More Tax Funds for Religious Education

On July 27 I discussed the indirect tax subsidy of Colorado Christian University. I pointed out that, typically, when the left imposes coercive wealth transfers, the "religious right does not oppose this government initiation of force, but instead insists on its share of the loot."

I have two more recent cases to share.

Gina Liggett alerted me to an effort in Louisiana to teach God-based "science." New Scientist published an article on the matter:

Barbara Forrest knew the odds were stacked against her... Her opponents included lobbyists, church leaders and a crowd of home-schooled children. "They were wearing stickers, clapping, cheering and standing in the aisles." ... That was on 21 May, when Forrest testified in the Louisiana state legislature on the dangers hidden in the state's proposed Science Education Act. She had spent weeks trying to muster opposition to the bill on the grounds that it would allow teachers and school boards across the state to present non-scientific alternatives to evolution, including ideas related to intelligent design (ID) - the proposition that life is too complicated to have arisen without the help of a supernatural agent. ...

Forrest's testimony notwithstanding, the bill was passed by the state's legislature - by a majority of 94 to 3 in the House and by unanimous vote in the Senate. On 28 June, Louisiana's Republican governor, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, signed the bill into law. The development has national implications, not least because Jindal is rumoured to be on Senator John McCain's shortlist as a potential running mate in his bid for the presidency.

The broader issue is that evolution is demonstrated through overwhelming evidence, while "intelligent design" is the anti-scientific product of religious faith.

But regardless of the scientific facts, it is morally wrong to force people who disapprove of faith-based education to finance it. Yes, it is also morally wrong to force religionists who disapprove of evolution to fund its teaching, but only the former case also violates the separation of church and state. If people want to privately finance the teaching of Creationism, that is scientifically groundless but completely within their proper legal rights.

Here in Colorado, a school-prayer measure has failed to make the ballot, according to the Aurora Sentinel:

An Aurora church has abandoned its efforts to get prayer in public schools through a ballot initiative in the upcoming election.

Final Harvest Christian Center had planned to ask voters this fall to approve a measure that would give students five minutes at the start of each school day to meditate, pray by themselves or pray with others.

Obviously, students are perfectly free to spend five minutes (or five hours) praying to Jesus or saying "ohm" before they get to school. The clear purpose of the measure is to bring religion into the tax-funded schools. While the effort failed, its existence helps to show that the much of the religious right has no problem whatsoever using tax funds for its faith-based ends.

Personhood and DIM

A collection of letters published by The Denver Post address Colorado's ballot initiative that seeks to define a fertilized egg as a person (Amendment 48). The thee letters perfectly illustrate an idea of Leonard Peikoff: the three basic approaches to fundamental ideas are Disintegration, Misintegration, and Integration (or DIM, but I'm rearranging the terms to fit the letters).

Martin Voelker writes, "This impossibility to decide doctrinal merits is why government must remain neutral, as indeed our secular Constitution prescribes." While it is true that religions have incompatible tenets, that is not a primary consideration with respect to 48. Voelker is essentially invoking skepticism: we cannot know, so we shouldn't make laws about things about which people are bound to disagree.

Lamar Taylor writes, "Those of us who support the 'personhood' amendment are pro-life. We believe that human life begins at conception." "We believe." While obviously a fertilized egg (as well as a pre-fertilized egg) is both alive and human in the sense of containing human DNA, it is not a human person, which is the letter writer's point. The letter writer offers no argument to back up the assertion that a fertilized egg is a person; "we believe" suffices. This is a symptom of Misintegration, or building a cohesive philosophy around a fundamentally mystical focus. The only argument that has ever been put forward that a fertilized egg is a person is that God said so.

Finally (as I've noted previously), Diana Hsieh writes:

A woman's fundamental right to control her own body, including her right to terminate or sustain a pregnancy, should not depend on majority vote. This would violate that right in spades, based on the fantasy that an embryo is equal to an infant. It would force a woman to provide life support to any fertilized egg -- even at the risk of her life and health and even if ruinous to her goals and dreams. It would make actual persons -- any woman capable of bearing children, plus her husband or boyfriend -- slaves to merely potential persons. That kind of moral evil has no place in a modern society...

Hsieh accounts for the real biological differences between a fertilized egg and a person. Hsieh's invocation of rights points not to some mystical entity but to the requirements of human life and flourishing. Hsieh briefly counters the approaches of both Disintegration and Misintegration. While obviously she can only skim the surface in a short letter, Hsieh's deeper theme is that reason and reality must trump both faith and skepticism.

Nafisi Reads Lolita in Tehran

I've read most of Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. It is a fascinating book with some important lessons.

The book makes vividly real the day-to-day fear and oppression of living under a theocratic totalitarian regime. I found this quote (pages 5-6) heartbreaking:

For nearly two years, almost every Thursday morning, rain or shine, they came to my house, and almost every time, I could not get over the shock of seeing them shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color. ... Gradually, each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self.

These girls got to meet and read books. Not all women fared nearly as well. Nafisi offers a pretty good summary of life for women in the country (page 27):

[W]omen of her mother's generation could walk the streets freely, enjoy the company of the opposite sex, join the police force, become pilots, live under laws that were among the most progressive in the world regarding women... In the course of nearly two decades, the streets have been turned into a war zone, where young women who disobey the rules are hurled into patrol cars, taken to jail, flogged, fined, forced to wash the toilets and humiliated...

And of course many women were simply slaughtered.

What I found most interesting about the book was its point that the Marxist left often helped the theocratic right:

...Marxist organizations had tacitly taken sides with the government, denouncing the protesters [against Islamic crack downs] as deviant, devisive and ultimately acting in the service of the imperialists. ... They claimed that there were bigger fish to fry, that the imperialists and thir lackeys needed to be dealth with first. Focusing on women's rights was individualistic and bourgeois and played into their hands.

Neither America's left nor right is as socialistic as the cultural leaders in Iran are. Yet, as America's left increasingly embraces the religious right, the ultimate potential result looks frightening. If you want to see what happens when Marxists embrace theocracy, read Nafisi's alternately heart-wrenching and horrifying book.

Tax Funds for Colorado Christian University

As much as I detest Michael Huttner and hate to agree with him about anything, he's right about one thing: forcibly transferring tax funds to students at Colorado Christian University is "a clear violation of the separation of church and state," as he told The Denver Post.

The story reports, "Colorado violated the U.S. Constitution when it blocked taxpayer-funded financial aid to students at religious schools that the state calls "pervasively sectarian," a federal appellate court in Denver ruled Wednesday."

What is Colorado Christian University (CCU) all about? The title reveals its mission. Its web page elucidates:

FAITH It's the foundation. Faith is the starting point for learning, understanding, growing, and expanding your horizons. At Colorado Christian University, faith is a critical part of your college experience that speaks to character development, integrity, and becoming the person God intended you to be. It's what enables CCU to offer a complete education that trains you professionally, equips you spiritually, and encourages you to build confidence in Christ. Faith is the first step to fulfilling your dreams. Then it requires action.

CCU affirms its "Biblical Foundation:"

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2 (NIV)

"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:17 (NIV)

The college describes its vision and mission:

Vision
We envision graduates who think critically and creatively, lead with high ethical and professional standards, embody the character and compassion of Jesus Christ, and who thereby are prepared to impact the world.

Mission
Colorado Christian University cultivates knowledge and love of God in a Christ-centered community of learners and scholars, with an enduring commitment to the integration of exemplary academics, spiritual formation, and engagement with the world.

The college also clearly states its evangelical mission:

Colorado Christian University unites with the broad, historic evangelical faith rather than affiliating with any specific denomination. In this commitment, the University embraces the following declarations of the National Association of Evangelicals:

1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
2. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
4. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
5. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
6. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
7. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

CCU makes one good point: because "state scholarship funds had already been awarded to students enrolled at Methodist and Roman Catholic universities," it wasn't fair to exclude only one sort of religious college. But of course the solution to that problem is to forcibly transfer wealth to no religious institution, not to all of them.

Notably, Colorado Christian does not dispute the state's claim that it is a "pervasively sectarian institution." Quite obviously it is.

CCU's claim that a denial of the funds violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments is laughable.

The First Amendment, as Jefferson wrote, was intended to serve the following purpose:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

Forcing people to fund Colorado Christian University (directly or indirectly), when they disagree with the mission of that university, violates their rights of conscience, religion, and property.

The Fourteenth Amendment states, "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Forcing people to fund a religious institution against their beliefs clearly violates their liberty and rights to property.

This case demonstrates the perverse dance between the religious right and the socialist left. The left favors welfare (coercive wealth transfers), including welfare for the poor and welfare for students. The religious right does not oppose this government initiation of force, but instead insists on its share of the loot.

Against the likes of Huttner, I emphasize that it is also morally wrong to force Christians to fund welfare through secular institutions, including scholarships for schools that teach doctrines offensive to Christians. Nevertheless, existing welfare ought not breach the separation of church and state.

While the Bible is open to radically diverse interpretations, you'd think that Colorado Christian University, with its Biblical Foundation and all, might at least pay attention to God's advice: "You shall not steal." Shame on you.

A Contradiction of Altruism

I happened across a poem by a minister named Richard Lawrence, part of which reads:

Let no man seek his own,
But every man another's wealth;
And you'll be richer than you know,
It will contribute to your health.

The difficulty of living up to this advice is that, if every man is seeking another's wealth, ultimately for some people to succeed, others have to get wealthy. But then those people are violating the dictum.

This is a generalized problem with altruism: if people are supposed to make sacrifices to others, then the only way for some people to succeed is if others are benefiting by the sacrifices. With sacrifice, some people are losing, and others are gaining at others' expense.

The final two lines indicate that altruism is in fact good for the one seeking another's well-being. It can indeed be the case that seeking somebody else's wealth is self-interested. For example, I want my wife to gain a lot of wealth, and the same goes for all my family and friends, and indeed for all decent people. The problem for altruism is that, in a society of voluntary exchange, I promote the wealth of others in seeking my own wealth. In a free society, one person's gain is another person's gain. But that's not altruism; it's mutually-beneficial cooperation.

The corrective, then, would read:

Let all men seek their own,
And in exchange another's wealth;
And you'll be richer than you know,
It will contribute to your health.

It will contribute to your health and every other aspect of your life.

Perkins vs. D'Souza: Morality

In his fourth essay criticizing Dinesh D'Souza, Greg Perkins notes that D'Souza accuses atheists of rebelling against moral rules. After summarizing why that's not the case for atheists who know what they're talking about, Perkins adds:

[T]he religionists are themselves guilty of the sin of moral subjectivism. The essence of subjectivism is acting on whim -- wishing, assuming, feeling, or declaring that facts will align themselves with thoughts and lives. Of course, this gets it exactly backwards: thoughts and lives must align themselves with the facts because facts are absolutes to be discovered, not declared. Merely hoping or asserting something is good doesn't make it so, and it doesn't matter whether we're talking about the whim of a lone subjectivist deciding what is good or bad, the whim of an entire civilization voting on it, or the whim of a "supernatural" mind decreeing it. So the religious who claim to have an absolute morality are really only subjectivists of a supernatural stripe. The trouble for them is that their sort of subjectivism is just as false as any other: God telling Abraham that it is good to slay his innocent son Isaac doesn't make it good. His ordering the enslavement of entire peoples in the Old Testament doesn't make that good.

While Perkins only hints at the full case behind his arguments, he starts down the right track and offers a useful reading list.

There is a point that Perkins doesn't make: D'Souza is psychologizing. He is postulating some psychological rebellion that, in most cases, simply does not exist. (Perkins correctly claims that many atheists resort to the theory of subjectivism, but that's a very different charge.) Thus, D'Souza's argument on this point is not only wrong but ad hominem.

D'Souza on Divine Intervention

Dinesh D'Souza makes two related claims in his latest article. First, even though, as Christopher Hitchens noted, the Judeo-Christian God has been around only for a few thousand years of mankind's existence, this God has been around for 98 percent of the lives of human beings. Second, the fact that people have progressed so much since then only proves that God is real. Here's what D'Souza has to say on this second point:

Suddenly savage man gives way to historical man. Suddenly the naked ape gets his act together. We see civilizations sprouting in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and elsewhere. Suddenly there are wheels and agriculture and art and culture. Soon we have dramatic plays and philosophy and an explosion of inventions and novel forms of government and social organization.

So how did Homo sapiens, heretofore such a slacker, suddenly get so smart? Scholars have made strenuous efforts to account for this but no one has offered a persuasive account. ...

Well, there is one obvious way to account for this historical miracle. It seems as if some transcendent being or force reached down and breathed some kind of a spirit or soul into man, because after accomplishing virtually nothing for 98 percent of our existence, we have in the past 2 percent of human history produced everything from the pyramids to Proust, from Socrates to computer software.

D'Souza's arguments often are hyper-rationalistic, and his latest is no exception. It has no grounding whatsoever in reality, and it ignores obvious conflicting evidence and more plausible explanations.

First, while the Judeo-Christian God is fairly young, that God hardly represented the founding of religion. Instead, primitive superstitions held back mankind for tens of thousands of years. The God of the Jews basically evolved from regional polytheism, then merged with Platonic philosophy to give us Christianity. So far as cultural advances go, D'Souza is crediting the Judeo-Christian God for the hard intellectual work of the Greeks, starting with Thales at about 600 BC.

Second, we do not need any supernatural explanation for the success of mankind. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains that, around 10,000 years ago, people in the Middle East started to domesticate plants and animals in a serious way, which obviously has had a great deal to do with human expansion. As far as the population explosion goes, that didn't happen in a big way until the Industrial Revolution, which was an extension of the Enlightenment, which championed human reason and for the first time since the Christianization of Rome allowed a serious break with religion.

Third, as Greg Perkins explains, even if we didn't know these facts of history, and to the extent that we don't know all of the facts, D'Souza is unjustified in pulling supernaturalism from the hat. Perkins asks, "Since when did not knowing the answer to a puzzle entitle us to go and make one up?"

Fourth, D'Souza misidentifies cause and effect. Is a more sophisticated God the cause of a more sophisticated society, or the consequence of it? Obviously, as people gain the ability to not starve to death, they are able to fund the priestly classes.

What's remarkable to me is how many people seem to find D'Souza's arguments persuasive. The only people such arguments appeal to are detached-from-reality rationalists and those already devoted to their conclusion.

South Dakota Raises Abortion Hurdles

As the Associated Press reports, a South Dakota law may legally be enforced requiring doctors to tell woman that an abortion "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." The AP elsewhere notes that the state's attorney general now plans to enforce the law. U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier still must issue a ruling on the law; the debate was whether it could be enforced while under challenge.

What I take to be the relevant statute is reproduced below.

Obviously the law is intended to create onerous restrictions on abortion and come between doctors and their patients. The law micromanages doctors and violates their rights of contract and expression. The law also treats women as mindless dolts who must be parented by the state if they are to make "correct" decisions. Obviously the law is biased toward forcing doctors to provide propaganda against abortion, outside the context of the overall best decision for the woman, that presumably could generate endless litigation against doctors who provide the "wrong" sort of information.

Most importantly, the law deceptively claims that a fetus is "a... living human being" in the sense of being a person. The law thus relies on a gross equivocation between "human" in the sense of containing human DNA, as every cell in our bodies do, and "human" in the sense of being a physically separate and independent human person, which a fetus most certainly is not.

34-23A-10.1. (Delay in implementation or finding of unconstitutionality, see note at end of section) Voluntary and informed consent required--Medical emergency exception--Information provided. No abortion may be performed unless the physician first obtains a voluntary and informed written consent of the pregnant woman upon whom the physician intends to perform the abortion, unless the physician determines that obtaining an informed consent is impossible due to a medical emergency and further determines that delaying in performing the procedure until an informed consent can be obtained from the pregnant woman or her next of kin in accordance with chapter 34- 12C is impossible due to the medical emergency, which determinations shall then be documented in the medical records of the patient. A consent to an abortion is not voluntary and informed, unless, in addition to any other information that must be disclosed under the common law doctrine, the physician provides that pregnant woman with the following information:
(1) A statement in writing providing the following information:
(a) The name of the physician who will perform the abortion;
(b) That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;
(c) That the pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota;
(d) That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated;
(e) A description of all known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors to which the pregnant woman would be subjected, including:
(i) Depression and related psychological distress;
(ii) Increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide;
(iii) A statement setting forth an accurate rate of deaths due to abortions, including all deaths in which the abortion procedure was a substantial contributing factor;
(iv) All other known medical risks to the physical health of the woman, including the risk of infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies, and infertility;
(f) The probable gestational age of the unborn child at the time the abortion is to be performed, and a scientifically accurate statement describing the development of the unborn child at that age; and
(g) The statistically significant medical risks associated with carrying her child to term compared to undergoing an induced abortion.
The disclosures set forth above shall be provided to the pregnant woman in writing and in person no later than two hours before the procedure is to be performed. The physician shall ensure that the pregnant woman signs each page of the written disclosure with the certification that she has read and understands all of the disclosures, prior to the patient signing a consent for the procedure. If the pregnant woman asks for a clarification or explanation of any particular disclosure, or asks any other question about a matter of significance to her, the explanation or answer shall be made in writing and be given to the pregnant woman before signing a consent for the procedure and shall be made part of the permanent medical record of the patient;
(2) A statement by telephone or in person, by the physician who is to perform the abortion, or by the referring physician, or by an agent of both, at least twenty-four hours before the abortion, providing the following information:
(a) That medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and
neonatal care;
(b) That the father of the unborn child is legally responsible to provide financial support for her child following birth, and that this legal obligation of the father exists in all instances, even in instances in which the father has offered to pay for the abortion;
(c) The name, address, and telephone number of a pregnancy help center in reasonable proximity of the abortion facility where the abortion will be performed; and
(d) That she has a right to review all of the material and information described in § 34- 23A-1, §§ 34-23A-1.2 to 34-23A-1.7, inclusive, § 34-23A-10.1, and § 34-23A- 10.3, as well as the printed materials described in § 34-23A-10.3, and the website described in § 34-23A-10.4. The physician or the physician's agent shall inform the pregnant woman, orally or in writing, that the materials have been provided by the State of South Dakota at no charge to the pregnant woman. If the pregnant woman indicates, at any time, that she wants to review any of the materials described, such disclosures shall be either given to her at least twenty-four hours before the abortion or mailed to her at least seventy-two hours before the abortion by certified mail, restricted delivery to addressee, which means the postal employee can only deliver the mail to the addressee;
Prior to the pregnant woman signing a consent to the abortion, she shall sign a written statement that indicates that the requirements of this section have been complied with. Prior to the performance of the abortion, the physician who is to perform the abortion shall receive a copy of the written disclosure documents required by this section, and shall certify in writing that all of the information described in those subdivisions has been provided to the pregnant woman, that the physician is, to the best of his or her ability, satisfied that the pregnant woman has read the materials which are required to be disclosed, and that the physician believes she understands the information imparted. (SL 2005, ch 186, §§ 10 and 11 provide: "Section 10. If any court of law enjoins, suspends, or delays the implementation of the provisions of section 7 of this Act, the provisions of § 34-23A-10.1, as of June 30, 2005, are effective during such injunction, suspension, or delayed implementation." "Section 11. If any court of law finds any provisions of section 7 of this Act to be unconstitutional, the other provisions of section 7 are severable. If any court of law finds the provisions of section 7 of this Act to be entirely or substantially unconstitutional, the provisions of § 34-23A-10.1, as of June 30, 2005, are immediately reeffective.")
Source: SL 1980, ch 245, § 1; SL 1993, ch 249, § 4; SL 2003, ch 185, § 2; SL 2005, ch 186, § 7.

The Faith-Based Welfare Debate

The New York Times has reviewed the presidential debate over faith-based welfare (via Politics Without God).

On one side of the debate, Obama fully supports faith-based welfare, but he thinks recipients of the funds should not be able to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion:

Mr. Obama’s position that religious organizations would not be able to consider religion in their hiring for such programs would constitute a deal-breaker for many evangelicals, said several evangelical leaders, who represent a political constituency Mr. Obama has been trying to court.

"For those of who us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious institutions, this is a fundamental right," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. "He's rolling back the Bush protections. That's extremely disappointing."

You mean if churches line up for handouts of forcibly transfered wealth, they have to jump through political hoops? Who'd have imagined?

Churches do not have a "fundamental right" to spend tax dollars free of political oversight. However, individuals do have a fundamental right not to finance religious organizations as a matter of freedom of conscience and property rights.

On the other side of the debate, McCain fully supports faith-based welfare, but he thinks recipients of the funds should not be subject to national hiring guidelines: "A McCain campaign spokesman, Brian Rogers, said Mr. McCain 'disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight.'"

Some readers might have noticed that both sides of the debate are saying very nearly the same thing.

The only person quoted by the article articulating the alternative of liberty is the Reverend Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who told the Times, "It ought to be shut down, not continued."

Amen, brother.

Perkins vs. D'Souza: Gaps

In his third essay criticizing Dinesh D'Souza, Greg Perkins discusses the "God of the gaps."

D'Souza claims that, because science cannot fully explain the history of the universe, the nature of physical laws, and human morality, therefore "the God hypothesis seems unavoidable."

Perkins sensibly replies:

If only his opponents had the philosophical foundation to resist all those temptations for distraction in debate. In response to this sort of thing, they should be asking a simple question to expose a pervasive methodological problem in religious thought: Since when did not knowing the answer to a puzzle entitle us to go and make one up?

In fact, these sorts of arbitrarily asserted "explanations" pulled out of thin air should be simply dismissed out of hand -- a principle long recognized in logic and law. When someone brings a baseless charge before a court, it is to be dismissed as beneath consideration (and could even earn penalties for wasting the court's time). Likewise, when someone brings a baseless idea before a rational mind, it should be simply dismissed as beneath consideration. And D'Souza consistently relies on the logical fallacy of the "argument from ignorance," taking peoples' lack of knowledge around this and that as evidence in support of "the God hypothesis."

Perkins reminds us that various other natural events once were attributed to supernatural forces, including lightning, earthquakes, and disease.

Perkins also notes that D'Souza's appeal to faith rests on the knowledge of science.

After all, you can't wonder about the design of the inner workings of the cell until you find out there are cells and that they contain marvelous machinery, and you can't explore the delicate interplay of cosmological constants until you have discovered those constants in the first place.

Science depends upon our observations of reality governed by natural law. D'Souza pretends that the products of science point to a super-reality governed by God.

Coalition for Secular Government

Diana Hsieh has announced the formation of the Coalition for Secular Government. It links to several interesting documents, hosts a blog, and announces the following mission:

The Coalition for Secular Government advocates government solely based on secular principles of individual rights. The protection of a person's basic rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness -- including freedom of religion and conscience -- requires a strict separation of church and state.

Consequently:

We oppose any laws or policies based on religious scripture or dogma, such as restrictions on abortion and government discrimination against homosexuals.

We oppose any government promotion of religion, such as the teaching of intelligent design in government schools and tax-funded "faith-based initiatives."

We oppose any special exemptions or privileges based on religion by government, such as exemptions for churches from the tax law applicable to other non-profits.

The only proper government is a secular government devoted to the protection of individual rights.

The Coalition for Secular Government seeks to educate the public about the necessary secular foundation of a free society, particularly the principles of individual rights and separation of church and state. ...

I look forward to working with the Coalition against Amendment 48 for the reasons stated by the blog.

Holy Lawsuits and MP3s

The AP has reported that, after a man asked God for "a real experience," he "he fell and hit his head while worshipping." So he's suing the church for $2.5 million. Why isn't he suing the Holy Spirit? You'd think that, after going to all the trouble of filling the guy with the Holy Spirit, God would take the additional step of making sure he didn't bump his head on the way to the floor. Of course, some of us may wonder whether people have the "real experience" that they expect to have, in which case I hardly think the church is liable, either. Of course, churches could, for example, issue bicycle helmets or the like before channeling God's spirit into worshippers. Lest you think that Holy Helmets are ridiculous, consider the next story...

Atheist Nexus points to a Godlike new mp3 player, shaped like a cross. Christian music just isn't the same unless it's blaring through a cross-shaped player. "Show off your faith and listen to MP3 files with this 2 GB USB 'Cross Style' MP3 player," and all for only -- you guessed it -- $19.99. Because we all know that mp3 technology, and the computer revolution generally, came about through prayer and supernatural intervention.

Ba-a-a-a-a

I'm still holding out hope that this is a parody. iLiveValues.com published a blog entry called, "Being an Obedient Follower." The web page claims to be published by ERLC, which links to The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the vision of which is "An American society that affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values rooted in biblical authority."

The point of the blog entry is to teach readers about sheep. We need to know about sheep because, the blog reminds us, Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep. So the idea is that we are supposed to be Jesus's sheep, and God's hand-picked followers are supposed to "feed" us.

Here are some of the descriptions of sheep offered by the blog: "natural inclination to follow a leader... a strong lead-follow tendency... no such thing as a 'natural born leader' among sheep. The day’s leader among the flock is normally just the first sheep to move... when one sheep attempted to leap over a 15 meter wide ravine and instead fell to its death, nearly fifteen hundred other sheep followed... sheep are not as dumb as we have been told... just below pigs and on par with cattle in IQ... no sense of direction... Lost sheep usually will walk around in endless circles, in a state of confusion, and even panic... Sheep spend most of their lives eating and drinking, but they are not careful about what they eat and drink... Sheep are almost entirely defenseless."

So this is the model for Christian behavior, apparently. How are God's appointed shepherds supposed to treat these sheep?

"A shepherd would sacrifice for his flock. His flock implicitly trusts him. Sheep need a leader, even if they don't know they do."

I imagine that the "sheep" especially need a "leader" if they protest that they don't.

Thankfully, I know many Christians who would just as soon shop for guns or "feed" sheep to their children.

Muslim Creationists

Reuters reports (via Little Green Footballs via Jim M.):

Unknown outside Muslim circles two years ago, Adnan Oktar -- the 52-year-old Turk behind the pseudonym Harun Yahya -- caught the attention of scientists and teachers in Europe and North America by mass-mailing them his 768-page “Atlas of Creation”. His lavishly illustrated book preaches a Muslim version of creationism, the view scientists usually hear from Christian fundamentalists who say God created all life on earth just as it is today and oppose the teaching of Darwin's evolution theory.

Obviously I'm not going to spend the time to acquire this book and evaluate its particular claims. All creationist claims proceed down a similar path. Here I point out merely that creationism depends on supernaturalism.

But this does point out a difficulty with using creationism to promote a particular sect: all religious sects believe in creationism. Creationism invokes some designer, but is this designer a god of the Greeks, other pagans, the Muslims, the Christians, or the deists? As a tool of propaganda, creationism works only with those predisposed to believe the particular faith of the creationist. I somehow doubt that American Christian creationists would appreciate the use of Oktar's book in a class that taught "intelligent design."

Angels on Earth?

Call it the Christian's Enquirer. My wife received in the mail an invitation to subscribe to Angels On Earth magazine. Here's the pitch:

We have reserved in your name a FREE issue of ANGELS ON EARTH, an inspiring magazine about God's messengers and their work in the world. And when you accept it, you also get a FREE GIFT -- the 2009 ANGELS ON EARTH CALENDAR! [OMG!]

There is no risk -- no obligation to subscribe. We simply want you to experience this magazine presenting the stories of angels and the messages they deliver.

Stories of tragedies averted and destinies altered. Stories filled with profound mystery, yet radiating faith-affirming hope!

Angels still visit us today, ministering spirits guard us and guide us and give us reassuring evidence of God's love. You'll find these stories in ANGELS ON EARTH. ...

Wow. There are enough people who believe this nonsense to support a magazine. And I suspect that, relative to the Enquirer, a higher percent of subscribers help choose our political leaders.

I can hardly believe I have to make this point in the modern world, but here it goes. What are all these alleged angels doing when people die in car crashes, die at the hands of criminals, get cancer, or drown? What about "stories of tragedies not averted" and "destinies altered for the worse?" The claim that angels are responsible for all things pleasant in the world is a gross sort of bias that simply ignores cause and effect, luck, and contradictory facts.

Did Resurrection Myth Precede Jesus?

Sheera Frenkel of The Times (of London) reports a debate of a Dead Sea tablet called Gabriel’s Vision of Revelation. She writes:

Israel Knohl, a biblical studies professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argued yesterday that line 80 of the text revealed Gabriel telling an historic Jewish rebel named Simon, who was killed by the Romans four years before the birth of Christ: "In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you."

Professor Knohl contends that the tablet proves that messianic followers possessed the paradigm of their leader rising from the grave before Jesus was born. ...

Professor Knohl defended his theory at a conference at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem marking 60 years since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He said that New Testament writers could have adapted a widely held messianic story in Judaism to Jesus and his followers.

Others, of course, dispute this interpretation of a damaged text.

I regard it as an intriguing but unproved theory.

But it won't affect modern Christianity, either way. If it were shown definitively that resurrection stories preceded Jesus, Christians would respond by saying that of course the resurrection was prophesied, and this is not diminished by its application to a false prophet.

It's not as though this is the only myth suspected to precede Christianity; other resurrection myths are known to precede it. For example, Paul Tobin summarizes:

The myth of Adonis was known to the Greeks as early as the fifth century BCE. The Egyptian myth of Osiris dates back to at least 4,000 BCE and was recorded in detail by the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46-120 CE). The Persian Sun-God Mithras was mentioned in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus (c480-c245 BCE). The cult of Mithraism reached Rome in the first century BCE.

The way the early church fathers defended against the mystery religions showed that they knew these pagan myths antedated the Christian ones. Justin Martyr (c160-165) claimed that the devil plagiarized Christianity by anticipation with the pagan religions in order to lead people from the true faith. He claimed the myth of the virgin birth of Perseus, an ancient Greek legend that preceded Christianity, was pre-copied by the "deceiving serpent" (Dialogue with Trypho: 70). Similarly he asserted that the cultic rites of Mithraism had a diabolical origin (Apology 1:66). Tertulian (c160-c225) made the same claim: that it was the devil that provided this "mimicry" [notes omitted].

If you believe that there is a God who can raise people from the dead, that you will live forever in Heaven, that you talk to God, etc., then you'll hardly be troubled by conflicting resurrection stories. This is, after all, about faith. If we restrict the discussion to proof, then all resurrection stories are easily recognized as myths.

Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has published extensive results of its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. I'll review some of the highlights.

Colorado has fewer Evangelical Protestants than the national average, at 23 versus 26 percent. We have fewer Catholics, at 19 versus 24 percent. And we have more unaffiliated people at 25 versus 16 percent. That helps explain the Interior West mindset of wanting to maintain church and state separation. Notably, Affiliations does not list atheist or nonreligious, so presumably the 16 percent Unaffiliated category includes the nonreligious.

While a stunning 33 percent of the nation believes the Bible is literally true and the Word of God, 59 percent of Evangelicals think so. Evangelicals are topped only by Historically Black Churches at 62 percent. Notably, this is higher than the figure for Muslims (for Scripture), at 50 percent.

Meanwhile, 28 percent of the nation think Scripture is "written by men, not the word of God." Seven percent of Evangelicals think so. Bringing up the average include Other Christians at 44 percent, Jews at 53 percent, Buddhists at 67 percent, and the Unaffiliated at 64 percent.

On abortion, a third of Evangelicals think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The figure is 62 percent for Mainline Churches, 48 percent for Catholics, 75 percent for Other Christians, 84 percent for Jews, 70 percent for the Unaffiliated.

Those who want "Smaller government, fewer [tax-funded] services" break the halfway point for Mainline Churches at 51 percent and Mormons at 56 percent. (I object to the phrasing of the question, because lower taxes mean more free-market services.) Those who want "Bigger government, more [tax-funded] services" include Historically Black Churches at 72 percent, Muslims at 70 percent, Catholics at 51 percent, the Unaffiliated at 48 percent, and Evangelicals at 41 percent.

The national figures for smaller versus bigger government are 43 to 46 percent, figures that should make Obama glow.

Lord Hanuman University

An AP story about a monkey god appointed chairman of an Indian business school raised my eyebrows.

PTI reports, "The Sardar Bhagat Singh College of Technology and Management... has Lord Hanumnan's [sic] idol occupying the place of pride in unfamiliar surroundings of the chairman's office."

Wikipedia has a lengthy entry about the new chair.

Somehow, I have a hard time believing that this is primarily about piety. One obvious result of the appointment is a lot of media attention.

PTI adds, "One of the two vice chairmen, Vivek Kangri said that the 'chairman' has delegated all powers in him and the other vice chairman to act on his behalf." This seems like a pretty good way to diffuse responsibilities -- and criticism.

We Coloradans can't make too much fun of Hanuman's college position. He's a lot less silly than, say, Ward Churchill.

Certain Unalienable Rights

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Various Christians take this line from the Declaration to mean that America was founded on Christianity. But of course Jefferson was a deist, and belief in some sort of creator or unifying force was common even among the Greeks. Even Spinoza could talk of God, basically as a synonym for nature. Life was in fact created, and the creator is natural law, including the process of evolution.

Jefferson before all promoted reason: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."

He was no great fan of organized religion: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

And he called for the separation of church and state: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

People have the absolute moral right -- and deserve the fully-protected political right -- to practice whatever religion they want, or no religion, however they choose, provided they don't initiate force against anyone else.

Obama Likes Faith-Based Welfare

Citing the AP, Mark Wolf notes that Obama likes Bush's faith-based welfare so much that he wants to expand it.

Obama (citing Wolf citing Politico) said:

I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea -- so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them -- or against the people you hire -- on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.

It is morally wrong to force people to transfer their resources to religious organizations, regardless of how those groups use the money, whether they "proselytize" with the money (though it's impossible to avoid), and whether their "programs" work (according to some federal bureaucrat).

And it's as disturbing as it is predictable that Bush's religious-right welfare program, designed to pander to that group, has been gleefully picked up by the Democrats. The GOP keeps thinking it can out-welfare the left, but, somehow, it keeps not working out that way.

Decline of the Religious Right?

Mark Barna of Colorado Spring's Gazette believes that the influence of the religious right is in decline.

"The Christian Coalition of America, founded in 1989 to give Christians a stronger voice in government policy, is struggling financially," he writes. Has the funding gone to some similar group, or is funding for Christian-right politics dropping in general?

Barna adds:

Some polls show that young bornagain Christians are more tolerant of gays and lesbians. According to a 2007 Barna study, 28 percent of born-agains, of which evangelicals are a subset, under age 42 think it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone of the same gender, compared with 13 percent of older born-agains.

And nearly 33 percent of young Bible believers support abortion rights, compared with 27 percent of older believers - a surprisingly high percentage for both age groups, [David] Kinnaman [Barna Group president and co-author of "UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity"] said.

My guess is that the difference of views regarding homosexuality is more pronounced than what the survey suggests. My guess is that younger Christians, even when they claim to have a moral problem with homosexuality, don't have as great of a problem, don't want laws against homosexuality, and are more open to gay marriage.

Regarding abortion, another poll I recently cited indicates that 60 for "Mainline Protestants" and 51 of Catholics support legal abortion.

The real question, though, is whether religious as such is having a greater or lesser influence on politics. If the religious right is faltering -- and that's a big "if" -- the religious left clearly is on the upswing, led by Barack Obama. Much of this is merely repackaging standard leftist views in Biblical wineskins. Yet clearly there's a market for that.