Civics

Today's lesson is the 1st amendment:

Theocrats Will Out

The Taliban never sleeps.

The Hill:

Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill requiring that public schools in the state put up the motto "In God We Trust."

The legislation, which will go to Gov. Bill Haslam (R), passed the state House earlier this week, USA Today reported.

"Our national motto is on our money. It's on our license plates. It's part of our national anthem," said state Rep. Susan Lynn (R), who sponsored the legislation.
Fine by me, fellas. When do we start the drive to add "All Hail Baphomet"?

And "Praise Quetzalcoatl"?

And "Zalmoxis Makes You Free"?

And "May You Be Forever Touched By His Noodley Appendage"?

Seriously - you knuckleheads got nothing better to do?

Let us now rise, and sing The Common Pastology.

Taste Sauce, from which all spices flow;
Drink up, ye Pirates here below;
Until the Kansas School Board calls;
Praise Noodles, Sauce, and Meaty Balls.

R'Amen.

Be It Resolved

I've always had a tough time getting straight with some of the minutiae of Church-State Separation.

There's no doubt in my mind about making sure religious dogma is kept out of the law - that the law can only be about what's provably true, and so the magical mystery bunkum has to be put aside. I'm good on all that.

So, kinda cutting to the chase, my last item is taxation. I've been reluctant to advocate in favor of taxing churches because it seemed like an opening for Government to meddle where government doesn't belong.  But I've come to view that thinking as more of a rationalization. It's politically expedient, but mostly commercially prudent for churches to try to "protect" themselves from "government meddling"; it's not really a question of Separation so much as it's a question of a business interest lobbying for exemptions.

A church is a business. We have a reasonable expectation for every person and every business to pay a share of the taxes necessary to maintain a functioning society. If you enjoy the benefits of police and fire protection, and roads and snow plows, and all the other goodies, then you need to throw a few bucks in the hat for it.  Not to be too obvious, church guys, but it's not a lot different than somebody sitting thru the service and getting the "benefits" of your sermonizing, and then not kicking in when you pass the collection plate.

So why not churches?  We require all the other Mumbo-Jumbo Peddlers to pay and to be appropriately regulated.  The palm reader pays taxes. Crystal Gazers pay taxes. The Reiki Master pays taxes. Etc.

When we decide this "religious" organization is exempt from the law, but that one isn't - and we base the decision on the organization's "religious beliefs" - it just seems like we're doing exactly what the 1st amendment says we're not supposed to do.

We should stop doing that.

Today's Coming Out

I got out from under the god thing a long time ago - or more accurately, I started pushing back against it as a teenager in the late 60s. It still took me a very long time to come to the realization that I am actually atheistic - I guess I just got an earlier start than most.  

Anyway, it's always seemed to me that it should be relatively simple for anybody else to break away as well, but when I put aside my own ego and I stop and listen to the stories people tell of what it's taken for them to get free, I have to count myself lucky to have been afforded the space to make my own decisions.

From John Pavlovitz, here's the story of a guy who's starting to get it.  At the very least, he understands that way too often, religion is just another political straightjacket. 

I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.

I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.

I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.

I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.

I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.

I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.

I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities.

I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.

I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway.

Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in.

If religion it is to be worth holding on to, it should be the place were the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care, where the outsiders find the safest refuge.

It should be the place where diversity is fiercely pursued and equality loudly championed; where all of humanity finds a permanent home and where justice runs the show.

That is not what this thing is. This is FoxNews and red cup protests and persecution complexes. It’s opulent, big box megachurches and coddled, untouchable celebrity pastors. It’s pop culture boycotts and manufactured outrage. It’s just wars and justified shootings. It’s all manner of bullying and intolerance in the name of Jesus.

Feeling estrangement from these things is a good thing.

Let's Throw A Study Into It

Nobody west of about Cairo knows more than this guy - Juan Cole:

1. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an (Surah al-Ma’ida 5:33–34). Prominent [pdf] Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/ 1070)) defines the agent of hiraba as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah . . .”

2. Terrorism is above all murder. Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. 5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be for murder or for wreaking corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind,” Qur’an 6:151 says, “and do not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.” (i.e. murder is forbidden but the death penalty imposed by the state for a crime is permitted).

The list has 10 items on it, and they all seem pretty clear.

But there's this weird thing going on right now.  The debate over what is or isn't Islam - or Christianity or any other religion - is starting to sound a lot like one giant logical fallacy of "No True Scotsman", with a dash of "False Equivalence".

ISIL is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity.

Real Christians don't fire bomb Planned Parenthood Clinics, the same as Real Muslims don't hijack airplanes and crash them into American office buildings.

In the end, we're back arguing degrees of fucked-up-edness concerning the other guy's religion.  We're only saying this or that religious nonsense is less bad than this or that other religious nonsense.  --Update: It's all nonsense, and btw, it's not the same as having to choose the lesser of two evils.  Politics gets evil enough all by itself - we don't need the extra layers of bullshit that (really) only religion can bring.

Mostly, we gotta stop pretending that anybody's religion makes for good government.

Government is about law, and law is about what you can prove, out in the open, where everybody can see it.

Let's get the debate back where it belongs.

I Have A Question

"Conservatives" - especially those identifying as TheoCons - (usually) like to piss and moan about how Da Gubmint always fucks everything up.

A coupla questions really - how come so many TheoCons want Da Gubmint all up in their religion?  If you let Da Gubmint get mixed up in your religion, then doesn't your ideology demand the conclusive assumption that your religion is gonna get all fucked up?

Just wonderin'.

The Cook Book

Brian Dalton (Mr Deity) tells us why Cook Book Religion doesn't make for a better world.