Sunday, July 29, 2007
To Hell With The Devil
Gregory Paul, a noted paleontologist, dabbled a bit in religion as well. He posited a theory that the more a nation believes in God, the worse off they were when it came to social ills such as homicide, crime, and high rates of unwanted pregnancies.
There does appear to be a relationship. Paul compared 18 western nations andreligiosity did correlate with the quality of life in nations. He notes that the nation in Europe with the highest level of religiosity, Portugal, looks more like the United States when it comes to crime statistics than the rest of Europe.
Gary Jensen of Vanderbilt University was somewhat critical of the study, and further refined the data. Belief in God does appear to somewhat match with levels of crime, murder and other negative behaviors and outcomes, but more importantly is belief in dualism. If you believe in God and heaven/the devil and hell your country is going to have crime numbers off the charts.
People who are passionate about religion and believe in the dualism of "good and evil" with little in the way of a gray area can believe that the two choices during a conflict are to fight or flee.
It would be interesting to study how social safety structures play into the religious fervor as well. Does the belief in an afterlife of just heaven, or a dualistic belief in hell influence how those who are poor, mentally ill, needing health coverage are treated by a society?
Those in the United States who want a social safety net should be more interested in denying Satan than denying God if they want to see positive change. Is it a coincidence that this dualistic fervor exists in a country with a dualistic political set up with both sides often thinking their side is right and the other is evil?
In light of half of Republicans being in favor of Universal Health Coverage while nearly all Republicans in congress being opposed, perhaps this is not so far fetched a theory to be tested. Dualism doesn't work very well.
If we want radically different outcomes, our radically black & white vision of the world needs to be dismantled.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Growing Excuse: I Am Too Religious To Do My Job
There is a growing trend of religious people who refuse to do their jobs on faith based grounds. There are Muslims who refused to scan pork items at a check out line at Target, carry passengers who wanted to bring alcohol into their cabs, and Catholic drugstore workers refusing to sell condoms.
With freedom comes challenges. If you don't want to sell people pork, don't work at a place that carries it. Religious people have become too soft and pampered due to our culture's fetishization of faith. Christians are not being fed to the lions, Muslims and Jews not being forced to convert or die at the sword of Torquemada, they just seem to complain more than those who faced these injustices.
As we prepare for the Fox News inspired war on Christmas we should reflect on this seriously, not reflexively.
Isn't the tax exempt status for places of worship, and every President and member of congress save one enough? My favorite gospel is the book of James. Faith without works is indeed dead.
60% of us can't be bothered to remember five of the ten commandments, yet we need to accommodate this deeply religious country by treating religionists as five year olds.
Can it be that kow-towing to religion has created such shallowness, and has given rise to charlatans like Dobson and Robertson? If you genuinely believe that the creator of the universe who will place you next to his bosom for infinity wants you to act a certain way, perhaps you can find a job where condoms aren't for sale and suffer. Jesus had a cross to bear. The cross of not being told Merry Christmas as you buy Doritos in late November is a great load to carry.
I have faith that we can soldier on.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Newt Gingrich spoke at the Liberty University commencement. One of his big topics was religious people getting picked on alot (he knows how to target a crowd).
"This anti-religious bias must end."
"In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive," Gingrich said, deriding what he called the "contorted logic" and "false principles" of advocates of secularism in American society.
"Basic fairness demands that religious beliefs deserve a chance to be heard," he said during his 26-minute speech. "It is wrong to single out those who believe in God for discrimination. Yet, today, it is impossible to miss the discrimination against religious believers."
Steve Benen, guesting at TPM is incredulous at these statements.
Impossible to miss? It can't be that impossible; I have no idea what on earth he's talking about. Religious beliefs don't have a chance to be heard? Since when?
I'm hard pressed to imagine what country Gingrich and the 12,000 people who applauded his worldview are living in. Out of the 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, the president, vice president, the Bush cabinet, and nine Supreme Court justices, there is exactly one person -- not one percent, just one guy -- who does not profess a faith in God. If polls are to be believed, less than 5% of the population describes themselves as non-believers.
Steve is referring to California congressman Pete Stark, who came out of the closet as an atheist recently. He is waging a one man legislative campaign against the Godly good folk. He is quite successful obviously.
I would like to use this as a springboard back into a subject near and dear to my heart. Most people are lying about their religious faith. A study just came out that revealed 60% of Americans can't name five of the ten commandments. Think on it for a moment. You believe in God, he created the Universe, the stars, the earth, life as we know it, and you can't be bothered with remembering half of a very small list of things he commanded you to do?
How is that even possible? There are people who know the batting average of every member of the 1958 Chicago Cubs, yet don't know the Ten Commandments. What is their faith exactly? That is why fundamentalists, and pseudo fundamentalists like Gingrich annoy me beyond belief. If Newt Gingrich genuinely believed in an omnipotent, omnipresent God, would he have been getting blow jobs from soon to be wife #3, still married to #2, while at the same time impeaching Bill Clinton? Would he lie about his opponents so easily?
Bearing false witness is one of the ten commandments. You can look it up. The late Jerry Falwell had no problem skipping over that problematic order from the God he allegedly believed in. The amount of sin in our country, and the lack of a half assed effort to actually know what your religion tells you goes hand in hand.
My definition of sin is different than some. I believe sin is an absence of faith. If your faith tells you that God is everywhere, including in the very room with you at all times, you would behave differently. I mean believe it in the same sense that your mother was sitting on a chair, staring at you, and giving you a look. That kind of faith. You would modulate your behaviour (well I hope so), knowing that your mother would totally dissaprove of most "fun" things you were contemplating.
Our faith in America is as cheap as our culture. It's something we clothe ourselves in, like a fashion trend, when it is convenient. If it's not, we are in a hotel room with a hooker, followed by a Sunday sermon, sobbing that we have sinned.
I am more than tired of "faith" being used as a justification by people whose very practices belie their whole argument. There are some very excellent Christian people out there who do believe from the depths of their soul, and behave like it. Personally, the ones I know I can count on both hands. I suspect that in real life, their numbers are smaller than those who profess to be atheists.
If Gingrich wants fairness to Christians in this country, perhaps he should actually become one and see how it fits him. Until then, I would encourage his wife to not allow him time alone in the office with young assistants.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.
Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.
His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.
That was a story a few months back about a book on our lack of knowledge of our dominant professed faith as well as others. (I put this book up as a link on the sidebar if anybody is interested in reading more).
Anybody want to guess how well Americans know what the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam is and what players in what regions are of what sect? Or, how about the nuances between members of both sects. Saying that Ted Kennedy and Sam Brownback are both Catholics so they must think alike would be laughed at by many who consider themselves politically aware in this country.
When the Bush administration claimed that Saddam and Osama were good old Sunni buddies though, alot of these same people believed it to be true. Professional evil-doer Michael Ledeen has suggested that Al-Sadr, a Shia, is in bed with Sunni Osama bin Laden. If Americans were more aware of religion, telling lies would be harder for people to do when they want to start a war in a country that can't be found on a map.
On the link above, there was a quiz about your religious knowledge. Not to brag, but I aced the test. But, I took comparative religion, studied Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and early Christian Church history in college. Perhaps we need to make comparative religion mandatory. I am thinking this as I remember a story my mother, a minister, told me about a friend of hers who is a Sikh. He was dressed in traditional Sikh attire after 9/11 and getting abuse for being one of those terrorists.
Although I have put it up before, here is a funny Colbert Report bit where Congressman Lynn Westmoreland advocates placing the 10 commandments up in public, yet like 60% of the public has no idea what they say.
