Secular Sanity

While waiting in the doctor’s office, I decided to pass the time by perusing NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and came across a striking example of why religion is dysfunctional.  In an article by Laurence Gonzales entitled “How to survive almost anything” in the September, 2008 issue, I read that Illinois had 50% more tornadoes than Alabama.  Yet, although Illinois has a larger population than Alabama, far fewer Illinois residents died in tornadoes as did Alabamans.  The author wrote that this was because Alabamans had a fatalistic attitude and believed whatever happened to them was in God’s hands, while Illinoisans tended to believe what happened to them was up to them.
Robert Halfhill

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There is just no end of religious-proselytizing-as-news in the paper. Aug. 23 the Strib had a near-half-page article making it out that the Shroud of Turin might be authentic. This is a letter sent by Marie Alena Castle in response. Will it get printed? Doubtful!

Will the media ever stop promoting the Shroud of Turin as possibly authentic, as in your Aug. 23 article? Here’s all anyone needs to know to debunk claims of authenticity:

• The Shroud appeared around 1355 in Lirey, France. In 1389, Bishop Pierre d’Arcis of that diocese wrote to Pope Clement VII objecting to treating the Shroud as genuine. He said a church official at Lirey had, “falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and the front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, . . .” Bishop d’Arcis said a predecessor, Bishop Henri de Poitiers, had “discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, . . .”

• The image on the back shows a full bloody footprint, requiring the knee to be bent. The front image shows the leg straight. The legs are disproportionately long.

• The hair and blood flow straight downward instead of toward the back, as when a body is lying down. The blood is not running into the hair and matting it but flowing over it.

• Read Looking for a Miracle by Joe Nickell and see how easy it is to create a “Shroud” image. Making a fake Shroud was no problem for a medieval artist.

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Evangelical Christians have been asked to pray for “rain of biblical proportions” to fall on Senator Barack Obama as he accepts the Democratic nomination.

By Toby Harnden in Washington 
Last Updated: 8:20PM BST 13 Aug 2008

Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family, one of America’s leading evangelical groups, was shown in a video filmed at Denver’s Invesco Field, where 75,000 are expected to cheer Mr Obama on Aug 28, asking Christians to pray for “torrential” rain.

“I’m talking ‘umbrella-ain’t-going-to-help-you rain,” the former pastor and television meteorologist said. He explained on the video: “I’m still pro life, and I’m still in favour of marriage as being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree.”

Mr Shepard, director of digital media at Focus Action, the political arm of Focus on the Family, insisted the video was supposed to be “mildly humorous”. But it was hastily removed by Focus on the Family after complaints from at least a dozen of its members. “If people took it seriously, we regret it,” said Tom Minnery, a spokesman.

In an interview with KOAA television Mr Shepard said: “Sure it’s boyish humour perhaps to wish for something like that. But at the same time it’s something people feel very strongly about. They’re concerned about where he would take the nation.”

John Morse, a Democratic state senator in Denver and an Obama supporter said: “Is praying for rain wrong? No, it’s not wrong, it’s soulless.”

He added: “It’s going to be an amazing moment in American history. Rain or shine.”

Members of Focus on the Family, led by James Dobson, one of the most powerful evangelical figures in America, heavily backed George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections, when the Religious Right was credited with delivering him his narrow victories.

But Mr Obama’s opponent John McCain has had a testy relationship with evangelicals, calling the leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance” in 2000. He has attempted to rebuild bridges since then but in January Dr Dobson said he would not vote for the Arizona senator.

Dr Dobson relented last month saying that he might endorse Mr McCain but Republican operatives worry that a lack of enthusiasm for Mr McCain among evangelicals could seriously damage him in November.

A poll released by the Barna Group, a Christian research firm, found that Mr Obama had a nine point lead over Republican John McCain among Christians, though the Republican enjoyed a narrow advantage among evangelicals.

The pollsters noted that Mr Obama led among the “born again vote”, an outcome that could lead to Mr McCain being the first Republican in two decades to lose among that sector of the population.

In an indication of the importance of the candidates are placing on the evangelical vote, both will appear at the Saddleback megachurch, which is led by Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, in California on Saturday. It will be the first joint event they have attended during the 2008 campaign.

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Republican candidates proclaim their “prolife” position loud and clear, but Democrats tip-toe around the issue, as with Obama saying that determining the “human rights” of a fetus is “above my pay grade.” As an abortion rights advocate, just once I’d like to hear Obama (and Franken, and all prochoice candidates) say something like this:

“On the matter of abortion, my position is 100% in support of women. To politicize their childbearing ability, and attempt to penalize them for that in so many ways, and sic the law on them so they must continue a pregnancy that is making their lives a living hell is unconscionable.

“If you don’t care if they are the victims of rape or their health or life is endangered or the fetus is severely damaged or they’ll be beaten by disapproving parents or lose their jobs or find getting a college degree so much harder, then I don’t see how you can care to the point of zealotry about what happens to a microscopic speck of undifferentiated cells  or a partially developed fetus that may or may not become an actual human being—especially since you seem to have so little concern for the right of actual born children to a decent life and healthcare and education. If you can worry about whether using embryonic stem cells for medical research to cure diseases is “humane” yet not worry one bit about the inhumanity of your assaults on women’s autonomy, you have no standing to even discuss this matter.

“In fact, regardless of what any of us think of abortion, NONE of us has standing! The only ones with standing are the women involved. Whether or not to have an abortion is ALL of their business and NONE of mine, NONE of yours, and NONE of anyone else’s. Women are NOT a public utility and I will have no part in helping you make them one.

“So my position is this: I’m standing with and for the women. They’re not a bunch of airheads. If they need help, I’ll give it, but they don’t need me or you or anyone else to tell them what to do about a disastrous pregnancy. Thank you.”In Defense of Women

Comment by Bud:
Way to go Marie, you told them off in terms even a republican could understand !

.

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Medical professionals who cannot put the wellbeing of patients ahead of their irrational religious beliefs should find another line of work. It is a strange conscience indeed that would sacrifice a rape victim-a real live human being-to doctrinal notions about the supposed personhood of a microscopic speck of undifferentiated cells that has only the possibility of becoming an actual human being. It’s the same kind of conscience that, in the Middle Ages, sent real live human beings to the stake to preserve irrational religious beliefs about the existence of witches. It takes a seriously perverted moral compass to justify inflicting real harm on real people in the real world to preserve the figments of one’s imagination.

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During the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church—dumb as a rock when it comes to moral standards—set the rules for determining heresy, then turned those deemed guilty over to the government for torture and execution.

Today the Vatican and its fundamentalist allies —still dumb as a rock on morality and even dumber on all things related to sex—have determined that using Plan B birth control to save rape victims from a pregnancy is somehow—oh, I don’t know—wrong? and turned the victims over to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Like rulers in the Middle Ages, a religiously compliant HHS is getting set to carry out the sentence imposed by the Vatican and Protestant fundamentalists on women for getting raped. No Plan B for them. They’ll just have to bear their rapist’s child.

Since when does the government, under our secular Constitution, have the right to enforce religious doctrines? There is no rational secular justification for imposing religious beliefs on everyone regarding Plan B, other contraceptives, abortion, comprehensive sex education, marriage, scientific research, end-of-life care, science education—or even for inconveniencing everyone by accommodating foot washing and prayer rituals in workplaces, no dogs or liquor in taxis, cashiers’ refusal to ring up pork products, Sunday closings, Santeria chicken sacrificing, and who knows what else is ahead as this nation’s religious diversity increases.

Perhaps the time will soon come when the public, instead of being hostile to the concept of atheism, will begin to embrace it as the only safe haven from being jerked around by the Alice in Wonderland world of religion.

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Prof. Paul Z. Myers and that kid who threatened to hold a consecrated communion wafer hostage had better be careful. The history of what happens to people who question Catholic doctrine does not make pleasant reading. (”Catholic,” after all, was chosen to designate the belief that was held by everyone, everywhere—or else!) But there have always been those who were not careful. Take the pagans for example. During the early centuries of Christianity, they heedlessly ridiculed both the Church and the Eucharist, leaving us the term “hocus-pocus” to describe nonsensical deception. It’s a corruption of the priest’s Latin words of consecration, “Hoc est corpus mea” (This is my body). They also left us the term “cretin” to describe a person of low intelligence. It’s a corruption of “Christian.” The Church ended such adventures in free speech by destroying the pagans’ altars and wiping them out. So let’s be careful here, folks. Questioning anything at all about religion may no longer be lethal (although I understand that kid, and maybe Myers, got death threats), but the Church has plenty of economic, social and political ways to shut you up.

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Our newsletter editor Marie Castle wrote the following in response to an article (‘Apostle’ believers lost $30 million) in the Star Tribune, although it is doubtful that it will be printed:

Once again we read of people losing a great deal of money to a religious con artist. As an atheist, I find this disturbing and hope the swindler gets plenty of jail time. However, many people have given huge amounts of money to religious organizations, expecting (and often promised) that this will enhance their chances of a heavenly afterlife.

There being much evidence against and none for an afterlife, their expectations go just as unfulfilled as those of the victims of a con artist. The only difference is that the afterlife investors are incapable of being disappointed because the dead know nothing. (Eccl 9:10)

There is a lesson here for those who want to make money off of good people willing to trust anyone who exudes piety: Keep those investment promises and rewards in the afterlife, “where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6:20)-and whose unverifiability allows you to take their money tax-free and without fear of being hauled into court for “fraud, money laundering and failing to pay income taxes on millions of dollars.” (Star Tribune 7/13/08)

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The Star Tribune’s June 25 report of the problems Catholic members of the GLBT community are having with the Catholic Church reminded me of the similar situation (over birth control) that led me to reasoning my way out of religion and into atheism. At some point reality requires that one abandon religion in favor of morality.

St. Joan of Arc’s priests and members are making a heroic effort to retain their Catholic beliefs along with their humanity and it isn’t working. Reading about their struggle reminds me of women who can’t bring themselves to leave their abusive husbands, thinking they need those men, hoping they will change, and telling themselves the abuse is their own fault for not being submissive enough.

But these psychologically and doctrinally abused Catholics, like abused women, don’t need their abuser. They don’t need the Catholic Church or any other church. They don’t need religion. It causes problems but solves none. It offers no truths, only mythology about an imagined supernatural realm with useless gods and irrational directives that vary widely from people to people and place to place and time to time.

The real world we atheists inhabit has no need for the delusional doctrines put out by religions, especially those that for some reason seem pathologically obsessed with sex, sexuality, reproductive matters, and gender roles. As long as no one is being hurt or exploited, it doesn’t matter to us what people do about their sexuality or with whom.

There is a fine solution to the problem these distressed GLBT folks face, and it is to join the happily religion-free members of the human family. They will find that to live without god beliefs is not only intellectually stimulating, it allows them to find their own purpose and have the satisfaction of being responsible for their own lives. It is liberating and life affirming as nothing else can be.

—M.A.C., Minneapolis

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What I find amusing about this article is that the box that the church keeps “God” in keeps getting smaller and smaller. The Church is notorious for making excuses for things that turn out to be either proven or believed to be likely even though they disagree with thousands of years of beliefs and doctrine. Then they claim to be at the forefront of change and progress. Even when these things disagree with the “Holy Bible” there is usually some obscure little verse that might be “interpreted” to agree with the evidence. So much of the bible can be interpreted to mean whatever someone wants it to say that it becomes useless. One would think that an “Almighty God” could at least author a coherent book!

BBC, UK: May 13, 2008: David Willey: news.bbc.co.uk

The Pope’s chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out.

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article ‘Aliens Are My Brother’.

‘Free from sin’

Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.

Asked about the Catholic Church’s condemnation four centuries ago of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo, Father Funes diplomatically says mistakes were made, but it is time to turn the page and look towards the future.

Science and religion need each other, and many astronomers believe in God, he assures readers.

To strengthen its scientific credentials, the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

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