanna kill whoever started the #GodIsNotGreat.”

Someone put together a short video showing some of them — it’s hard to believe something as cute-sounding as a “tweet” could be so ugly.  These are a few examples, reproduced here as written:

“Why THE FUCK is #GodIsNotGreat trending? Whoever started that TT, kill yourself.”

“WHO EVA MADE THIS A TRENDIN TOPIC … ILL PERSONALLY KILL EM MYSELF … GOD IS THE BEST THING EVA MANE … AMEN”

“#GodIsNotGreat Gotta kill the person who said this!”

After a while, #GodIsNotGreat abruptly disappeared from the list of trending topics, although the tweets kept coming from all over the world.  Was it removed because of the ugly threats?  Because Christians and other believers complained?  Or are topics ignored after they’ve trended for a certain amount of time?  I don’t know.  But a lot of people were upset when the topic disappeared, especially when other less savory topics like #ReasonsToBeatYourGirlfriend remained on the list longer.

Anyone who pays attention to this sort of thing probably wasn’t surprised by this response on Twitter.  I certainly wasn’t.  Remember earlier this year when American Atheists opposed the inclusion of the “World Trade Center Cross” in New York City’s WTC Memorial & Museum (which I thought was a bad idea, incidentally — choose your battles a little more wisely, folks)?  This is a sampling of the way some Christians responded to that on Facebook.  It’s pretty ugly.

This happens virtually every time Christians are faced with something they don’t like.  The internet has made it more visible now than ever before.  And yet so many people still insist that religion makes us better people.  The evidence shows otherwise.

Paula Kirby is a former Christian and writer, a regular blogger on The Washington Post’s “On Faith” feature.  She posted this on her Facebook page today:

A Free Church of Scotland minister sent this typically mean-spirited email to the RDFRS UK (Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science) email address this morning:

“So now Chritopher (sic) Hitchins (sic) knows that god exists.  Sadly it is too late – he should have listened to his wiser brother.  Its (sic) not too late for you.  Repent and believe in the lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

My reply:

“There is no more evidence for the truth of Christianity today than there was yesterday. Your email has, however, provided more evidence for the vileness of it.”

How shriveled these people show themselves to be, especially when viewed alongside the generosity, warmth and sheer humanity of a colossus like Hitch. That they honestly think HITCH is the one who failed the test of life and that they are better people than he was just speaks volumes: religion really does poison everything.

These are only a few examples of something that’s been going on for more than a year.  In his writing and public speaking engagements, Christopher Hitchens eloquently explained to anyone who would listen how religion poisons everything.  His points were extremely difficult to argue with, but while some tried, the arguments inevitably decayed into smiling, passive-aggressive threats of damnation or hateful personal attacks.  The points Hitchens made still stand.  And they have been glowingly vindicated by the behavior of his critics.  Christians, Jews and Muslims alike have repeatedly displayed the poison of which Hitchens wrote and spoke.

This is why we needed Hitchens so much, why he was so important.  This is why the work he did must continue.  While he pointed out the poison of religion, he did not eradicate it, of course — no individual could, not even someone as powerfully gifted as Hitchens.  The poison remains.

No one will replace him.  We will not see his likes again anytime soon, if ever.  But it’s vital that the exposure of that poison go on.  It will take every atheist, humanist and skeptic working at the same time to come close to being as effective as Hitchens, and even then, it won’t be the same.  But that’s no reason to get discouraged and sit on our hands.

You don’t have to be a genius with words, whether writing them or speaking them, or have a mind that’s faster than a rocket or a memory that appears to be superhuman.  Only one man had all of those things in equal measure.  He’s gone, and he’s not going to rise from the dead to pick up where he left off — not on Sunday morning or ever.  All you have to do is not be silent.  You don’t have to be an obnoxious ass about it.  Just don’t give the bullshit a pass.  You know it when you hear it, when you see it.  Speak up.  It won’t necessarily be easy and you’ll probably stir some anger.  Nothing worth accomplishing is easy.  And this isn’t just worth accomplishing — the poison of religion is something we absolutely must raise awareness of because it is killing us.

I can imagine Hitchens laughing at all of this bile directed at him and his supporters, were he here to see it.  And it’s a shame he’s not.  But if he were, it wouldn’t be happening, and believers would not be proving Hitchens’s point so emphatically.  I don’t know if he was the type of person to say, “I told you so!”  But he did tell us so.  Religion poisons everything, and his death makes that just as clear as his work.

In God is Not Great, Hitchens wrote, “The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.  It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.”

Now he’s left it up to us to see to it.

More Perry Tales–“Ya Gotta Have Faith!”

 

You’ll be so rich you can run for office without pretending to be a fundamentalist. – Gavin Volure, 30 Rock

One of the constants in any election for the past few decades (those that I can recall – elections, that is, not entire decades), is that most Republicans (and I’m sure there’s been a few Democrats too) see themselves as shepherds, and their constituency as sheep. Which is not too far-fetched. Reagan the Retard once stated that “Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged”, Bush Bonehead the Senior stating that, “You cannot be President of the United States if you don’t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff” (and the oft-quoted anti-atheist comment that bugs us all about citizenry), or George Bonehead the Junior and his declaration of : ”God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”

I’d like to think that these morons were just pandering, and likely snickering in the back room afterward, but it becomes abundantly clear they mean what they say. There’s way too much religious inanity bandied about on election campaigns.

Should someone be excluded because of their faith? Of course not. Should they be excluded if their faith takes precedence over their oath to the constitution? Damn straight. It’s blaringly obvious, especially after Dubya’s incredible declaration and subsequent invasion of the wrong country for all the wrong reasons, bundled with the obvious lies to justify it.

Here is a clip, from one of my favorite obscure movies The Contender, and the character is someone I would most definitely vote for:

It is of course a fantasy – the chances of an unapologetic forthright atheist getting that high in our government is nigh well impossible. At least in this decade.

But we can dream, can we not?

Till the next post then.

Professional Defender of Child Rapists William A. Donohue Gets an Idea

William A. Donohue, an unofficial representative of the world’s largest organization of child rapists and their protectors, seems to have been struck with an idea.  This happens so infrequently to Donohue that he has not yet mastered the ability to discern good ideas from bad ones, which is probably why he’s plowing ahead with this one.  Donohue, as you probably know, heads up the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.  If you’ve been paying attention to this guy, you know how funny it is to find the words “civil rights” included in this organization’s title.  Any rational person familiar with Donohue’s activities knows that he has no clue what “civil rights” are and clearly doesn’t care — but it probably looks good on the letterhead.  On Thursday, December 8, 2011, Donohue launched what he’s calling his “Adopt an Atheist” Campaign:

“Approximately 80 percent of Americans are Christian, and 96 percent celebrate Christmas.  Of the 20 percent who are not Christian, non-believers make up the largest segment, though the number of self-identified atheists is tiny.  David Silverman, president of American Atheists, knows this to be true, which is why he is frantically trying to inflate his base.  ‘We want people to realize that there may be atheists in their family,’ he told the New York Times, ‘even if those atheists don’t even know they are atheists.’

“We think there is some merit in David’s idea, even if he has things backwards, as usual.  Today we are launching our ‘Adopt An Atheist’ campaign, the predicate of which is, ‘We want atheists to realize that there may be Christians in their community, even if those Christians don’t even know they are Christian.’”

Does Donohue believe there are people out there who are Christians but don’t know it?  Does he really think there are people who, deep down inside, believe that the creator of the universe impregnated a virgin so she could give birth to him and he could grow up to die in order to save humanity from himself and then rise from the grave and ascend to heaven so he could keep a suspicious eye on everybody … but they aren’t conscious of believing that?  Of course he doesn’t.  This is just Donohue perverting reality to fit his agenda.  Yet again.

“Here’s what our campaign entails. We are asking everyone to contact the American Atheist affiliate in his area, letting them know of your interest in ‘adopting’ one of them.  All it takes is an e-mail.  Let them know of your sincere interest in working with them to uncover their inner self.  They may be resistant at first, but eventually they may come to understand that they were Christian all along.”

Okay, let me get this straight.  Bill Donohue wants Catholics to “adopt” atheists and help them find their inner Christian.  Keep in mind that the Catholic church is an organization that is now known primarily for its fondness for child rape and child rapists and its utter contempt for raped children and their families.  Given that fact, how are we to avoid cocking a suspicious brow when Donohue says he wants Catholics to “adopt” atheists “to uncover their inner self?”  That’s kinda creepy, isn’t it?  But wait.  There’s more.  Just in case anyone not familiar with the ways of Bill Donohue confuses this for an expression of concern for atheists, he manages to make his opinion of them clear by the end of his press release.

“If we hurry, these closeted Christians can celebrate Christmas like the rest of us.  As an added bonus, they will no longer be looked upon as people who ‘believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.’”

Donohue sees atheists as “people who believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”

A lot of people seem to think Donohue’s “Adopt an Atheist” campaign is “tongue in cheek.”  They should know better.  I must confess that I have no idea where Donohue’s tongue has been, but I can say with certainty that it’s been nowhere near his cheek in all the years I’ve been aware of him.  Some think he showed good humor when parodied in a 2007 episode of South Park, but I think they’re mistaken.  That wasn’t good humor.  Like a cigarette after sex, it was the glowing satisfaction of getting the one and only thing for which Bill Donohue seems to harbor an insatiable lust:  Attention.

Let’s go back to the statement made by David Silverman, which appears to be what inspired this idea of which Donohue seems so proud.  A December 7, 2011 New York Times article about billboard campaigns by American Atheists, of which Silverman is the president, focused on one particular black-and-orange AA billboard posted at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel on the New Jersey side.  Four images are displayed:  The Roman god Neptune, Jesus Christ, Santa Claus and a red, horned devil.  At the top, it reads, “37 million Americans know MYTHS when they see them.”  Below that, in the center of the billboard, is the question, “What do you see?”  From the article:

“The purpose of the $25,000 billboard, which went up in mid-November, said David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, is to ‘call out’ closet atheists during the holiday season and get them to be truthful about who they really are.

“‘This is when the closeted atheists go to church to be viewed as Christians, and this is when we want to call them out to stay home and enjoy the holidays,’ he said. ‘We want people to realize that there may be atheists in their family, even if those atheists don’t even know they are atheists.’”

That last part appears to have confused Donohue.  He seems to think the idea of someone being an atheist without knowing it is a silly one.  But then, as I pointed out earlier, Donohue’s relationship with ideas is tenuous at best.  I know exactly what Silverman was talking about, and so do a whole lot of other people.  I did not choose to become an atheist — I discovered that I was an atheist.

Raised in a rigid Christian cult and educated in its schools, I spent the first two decades of my life mired in confusion and fear.  The confusion came from trying to make sense of what I was taught to believe — what everyone around me believed — and not being able to make any of it add up.  The fear was, in part, the result of believing that this meant there was something wrong with me.  (It also came from a terrified dread of the coming end of the world, but that’s for another blog.)  It took me a long time to figure out that there was nothing wrong with me.  When I finally decided to make a serious and sincere attempt to figure it all out, I discovered that there was plenty wrong with everything I’d been taught to believe and there was a good reason it didn’t make any sense to me — it didn’t make any goddamned sense period!  Exploring the history of the denomination in which I’d been raised, as well as the history of Christianity and the bible, I discovered that I was just fine, thank you very much, but that the denomination in particular, the religion in general and the crazy ancient book they were based on were all lies concocted to enslave people with fear and guilt.

I discovered to my own surprise that I didn’t believe any of it.  I couldn’t believe any of it — and all those years of trying to believe it had done some damage.  The fact that I’d been trying so hard to believe it and had been living as if I did believe it (when I didn’t) had been the source of an enormous amount of anxiety, fear, self-hatred and emotional turmoil.  I discovered — again, to my own surprise — that I was an atheist and hadn’t even known it.  Had I been able to see it much sooner, had I been able to embrace it and live it rather than living as someone I wasn’t, I would have been a much happier person.  No, that’s not accurate.  I wouldn’t have been happier — I would have been happy.  Because I wasn’t happy at all for a long time.  I was so miserable that for a lot of years, I tried to numb my fear and confusion and self-hatred with alcohol and drugs and had suffered through long periods of suicidal depression.  All of that went away when I embraced who I was and lived my life truthfully.

That is what David Silverman was talking about.  Those billboards are not posted to attack or offend Christians or any other religious believers.  They aren’t aimed at believers at all.  They are aimed at the people who need them — people who are not believers but feel they must pretend to be in order to go on being accepted by the people in their lives who would lash out at and/or ostracize them if they knew the truth.  They are aimed at people who may not even be aware that they’re atheists yet.  The billboards are trying to let those people know that there’s nothing wrong with them and it’s okay to be who they are.

But William A. Donohue thinks Silverman is “trying to inflate his base,” the number of which, he says, is “tiny.”  Math has never been my strong point, but I don’t think 37,000,000 is “tiny.”  A minority, yes.  But “tiny?”  No.  And by the way, as more and more people openly admit that they are nonbelievers, that number is growing.

While David Silverman and others like him — me, for example — know that there are a lot of people out there who are quietly suffering because of this fear and confusion, Donohue expresses his compassion by calling them “people who believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”  Those billboards are needed precisely because of people like William Donohue.

Donohue began as a teacher, but in 1985, his first book was published, launching his career as a misanthrope with a little celebrity who has nothing but contempt for the United States Constitution.  The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union is a book that targets one of the favorite whipping posts of right-wing religious nutjobs, the ACLU.  It completely ignores the fact that the ACLU has a long history of coming to the defense of the religious.  It never gets credit for this because the nutjobs are so busy spreading lies about the ACLU being an anti-American organization that defends communists, terrorists and pedophiles.  The fact is, the ACLU has done far more for American Christians than Donohue and the child-raping death cult he spends all of his time defending.  And what do they get for it?  Hit pieces like Donohue’s book.

For the record, here is a list of examples of the ACLU defending religious rights in one year alone.  It’s pretty impressive, but you won’t hear about it from people like Donohue.  They don’t want you to notice that some people are defending the Constitution, mostly because they don’t want you to notice the Constitution.  That way, they can distort it and manipulate their base into a fury about imagined attacks on their religious freedoms.

Donohue became the director of the Catholic League in 1993 after the death of its founder Virgil C. Blum.  Under Donohue’s direction, the organization became an angry, homophobic, freedom-hating, misanthropic attack dog.  In other words, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights became William Donohue.  Earlier, I pointed out the inherent comedy in the presence of the words “civil rights” in the title of Donohue’s organization.  Here are some examples of why that’s funny, taken from RightWingWatch.com and other sources.  Some of the articles and press releases in which these quotes originated have been removed from the Catholic League’s website — I wonder why?

On the molestation and rape of children:

In response to then-Congressman Mark Foley’s efforts to defend his abusive conduct by claiming he’d been molested by his priest as a child, Donohue said “Most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested” and asked then-Congressman Mark Foley, “So why did you?”

“Why did this young man not object earlier? Why did he allow the ‘abuse’ to continue until he was 18? The use of the quotes is deliberate: the charge against the former priest is not rape, but rubbing. While still objectionable, there is a glacial difference between being rubbed and raped.”

This may be my all-time favorite Donohue quote:

“No institution, religious or secular, has less of a problem with the issue of sexual abuse today than the Catholic Church.”

On Jews (you know, the “Judeo” part of Judeo-Christian):

“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It‘s not a secret, OK? And I‘m not afraid to say it.”

On the subject of jokes, Donohue demonstrates that not only is he an angry bigot with a fondness for child rape, he is, quite simply, a nasty, mean-spirited prick:

“What’s wrong with a good gook joke?”

Being Catholic is a choice.  Being Asian is not.

On Catholics who lean to the left:

Donohue teams up with buddy and fellow hate-monger Pat Robertson and calls progressives in general and progressive Catholics in particular are “termites” who are “intellectually, spiritually and morally bankrupt.”

But Donohue’s favorite target by far is the gay community.  He rants and raves and foams at the mouth about homosexuals:

“The idea of two men marrying is so bizarre and so anti-marriage that it is a great tribute to the American people that they continue to respect the right of gays to participate in American life without harassment while simultaneously rejecting the extremist gay agenda.”

Without harassment? Really?

“Their goal is not to contest the First Amendment rights of Catholics and others — their goal is to put religion on trial. What they are saying is that religious-based reasons for rejecting gay marriage are irrational, and thus do not meet the test of promoting a legitimate state interest.”

No one has put religion on trial more vividly than Christians like Donohue who have made it clear that their beliefs cannot coexist with the United States Constitution.

“We’re not going to allow gay people to adopt children, that’s against nature, it’s against nature’s god.”

“They say we had a pedophilia problem, it’s been a homosexual problem all along.”

“The Times continues to editorialize about the ‘pedophilia crisis,’ when all along it’s been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.”

“Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.” — MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/27/04

“Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism.” — MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/8/04

Those of us who pay attention to people like Donohue have noticed a distinct pattern among angry Christian men who constantly fulminate against homosexuality.  They too often end up being closeted, self-hating homosexuals themselves.  Donohue was married at one time and had two children before getting divorced.  (Divorced?  But Bill!  What about the sanctity of marriage?)  He has never remarried.  There are a few possible reasons for this.  He might be observing the Catholic prohibition against divorced people remarrying.  He might not be able to find a woman who’s willing to climb aboard his crazy train.  And there might be another reason.  Earlier, I confessed that I do not know where Donohue’s tongue has been.  And I don’t.  But I have my suspicions.

I’ll probably be criticized for paying this much attention to someone like Donohue.  Nothing he says surprises anyone because everyone has come to expect this nonsense from him.  Even a lot of practicing Catholics think he’s an obnoxious blowhard.  We should just laugh him off, some say.  Just ignore him, they say.  But I can’t.  Yes, he’s funny.  Yes, he’s an attention whore.  But he’s also releasing toxins into the air that are harming our society.  He is poison.  We should not ignore poison, nor should we simply laugh about it and assume it will go away.  It should be clearly labeled and identified — loudly and often — as poison.  Donohue and others like him have polluted life in the United States to such a degree that the effects are now felt in everyday conversations, which can become ugly fast and for little or no good reason.  How long do we keep laughing at them and dismissing them as jokes?  And at what cost?

I have a few words I’d like to direct to Mr. Donohue personally.  He’ll probably never read this — he’s too busy trying to make everyone as miserable as he is — but I’m going to do it, anyway.

You owe every atheist in the United States an apology, Mr. Donohue, for calling them “people who believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”  You are a deeply troubled, fearful, angry, hateful little man whose personality is clearly as black as an old smoker’s lungs.  I don’t know what made you that way.  I don’t know if you yourself were molested or raped by a priest (or perhaps someone else) when you were a boy.  I don’t know if, as I suggested earlier, you are a closeted, self-hating homosexual.  Whatever the cause, it has made you into this angry, emotionally and intellectually and morally stunted human being who has been devoting his life to lashing out at everyone around him.  Whatever it was doesn’t really matter because it is no excuse.  You are an adult now and you’ve had ample opportunity to work through whatever demons have plagued you.  You’ve chosen not to do that and instead to direct those demons at others.  The fact is, you owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people.  Oh, don’t worry, we know they’ll never come.  That’s just not the kind of person you have chosen to be.  But let it be said loudly and clearly as you rant and rave your way to your grave that they are due.  The book you claim to value so much quotes Jesus Christ as saying:

“But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” — Matthew 5:22

If you weren’t such a morally hollow hypocrite, if Jesus weren’t just a corporate logo to you and others like you, you’d take those words seriously and live your life accordingly.  But you don’t.  You just expect everyone else to take them seriously.  We’re all looking forward to learning the truth about you, Mr. Donohue.  Don’t worry, it’ll come out.  It always does.

Oh Ye Of Little To No Faith–Better Keep One Eye Open As You Sleep

Yeesh. Just when I thought we were making some kind of progress (slow but steady wins the race is the saying), something like this crops up, spoils my optimistic mood, and activates my inner curmudgeon:

Atheists roughly as distrusted as rapists, UBC study finds

Atheists are distrusted to roughly the same degree as rapists, according to a new University of British Columbia study exploring distaste for disbelievers.

The research, led by UBC psychology doctoral student Will Gervais, found distrust to be the central factor motivating antagonism toward atheists among the religious.

“Where there are religious majorities – that is, in most of the world – atheists are among the least trusted people,” Gervais said in a release.

“With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people.”

Researchers believe the negative perception of atheists may stem from some people’s understanding of morality; a 2002 Pew poll suggests nearly half of Americans believe morality is impossible without belief in god.

For one part of Gervais’ six-part study, researchers compared views of atheists, homosexual men and the general population, noting that the first two groups are “often described as threatening to majority religious values and morality.”

Which is disheartening, to say the least. We are an ideological minority, which is why some folks like to suggest we shut our traps – a simple change of mind would help us fit in better. Never mind that discrimination is discrimination, regardless of abstract versus physiological differences. Never mind that we are as underrepresented in government as we are in prison (the former is sigh worthy, the latter YAY!). Or that the majority of criminals are usually fundamentalist delusionists. Or that the Crusades, the Inquisition (Spanish and otherwise), were perpetrated by Christians – let’s amp that one up, and say good god-fearing, praying self-flagellating Christians.

Because really, if you need to have someone (invisible or otherwise) peering over your shoulder and taking notes for future punishments to keep you in line, just how fucking moral are you then? Maybe it’s been done to death on the blogosphere, but it bears repeating. If someone’s invisible friend is suddenly absent (or proven to be absent), and that person became an atheist, just how often do we see headlines where someone has actually run riot with pillaging, rapine and murder? Has this ever happened? The recent stats show that there are approximately 4.7 million of us in America alone. So outside of the usual finger-pointing (“Look! That kid shot people because he didn’t believe! The economic downturn can be blamed on atheists! If there was more prayer in schools, children would be more moral!”), where are the numbers? Where are the press releases? If the scare-mongers are even CLOSE to being correct about atheism being a threat, where is the proof?

The simple answer: it’s not happening. Sure, there is the occasional crime committed by an atheist (we are all human, after all, there’s bound to be someone transgressing), but not even 1% of the approximated 4.7 million are rampaging through the streets threatening society at large. In fact, if we actually look at the drug cartels, the Mafioso, or any of the white-collar criminals of the last decade who stole and scammed millions of people, I’d bet we’re underrepresented there as well. The cartels as well as the Mafioso are predominantly Catholic. The white collar guys are likely Protestant.

It’s this concept of an invisible ledger that keeps track of all injustices that’s the real problem. Most people have this ridiculous idea that at some undefined point in life/time/the universe, all accounts will come due, be balanced, all scars and savagery healed and all bad guys will get their come-uppance. I’ve said it before: it’s a comic book perspective unfounded in reality. A lot of life’s villains died natural deaths in their sleep, and to go about believing that some nosy asshole in the sky’s going to take care of your injuries (real or imagined) is just a fantasy.

The afterlife concept. It’s poison.

Till the next post, then.