The Gaytheist Agenda

Several days ago I was reading The Friendly Atheist and came across the story of Mayor Larry Langford, who was dealing with the ever-increasing rate of crime in Birmingham, AL. His answer was to pray and to pass out Bibles to the citizens.

Langford is holding a family summit April 4, where he will hand out 5,000 bibles in English and Spanish.

“I’m gonna give you something far better than a gun to protect yourself with. I’m gonna give you the word of God,” Langford said. “He is the only source of protection you’ve got. I make no apologies for it. I serve a good God and I’m glad He found me.”

Just yesterday Ebon sent me this update on the crime-fighting tactics of Mayor Langford. It seems the Bibles weren’t enough.

Mayor Larry Langford declared Friday as “It’s Time to Pray Day” in Birmingham and will mark the event with a prayer service at Boutwell Auditorium.

Langford made the proclamation Tuesday during the City Council meeting.

“We’re going to pray for a change in this city,” he said.

During the service, participants will be given sackcloth to wear and ashes to put on their skin. The practice is mentioned in the Bible of the Bible as an act of repentance and humility.

Langford ordered 2,000 of the sacks.

“Even if you get upset, we’re still going to have it,” Langford said. “This city needs to humble itself.”

…..

“The moral fiber of this community is also our responsibility,” he said.

Langford also admonished the pastors surrounding him and others not to attend the rally for spectacle, but for a religious experience.

“Do not come looking pretty,” he said. “If you’re too cute to put a little ash on your hands, stay home. If you’re too cute to pray, stay home.”

There are definitely issues with Separation of Church and State there. Beyond that, I wonder if Mayor Langford has ever seen this study from 2005 that debunks the belief that a moral society depends on faith and religiosity.

A STRENGTHENING of religious faith is often raised as the answer to society’s ills. Peter Costello has said, for example, “that a recovery of faith would go a long way” to solving many of our society’s problems. The Prime Minister, too, has publicly argued for the societal benefits of religiosity, claiming that “the Christian religion is the greatest force for good in this nation”. Labor’s Lindsay Tanner, a self-described agnostic, seems to agree, stating that “without some kind of sustained spiritual input” our society will “degenerate into a bleak utilitarian shell that debases us all”.

Many ordinary Australians share the belief that religious faith is an indicator of morality, and it is accepted wisdom that high rates of religious practice correlate with lower rates of crime, promiscuity and abortion.

However, a study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, an American academic journal, set out to test this hypothesis and found there is an inverse relationship between religiosity and public health and social stability. The study, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies”, compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy using data from the International Social Survey Program, Gallup and other research bodies.

“In general,” writes the author, Gregory Paul, “higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.”

A striking example of this is the US, which has the highest degrees of religious faith and the highest rates of homicide, abortion, STD infection and teenage pregnancy. The least religious countries - Japan, France and Scandinavia - have the lowest rates of violent crime, juvenile mortality and abortion….

He might also be interested in this study that shows prayer doesn’t work–at least not in the way intended.

Seeking to assess the effect of third-party prayer on patient outcomes, investigators found no evidence for divine intervention. They did, however, detect a possible proof for the power of negative thinking.

The three-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP), published in the April 4 American Heart Journal, was the largest-ever attempt to apply scientific methods to measure the influence of prayer on the well-being of another. It examined 1,800 patients undergoing heart-bypass surgery. On the eve of the operations, church groups began two weeks of praying for one set of patients. Each recipient had a praying contingent of about 70, none of whom knew the patient personally. The study found no differences in survival or complication rates compared with those who did not receive prayers. The only statistically significant blip appeared in a subgroup of patients who were prayed for and knew it. They experienced a higher rate of postsurgical heart arrhythmias (59 versus 52 percent of unaware subjects). …

It would behoove Mayor Langford to use more proven, practical means of solving his city’s crime problem. Handing out Bibles and forcing his religious faith on the citizens is not the answer. It will solve absolutely nothing, and in fact may make matters worse.

 

State Representative Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who previously engaged in a verbal attack against Atheist Rob Sherman, offered an apology on Wednesday.

Because of Davis’ rant, she was named Tuesday night as the “worst person in the world” –a dubious award doled out daily by news commentator Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s “Countdown” program.

Rep. Davis told atheist Rob Sherman that, “What you have to spew and spread is dangerous” and that “This is the land of Lincoln where people believe in God.”

But, after being on the receiving end of a week’s worth of public criticism, Davis called Sherman yesterday to apologize.

Sherman says Davis told him she “took out her frustrations and emotions on me and that she shouldn’t have done that.” Sherman says Davis’ explanation was “reasonable” and that he forgives her.

According to Sherman and State Rep. Jack Franks….Davis claims her outburst was triggered by learning shortly beforehand…that there’d been another Chicago Public School student killed.

State Rep. Jack Franks was chairing the hearing that day and says Davis’ outburst was uncharacteristic, adding “she was having a bad day.”

That was very noble of Representative Davis. I’ll be dropping her a message to let her know how much I appreciate her action.

 

You may recall that I previously wrote about the ongoing problem in the US military with persistent Christian evangelism and bigotry toward those of other faiths, or of no faith. Recent news indicates that the trend continues, sadly. Spc. Jeremy Hall, the atheist who filed a religious discrimination lawsuit, has recently alleged that he has been threatened as a result.

Spc. Jeremy Hall filed a formal statement Wednesday with the Army. He says he overheard a conversation between two sergeants in his platoon and one wanted to “bust Hall in the mouth.”
Hall says he faces the animosity because he is an atheist and is suing the Department of Defense. He alleges it permits a culture that pushes fundamentalist Christianity.

He says he does not feel safe his unit.

Apparently Freedom of Religion, particularly in the military only applies to Evangelical Christians. Woe to non-conformists.

Now, from Newsweek:

The little book, with the camouflage cover, is everywhere. There are more than 50,000 copies with the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s on military bases across America. It’s in the homes of military families, who are praying their dear ones come home. It’s circulating at the Pentagon. Even the president has allegedly read it. “An aide to President Bush called me and said, ‘Henry, I think you’d like to know that the president is on his face before God every morning, and he’s using your [book]’,” its author told NEWSWEEK. The author is Henry Blackaby, a 72-year-old Canadian minister who is largely unknown outside Christian circles and who wrote the book together with his son Richard more than a decade ago. The book is the ever popular guide to prayer called “Experiencing God Day by Day.”

The Blackabys had already written and published the devotional when Henry was invited to speak in 2005 before a group of U.S. military chaplains. The chaplains were so inspired by Blackaby’s talk, the story goes, that they asked for copies of “Experiencing God Day by Day” to give to the men and women in the Army. Blackaby took the request to heart: he tapped some of his friends in the business world, received $176,000 in donations, redesigned the cover to match the Army’s camouflage uniforms and, with the help of his publisher, printed 100,000 copies to be distributed to the Army free of charge. …..

Military bases are flooded with religious literature, Christian literature in particular, and “Experiencing God Day by Day” is notable mostly for its serious tone and its orthodox approach to evangelical Christian theology. The book presents a daily verse from Scripture and a commentary on that verse; its intention is to help readers keep God ever present in their minds……The devotional is also a deeply evangelical text, and as such holds Christianity above other religions. “If you did not grow up in a Christian home,” reads the entry for June 10, “you can decide, as Joshua did, to reject your heritage of unbelief and begin a generation that serves the Lord.”

There would not seem, on the face of it, to be much of a problem with a group of private citizens sending a Christian prayer book abroad to lonely and spiritually hungry men and women who are, for the most part, Christian. But if you look closely at the “Experiencing God” phenomenon, says Jeff Sharlet, there is. Sharlet is a journalist who has been covering the Christian right for many years and is author of “The Family,” a forthcoming book about fundamentalist elites in America. “The military stands for our democratic nation, not for any religion,” he says. The ubiquity of this devotional “creates the appearance that this is an approved religion, that it’s favored by the state.” Not only is such an appearance isolating for military men and women who happen to not be evangelical—even mainline Protestants on military bases say they can feel marginalized, Sharlet says—but it also continues to create the impression abroad that the United States is engaged in a holy war. One man’s comfort is another man’s crusade, and such is the sad state of the world.

I find it disgusting, particularly considering the evangelical slant of the book. It’s obviously designed to recruit new Christians in addition to offering reading material to existing ones. Would the military allow books intended to proselytize for other religions, for atheism, etc? If not, then why are they allowing books evangelizing for Christianity and for one form in particular? This is wrong on so many levels.

Now from TheReporter.com :

What do the U.S. military and Christianity have in common? Nothing, if Mikey Weinstein has his way.

Weinstein is the founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to resurrect what he believes is the crumbling wall between church and state in the military.

Specifically, Weinstein believes that a minority Christian viewpoint - one that seeks to turn the military into a Christian force - is infiltrating the ranks at all levels. If they succeed, he says, their beliefs could be forced onto people around the world and here at home.

As Weinstein says it: “We’re a Tiger Woods’ putt away from becoming the United Fundamentalist Christian States of America, brought to you by the faith-based Department of Defense and its Pentacostalagon.”

…..

It’s a cause that came to him four years ago, in the form of a conversation with his younger son, who at the time was a sophomore at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. His son complained about being unduly pressured by other cadets and academy leaders to give up his Jewish faith and become a Christian.

Weinstein, a 1977 Air Force academy graduate who served in Judge Advocate General Corps for 10 years and also did a stint in the Reagan White House, said he’d look into it. He thought it could be resolved with a few phone calls.

But as he probed, he began to see evidence of what seemed to be U.S.-sanctioned proseltyzation not only at the academy, but throughout the Air Force and in all branches of the military. Locally, he said he’s event received complaints from Travis Air Force Base, though he would not detail them.

Now the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been in contact with more than 7,500 active-duty military members with similar complaints. Weinstein estimates that “96 percent” of those complaints come from other Christians.

“We’re at war, with the fundamentalist Christians pitted against the nonfundamentalist Christian brothers and sisters,” he says. “This is a national security threat internally every bit as much as that which is now challenging our country externally by a resurgent Taliban and al Qaida.”

The threat isn’t just to individual service members’ ability to practice their chosen faith - or nonfaith, as in the case of an avowed atheist whose opportunity for a promotional interview was rescinded, allegedly because he declined to participate in Christian prayers, according to a lawsuit recently filed by the foundation.

And it’s not just that “combat troops refusing to accept their commanders’ biblical world view are sent on more dangerous assignments,” or that “commanders are censoring movies,” so that troops are having trouble obtaining “Lord of the Rings” or Harry Potter DVDs, as Weinstein has been told by service members.

So much for the claim that atheists and other religious minorities aren’t actually put in harm’s way by the discrimination they experience.

The threat to national security comes when American Humvees are “driven through Iraqi cities playing, in Arabic, Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life,” or when company commanders are allowed to hand out tracts in Iraq depicting Christians going to heaven and Muslims going to hell, as alleged by a soldier who contacted Weinstein. Such actions serve to fuel the belief in Muslim countries that they are engaged in another holy war, and that this time, the Christian crusade is being led by the U.S. military.

But I thought they hated us for our freedoms. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the hostile religious behavior of the occupying forces. (Of course when Christian missionaries behave in similar ways and face violent backlash they call it “persecution” rather than face the reality that antagonistic behavior has repercussions.)

Needless to say, the US Military has far to go in bringing its Evangelical strain under control and making the environment safe and equal for people of all beliefs and non-beliefs. Fortunately the MRFF seems to be launching a formidable counterattack on the religious bullies. It will be worth keeping an eye on the situation to see how it pans out.

 

People speak of Freedom of Religion quite a bit in our society, but when they do they’re usually speaking about their religion, and most often Christianity. Let’s face it, if you’re not Christian in America you really don’t count, nor do your rights as far as many are concerned. That’s where our current story comes in.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether a religious group must be allowed to put its monument in a city park near a similar Ten Commandments display.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal by the city, Pleasant Grove in Utah, arguing that a lower-court ruling for the religious group could affect whether cities around the nation must display privately donated monuments on public property.

The Summun religious group, founded in Salt Lake City in 1975, sought to erect a monument to the tenets of its faith, called the “Seven Aphorisms,” in a park where there are other monuments, including one dedicated to the Ten Commandments.

Pleasant Grove rejected the request, citing its requirement that park displays be related to city history or donated by groups with longtime community ties, like the Fraternal Order of Eagles that gave the Ten Commandments monument in 1971.

Interesting how they set up all of these rules and regulations for the park displays that aren’t Christian based. I’ll bet that if I were to go in as an atheist who has never lived in Utah they’d accept my donation of a 10-Commandments monument right now. But everything else must pass all sorts of arbitrary tests or they’re rejected.

“If government creates an open forum, it can’t pick and choose among religions,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

But attorneys for the city argued that the appeals court’s ruling will require cities and states to remove longstanding monuments or permit groups to display any monument in public places.

Well, fancy that concept. All groups are represented in public places or none are. Some can’t fathom the concept of equal access or think that it is a bad thing, but that’s just too darn bad. They either have to accept it or deal with no representation. Still some simply refuse to understand that. From the AP:

Pleasant Grove City Mayor Michael W. Daniels said the city’s objection is not with the content or placing of the monument, but with the precedent it could set.

“It’s about not letting just anyone walk in and say, ‘Because you have this, we have a right to put this up,’” Daniels said. “Summum was pretty much demanding — and by law, trying to sue us — to allow their particular monument to come into our park.”

Mr. Daniels, like many others, just doesn’t get it. Once one religious monument is put on public property it gives reign for others to be put there. Otherwise government is condoning and advocating one religion, which is simply unacceptable. Of course there are those who prefer to predict the worst.

In a dissent, Judge Michael McConnell warned of dire consequences if the appeals court decision was not overturned. “Every park in the country that has accepted a VFW memorial is now a public forum for the erection of permanent fixed monuments; they must either remove the war memorials or brace themselves for an influx of clutter,” he wrote.

Judge McConnell’s warning continued: “A city that accepted the donation of a statue honoring a local hero could be forced under the panel’s rulings, to allow a local religious society to erect a Ten Commandments monument – or for that matter, a cross, a nativity scene, a statue of Zeus, or a Confederate flag.”

Yes, all that plurality would just be horrific. We simply couldn’t find a way to deal with that so it’s best to go with the status quo, which is the Christian monuments and statues of war heroes. People who want monuments to other religions and other ideas can just suffer because, well, we just don’t have the room or the tolerance to deal with what you want.

Addendum. A comment has arrived. Ebon said:

I actually think this would be great. Let’s have a little “faith garden”: A 10 Commandments monument, a plaque of the Wiccan Rede, a statue of Buddha, a few verses from the Bhagavid Gita and so on. Not sure what you’d include for athiests (which I know isn’t a faith but I’m having fun with this one), a statue of Einstein perhaps?

I’m fine with that idea. Some claim that atheists are intolerant of religion/faith but I’m just intolerant of intolerance and inequality. If people want to put up a little equal-opportunity spirituality garden (so long as it isn’t supported by tax dollars) I certainly wouldn’t object to it. Atheists might put up the 10 Commandments offered by Ethical Atheist or Positive Atheism.

You know, the whole multi-faith/spirituality garden idea might help people realize that other belief systems aren’t as scary as they’ve been led to believe, but that they’re often more similar than they are strange. For example, The Golden Rule, aka The Ethic of Reciprocity, is very much universal, yet many people think it is found solely in Christianity/the Bible. It could be helpful for them to discover otherwise about that and other things.

 

Ebon also provided me a link to the following video which applies to the theme of this post. Enjoy!