Catholic Theocracy

At first, I thought this video -- which calls for restricting the vote to faithful Catholics and installing a Catholic monarch -- must be satire. However, Real Catholic TV is genuine. Watch it for yourself... and be amazed.



Notably, Real Catholic TV posted a non-clarifying clarification here.

Quite often, I've heard from my fellow atheists that talk of theocracy in America is absurd. Is it? I think not, and here's why:

• Much grassroots political activism is driven by religious dogma today, as we've seen up close and personal in Colorado. For example, every group pushing for Colorado's "personhood" amendment is deeply religious: Colorado Right to Life "commits to never compromise on God’s law, 'Do not murder.'" Personhood USA seeks to "honor the Lord Jesus Christ with our lives and actions," and they do so by acting as "missionaries to preborn children."
  
• Fundamentalist Christians and their mouthpieces like the American Family Association claim that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Bible is the foundation for our laws. They do that, even though the Constitution is a thoroughly secular document, even though the 1797 Treaty with Tropoli denied that the US was a Christian nation, and so on. Their strategy of evasion seems to be effective. A 2007 USA Today article reports that "55% [of Americans] believe erroneously that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation." (75% of evangelicals and Republicans thought so.)
  
• A slew of well-funded and deeply-motivated Christian groups actively seek to reform America's laws in keeping with the will of God. So the basic mission of Concerned Women for America, for example, is to "bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy."

So should we dismiss a call for Catholic theocracy as too looney to take seriously? I think not. For too many Christians, the only problem with it is that the culture must be forced to be thoroughly Christian too... oh, and they would vastly prefer their sect to be in power. That's hardly comforting.

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Christian Indoctrination in America's Military

I heard about this disturbing case via the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Here's part of the initial report posted to Truthout:

Pvt. Anthony Smith is the type of guy who stands up for what he believes in. That's why he decided to hold his commanding officers accountable for punishing him and fellow soldiers after they refused to attend an evangelical Christian rock concert at the Fort Eustis military post in Virginia.

After a day of training at Fort Eustis, Smith and other trainees were normally released to have personal time, but on May 13, Smith and dozens of others were "required" to march in formation to a concert headlined by an evangelical Christian rock band. Smith spent six months training at Fort Eustis before moving to Arizona to serve on active duty with the National Guard.

"No option was presented to us off the bat," Smith told Truthout about the required concert.

The Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert that Smith and others were told to attend was headlined by BarlowGirl, a "band of tender-hearted, beautiful young women who aren't afraid to take an aggressive, almost warrior-like stance when it comes to spreading the gospel and serving God," according to the group's web site.

Even worse, soldiers were discouraged from filing a complaint about the incident. Even apart from the coercion of these soldiers, why oh why is our military hosting and paying for a "Spiritual Fitness Concerts" promoting evangelical Christianity? Here's a bit on that:

The brainchild of Maj. Gen. Chambers, the Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert series was created at Fort Eustis when he was the commanding general there. In June 2008, Chambers brought the Christian concert series to Fort Lee, when he became its commanding general.

The point behind the concert series was to connect to young soldiers. "The easiest way to get to Soldiers today is through a phone or music," Chambers told Fort Lee Public Affairs back in 2008. "Through those means, you can change behavior, and that's what I'm looking forward to more than anything else."

There isn't much doubt that the concert series promotes religious belief. Chambers admitted as much to Fort Lee Public Affairs. "The idea is not to be a proponent for any one religion," he said. "It's to have a mix of different performers with different religious backgrounds."

But Smith says he hasn't heard of any act performing who wasn't Christian. "I never once heard of a Muslim event or an atheist event," he said. "The vast majority of them have to be Christian events."

According to MRFF, the DoD has spent at least $300,000 on Christian musical acts for these events. For instance, since 2008, the DoD has paid $125,000 to the Street Level Artists Agency, which describes its mission as "Christian radicals ... bringing the Gospel into the rock 'n roll vernacular of the common man," for performances at Forts Eustis and Lee since 2008, according to records on USASpending.gov. The agency represents Christian performers like David Phelps and Phil Keaggy, both of whom have played the concert series.

I hate to say it, but our military seems to be operating under the motto of "onward Christian soldiers." That's seriously disturbing.

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No Personhood or Victimhood for a Fetus

The Case

A prior felon accused his girlfriend of becoming pregnant by another man, so he stabbed her in the abdomen on Dec. 31, 2006. She survived, her 6-month-old pregnancy did not. It turned out by DNA testing that this loser was indeed the father, so it seems his vicious little tirade was for naught.

The Sacramento Superior Court judge in the case sentenced him to 50 years-to-life on the charge of first degree murder--for killing the fetus. For brutally attacking the girlfriend, he was given 12 years for "corporal injury and assault with a deadly weapon."

A Problem Here

First of all, I must say it's a good thing this beast and his DNA are off the streets.

The big however is the charge of first-degree murder being applied to a non-person, a fetus. This grievous application of a law to an entity with no rights sets a dangerously contradictory precedent about the legal status of a fetus or embryo, including ones frozen for in vitro fertilization.

This case could potentially give fuel to the "personhood" advocates. They claim that embryos and fetuses should have rights, and that all abortion, many forms of birth control, and embryonic stem-cell research should be outlawed. Ultimately, personhood arguments are based on religious dogma, not on facts of reality.

The only person whose rights were violated in this case was the girlfriend. And her attacker should have been charged with attempted first-degree murder -- a charge significantly more serious than "assault." (Big deal, a punch in the nose is assault!) The involuntary termination of her pregnancy by her attacker was an added violation of the woman's rights, and additional penalty should have been assigned accordingly.

The woman's life and body and pregnancy belong to her, and laws should only apply to her, not to a non-person who is not yet born and who has not yet acquired rights as a person.

In a civilized human society governed by laws that separate church and state, it doesn't matter what the Bible or the Koran or the Torah or the Kojiki or the Tig-Veda claim is the will of a supernatural creator. All that should matter is the protection of individual rights of persons who are indeed persons in reality.

In this case, justice was served and the goon is in jail, but it wasn't served to the true victim of his crimes.

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Church and State

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] I delivered the following talk on the separation of church and state at Denver's Liberty Toastmasters on April 3. Obviously neither the national nor the local group sanctioned or endorsed the content of my talk. In six minutes I could touch on only a few of the key points, not delve deeply into the matter. I found Onkar Ghate's longer lecture on the topic quite helpful, though of course I do not claim his approval for my handling of it.

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Obama's Faith-Based Initiative: Throw the Constitution a Bone

When President Obama introduced the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in Feb. 2009, an expansion of the Bush-Era faith-based initiative, he explained its underlying purpose:

[The Golden Rule] is an ancient rule, a simple rule... It asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with... or agree with... on any issue. ... That requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us to not only belief but to do. To give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world. In this way (we can) bring about a greater good for all of us... Our beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted... rebuild what has broken. ... To lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and our duty of citizens of the world. And it will be the purpose of the White Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. ... The goal... will not be to favor one religious group over another or even religious groups over secular groups... And to do so without blurring line that our Founders so wisely drew between church and state.

Obama promised to undo the Bush Administration's Constitution-be-damned permissiveness towards faith-based grant recipients, namely their evangelism and proselytizing. Another criticism of the Bush-era program, religious-based hiring discrimination, was officially sanctioned by a Justice Department ruling that okayed hiring discrimination by faith-based groups. Such groups as World Vision flaunted their lack of intention to hire anyone for their faith-based social programs who didn't meet their Christian standards.

One year ago, Obama formed a 25-member Advisory Council to examine the Faith-Based program and to draft recommendations for reform and to set goals for the Obama Administration's Office. It is noteworthy that many of Obama's appointees to that Advisory Council also happen to have received millions of dollars of Faith-Based grant money over the past 10 years, like Catholic Charities ($521 million), Catholic bishop conference ($304.8 million), World Vision ($405.9 million), and other groups such as Orthodox and Jewish organizations.

Granted these groups are on the front lines of doing the "community" work, but it is hard not to take notice of an obvious conflict of interest. On the other hand, perhaps they reasoned that a few concessions to a little piece of paper like the Constitution would keep the cash flowing. But the deed is done.

The multi-million dollars of Faith-Based programming carried on business-as-usual while Obama awaited the Council's recommendations. Finally, this month the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships presented its final report of recommendations to senior officials of the Obama Administration.

If you're really interested, the 176-page report can be read word-for-bureaucratic word.

In the report is a section on "Reform." It includes several recommendations:

• Strengthening constitutional and legal footing of partnerships
  
• Fidelity to constitutional principles
  
• Increasing transparency and monitoring
  
• Grant making decisions be free from political interference
  
• Participants in the grant-making process refraining from taking religious affiliations or lack thereof into account in this process
  
• Prohibiting the use of direct aid to subsidize "explicitly religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, and proselytization"
  
• A majority of the Council (16 members) believe that the Administration should neither require nor encourage the removal of religious symbols where services subsidized by Federal grant or contract funds are provided, but instead should encourage all providers to be sensitive to, and to accommodate where feasible, those beneficiaries who may object to the presence of religious symbols.

This last issue may be significant. I think Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, makes a valid point in saying, "What is a more potent promotion of any religious system than having the central symbols of that faith (a Christian cross, for example, or religious statements like "Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'") on the walls of a soup kitchen or counseling center? Many religious groups promote the idea that a single encounter with the core message of the faith can lead to spiritual conversion."

As far as the hiring bias problem, the Advisory Council was instructed not to address it because it has been remitted to the Justice Department, which has yet to make a ruling.

So, as it stands, no reforms of the Faith-based initiative have actually occurred since Obama has taken office. But the Advisory Council has issued some reform recommendations, addressing constitutional issues bashed during the Bush era, and the Justice Department still has the hiring bias problem in their court.

Obama's Faith-Based program is here to stay, and my guess is he will be highly motivated to ensure that any Constitutional glitches get fixed.

In the world view of a President who was spiritually indoctrinated in a Black Liberation Theology which links "economic justice" with "race, ... freedom, and dignity for humanity", these Faith-Based programs aren't just on the periphery of his grand purpose for "Change." In justifying the Faith-Based program, he outright declares that as Americans we are duty-bound, not only to anybody and everybody in America, but to the world to sacrifice for the betterment of others.

The fact that he throws defenders of the Constitution a bone with his promise to avoid "blurring" the line separating church and state (a pretty weak wall) is a feeble compromise to keep his duty-driven welfare train running at the expense of the wealth-creators in society -- and at the expense of the American Dream of the individual pursuing his own happiness.

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Shari'a Law in the West?!

It is difficult to find exact statistics on the numbers of Muslims immigrating to the West from all over the world. I can tell you that in the apartments next door to me there are scores of North African Islamic families, the women wearing traditional head-to-toe cover-up, the families attending the mosque down my street.

But a disturbing fact is emerging: many leaders in immigrant Muslim communities want to pass laws in their new home countries creating a parallel legal system of Shari'a law based on Islamic religious and tribal traditions alongside Western law, which of course is based generally on secular Constitutional principles of individual rights.

The AHA Foundation Exposes Abusive Islamic Practices

This information came to my attention from an organization called the AHA Foundation, which was started in 2007 by the extraordinary Ayaan Hirsi Ali. As I described in my review of her book Infidel, published in the March 2008 edition of American Atheist, Ms. Hirsi Ali escaped a repressive and tortuous Islamic-tribal upbringing in Somalia, refused an arranged marriage, renounced Islam, escaped to Holland, educated herself about Western ideals, and got elected member of Dutch Parliament. She is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an activist against the repressive anti-human-rights practices of Islam.

The mission of the AHA Foundation is to:

• Investigate acts of violence against females in the West in the name of Islam;
  
• Inform relevant law enforcement, courts, political leaders, journalists, writers, child protection groups, community and civil rights organizations that are active in dealing with domestic violence and in protecting the rights of women and children;
  
• Influence policy makers against introducing Shari'a law as a legitimate alternative legal system in the West.

The Misogynistic Practices of Shari'a Law

Many in the Muslim world claim Shari'a law does not come from the Koran. But the more fundamentalist and tribal sects of Islamic immigrants want to import laws that have been interwoven for centuries into their cultural traditions. These barbaric practices overwhelmingly violate the individual rights of females. I often wonder what goes on in the homes of my North African Muslim neighbors.

From the AHA Foundation website, these laws include (I have edited the information for brevity):

• Child Brides: minors married off to older men.
  
• Forced or "Arranged" Marriages: A girl's resistance to this marriage often leads to severe beatings or an "honor" killing.
  
• Forbidden Divorces: Women who seek divorce from abusive husbands find they are obstructed by not only their husbands but their fathers, brothers and in-laws, preventing them from seeking or obtaining a divorce. Many of these women often become victims of beatings or honor killings.
  
• Loss of Child Custody by the Mother: In many divorce cases the mother is no longer allowed to have custody of her child older than seven. Many western ex-wives of Muslim men find themselves in this position.
  
• Guardianship: A woman must always have a male guardian from whom she needs permission for all her activities. This ranges from asking permission to leave the house to seeking permission to sign contracts, accept jobs, etc. This concept applies to all women, and the legal age of maturity in the West is not recognized.
  
• House Arrest: Girls and women who are seen to be too liberal or westernized are forbidden to go out of the house without a male escort; resistance to this often leads to punishment or even an "honor" killing.
  
• Domestic Slaves: Girls as young as 10 or 11 years who work as housemaids as unpaid domestic slaves. These girls do not go to school. They are often orphans, and their only family often consists of relatives who abuse them. Sometimes they are illegal immigrants.
  
• Female Genital Mutilation: This horrific, ultimate example of sexual torture is a world-wide, culturally-sanctioned practice inflicted upon girls between the ages of 4 and 14. Many Muslims argue that the practice has nothing to do with Islam. Female genital mutilation is not in the Koran, but it is included in a Hadith (a saying of the prophet). The fact is, in the West, Muslim communities are almost the only ones that practice it. It is to ensure virginity until the girl's wedding day. The ritual may not be Islamic per se, but it serves the Islamic purpose of ensuring that a girl remains a virgin till she is married.
  
• Polygamy: Polygamy is a part of Shari'a law. Those men who practice it may have one civil marriage and, in addition, two or three Shari'a marriages. In the UK, a number of these polygamous marriages are "legally recognized."
  
• Honor Beatings: This is a beating of a girl or a woman for refusing to comply with the family code of honor and engaging in behavior deemed by the family to be shameful. Ignoring the rules of house-arrest; resisting a forced marriage; seeking a divorce; dating; dressing in western attire; wearing make-up; or simply taking non-Muslims as friends; these and a whole series of activities are seen as an invitation to be beaten. The beatings are intended to be corrective. If the girl complies, normally punishment ceases.
  
• Honor Killings: Honor-killings are mostly pre-meditated and are often carried out with the knowledge and help of family members and other relatives. When the corrective beatings fail to dissuade a girl/woman from complying with the wishes of her family or giving up the behavior they consider shameful, the family may conclude that the only way they can regain the 'honor' lost through the girl's 'shameful' behavior is to kill her. The plotting can take days, weeks, months and even years.
  
• Deportations/Kidnapping: Some families or husbands will not go so far as to kill a disobedient daughter or wife. Instead they trick her into going back 'home' (native country) on vacation; then they confiscate her passport and force her into marriage or whatever it is they want her to do. Some families prefer to take a disobedient girl to the country of origin and kill her there, as they can escape punishment for the murder or get a low prison sentence for their action.

It is most noteworthy that Ayaan Hirsi Ali suffered most of these crimes during her life before escaping to the West, including genital mutilation at about the age of nine. What is most shocking and demoralizing is that the women themselves enable the perpetuation of this abuse in their communities, obviously out of fear and lack of power. I call this "Stockholm Syndrome" on a society-wide scale.

Islamic Fundamentalists in the West Push for Shari'a Law

If you think these laws from the Dark Ages aren't invading the West, think again. As one example, in Britain in 2008, Shari'a law has been upheld under a legal maneuver called "arbitration."

Other western countries -- including Canada and the United States -- are being intimidated by certain Islamic leaders to follow suit and have Shari'a law legally enforceable.

The AHA foundation presents a detailed report of specific examples in the West where these practices have in fact occurred.

In No Way Should Shari'a Law Be Allowed to Infect the West

These Muslim communities must not be allowed to create a parallel set of barbaric laws under some Western rationalization of respecting "multiculturalism." A society built upon ideals of upholding individual rights must not enable morally heinous laws that legalize the abuse, sexual torture, or murder of women and girls in the name of religious/cultural practices.

Anyone forcing their daughter to marry an uncle 50 years her senior; tribal women participating in a ritual to mutilate a girl's genitalia; male relatives physically assaulting a girl for wearing jeans; families enslaving a girl to be their housekeeper -- these people should be arrested, prosecuted, and jailed according to U.S. law.

We must fight hard as a culture to preserve the historic greatness embodied in the ideals of American individual rights and freedoms, and not decay into a decrepit mishmash of religious and tribal ritualism.

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The Separation of Church and State

I want to strongly recommend this recently-released lecture by Onkar Ghate on "The Separation of Church and State," given at OCON in 2009. It was particularly stellar.

The Separation of Church and State
By Onkar Ghate

With religion on the rise in America, maintaining the separation of church and state is now a pressing issue. This talk begins with an examination of the contemporary debate about the principle of separating religion from government. Dr. Ghate argues that both sides of the contemporary debate are mistaken and explains why today even most well-meaning Americans are unable to mount a tenable defense of the principle. To understand what the principle actually means, Dr. Ghate then considers some of the history behind the principle, focusing on John Locke's crucial contributions. Finally, Dr. Ghate sketches what a full philosophical argument for the separation of church and state looks like.

(86 min., with Q & A)

Audio CD; 2-CD set: $20.95

For an understanding of the philosophic foundation of the secular government, including the problems with the standard attacks on and defenses thereof, you won't find anything better. Most people in the audience were surprised and delighted by the discussion of John Locke on faith. I wasn't surprised, but I was delighted! I've always taught a class on "Faith and Reason" in my Introduction to Philosophy courses, and Locke is undoubtedly the highlight. While he defends faith, his defense is such that faith cannot sustain any foothold in cognition. (Locke is far, far better than Thomas Aquinas on this issue... but that's a subject for a future podcast.)

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Finally: A Victory for Abortion Rights and Church-State Separation

It only took jurors 37 minutes to convict Scott Roeder of murdering physician Dr. George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions. The judge previously was going to allow a defense of voluntary manslaughter, which applies when a defendant thinks his killing is justified (which Roeder claimed). But the judge reversed himself because of the fact that abortion is legal in Kansas, leaving the jury with two alternatives: convict on murder or acquit.

Defense attorney Mark Rudy, in a ludicrous and pathetic appeal to the jury said, “No one should be convicted based on his convictions.” One small detail: a civilian is free to speak their convictions, he just can’t use force against another person because of his beliefs. Beliefs are not sacred. Potential beings (fetuses) are not sacred. But living humans are.

Finally we can celebrate a justice based on the right principles: the rule of law, the right to abortion, and upholding the separation of church and state by not permitting religious beliefs to be a defense for terrorist acts.

Scott Roeder can just sit in his prison cell with his Bible and his convictions and rot the next few decades away.

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Biblical Inscriptions on Gun Sights and Kant Speaks from the Grave

Last week, a story broke about how the gun site manufacturer, Trijicon, has been for years placing subtly-imprinted biblical references on the gun sights of standard issue combat rifles used by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military, explained that this practice should be stopped because, "It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws. It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles."

The company has agreed to discontinue this obvious attempt at proselytizing the Christian view to U.S. soldiers, and that it will provide kits to remove the inscriptions---a victory for MRFF and anyone concerned with separation of church and state.

But what is more menacing about this story is the response by an influential member of the American intelligentsia, columnist Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald. In his January, 23 national column he took a superior-attitude pot-shot at the company president's little work for Jesus by asking, "But is that really faith, when you reduce God to a bigger version of you?"

In other words, how dare that company president show a glimmer of self-expression of his beliefs--albeit a misguided and totally inappropriate action violating the separation of church and state.

Pitts shows by comparison what REAL faith should be, best exemplified by nonetheless than the two most saintly figures of the 20th century: Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mother Teresa's faith drove her to foreswear material riches and spend half a century working to uplift the wretched poor of Calcutta. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s faith drove him to gamble his very life in a dangerous campaign to win human and civil rights for African-American people... [T]he point is that truest faith is not seen in a secret code on a gun sight.....Rather, faith is seen in the substance of a life lived in service to others, lived as if God were "not" in fact one's personal echo chamber in the sky. [emphasis mine]

Well, my oh my. Isn't 19th century philosopher Immanuel Kant alive and well and speaking to the opinion-makers right from the grave.

In explaining Kant's philosophy, Ayn Rand says,

Kant's expressly stated purpose was to save the morality of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice.....As to Kant's version of morality....it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action.

Who better than Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. to demonstrate for us duty of sacrifice without regard to themselves? To Pitts, Trijicon's little slipup with the Constitution to advance the cliche, "there are no atheists in fox holes," is simply a trivial waste of morality. In his view, what society REALLY ought to be striving for is a deeper, broader, truer test of faith: total abnegation of the self in a life dedicated " in service to others."

That is in fact President Barack Obama's mission: to be the next Mr. Mother Teresa as our President.

(Violins, please.)

"His story is the American story -- values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others."
(This is from the White House website, introducing Mr. Obama as our 44th President.)

(Stop the violins, please.)

When a member of the intelligentsia is trying to upstage another Christian, we are having a cultural war. Not only must we continue to fight the puritanical and rights-violating agenda of the Religious Right, we also have a more-focused and committed Religious Left whose altruistic, socialist agenda is already invading our liberties.

Little do these ostensible opposites realize they were already married in a shotgun wedding many decades ago, presided over by preacher Immanuel Kant.

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