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Category: religion (page 24 of 36)

Proposition 8: Un-American?

24 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

Did Tom Hanks say something wrong when he called Mormon Prop 8 supporters ‘un-American’? Hanks has released a statement apologising for the remark, and while at first I wished he hadn’t, I find myself agreeing with his reasoning.

“Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California’s Proposition 8 as ‘un-American,'” the actor said in a statement through his publicist. “I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination.”

“But everyone has a right to vote their conscience; nothing could be more American,” the statement continues. “To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are ‘un-American’ creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use ‘un-American’ lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have.”

Hanks strikes a nice balance in his remark. He reaffirms the wrongness of writing bigotry into law, but takes care to focus on the offending word. Prop 8 represents a form of bigotry which is indeed counter to values Americans like to claim, like equality, fair play, and so on. But leave the word ‘un-American’ back in the McCarthy days, where it belongs.

So I’ll say that Mormon supporters of Prop 8 are hateful, intolerant, unfair, mean-spirited, bigoted, and pathologically ignorant. Not un-American.

PS: Did anyone near you donate? It’s a matter of public record. Check it out on Prop 8 Maps. Name and shame, people.

Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

17 January 2009 / / Comments Off on Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

The University of Utah is offering a fellowship in Mormon Studies.

“It’s a matter of academic justice,” said Bob Goldberg, the center’s director. “There would not be a question if we were in New York City and wanted to establish a course in Jewish studies, or in Chicago, Baltimore or Boston and wanted to start a course in Catholic studies. This is a perfect place to do research on Mormonism. To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

The U.’s is the first such fellowship in the nation, but joins a growing list of colleges that offer some coursework in Mormon studies, including Claremont College in southern California, Utah State University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina, to name a few.

Sounds interesting, but what’s even more interesting is that you can’t do a degree in Mormon Studies in the one place you’d think you could: BYU.

Why not? Well, perhaps a few ideas. There’s a certain distrust of learning in the LDS Church, unless it’s specifically dedicated to meeting the needs of the organisation instead of, you know, facts. This suspicion was written into the Book of Mormon, and it’s worked its way into General Conference. Dallin Oaks, an LDS apostle, famously warned of the dangers of ‘symposia’ (meaning those clever Sunstone rascals). Here’s the money quote.

I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined.

He doesn’t say what the ‘outcome’ is, but it can’t be good. So Oaks is implying that trying to understand the Church using reason instead of — what? whisperings of a spirit being? some guy telling you? — will cause you to reject religious doctrine. An interesting admission, and a huge warning sign that you’re dealing with an enemy of reason.

Church leaders have periodically slagged off Mormons who research into the church’s history. One leader, Neal Maxwell, trivialised the scholarly efforts of thinking Latter-day Saints as “intellectual bungee jumping“. (A prominent Mormon apologetics institute was subsequently renamed in his honour.)

So it’s not likely that the LDS Church (via its official university) will make a place for scholarly Mormon research anytime soon. They don’t seem to think their faith can stand scrutiny, and with that I fully agree.

John Morley said it well:

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

No attempt to find the god that ordered the hit

16 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

It’s hard to find good minions anymore.

The Chestermere man charged with attempted murder in Minnesota says it was God that made him stab another truck driver.

According to documents filed in the Clay County Court, Harmit Singh Bhangu, 32 of Chestermere, told an officer who was interviewing him that God orders him to do things.

How the mighty have fallen. God used to have henchmen like Moses and Joshua, and now he’s reduced to working with crazy people.

I don’t want to pick on the poor guy, even though he’s a very very scary poor guy who’s just about killed another poor guy. Mr Bhangu has got some serious problems, and maybe some medication might have helped him.

But the Brain Teaser of the Day is: On what basis would a religious believer claim that God didn’t really order him to kill a man?

Is it because God would never tell someone to kill someone else? That’s a hard view to defend from the Bible. Try reading Joshua 13, where Yahweh appears as some kind of evil familiar, impelling the aged Joshua to yet more slaughter.

Is it because Mr Bhangu is doing obviously crazy things? Ezekiel lay on his side for over a year. He also ate bread cooked over a cow pat. All perfectly biblical, and extremely loopy.

As a Mormon, the question of how to evaluate other people’s revelations used to be a tough one. Now as an atheist, it’s easy. Anyone who says that a god is speaking to them is wrong. But I don’t care so much as long as they’re keeping their delusion to themselves, keeping it away from children, not harming anyone with it, and not trying to legislate on the basis of it. When they overstep these bounds, they move from deluded to dangerous, like Mr Bhangu.

Now here’s a part from the article that caught my attention:

“(The) defendant stated that he knew it was wrong to kill people in this country but that God had ordered him to do it,” say the documents filed by police.

And if God orders you to do something, you don’t worry about a trifling thing like law. All my life, I heard people in church telling me that God came first. God’s law was higher than man’s law. Little did I realise that they were implanting a meme that would justify my breaking any law that the church considered wrong.

And I see that it’s not just Mormons that are getting the treatment. Here’s a Christian columnist asking kids the musical question:

What Would You Do If Arrested For Talking About God?

“If they threatened to hurt me if I didn’t stop talking about God, I wouldn’t listen to them because I know that I am pleasing God,” says Megan, 9.

Megan would be following the example of the Apostles Peter and John upon their release from jail.
…
Ask this question: If police were told to arrest all Christians in your area, would they come to your house?

Hurt them? Arrest them? Who’s advocating this? Or is this a bit of galvanisation through paranoia?

This article delivers two memes at once: ‘Religious Dogma Over Secular Law’, and ‘They’re Coming to Get Us’. But fancy putting either one before a child. At best, you make them fearful for the safety of their family, and at worst you raise a generation of Law-Breakers for Jesus.

Like the bus ad? Get the shirt.

7 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

The atheist buses are out!

An atheist advertising campaign has been launched on buses across Britain.

A fund-raising drive for the promotion, carrying the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”, raised more than £140,000.

The campaign, which will also feature on the Tube, is backed by the British Humanist Association and prominent atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins.

And there’s a t-shirt to match. Perth will soon see me rocking the “Probably No God” t-shirt,


but I don’t think I’ll carry it off as well as Ariane Sherine.

Interestingly, the C of E felt a desire to comment.

The Church of England said Christian faith allowed people to put their life into a “proper perspective”.

A spokesman said: “We would defend the right of any group representing a religious or philosophical position to be able to promote that view through appropriate channels.

“However, Christian belief is not about worrying or not enjoying life.”

Well, I can tell you that spending Sunday mornings lounging about with Ms Perfect is much more conducive to enjoying life than spending 3 hours in church hearing stuff like this:

2:25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth…

2:33 For behold, there is a wo pronounced upon him who listeth to obey that [evil] spirit; for if he listeth to obey him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment, having transgressed the law of God contrary to his own knowledge.

or

12:17 Then is the time when their torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever; and then is the time that they shall be chained down to an everlasting destruction, according to the power and captivity of Satan, he having subjected them according to his will.

If this were true, wouldn’t the idea of getting tormented for eternity cause you some worry? Wouldn’t it mitigate your enjoyment of life just a tad if you were occasionally told that you were worse than dirt?

Time to spread the Good News, which is that the punishment forewarned by religions is most likely fictional. You are free. Now enjoy your life.

Official atheism? Not hardly.

31 December 2008 / / 2 Comments

Michael Newdow is trying to get “so help me God” out of the Presidential swearing-in ceremony. Do I think it will succeed? No. Do I think it’s kind of annoying and crazy? Yes. But I’m happy to see him try. He’s doing the work for us, pushing the Overton Window, and making all us other atheists look nice and sensible. Good on him. The state shouldn’t be taking sides — promoting either religion or atheism — in this debate, and references to a god counts as ‘taking sides’.

But there’s a bit of confusion about what promoting atheism looks like. The confusion is coming from the Peter Sprig, of the Family Research Council. Given the source, I have to assume that this is manufactured confusion, which we also call ‘dishonesty’. Anyhow, here’s part of a back-and-forth, starting with Dan Barker, one of the plaintiffs and co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

And we’re also challenging Chief Justice Roberts for overstepping his authority in inserting the phrase, “So help me God” into the presidential oath which is in the Constitution. That is un-American. It is unfair. It marginalizes. It makes those of us good Americans who don’t believe in God second-class citizens. It’s unfair.

Good so far. Now the other side from Sprig.

But ironically, if a lawsuit like this were to succeed, we would be in effect establishing atheism as the national religion by barring any mention of God or any allusion to religion in any public ceremony.

No, this is wrong. And it’s not just because atheism is not a religion.

I hear this all the time from Christians, who say, “They’re trying to make our [ schools | government | restaurants ] atheistic by removing all references to God.” The problem here is that having no particular mention of religion or god does not constitute de facto atheism. It’s just a normal, default position.

Let me show you what ‘promoting atheism’ looks like. If Mr Obama were to invite me to give a speech at his inauguration in which I would explain to everyone why there’s probably no god, talk about the damage that religion can do on a societal and personal level, and encourage everyone to leave their religions — then that would be promoting atheism. If, on the other hand, Mr Obama invites some religious loon to give a speech exhorting some god to favour the nation with blessings (oh, wait, that did happen), then that would be promoting religion. Either one would be taking sides, and would be inappropriate.

Having neither of us give a speech or a prayer would not be promoting religion or atheism. It would just be normal.

I present this as a public service to my over-anxious religious readers. Now you know what ‘promotion of atheism’ looks like, so you can recognise it in case you ever see it for once in your life.

UPDATE: Noticed this article, in which Barker says it better than I:

Asked if prayer is excluded, wouldn’t that mean government is choosing atheists as the winner, Barker replied, “There is a difference between neutrality and hostility.

“If the government were to invite me as a national atheist leader to get up and give an invocation that curses the name of God and that encourages people to stop believing and stop being so childish and divisive then that would be wrong because the government would be taking a pro-atheist position,” he said.

Meeting one of my converts

26 December 2008 / / 6 Comments

I was an LDS missionary in the late 80s, spending two years of my life to promote superstition, magical thinking, and (worst of all) faith. The whole thing embarrasses me acutely now. I sometimes try and excuse myself; I was under the influence of well-meaning family and friends, born into a religious system that valued its own perpetuation. However, I’m pleased to say that out of all the people I taught and baptised, none is active.

Except one family. I remember them especially because of the numerous discussions we had. As a missionary, I always felt a bit paternal toward people I taught. I tried to explain things to them, convince them of church doctrine, and persuade them to accept, one by one, an ever-increasing cycle of commitments. The trick of this, I realise now, was that, once the investigator is more and more heavily invested in the Mormon Church with time, effort, and money, the more the sunk cost fallacy takes over and the harder it is for investigators to extricate themselves. You don’t believe in the Church? Then why are you doing all these things? And if they don’t get out, on the cycle goes.

I’d seen this family around church over the years, but just the other day I ran into the mom at the shopping centre. We chatted, and she asked how I was going with church. So I explained that I was no longer a member, and that I didn’t do religion anymore.

Some people have taken this with some equanimity, but not her. She was shaken. “Why not?” she asked.

Ordinarily, I’d tell someone the usual: I’d thought the whole thing was true, but eventually I realised the evidence for God wasn’t there; that science does a much better job of getting at reality; that if you have faith in something it makes you less able to think critically about it, et cetera, et cetera. But I realised that I couldn’t give my usual spiel in this situation. The roles we’d played for each other were too different. See, her main memory of me was the guy who sat in her house representing the LDS Church, convincing her to spend hours of her life in the service of this group. Now I was bailing, and she was still there. And something in her tone suggested to me that she was not too happy about that. Some people really seem to enjoy being Mormons; somehow she gave the opposite impression. But how would she ever pull the ejector seat? Could I now be the anti-missionary, or would that make me seem completely evil? The whole Mormon image-conscious bullshit thing was doing a number on my head once again.

A funny thing: I didn’t sugar-coat the facts about the Church being wrong, but I didn’t argue tooth and nail either. I wonder why I held back. Maybe I’m sick of being The Evangelist. Evangelism’s for fools. And she hadn’t asked for me to change her religion that day, just as she hadn’t asked me to change it all those years ago. Had I interfered enough? On the other hand, I cared about this person as we argued about religion there in the shopping centre. I regretted the monstrous waste of her time that I was directly responsible for. If I could start her on a process of fact-hunting, maybe she could eventually get free of an organisation that she didn’t enjoy promulgating. Or would that just put her at loggerheads with her Mormon (and in some cases RM) family? Was I proffering freedom, or conflict? What do you do?

What I did was this: I told her about my experience of leaving the LDS Church, and how worthwhile it’s been. I gave my reasons plainly. And when she tried turning the tables and invited me to a church activity, I did what she should have done all those years ago: I politely declined.

There was one thing I didn’t say that I wish I had. All those years ago, when she looked up to me as a spiritual example, it was because I said what I believed, and told the truth insofar as I knew it. And that’s what I’m still doing now. There was no reason for her to think less of me, or me of myself. Quite the contrary.

But ever since that chance meeting in the shopping centre, I have had this inescapable impression: that out of all the rotten, evil, terrible actions in my life (not that there are all that many), serving a mission for the Mormon Church was by far the worst thing I have ever done. Not only did I waste part of my life in furthering ignorance, I wasted other people’s lives too.

Music vs lyrics

20 December 2008 / / 5 Comments

I’ve been doing lots of Christmas music with my two choirs this week. Last week it was “An Australian Bush Christmas”, with lots of Wheeler and James. You non-Australians have probably never heard of such Christmas classics as “The Three Drovers”, “The Silver Stars Are in the Sky”, and “Sing Gloria”, which is a shame because they really are lovely carols, and very Australian. And tomorrow it’s Handel’s Messiah, which I’ve decided to perform from memory, partly because this is my 7th year and it’s about time, and partly because I don’t know which box my score is in.

Christmas music is one of my favourite things about the season, but have you noticed that the songs are very frequently about Jebus? Funny that. And it’s giving this atheist a case of the screaming jeebies. I want to enjoy it for the music, but it’s hard to do when it means you’re affirming the existence of angels, resurrection, and salvation from non-existent punishment. It’s enough to drive you to reindeer.

I mean, the Messiah is gorgeous and so fun to perform. But I kind of grit my teeth during “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth”, and I feel the incongruity especially keenly during “Since By Man Came Death”, where the choir sings “E’en so, in Christ shall all be made alive.” And I realise that I’m somehow reifying a view I think is false.

I still love Christmas, and I hope that by celebrating it, I can contribute to its secularisation. But the religious nature of it is so entrenched in all that lovely musical tradition. I suppose I’ll eventually either relax about it and capitulate, or else stop performing it.

Conversations with the Witnesses, part 1

16 December 2008 / / 2 Comments

A couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses came by today, elder gentlemen. Here’s how it went, as close as I can remember.

Stage 1: Door Approach

ME: Hi, guys! Come on in.

JW: Oh, we won’t come in. We’re with a group. But we wanted to ask you some questions about Christmas.

ME: Okay.

JW: Do you know when Jesus was born?

ME: Well, it sure wasn’t December 25th.

JW: That’s right. And do you know where Christmas traditions came from?

ME: Christians mostly just stole it from pagan rituals.

JW: Right again!

ME: W00t!

JW: Jesus never said to celebrate his birthday. We’d like to share a message about Jesus with you.

Stage 2: Hostage Negotiation

ME: Well, guys, here’s the problem. You try and stay away from pagan rituals, which is fine, but you’ve essentially traded one Bronze Age mythology for another. I prefer to stay away from mythologies altogether and stick with something more empirical, like science. Why would we want to get information about the world and the universe from people who didn’t even have telescopes?

JW: Well, in 2 Timothy 2:16, it says “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness”

(Sorry, that’s not exactly what it said. I couldn’t be bothered to find the NWT online.)

ME: So… the Bible is true because the Bible says that it’s true?

JW: (Pause.) No, it’s also true because the Bible contains predictions that have been fulfilled in every detail.

ME: Oh. Like what?

JW: It contains prophecies about the Messiah, which Jesus fulfilled.

ME: You’re serious.

JW:

ME: That’s part of the same story. You can’t use the story as evidence for the story! ‘Oh, look! A prophecy in the first part of the book… was fulfilled later on in the same book!’

I used to be a Mormon. They claim that the Book of Mormon fulfills prophecies in the Bible. But in both cases, someone could have just written down a story that tied up some loose ends. Why would you reject the Book of Mormon and accept the Bible?

Stage 3: Disengage

JW: You don’t have faith in the Bible, then?

ME: No, I’d say not.

JW: We’ll just be on our way then. But we’ll leave you this publication.

ME: Thank you very much, and enjoy the… next couple of weeks.

JW: Goodbye.

When Parowan Prophecy fails

16 December 2008 / / 2 Comments

Sure, it’s fun to see failed predictions, but you know what’s even better? Watching a very specific prediction that you know is going to fail in advance. It’s almost godlike: you get to see the certainty of the prognosticator, and you know the prediction is going to fail, but he doesn’t. Plus you get all the stages of prophecy grief — shock and anger at the lack of fulfillment, scriptural contortions and rationalisations afterward, and finally acceptance as the whole incident is (shall we say) ‘clarified’ for those who still believe.

Well, here comes just such an example now. There’s a fellow in Utah that calls himself the “Parowan Prophet”. He’s been crackpotting around for years — I remember reading about him in the 90’s — and now he’s made a splash in the news. Unfortunately, the prophet failed to predict his bandwidth needs, so yesterday his site was throwing a 509 error. Bit of a worry. Make sure to vet your prophets before trusting them with anything important, like interstate marriage legislation.

Anyway, he’s predicting that nuclear bombs will prevent Obama from taking office in January.

“I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president. I said on my home page in August that if he lost to expect to see the ‘riots’ that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn’t lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008, as I said.”

These riots, according to his prophecy, will encourage the “old, hard-line Soviet guard” to seize the moment and rain down nukes on the United States, killing at least 100 million of us.

You heard the man. Obama will not take office. Now what hermeneutical gymnastics will we see from P. P. and any true believers on January 20th? And how long will it take them to forget the prophecy was ever made? My prediction: three femtoseconds.

Religion and humanism in Australian schools

14 December 2008 / / 4 Comments

Compared to the USA, Australia might seem like a secular paradise. But unfortunately there are weird little pockets of godbaggery, too. In Victoria, for example, religions get access to schoolkids to promote their fictional beliefs. But now humanists will get equal time.

VICTORIAN state primary school students will soon have an alternative — religious education lessons taught by people who do not believe in God and say there is “no evidence of any supernatural power”.

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum, which the State Government accreditation body says it intends to approve, to deliver 30-minute lessons each week of “humanist applied ethics” to primary pupils.

Sounds interesting. I’d go.

But the Christianists are none too happy about more groups horning in on their racket.

[T]he body that accredits Victoria’s 3500 Christian religious instruction volunteers, Access Ministries, says humanism is not a religion and so should not be taught in religious education time.

This is a funny little issue. Is hum-atheism a religion or not? Here the Christians are claiming it’s not, so it shouldn’t be taught. But elsewhere when Christians are denied access to a captive school audience, they turn around and claim that atheism is a religion, and since kids are exposed to the ‘religion’ of atheism, they should also be exposed to the religion of religion.

Atheism should not be considered a religion, any more than not collecting stamps is a hobby. I can see why people would disagree though. When someone asks, “What’s your religion?” I say “I’m an atheist,” which I think of as an indirect response, but someone else might not. I suppose the most generous admission I could make is that atheism is something like a setting on the religion parameter. But that simply suggests that atheism is a certain view on religion rather than a religion itself. I think we atheists should resist the temptation to take advantage of the benefits that religions accrue. As these humanists seem to have done.

The Humanist Society does not consider itself to be a religious organisation and believes ethics have “no necessary connection with religion”. Humanists believe people are responsible for their own destiny and reject the notion of a supernatural force or God.

The hilarious part for me:

Fundamentalist Christian group the Salt Shakers panned the idea of humanists being given religious education class time.

Research director Jenny Stokes said: “If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism?

“If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools.”

At last she gets it. Except she needs to start with ‘If you accredit Christianity…’. Because she’s right — if you allow one mythology to be promoted in schools, you need to promote them all. And is that what schools want to spend their time doing? If you want to promote ethics (which sounds good to me), why not have a secular curriculum that privileges no particular religion over any other? In essence, a humanist one, not a religious one.

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