Radical Atheist

The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation’s largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

The justices’ 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco’s monthlong same-sex wedding march.

The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

With the ruling, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

“What happens in California, either way, will have a huge impact around the nation. It will set the tone,” said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California.

California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners the same legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support. It’s therefore unclear what additional relief state lawmakers could offer short of marriage if the court renders the existing ban unconstitutional.

Finally, some good news from a Supreme Court.  Perhaps religious morality can be kept in check with logic and reason after all.

While that would make a good joke (a Boy Scout, the holy spirit and a naked man walk into a bar…) that’s not the intention of this post. Rather this is a comment on the Scouting statue in D.C.

(Source)

From the Flickr site…

The bronze statue consists of three figures: a Boy Scout, a woman and a man. Each figure symbolizes the idea of the great and noble forces that are an inspiring background of each Scout as he goes about the business of becoming a man and a citizen.

The male figure symbolizes physical, mental and moral fitness, love of country, good citizenship, loyalty, honor, courage and clean living. He carries a helmet, a symbol of masculine attire and a live oak branch, a symbol of peace and of strength.

The female figure symbolizes enlightenment with the light of faith, love of God, high ideals, liberty, justice, freedom, democracy and love of fellow man; symbolizing the spiritual qualities of good citizenship. She holds high the eternal flame of God’s Holy Spirit.

The figure of the Boy Scout represents the hopes of all past, present and future scouts around the world and the hopes of every home, church and school that all that is great and noble in the Nation’s past and present will continue to live in them and through them in many generations to come.

There will be those who focus on the presence of a naked man on a memorial to an organization that’s had its share of pedophilia problems. That’s worth a chuckle or two, and should make the troops who donated for the construction of this statue wonder just what they have immortalized.

But what caught my eye was this, “She holds high the eternal flame of God’s Holy Spirit“. The Boy Scouts have long maintained that their organization is open to any young boy who professes a belief in a higher power or god, and that all believers are welcome within its ranks.

But by including the imagery of the flame of the holy spirit, it would appear the Scouts are giving preference to the Protestants, maybe even the Pentecostals. Would a Muslim child have any interest in the holy spirit or the member of any faith which denies a triumvirate godhead? Can a Catholic child and a Pentecostal one agree on the metaphysical meaning of the holy spirit? The Lutherans used to forbid its members from joining the Scouts. Not every group that identifies itself as Christian accepts the Scout’s beliefs.

Too many of these quasi-religious groups pretend to be all-inclusive (at least toward those professing a belief in gods) when it suits their needs but occasionally reveal their core exclusivity, often without intending to. I’m not sure if those who commissioned the statue realized just what they were admitting to, but transparency hasn’t been celebrated by institutions like this. One almost suspects a form of Freudian slip at play here. Scouting has displayed its true values, naked men and Protestantism.

Do you think this statue is inappropriate for the Scouts? Do you think their inclusion of a primarily Protestant symbol is disrespectful to their members who may not embrace that concept and yet identify themselves as Christian? Should we even care what groups like this do with their own money?

Xong has posted a very astute review of the recently released Evangelical Manifesto on his blog, Obtuse Word.

The recent Evangelical Manifesto is all about politics and fear. Despite claiming to depoliticize the religion the document actually plays on Christianity’s fear of atheism in the US in order to manipulate American politics. The Manifesto, written by Os Guinness, portrays two opposing possibilities for religious discourse in American society, the “naked public square” and the “civil public square.” Guinness presents the two possible choices for the future of America, one being the right path, the other disastrous for America. He warns of dangers of the “naked” public square, which according to the Evangelical Manifesto, is completely devoid of religion or spirituality in public life. In contrast the document promotes a so-called “civil” public square, which would allow for expression of religion and spirituality in the public domain.

Read more…

Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace”, writing an opinion piece for the New York Times, raises an issue that I haven’t heard mentioned yet.  It’s an issue that could have serious repercussions in our dealings with the Middle East should he win the election.  While I don’t support the notion that our nation should change in any way simply to placate those who threaten us with violence, I do acknowledge that terrorists in the Middle East might find it too easy to exploit and capitalize on this particular situation.

…One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world.

This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama’s election would raise America’s esteem in Africa — indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father’s native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent.

But it is a mistake to conflate his African identity with his Muslim heritage. Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries do not mandate execution for apostasy (although a law doing exactly that is pending before Iran’s Parliament and in two Malaysian states). But as a practical matter, in very few Islamic countries do the governments have sufficient authority to resist demands for the punishment of apostates at the hands of religious authorities.

For example, in Iran in 1994 the intervention of Pope John Paul II and others won a Christian convert a last-minute reprieve, but the man was abducted and killed shortly after his release. Likewise, in 2006 in Afghanistan, a Christian convert had to be declared insane to prevent his execution, and he was still forced to flee to Italy.

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad…

Einstein’s views on religion have been clarified in a letter recently sold at auction.

Albert Einstein described belief in God as “childish superstition” and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.

As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they “have no different quality for me than all other people”.

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

“No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house’s managing director Rupert Powell.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” he said.

“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

And he added: “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”  (Source)

The North has its share of numbskulls, too. And just like we’ve seen in so many other cases, too many of them gravitate toward positions of power, however petty. Like local school boards.

SAD 59 debates teaching of evolution

The state Department of Education disagrees with an Athens School Board director who wants School Administrative District 59 to drop evolution from its high school science curricula.

Director Matthew Linkletter claims evolution is an unprovable theory and shouldn’t be taught as fact. He’s urged the SAD 59 Board of Directors to consider his view during its May 19 meeting in Madison, with a goal of removing evolution from science classrooms.

But David Connerty-Marin of the Department of Education says evolution must be taught because, in the state’s view, it’s a proven science.

“For our students to be prepared for college work and life in the 21st century, it’s necessary,” said Connerty-Marin.

Connerty-Marin said the Maine Learning Results program mandates the study of evolution in public science classes.

“Evolution is not just a belief, or based on faith, it’s based on scientific evaluation,” he said. “The worldwide science community supports it.”

Linkletter believes that neither evolution nor creationism belong in a high school science curriculum, because they cannot be proven.

“You can’t show, observe or prove (evolution),” he said.

School Administrative District 59 includes the towns of Madison, Athens, Brighton Plantation and Starks.

Chosen at random, two parents of Madison Area Memorial High School students expressed some support for Linkletter’s position.

“I think that’s a very valid point, to tell you the truth, because evolution is only a theory, not a hard fact,” said Nancy Martin, an educational technician at Athens Elementary School.

Martin, who has a son at the high school, said that she believes in creationism, as outlined in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. She said SAD 59 should pull evolution from the science curriculum unless creationism is afforded equal footing. (Source)

It’s highly ironic that the very people who exhibit such ignorance of evolution, those who are in the greatest need of an education in the biological sciences, are the same folks who oppose it for no good reason. That becomes obvious when the god folks of Maine don’t offer a single alternative explanation that accounts for the evidence observed in nature, evidence that can be subjected to the scientific method (since that’s what qualifies something as scientific as opposed to a philosophy, which science isn’t nearly as competent to examine). All they can do is claim “god did it” and shake their heads in either amazement or confusion. It’s hard to discern the difference.

And these people get to decide what little Jimmy gets to learn, little Mohammad, little Tzao, any other child who might not be a Christian? It’s nothing less than a travesty of the educational system. Special interest groups, and I don’t care which faction of the population they represent even if I might be sympathetic any other time, should be allowed to influence education. No kid should be taught what to think. Every child ought to be taught how to think.

The 21st century is the Data Age. We are consuming and producing data on a previously unimaginable scale. What children will need to learn to cope with this never-ending data stream is how to access the information they need. They need to develop discernment, so they can determine the validity of the ideas they encounter. No one with computer access and the knowledge of how to search needs to memorize the order of the presidents or the state capitals.

To allow the further perversion of a system already ineffective is nonsensical. Education needs to progress, not regress into the 1st century. Education, if it’s to remain relevant, has to adapt to the computer age. No amount of praying or Bible reading is going to accomplish that.

Maine may have a more extensive problem with their educational system. Presumably all these board members attended schools where evolution was taught as a biological science. Yet they managed to grasp nothing at all of the theory. They didn’t even learn what a scientific theory is. Since when is it every parent’s wish that their children graduate from school even more ignorant than themselves?

Hell is the theological equivalent of, “Boy are you gonna get it when your dad gets home!”

There’s a debate going on in a forum I belong to regarding Jesus as a man, an ordinary human, and whether or not he existed.

I contend it’s not an important part of my atheism to know whether or not he is a fictional or factual historical figure. All I nned to know is that no one has been able to support the idea that he was a god.

So I received this reply recently:

if you’re going to try to show Christians inconsistancies in their religion, then why not go for the only one that matters: the idea that they think there was a Jesus who in reality never existed?

To which I replied:

The reason I won’t bother trying to “prove” Jesus never existed as a man is that, with the historical record being incomplete and heavily adulterated by the early church, there is no definitive proof one way or the other. All you can do is present more likely scenarios than the Christians. I’ve seen your evidence and while it’s compelling, it’s not convincing. Supposition is not proof, no matter how logical.

Another reason I don’t bother is that Jesus’ existence as a man is not important to Christian faith. It’s his having supposedly been a god that they base their religion on. Debunking the idea that gods exist makes the issue of Jesus having once existed as a man or whether the Pope is god’s ambassador on Earth irrelevant. Atheism extends further than just a disbelief in the Christian theology. Debunk Jesus and the Christian becomes a Jew. Debunk gods and a Christian sees that all religions are nonsensical.

So what’s your opinion? Is it necessary to debunk the idea that Jesus existed as a man to discredit Christianity, or is it a hopeless cause and unimportant to explaining atheism to theists?

“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)

How have these survived into the 21st century?

Constitution Of The State Of Arkansas Of 1874.

Article 19. Miscellaneous Provisions. § 1. Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness.

No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.

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PART IV. CRIMES, PUNISHMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS IN CRIMINAL CASESTITLE I. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER Chapter 272: Section 36. Blasphemy Section 36. Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.

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The Texas Constitution, Article I, Section 4: No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

(Full List)

We are seeing this sort of antiquated thinking in the current election.  All the candidates are busy pandering to the religious voters, trying to outdo each other in their profession of devotion to and belief in a “higher power”.  Shouldn’t the office of President of the United States be awarded to the candidate who shows the keenest intelligence, the deepest understanding of world issues, the greatest ability to apply logic and rationality to our country’s problems?  Does it matter what form of superstition they also embrace?  Shouldn’t their profession of belief in an invisible superman in the sky actually be a disqualification from office?