There's no place like home

I sent my last missive - Why Do I Care About Other's Religions - to my email list and got this thoughtful message in response:

Tim,
You raise many good points. In our age of better communication and open exchange of ideas, this list is a very good example of this, why or how does religion persist? I ask not to bait you into an argument, but am curious about your thoughts on why people still believe in the face some of the points you raised. And on a similar note I am happy to say I have an atheist friend, you. I think the wide range of opinions on this list gives us all a more balanced view on life.

This is a very interesting question: In this age of enlightenment why is religion still around?

I'll start off by suggesting that we are not currently in an age of enlightenment. I personally feel we are heading down the slope into another dark ages. The religious right has become very vocal again (remember the Moral Majority in the late 70s?)

Science is looked upon as something bad or evil (the stem cell research issues, global climate change nay-sayers, the movie Expelled - which is full of lies - and Ben Stein's subsequent statement that science leads to killing people.)

Republicans are practically required to kowtow to religious leaders and are proud that they are ignorant about science and knowledge.

In a hearing about Abstinence Only Education, Representative John Duncan (R-TN) said "It seems rather elitist to me for people who maybe have degrees in this field to feel that because they’ve studied it somehow they know better than the parents what is best for [their children].” (If this doesn't flabbergast you, you need your flabbergaster reset. And this man is a politician who is creating laws for our country.)

There are a few bright spots. The latest Pew Forum Religious Survey shows that the number of atheists and non-affiliated people is increasing. There are many very prominent and vocal atheist and scientific blogs on the internet. And I have a lot of friends that are either atheists or non-religious.

And yet religion still persists. Why?

I emailed a link to my previous blog posting about the Hello Kitty Jesus tattoo to a mailing list I am on. I got the following question in response.

Tim, with all due respect, I get not you not believing in religion - specifically Christianity, but I don't get why you seem to care so much about the belief system of those who do. (?)

This was my response:

I care because I feel the people who believe things "on faith" with no evidence do harm to all of us. Believing things because the are written in a book, with no supporting evidence, makes no sense. Denying rights to people based on what is written in the same book (e.g. gays and lesbians) is abhorrent. Basing your moral system on the same book, when if you read it at all you will discover the moral system in it is bloody, brutish and not the one currently in use, is insane.

I care because believing things "on faith" with no evidence is irrational. If you believe some things "on faith" and some things you know due to evidence you have a schism in your world view that causes problems.

I care because people who "believe" hassle those of us who don't. Both of my daughters have been hassled at camps and at school (public school) by children who have been brainwashed by their parents and religious leaders into believing they are superior to anyone who does not follow their "faith". And yes, I consider religious indoctrination of young children brainwashing.

I care because like it or not, and regardless of what the "Christians" believe, the USA was formed as a secular nation. Where belief in god is not a requirement to be a citizen. Where there is no state religion.

I care because all the right-wing religious "Christian" politicians are two-faced hypocrites and they are horrible role models for the youth of America. Shall I make a list of them for you?

I care because religions are supposed to get unquestioning respect, just because they are religions. Why should we not be able to question religious viewpoints? Why should we respect religious viewpoints that are clearly irrational?

I care because religion gets a free ride from the press, the police and the government. How many sex scandals have there been with Catholic priests and alter boys? So many that we make jokes about it while the church just quietly shuffles the priest off to another parish where he can molest more children. If I molested a 12 year old boy I'd be in prison faster than you can say "Pope Ratzi". But priests just get reassigned. How is this possible?

Man, you really opened the floodgates. Thanks for asking the question. Do I really need to go on? Yes, I do. Click the Continue Reading Link .

From over at PZ's pad comes this hilarious rap video:

This was in the Star Tribune on Monday and there was also a story on NPR about it yesterday.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a survey of The Religious Landscape of the United States.

They have some good tools there for drilling down into the data, but I question their findings in regards to atheism.

16.1% of respondents claim no religious affiliation, yet only 1.6% claim to be atheists.

I know many, many people who are atheists.

I think we are under-represented, and I'm not sure if it's due to the survey sample, the survey questions or the reticence of atheists to stand up and be counted.

Maybe I think there is a higher incidence of atheists because I prefer to associate with atheists?

But it does make me wonder something: If people feel religions are so interchangeable, why are there so many?

Of course PZ Myers has some things to say about it:

16.1% is still a minority, but keep in mind that Catholics are 24% of the population — we could pass them by in a few years. Look at that table on the right. We're huge (but not at all organized or unified, of course) and growing fast. It's worth looking at past assesments: in 1990, the nonreligious were about 7.5% of the population; in 2001, 13.2%; now, 16.1%.

The Pew people break down the "unaffiliateds" a bit more, and it looks like a significant number of them do still have considerable affection or perhaps dependency on religion — they just don't seem to like the existing sects. I suspect we can blame that not on the attraction of atheism, but the repulsion from overreaching, grasping American religion.

Thank you PZ for giving me hope.

Preach it Brother Henry!



(h/t to PZ)

From the Atheist Revolution blog comes an entry about how to communicate what is wrong with religion.

It contains a link to a post on the An Apostate’s Chapel blog.

There the chaplain does a really good job of laying out three fundamental (can I use that word?) problems with religion:

The first problem that I have with religious beliefs is that ... acting on the basis of false beliefs can lead to ill-conceived, even harmful, behavior and decisions.

...

The second problem I have with religious belief is that believers do not live in vacuums. Their religious beliefs are not always private and those beliefs do affect others, including me, in numerous ways.

...

The third problem I have with religious beliefs is the persistent entreaty that I respect religious beliefs simply because they are religious.

Well worth going and reading.

Preach it Brother Condell!

Ramen!

(and a h/t to PZ for the video.)

PZ Myers gave a talk to the Freethinkers group at St. Olaf the other day. I wish I had been there.

He has the transcript up and I think you should read it.

I am here to bring you some good news.

The universe is about 13.7 billion years old, plus or minus a few hundred million, and the earth itself is about 4.6 billion years old. How do we know this? The work of astronomers in measuring cosmological constants, in calculating the age of stars and the size of our universe; the work of physicists on principles of radioactive decay, and measurements of the age of rocks; the work of geologists in charting the many layers of rock and puzzling out the mechanisms of change.

I just want to point you to RadicalRuss' essay over at Pam's House Blend about Kathy Griffin's Emmy award comment "Suck it, Jesus!"

RadicalRuss says (among other things):

Bill Maher says this often, and I agree, that we Americans have way too much faux moral outrage. I mean, c'mon, you believe that the Creator of all time, space, physics, and energy, who went to the trouble of engineering a Big Bang and shepherded tens of billions of years worth of cosmic thermonuclear reactions in order to create a life sustaining planet upon which He could create bodies to house souls and send His son to death by torture so you could go to Heaven forever even though you're a sinner by virtue of a fraud perpetrated by talking snake who offered a magical apple to a rib-woman, and you want to base our nation upon those principles and overturn 231 years of secular Constitutional rule, and YOU'RE offended by a D-list comedian saying "suck it, Jesus"?

Russ then goes on the deconstruct (again) the proposition that this is a "Christian Nation". Which it most definitely is not.

Oh, and there is this bit I like also:

No, most people believe in God in the nebulous "there must be a Higher Power" sense, as in "the world's a scary, infinite, and sometimes unexplainable place; I hope something bigger is running it all." (It's not. Sorry, it's a whole lot of orderly processes affected by random events plus nearly infinite time. Human beings were as likely as silicon rock-eating creatures writing "No Kill I" on the dirt near Captain Kirk's feet. The fact we exist and think only proves we exist and think, not that there is a purpose leading to our creation, or even that there is a creator.)

Well worth a read.

Back in December, in Albemarle County, Va., Jerry Falwell and his religious right (which is neither religious nor right) took the school district to court to win the right to distribute religious fliers via "backpack mail".

Backpack mail is the system that many schools, including the ones my children go to, use to send information back home to the parents by putting fliers in the kids backpacks.

Apparently two children wanted to use this system to distribute fliers about their church's Vacation Bible School classes:

School officials originally denied the request from the twins’ father, Ray Rakoski, citing a school policy barring “distribution of literature that is for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes.”

A Charlottesville weekly newspaper, The Hook, reports that Rakoski “sicced the Liberty Counsel on the county,” and the policy was soon revised to allow religious groups to use the backpack mail system. Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group founded by Mathew Staver and now affiliated with Falwell.

Some local Pagans who attend Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, decided to take advantage of the new forum as well. They created a one-page flier advertising a Dec. 9 event celebrating the December holidays with a Pagan twist and used the backpack system to invite the entire school community.

“Have you ever wondered what ‘Holidays’ refers to?” reads the flier. “Everyone knows about Christmas – but what else are people celebrating in December? Why do we celebrate the way we do?”

And what do you think the religious right did? Of course they ran totally off the rails.

Some people also tried to send fliers about Camp Quest ("a camp for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view" - which my older daughter will be attending this summer) but some teachers refused to distribute them:

World Net Daily reports that the Albemarle School District is under attack by a Religious Right group for sending students home with flyers for Camp Quest, an overnight summer camp for young atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.

This time, however, the problem has been exacerbated by a handful of teachers who have refused to send the flyers home. The group assailing Albemarle School District, Rick Scarborough’s Vision America, says “it’s outrageous to force teachers to distribute these flyers.” He’s urging members to contact the district to protest its “establishment of disbelief.”

An anonymous spokesman for the rebelling teachers told World Net Daily some teachers refused to hand out the Camp Quest flyer because they were “disgusted” and were concerned parents would think the school was endorsing the camp. Even though there is a disclaimer distancing the school from all extra-curricular information sent home, “it’s still coming from me and my classroom,” he said.

Mr. Anonymous is partly right. Anything that comes home from a public school, no matter how strong the disclaimer is, may be perceived as having the school’s stamp of approval. But that’s water under the bridge. Religious Right activists, through the 4th Circuit ruling that they sought, have forced public schools to allow their religious messages in the “backpack mail” system.

I would say to the religious right that you should be careful what you ask for, for what you get can be used against you.

I would also point out that the laws exist for all people of all religions (or lack of religion) not just for so-called Christians and should be applied equally to all.

(h/t to Possummomma for this wonderful bit of irony.)