Religion

I’ve occasionally remarked that I don’t care so much what people believe as I do how they act. The people I enjoy spending time with are not always those who share my beliefs, but are those who demonstrate integrity, respect, honesty, and other virtues. These virtues are associated with not just holding beliefs in the sense of a mere tendency to agree with a statement, but a deeper belief that actually has consequences for one’s behavior. When I was a born-again Christian, I heard many sermons to the effect that many Christians were Christian in name only, paying only lip service to the doctrines while not living their lives in accordance with them. Clearly, there are a lot of such people out there. (Read the rest, where I recycle an argument I originally wrote in a pamphlet called “Three Reductio Ad Absurdum Arguments Against Evangelical Christianity,” at the Secular Outpost.)

Dinesh D’Souza, who blames liberals for exercising their freedom in ways that cause Muslim radicals to hate and attack the U.S., gets a nice takedown at World-o-Crap. Also see Ed Brayton’s commentaries on D’Souza from last year: “The Inanity of Dinesh D’Souza” (September 2006) “Walcott on D’Souza’s New Book” (October 2006) “More on D’Souza’s Ridiculous Book” (October 2006)

Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson (R, District 18-Mesa) is no stranger to stupidity. She was one of a number of legislators who got in bed with the Church of Scientology last year, accepting invitations to Scientology events and sponsoring anti-psychiatric legislation pushed by Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) front organization. Now she’s behind SCR 1026, a proposal to amend the Arizona Constitution to prevent courts from the ability to address violations of the separation of church and state: Her proposal, SCR 1026, would specifically bar courts from being able to grant any injunctions or other legal relief if the question involves “the acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty or government.” And that bar would remain in place whether the action were brought against the government as a whole or any state or local official.She goes on to demonstrate that she doesn’t understand the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: Johnson said she is unhappy that judges in other states have ruled that the words “under God” have to come out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and that a monument of the Ten Commandments had to be removed from an Alabama courthouse. “We don’t want that,” she said. ...

This video of John McCain shows video clips of him saying one thing and then the opposite on a number of subjects including the war in Iraq, the Confederate flag, the religious right, and gay marriage. Some of these are a bit misleadingly edited, such as the gay marriage item, where it doesn’t look like he actually contradicted himself to me. Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars. ...

Arizona State Representative Pamela Gorman (R-District 6, Anthem) was one of several legislators who accepted gifts from the Church of Scientology and helped promote bills for Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights. She is also on the Legislative Advisory Board to the Heartland Institute, publisher of Environmental & Climate News, a publication that is still, as of its February 2007 issue, arguing that global warming is mythical. This issue contains articles such as “Greenland Coldest in 60 Years” and “Little Ice Age May Return Soon,” and contains a set of graphs of global satellite temperatures on p. 7 that attributes 1998’s high temperatures to El Nino. The Heartland Institute’s past articles have included titles like “Eight Reasons Why ‘Global Warming’ is a Scam” (2003), “National Geographic Promotes Global Warming Myths” (2004), and “Michael Crichton is Right!" (2005) (Rep. Gorman’s Blogger profile lists “Anthem Shrugged” as one of her favorite books. Ayn Rand wrote books called Anthem and Atlas Shrugged, but it appears Rep. Gorman has combined them. She has apparently been too busy to blog much; she posted twice in January 2006 and has only posted again this month.) ...

The YesButNoButYes blog has a list of the top ten Christian tourist traps, with photos. Their list includes the Institute for Creation Research’s museum, but not Hovind’s Dinosaur Adventure Land. My favorites on the list (based on the photos) are Golgotha Mini Golf in Cave City, Kentucky (I especially like the propane tank that appears to be connected to Jesus at the 18th Hole–does he also function as a space heater?) and the decaying Holy Land USA in Waterbury, Connecticut. I’ve not visited any of the places on the YesButNoButYes list, though I’ve visited similar places, such as the Garden of Gethsemane park in Tucson (a blatant establishment clause and Arizona Constitution violation on municipal property at 602 W. Congress).

The Kearny Board of Education released a memo and statement last week regarding “the expression of personal religious beliefs by professional staff in the classroom." They have indicated that they will be hiring an outside professional to provide training to its teachers about “Constitutional parameters” and will institute a formal policy “expressing its strong commitment to the principle that personal religious beliefs of our institutional staff have no place in our classrooms."

P.Z. Myers pointed out the beginnings of a backlash against “the new atheism” in the Wall Street Journal on January 5, now on January 16 Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis has joined in: We’ve warned you about them before on our website—but now they’re on a much more aggressive march all across America. No longer are they just staying in their classrooms or writing books and articles in the comfort of their offices. They are “the new atheists,” and they are aggressively going after your children, your liberties, and your faith! … These atheists are not just publicity seekers. They are very serious about their mission. Dawkins, from England, was recently crusading across America to proclaim his atheism to newspapers, websites, and at public meetings. ...

My letter to the editor in response to David Paszkiewicz’s letter in the Observer was too late for the print edition, but was published on the newspaper’s blog. Here’s the letter with a couple typos corrected (“nor” for “not” and an extraneous possessive): David Paszkiewicz quotes from Thomas Jefferson’s April 21, 1803 letter to Benjamin Rush in support of his argument that the Founding Fathers would have agreed with his bringing his religious views into the public school classroom. The original letter, in Jefferson’s handwriting, can be found on the Internet at the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html What Jefferson actually wrote in this letter was “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.” In other words, Jefferson rejected the divinity and miracles attributed to Jesus. His “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” (also known as the “Jefferson Bible”) was composed by removing miracles and claims of godhood from the gospels. Paszkiewicz’s quote comes from a letter from Jefferson to Charles Thomson on January 9, 1816, regarding his “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” stating that he is “a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus” in that work. This letter may be found online here: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public∂=2 37&division=div1 Paszkiewicz also misquotes George Washington’s May 12, 1789 address to the Delaware Indians–what Washington said was “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.” He said nothing about teaching this in schools nor that he believed it; he was giving the Indians advice for cultural assimilation. Paszkiewicz argues that because the words “separation of church and state” are not in the Constitution (a document that contains no reference to God), the concept is not there, either. But neither are the words “checks and balances,” and the New Testament contains no use of the word “trinity,” for that matter–the concepts are expressed using other words. The arguments over the wording of the First Amendment make it clear that the Founding Fathers were very concerned about religious control of government resulting in persecution of those with different beliefs, as had already occurred with established religions in the colonies, such as persecutions by the Puritans in Massachusetts. Jim Lippard Phoenix, Arizona

From the Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind was sentenced Friday afternoon to 10 years in prison on charges of tax fraud. After a lengthy sentencing hearing that last 5 1/2 hours, U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers ordered Hovind also: – Pay $640,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. – Pay the prosecution’s court costs of $7,078. – Serve three years parole once he is released from prison. Hovind’s wife, Jo Hovind, also was scheduled to be sentenced. Rodgers postponed her sentencing until March 1 to allow her defense attorney an opportunity to argue possible discrepancies in sentencing guidelines. I’ve added a label for Kent Hovind. UPDATE (January 21, 2007): Ed Brayton points out that Hovind, at his sentencing, suddenly adopted a newly-found meekness: Before his sentencing, a tearful Kent Hovind compared his situation to that of the lion and the mouse in Aesop’s Fables. “I feel like the mouse,” Hovind told U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers. “I stand here in great fear of the power of this court. Your decision can destroy my life, my ministry and my grandchildren." ...