Personal Musings category archive

If I were a Sharpie, now where would I hide?

A friend of mine, knowing I would delight in the full wingnuttery of it, forwarded me this email referring to a report on CNN. You can read the full CNN story here.

Let’s see – covers up religious symbols at a catholic school, his car is named the beast, doesn’t go to church and now this –
Umm – what has America come too ????

(CNN) — For the past eight years, the White House recognized the National Day of Prayer with a service in the East Room, but this year, President Obama decided against holding a public ceremony.

“Prayer is something that the president does everyday,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday, noting that Obama will sign a proclamation to recognize the day, as many administrations in the past have done. Asked if Obama thought his predecessor’s ceremonies were politicized, Gibbs said, “No, I’m not going to get into that again.”

(snip)

I won’t even waste my time on the wingnut claptrap with which the original emailer prefaced the quotation. You can find more here, here, and here.

There’s some history here.

The United States was not founded as a “Christian nation.” Indeed, for most of the colonial period, the colonies were not particularly religious, with the exception of the descendants of the Puritans and the Pilgrims in New England. And their vaunted desire for “religious freedom” had nothing to do with religious freedom for others; rather, they wanted freedom for themselves, but were quite intolerant of those whose religious practices differed from theirs (they are the spiritual ancestors of today’s Religious Right).

Indeed, in most of the colonies, the Church of England was the established church; the fellow who founded the little Baptist Church in which I grew up spent time in jail for his missionary activities on behalf of Baptist beliefs. (Which makes it doubly ironic that many of today’s Baptists seem to want to return to the days of establishmentarianism. Ah, well, those who forget history and all that.)

In the mid-1700s and then again in the early 1800s, there were waves of revivalism, usually referred to as the First and Second Great Awakenings. In the succeeding years, the place of religion in the public square waxed and waned.

But, frankly, the National Day of Prayer has nothing to do with that.

Public religious observance increased right after WWII with the beginning of the Cold War. That’s when “under God” got added to the pledge of allegiance to the United States.

It was part of a larger effort to publicly differentiate between western democracy and “godless” communism. It was, if you will, religion as a Cold War weapon, not true religious feeling. I remember public service ads urging persons to “attend the church of synagogue of your choice,” as if some religion–any religion–were better than no religion.

The truth, as far as moral behavior is concerned, is that some persons’ religions are better than some other persons’ religions. In some cases, at least as far as public conduct is concerned, no religion is better than many religions.

One of my friends is relentlessly and fiercely atheistic. I will take her as an example of moral, humane, kind, and loving behavior over James Dobson and his flock of intolerant sycophants any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Three times on Sundays. I have another friend whose theology is extremely heterodox and would not pass the creed test for any mainstream church (except possibly the Unitarians)–certainly not the litmus tests of the Religious Right–but who is one of the kindest, most caring and considerate persons I know.

I also notice the descriptions of the Bushie “ecumenical” services in the CNN story refer to Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. No mention of Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Confucians, Sikhs, Rastafarians, or (gasp!) Muslims.

(Imagine the howls from the Religious right at a truly ecumenical service.)

Politically, no service is probably a lot safer than a truly ecumenical one.

Symbolic acts are important, but only insofar as they reflect sincerity. I prefer leaders who do not attend church but who try to lead with integrity and morality to those who loudly profess their religious beliefs while, say, for example, just hypothetically speaking you know, facilitating greed, condoning torture, and committing unjust war.

I reserve my respect for someone who quietly lives with integrity; I do not grant it to someone who believes in the kind of God that you have to wind up on Sundays.

There is a doctoral dissertation lurking in the sociology of Facebook groups.

I disagree with the United Kingdom’s decision to ban Michael Savage from their country.

The UK does not have a written Constitution and has no codified protection of freedom of anything. For all their talk about the “rights of Englishmen (and women),” the Brits are quick to publicly and overtly violate civil liberties which citizens of the United States (except for the Bushies–natch) hold inviolate.

At the same time, one does take a perverse and quite uncharitable joy in seeing a purveyor of hate called out for his purveyance thereof.

James Randerson in the Guardian. Read the whole thing:

So anyone who clings to the notion that MMR causes autism is just plain wrong. Worse, if you opt not to have your child vaccinated, you are reducing the “herd immunity” and putting other children at serious risk.

(snip)

According to the Health Protection Agency there were 1,348 cases of measles last year, compared with 56 in 1998. In 2006 a 14-year-old boy died of measles – the first fatal case for 14 years. The reduction in herd immunity is causing unnecessary suffering.

The decision by many of my neighbours not to vaccinate their children is on a par with the drunk who decides to get into his car to drive home. It is a personally reckless action that also endangers the lives of everyone else on the road. Society should view the MMR refuseniks with the same degree of scorn.

I understand the psychology of the MMR refuseniks.

They want something or someone to blame and some way to act.

One of the harsh truths that separates grown-ups from children is this: Sometimes bad stuff happens and there is no one to blame and no way to prevent it. It just is.

As usual, I am late to the party, but I must comment on this story (emphasis added).

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

As someone who is a white, evangelical Protestant (contrary to how many behave, “evangelical” does not refer to a political philosophy), I must say, these folks haven’t read the same Bible I have.

They must have found some kind of anti-Gospels which counsel hate and cruelty in the name of the God of love.

Dan Froomkin explains.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

I don’t read Cal Thomas any more because Thomas is just a hate-full idiot.

The primary purpose of computers is to train persons to talk to themselves.

What kind of moral code has as its central tenet the right to torture?

You can’t control the deal.

You can only play the cards.

. . . between using hate and fear as political tactics and stuff like this?

Legitimizing hate legitimizes hate-fullness.

End the politics of hate.

A library book looted in the American Civil War is returned:

Nearly 145 years after it was stolen by a Union soldier during a Civil War raid, a missing library book has been returned to the Washington and Lee University library by an Illinois man who inherited it from the soldier’s descendants.

(snip)

The school was looted and the neighboring Virginia Military Institute was burned down by Gen. David Hunter and his troops on June 11, 1864. A note written in the book and signed by C.S. Gates reads: “This book was taken from the Military Institute at Lexington Virginia in June 1864 when General Hunter was on his Lynchburg raid. The Institution was burned by the order of Gen Hunter. The remains of Gen. Stonewall Jackson rest in the cemetery at this place.”

Aside: Persons sometimes wonder why Southerners still remember the Civil War so vividly.

Putting aside the moral issues, on the wrong side of which the South clearly was (diagram that, grammar nerds!), this illustrates it.

Where I grew up, persons still tell stories of Union soldiers stabling their horses in a local church. Whether or not the stories are true I do not know. The point is simply that they are.

Memories like that do not respect greater moral rights and wrongs, and they die hard.

Oh, yeah: Note to Texas. The South lost.

Why?

It really is easy to drill out a brass file cabinet lock.

Aside: Out of filial affection, I left out the “It’s about time.”

I was actually discussing the sociological constant, K_i, with a friend last night.

It refers to the Idiocy Constant in human nature. Baldly stated, if you drag enough persons randomly selected into a room, a certain percentage of them will be idiots.

It’s just a fact of human nature.

Oliver Willis.

Mr. Willis’s site has been having some database issues this morning. If it doesn’t load, be patient and try again later.

Baseball announcers who actually knew something about baseball.

Watching or listening to a Philies broadcast won’t be the same without Harry Kalas.

If I hear one more blowhard public figure use the phrase, “a conversation we have to have,” I think I shall scream.

There are few things more frustrating than losing your morning cup of coffee while you’re still too asleep to look for it.

The twosythias are in bloom. If I got two more, they would be forsythias.

The cat is coming between me and my blog.