Thursday, September 04, 2003
CNN is reporting that the latest attempt by Moore supporters to get the monument back into the rotunda has been dismissed.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/09/04/ten.commandments.ap/index.html
Included in this story is the following quoted text ...
"The empty space or 'nothingness' in the rotunda of the Judicial Building is neither an endorsement of 'non-theistic belief' nor a sign of disrespect for Christianity or any other religion," Thompson said.
I wonder ... was this point (being replied to) actually contained in the original complaint? Did Moore's supporters really suggest that an EMPTY SPACE shows disrespect towards Christianity?? Do they really feel that THEIR RELIGION needs to be so omnipresent, so all-encompassing, that an empty space is to be taken as an affront against this religion??
What quantity and duration of religious saturation must one endure in order to think this is a reasonable position? If a person spends 24 hours a day for six months buried up to his neck in pillow stuffings, and then he's removed from them, acclimation is going to cause him to feel like the rest of the world could use a whole lot more pillow stuffings. But that's just personal. The world doesn't really need more pillow stuffings. HE NEEDS LESS!
There is no need for pillow stuffings, nor messages from systems of superstition, in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. People may saturate themselves with their religion in their private lives, they may become acclimated to it. But there is nothing wrong, and everything right, with our secular government not folowing suit.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/09/04/ten.commandments.ap/index.html
Included in this story is the following quoted text ...
"The empty space or 'nothingness' in the rotunda of the Judicial Building is neither an endorsement of 'non-theistic belief' nor a sign of disrespect for Christianity or any other religion," Thompson said.
I wonder ... was this point (being replied to) actually contained in the original complaint? Did Moore's supporters really suggest that an EMPTY SPACE shows disrespect towards Christianity?? Do they really feel that THEIR RELIGION needs to be so omnipresent, so all-encompassing, that an empty space is to be taken as an affront against this religion??
What quantity and duration of religious saturation must one endure in order to think this is a reasonable position? If a person spends 24 hours a day for six months buried up to his neck in pillow stuffings, and then he's removed from them, acclimation is going to cause him to feel like the rest of the world could use a whole lot more pillow stuffings. But that's just personal. The world doesn't really need more pillow stuffings. HE NEEDS LESS!
There is no need for pillow stuffings, nor messages from systems of superstition, in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. People may saturate themselves with their religion in their private lives, they may become acclimated to it. But there is nothing wrong, and everything right, with our secular government not folowing suit.
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
I was reading an article in favor of the ten commandments in public places, and the author made a couple statements (>) that I want to respond to.
>It’s Freedom OF Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion
It's both. And it has to be both. If I have freedom to choose my religion, then I necessarily have freedom to reject the religions I didn't choose. And if I have freedom to reject all but one religion, by extension I must be able to reject all of them. In order to give us the greatest possible freedom of conscience, the first amendment makes government neutral on religion and leaves religious choices up to the individual. We are not bound to support any church via the government.
>Without a firm basis of moral law, amoral man can wreck
>havoc not only through removing restraints on behavior
>but codify any passion or whim that attracts the morally bankrupt.
The horrible godless society feared by conservatives has already come into being elsewhere, so it is useful to examine it. In the rest of western society, rates of church attendance and religious belief are in a freefall, and statistics show that we are on our way down the same path. But for now, the United States has the highest rate of religion of any industrialized nation. We also lead the industrialized world in violent crime rates and various other negative characteristics. This means that other countries have less religion yet more social harmony. They have less "Thou shalt not kill" yet they also have a lot less killing. Somehow, even with less people believing in those ten commandments, in many respects they manage to have a better quality of life than we do.
In order to get the the government to promote their own religious dictates, conservatives are busy whipping us all up into a fear frenzy, spewing frantic warnings of our impending amoral doom, and yet they forget to objectively examine real alternatives to a heavily religious society.
Once you can look past our self-serving religious pronouncements and our worn out nationalism, the tired and vacuous refrain of "god and country", one you take America down from the phony pedestal it's on and look at ourselves objectively, you might find that yes, there is room for improvement. We can improve education, and health care, and our tendency towards violent crime, and so many other aspects of our lives. Other nations, including those with far less religion than we have, have managed to improve these things. Once we quit concentrating on these make-believe deities and focus on the lives of our people, our future society, our less religious society, may not be so bad.
>It’s Freedom OF Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion
It's both. And it has to be both. If I have freedom to choose my religion, then I necessarily have freedom to reject the religions I didn't choose. And if I have freedom to reject all but one religion, by extension I must be able to reject all of them. In order to give us the greatest possible freedom of conscience, the first amendment makes government neutral on religion and leaves religious choices up to the individual. We are not bound to support any church via the government.
>Without a firm basis of moral law, amoral man can wreck
>havoc not only through removing restraints on behavior
>but codify any passion or whim that attracts the morally bankrupt.
The horrible godless society feared by conservatives has already come into being elsewhere, so it is useful to examine it. In the rest of western society, rates of church attendance and religious belief are in a freefall, and statistics show that we are on our way down the same path. But for now, the United States has the highest rate of religion of any industrialized nation. We also lead the industrialized world in violent crime rates and various other negative characteristics. This means that other countries have less religion yet more social harmony. They have less "Thou shalt not kill" yet they also have a lot less killing. Somehow, even with less people believing in those ten commandments, in many respects they manage to have a better quality of life than we do.
In order to get the the government to promote their own religious dictates, conservatives are busy whipping us all up into a fear frenzy, spewing frantic warnings of our impending amoral doom, and yet they forget to objectively examine real alternatives to a heavily religious society.
Once you can look past our self-serving religious pronouncements and our worn out nationalism, the tired and vacuous refrain of "god and country", one you take America down from the phony pedestal it's on and look at ourselves objectively, you might find that yes, there is room for improvement. We can improve education, and health care, and our tendency towards violent crime, and so many other aspects of our lives. Other nations, including those with far less religion than we have, have managed to improve these things. Once we quit concentrating on these make-believe deities and focus on the lives of our people, our future society, our less religious society, may not be so bad.
Monday, September 01, 2003
I've just finished creating a new bumper sticker. I've posted it to the bumper sticker section of this site. (The bumper stickers are in PDF format and are designed to use Office Depot's bumper sticker paper, part #922-811.)
The new sticker says, simply, Atheism is Honesty.
Atheism is not about pretending that you have some special supernatural power, or even a special appeal to supernatural power, that will cause you to have an advantage over your adversaries. Atheism doesn't need that. The power of Atheism is the power of an honest intellect.
Atheism means that you are willing to follow the truth wherever it leads, and you are willing to reject ideas that are not supported rationally.
The Bible says that a donkey talked, a virgin gave birth, and various dead people rose up out of their graves and walked around a city just after an earthquake. These are extraordinary claims. Any person with a strong evidential standard would require compelling evidence before believing in these events. The depth and breadth of our collective experience shows us that these kinds of things do not happen. We have a maximally strong inductive argument against these events, and therefore in the absence of powerful evidence, we are not rationally justified in accepting them as true.
Rationality tells us that these stories are unsupported. Honesty demands that we neither believe in nor promote unsupported stories. Atheism is honesty.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." --Thomas Jefferson
It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty. --Steve Allen
E-mail: The new sticker says, simply, Atheism is Honesty.
Atheism is not about pretending that you have some special supernatural power, or even a special appeal to supernatural power, that will cause you to have an advantage over your adversaries. Atheism doesn't need that. The power of Atheism is the power of an honest intellect.
Atheism means that you are willing to follow the truth wherever it leads, and you are willing to reject ideas that are not supported rationally.
The Bible says that a donkey talked, a virgin gave birth, and various dead people rose up out of their graves and walked around a city just after an earthquake. These are extraordinary claims. Any person with a strong evidential standard would require compelling evidence before believing in these events. The depth and breadth of our collective experience shows us that these kinds of things do not happen. We have a maximally strong inductive argument against these events, and therefore in the absence of powerful evidence, we are not rationally justified in accepting them as true.
Rationality tells us that these stories are unsupported. Honesty demands that we neither believe in nor promote unsupported stories. Atheism is honesty.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." --Thomas Jefferson
It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty. --Steve Allen
