EMPIRIA Magazin - Kuliffay Hanna idézetei és jegyzetei
NOTE CARDS VI. (New quotes 2004-2008)
“Darwin made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist.”
(Richard Dawkins)
During the Bush administration, more than 15,000 U.S. scientists signed a petition denouncing political interference in science and calling for reform. UCS's recommendations are consistent with a statement issued in 2008 by scientific community leaders calling on the U.S. government to establish conditions that support robust federal scientific research and analysis (available at www.ucsusa.org/scientificfreedom).
Union of Concerned Scientists: 10 New Year's Resolutions for Fed Science -- Group Emphasizes Agency Reform, Transparency
“Man is a cruel animal. His cruelty must be organized. Society is essentially criminal, -- or it wouldn’t exist. It is selfishness that saves everything,--absolutely everything, -- everything that we abhor, everything that we love.”
Joseph Conrad
"Some day there will be girls and women whose name will be no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the feminine human being."
Rilke
Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, who ordered Galileo to not “hold or defend” the idea the earth moves and the Sun stands still at the center, was not only Sainted in 1930 but declared a Doctor of the Church. A Church near my Chicago neighborhood carries his name. Even more revealing, the current Pope Benedict XVI caused a stir when he favorably quoted a leading Catholic philosopher who wrote that the Church's “verdict against Galileo was rational and just. . .”
Carl Finamore: Thank God I'm an Atheist!
Enlightenment thinkers hoped that reason would displace authority and tradition. Rational justification was to appeal to principles undeniable by any rational person and therefore independent of all those social and cultural particularities which the Enlightenment thinkers took to be mere accidental clothing of reason in particular times and places.
Alasdair MacIntyre: Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
The ethics of secular humanism traces its roots back to the beginnings of Western civilization in Greece and Rome, through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the scientific and democratic revolutions of the modern world. Secular humanists today affirm that every person should be considered equal in dignity and value and that human freedom is precious. The civic virtues of democracy are essentially humanist, for they emphasize tolerance of the wide diversity of beliefs and lifestyles, and they are committed to defending human rights.
Paul Kurtz: Belief in God Essential for Moral Virtue? washingtonpost.com
If that's not enough to send us screaming into the night, our knees hitting our chins, Lisa Miller, former front-page religious writer for the Wall Street Journal, now Newsweek's Society/Religion editor, asks, in a shameful, code-word-laden piece -- "Is Obama the Antichrist?" Miller quotes several right-wing evangelicals, and she says conservative Christians believe a great battle is imminent. "After years of tribulation -- natural disasters, other cataclysms (such as the collapse of financial markets) -- God's armies will vanquish armies led by the Antichrist himself. He will be a sweet-talking world leader who gathers governments and economies under his command to further his own evil agenda." Miller says, given Obama's liberal positions on abortion and traditional marriage, it's no wonder that "Obama triggers such fear in the hearts of America's millennialist Christians." And, if we want proof -- one of the winning lottery numbers in Obama's home state of Illinois was 666 -- which Miller says everyone knows is the sign of the Beast, or the Antichrist.
Sheila Samples: Through a Hole in the Air
“After we die, there is nothing, so get over it.”
Woody Allen
"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein. "Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."
The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.
"I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president, and I have been affected by peoples' prayers a lot. I have found that faith is comforting, faith is strengthening, faith has been important. I would advise politicians, however, to be careful about faith in the public arena. In other words, politicians should not be judgmental people based upon their faith. They should recognize -- as least I have recognized I am a lowly sinner seeking redemption, and therefore have been very careful about saying [accept] my faith or you're bad. In other words, if you don't accept what I believe, you're a bad person. And the greatness of America -- it really is -- is that you can worship or not worship and be equally American. And it doesn't matter how you choose to worship; you're equally American. And it's very important for any President to jealously protect, guard, and strengthen that freedom."
President George W. Bush. (Jennifer Parker: Bush on His Legacy: I 'Liberated' Iraqis. November 28, 2008)
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington condemned the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement as “in opposition to the church’s authentic teaching” and warned that “members of the Catholic faithful should not support or participate in Saturday’s event.” Participation in the event, “carries with it very serious penal sanctions in Church Law,” a statement on the diocese’s Web site warned. The event, the diocese said, “has no connection to Roman Catholic Liturgy or Sacraments and cannot in any way be recognized as a valid reception of Sacred Orders.” Despite such threats, this has been a busy year for the Womenpriests movement. Three women were ordained in Boston July 20. A woman was ordained in Portland, Oregon June 7 and another in Winona, Minn., May 4. A woman and a man were ordained in Canada May 29. The Roman Catholic Womenpriests claim 26 priests and a dozen deacons in the United States. A California woman, Dana Reynolds, was elected and ordained a bishop for the movement earlier this year. Reynolds presided at the Lexington ordination.
Dennis Coday: Sixth Catholic woman priest ordained this year. National Catholic Reporter
Of course, uncritical acceptance of the Church hierarchy and their ideology has always been contrary to educating critical thinkers. Rejection of rational discussion in favor of Church “infallibility” severely harms the human spirit, dampens curiosity and curtails debate and discussion. Recall poor Galileo. On orders from the Pope, he spent his last few remaining years under house arrest for producing evidence that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of our solar system.
Carl Finamore: Thank God I'm an Atheist!
“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”
John Lennon: God
But, "how can you be ethical if you do not believe in God?" protests the believer. Perhaps such a person should enroll in an elementary course in ethics, where there is a rich philosophical literature dealing with this question. The good is usually defined as "happiness" though there are differences between the eudemonistic, emphasizing enriched self-development, and the hedonistic, particularly American, brand of intemperate consumption. Perhaps a harmonious integration of the two theories can be achieved. I would call it rational exuberance. Philosophers have emphasized the importance of self-restraint, temperance, rational prudence, a life in which satisfaction, excellence, and the creative fulfillment of a person's talents is achieved. It does not mean that "anything goes." Humanist ethics focuses on the good life here and now.
Paul Kurtz: Belief in God Essential for Moral Virtue? washingtonpost.com
"Contempt for the humanities was one of the principal characteristics of Christianity. It had to avenge itself against the insults offered by philosophy. (. . .) Christianity feared that spirit of investigation and doubt, that confidence in one’s own reason, which is the scourge of all religious beliefs. (. . .) The triumph of Christianity was a signal for the complete decay of the sciences and philosophy.”
Encyclopedist Marquis de Condorcet. XVII. Century. Cited by Peter Gay: The Enlightenment, an Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism
The Vatican is undoubtedly fearful that women's ordination will further divide the Church. The dissension suffered since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) has been enormous and no one is in the mood for much more. Back then Catholics left the Church in droves. Priests and nuns quit. Vocations plummeted. Recently, the priest shortage has precipitated numerous and heart-wrenching parish closings and mergers in most dioceses and, of course, the pedophilia scandals have caused much mistrust and anger among regular parishioners. The most revealing statistics from all of this fallout is the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which reported last February that 28 percent of adults have left the faith of their youth with Catholics coming out as the largest group-about 10 percent out of a population of 305 million Americans.
Olga Bonfiglio: Women's Ordination on the Docket Again
"The supernatural has no support in science, is incompatible with science, (and) is frequently an active foe of science. It is unnecessary for the good life."
Dr. Anton J. Carlson physiology professor at the University of Chicago and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
America is not alone among nations in making mythology of history. Myth comforts. History, which is to say truth, instructs, often painfully. And it is a painful truth that the guns, germs, and steel of our forebears precipitated the great bloodletting that rid Indian Country of Indians and damned the few survivors to POW camps (now called reservations) where they remain the poorest, most diseased, and worst schooled among us. The link between our myth-making and their destitution is direct. For to forget that our nation virtually destroyed theirs is to absolve ourselves of a duty to make amends. We have been absolving ourselves for half a millennium now.
Steve Hendricks: Thanksgiving We Can Believe In. Commondreams.org
It is no small matter that women seek ordination. As priests they are demanding that women be seen as equals to men in the eyes of the Church. Women's ordination reflects secular society's movement toward gender equality that sprouted in the late 1960s and which we largely take for granted today. During this time women all over the world have made bold strides in taking on various roles to show that they ARE equal to men. One who was well-schooled in that idea almost made it to the White House! However, the process for change in the Church is long and difficult because theology and tradition hold a lot of sway. For example, the Church's case that the priesthood remain male is summed up this way: Jesus was a man, his 12 apostles were all men and the Church has never had women priests. Many theologians and Church historians have differed on this judgment and on Thanksgiving weekend 1975, hundreds of people met for the first Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) in Detroit to hear them respectfully and logically make the case that women be ordained.
Olga Bonfiglio: Women's Ordination on the Docket Again
I love the rationalization given by the Church. Because Jesus was a male as were the apostles, women can't be priests, etc. First of all, if you want to be so ridiculously literalistic (as though the Bible is fact based), then I would assert that all Catholic priests must be Jewish fishermen. I am not trying to be humorous. That is really what the Church should demand, based on their reasoning. In fact, since there was no 'Christianity' in those days, no Catholics should be in the clergy. I really don't know why women would want to be part of a Church whose stance on women's rights and 'equality' is at least 100 years behind the rest of democratic society. Yes, tradition is tradition. But it seems strange that women would find meaning in patriarchal organizations who dictate female lifestyles and reproductive rights.
Posted by readytotransform November 28th, 2008 12:29 pm
“Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. There is no substitute: neither faith nor passion suffices in itself.”
Humanist Manifesto I.
"My mother said very sincerely that she would rather have seen me dead. This is understandable, for had she heard of my death she would have had the satisfaction of knowing that I was flying around with angels in heaven. But now she was sure that if and when I died, I would burn in hellfire and brimstone forever and ever."
Curtis W. Reese Unitarian minister. (His move from the Baptist faith to the Unitarian was creating a problem with his family.)
This world community must renounce the resort to violence and force as a method of solving international disputes. We believe in the peaceful adjudication of differences by international courts and by the development of the arts of negotiation and compromise. War is obsolete. So is the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It is a planetary imperative to reduce the level of military expenditures and turn these savings to peaceful and people-oriented uses.
Humanist Manifesto II.
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
Chris Hedges: America the Illiterate. TruthDig.com
"Faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands -/ this is what I always do. I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in (20)12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."
Governor Sarah Palin
Palin represents the worst of what humans can offer, blindness, ignorance, prejudice, fear mongering, sexism, worship of gods and fairies, and evil. These are all conservative values. The worst of it all: 50% of Americans, at least, share them.
Posted by tetti_tatti September 15th, 2008 4:30 pm
Just two Sundays ago, the homily in every Catholic church here moved from the parables of the Bible to a lesson in electoral politics. Bishop Joseph Martino, the top Roman Catholic Church official overseeing the diocese which includes Scranton and other cities in 11 counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania ordered all priests in the diocese to read a letter telling parishioners that voting for a pro-choice candidate would be like endorsing "homicide."
Luis Andres Henao Scranton: Catholics, Defying Bishop, Put Economy Before Religion
"An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against."
James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution
Is faith a good guide to how someone will perform in office? George W. Bush, a born again Christian, claimed that God contacted him and said, "George," (they're on a first-name basis) "invade Afghanistan." So he did. Although George failed to apprehend Osama bin Laden, God was apparently delighted, called back and said, "George, liberate Iraq." Bush had a lot of support in all of this. Many people felt that he had been chosen by God to lead America in this moment of crisis and told him so. Here we are, a trillion dollars later, missions not accomplished, our armed forces too used up to respond to a new threat and our nation on the verge of bankruptcy. If we accept it as true that God chose George and gave him specific instructions, and then look at the results, we have to form a very poor judgment of God, indeed, both as a human resources administrator and as a military strategist. Or, we might say that faith is not a good guide to competence in office.
Larry Beinhart: Keep Religion Away From the Ballot. The Albany Times-Union
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.”
George Carlin
The God of the right wing, and of the Bible, is a pretty arbitrary guy. He lays down the rules, but you can get those boils or those locusts even if you didn't knowingly do anything wrong, in fact, even if you didn't do anything wrong at all. Your personal God could punish you for something someone else did, as in the Bible he frequently punishes the enemies of Israel, men, women, children, dogs, cats, goats, etc., just for being the enemies of Israel. I love how right wing preachers pray away hurricanes, sending them to places like Bermuda. If your God is arbitrary, then of course you are always anxious and depressed -- your adrenaline is always pumping. And you are never motivated to understand how the world works. But locusts and boils and hurricanes have causes -- physical, medical, and ecological. Society can avoid locusts and boils and even mitigate the effects of hurricanes if it understands cause and effect, but if your God is an arbitrary authoritarian, and your father was an arbitrary authoritarian, then you never truly understand cause and effect in the world we live in. As we all know, no religion has ever successfully answered the problems raised by the issue of an omnipotent God. The best they offer is to forbid questioning, and to punish those who do. Because the right wing experiences the world as cruel and arbitrary, they have no inhibitions about enhancing that cruelty -- as in "Hurricane Katrina", as in "Iraq War", and in "Abu Ghraib".
Jane Smiley: Goodbye, Cruel World
We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
Chris Hedges: America the Illiterate
Martin Marty of the University of Chicago recalls a fellow historian once noting that the white southern Protestant clergy prior to the Civil War "came across as moral, devout, pastoral, learned, caring, informed, and generous preachers. And also to a person they defended human slavery, claiming that it was a response to divine mandates and divine will, biblically authorized."
Robert S. McElvaine: Unbuckling the Bible Belt from the Legacy of Slavery
The decline of America is ascribed to the decline of male prowess. This decline has led to weakness and moral decay. It has resulted in a bewildering human and social complexity that, often seen as feminine, is the work of Satan. This is why Palin consistently celebrates "male" values. James Dobson, one of Palin's most ardent supporters, has built his career on perpetuating these rigid male stereotypes. On his Family.org Web site he discusses "the countless physiological and emotional differences between the sexes." The article "Gender Gap?" on the Web site lists the physical distinctions between man and woman, including strength, size, red blood cell count and metabolism. For a woman, Dobson writes, love is her most important experience: Love gives woman her "zest," it makes up her "life-blood," it is her primary "psychological need." Love holds less meaning in a man's life than a woman's -- though a man can appreciate love, he does not "need" it. "Genesis tells us that the Creator made two sexes, not one, and that He designed each gender for a specific purpose," Dobson goes on. And these differences mean different roles: They mean the man is the master and the woman must obey.
Chris Hedges: For Palin, It’s a (Christian) Man’s World. TruthDig.com
"Trinity Baptist is a church, not a political action committee. Pastor Fisher has deliberately violated federal tax law, and his church ought to face appropriate penalties. The Religious Right desperately wants to mold fundamentalist congregations into a partisan juggernaut that controls all elections and ultimately the government itself. That's a frightening prospect in a pluralistic nation that safeguards freedom of conscience for persons of all faiths and none."
Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director
"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."
Paul Valéry
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Your utter nonsense confirms that religious mania from bible thumpers such as yourself is nothing but a mental illness. I have a nephew who is working to become a psychiatrist. He and some fellow students were recently discussing how religious mania is STRONGLY reminiscent of Delusional Psychosis and of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Your utter nonsense is a perfect specimen to prove how diseased a religious maniac is.
Posted by Nebraska Nathan September 15th, 2008 4:18 pm
"Nonsense"? So I lied? Muslims do NOT do all that I said? Sure.
Posted by TruthTeller September 15th, 2008 4:28 pm
Thanks for proving my point. Apparently, if you had even read my post, you would have seen no mention of any particular religion. It's easy for you to complain about religious mania in the Middle East which just happens to misuse religion. However, I don't see the point of you doing so when the same kind of religious mania is happening here at home except that Christianity was misused by the far right. Since you refuse to acknowledge the fact that religious mania from the Far Right has been plaguing the country and you show your animosity to all Muslims with no regards to moderate Muslims, you are obviously a perfect example of an individual suffering mental illness from religious mania.
Posted by Nebraska Nathan September 15th, 2008 4:36 pm
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The fear of the uncertainties of life is key to the mental wiring of those that grant their allegiance to authoritarian creeds and hierarchies, like these fundamentalist churches. There is a HUGE fear of sex, particularly of FEMALE sexual freedom which puts this group in synch with the Islamic fundamentalists. Wilhelm Reich (falsely, in my view, discredited) analyzed WHY Germany fell to similar worship of the strict father/fuhrer figure, and he reached the conclusion that turning people against their own basic instincts (sex being part and parcel to this "recipe") created such a vacuum, that so-called adults lost their own interior compasses and were forced to turn to outside figures to follow commands.
With the stock market rocking and rolling, nature and weather patterns out of joint, Bush's policies CAUSING the inevitable blowback of violence, uncertainty is a reality, albeit difficult, to life with. In other words, just as Naomi Klein explains the dynamics of "Disaster Capitalism," there is a psychological equivalent that is exponentially increasing the ranks of those that would turn to authority figures because so much feels OUT of joint. Appearances lend credence to "End Times" and a lot of people do not have the intelligence or imagination to envision another world. Therefore believing the old ways have some glimmers of truth, they are willing to forfeit their freedom to "get saved" before the big judgment day. Most do not understand the degree to which their mindset (and arguable MENTAL ENERGY), and allegiance are actually fostering, that is to say BRINGING ON End Times. This is seen in the disastrous M.E policy, as well as in the cavalier disregard for green energies, the literal KILL for OIL which in turn is KILLING the systems necessary for sustainability on this blue green planet.
Posted by Siouxrose September 15th, 2008 2:24 pm
"God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal."
Samuel Butler
Even were such optimism regarding the surge warranted, however, what these pundits fail to realize, is that military success and improved strategy does not of itself afford a moral and legal basis for continuing the occupation. (. . .) Civilized nations and individuals accept, at least theoretically, that human beings have inalienable human rights -- among them the right to life and to live in a nation that enjoys political sovereignty and territorial integrity (sometimes referred to as national rights). Such rights are the basis of "noncombatancy," and provide a natural immunity from, among other things, being injured and killed unjustifiably and having one's nation invaded and occupied without warrant. To kill an innocent person, a noncombatant, is murder, and "the (unprovoked and unjustified) invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack" is aggression. (. . .) Since Iraq posed no credible threat to the United States, the criteria for preemptive war were not satisfied. Consequently, the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq is unjust, immoral and a crime of aggression. If we are ever to regain our status in the world as a moral leader and our standing among former friends and allies, we must acknowledge the consequences of our "mistakes" in Iraq and end the aggression and the occupation immediately. Achieving victory is neither a legal nor a moral option. (. . .) Finally, we must recognize our culpability in undermining the sovereignty of the Iraqi state and the dignity of its people and apologize to them and to the rest of the world for our arrogance, hypocrisy and crimes against humanity.
Camillo "Mac" Bica: Whether to Achieve Victory in Iraq or "Surrender". t r u t h o u t. (Camillo "Mac" Bica, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His focus is in ethics, particularly as it applies to war and warriors.)
“Nothing but the true knowledge of things.”
John Lock
Unfortunately for those of us who “do not believe” the Religious Right has proved themselves to be “wrong ” on everything they espouse, and then apply to politics and life here in the USA. There many social directives, from slavery to the war to defend slavery — to prohibitions of the actions of others in every aspect of life. They have been wrong. They drag everyone else along with them—-to a road to failure.
They brag about the separation of church and state but they choose a presidential candidate because he “confessed that God told him to run for president”, and they chose him twice—-he just used the other aspects of a flawed system to gain office—then the religious right all agreed “it must be god’s will. . .
It is wonderfully ironic that a country where the body politic brags often about the separation of “Church and State” would have laws that govern how a woman should use her own reproductive system according to laws which are based on the religious beliefs of some members of the society. This most likely can be attributed to the need of the Patriarchy of the Judean/Christian/Islamic belief system, that has always worked to control the very physical aspect of the Matriarchy, i.e. woman and reproduction. They will on one hand lament about the numbers of abortions while at the same time support a war in a foreign land that kills thousands of innocent—many of them “unborn in their mothers wombs” but thousands of “born ones” i.e. children as well.
Posted by NativeSon July 29th, 2008 3:12 pm
It is a most noteworthy -- yet largely unnoted -- fact that the embrace of biblical literalism by whites in the American South in the mid-19th Century sprang from the common (and expedient) belief that the Bible provided a justification for slavery, a practice which undeniably is sanctioned on many of its pages. None of those pages, however, is one that quotes Jesus. Their Bible-based defense of slavery led antebellum whites to enslave Jesus by tying his name to practices and beliefs that were antithetical to his teachings.
The legacy of slavery continues to weigh down this part of the nation in many ways. The most obvious of those deleterious effects, racism, is in remission, insofar as it is no longer explicitly practiced by the South's institutions and is fading on the personal level. But other toxic residues of the peculiar institution, such as stubborn and harmful resistance to change and the section's persistent poverty, especially but not exclusively among blacks, continue to harm the region.
Perhaps the heaviest burden of slavery that still holds down the section, though, is the yoke of a distorted biblical literalism that selectively emphasizes certain passages of what Christians refer to as the Old Testament while ignoring almost all of the teachings of Jesus. The Jesus Thieves of this brand of "Christianity" preach from a 'Holey' Bible that cuts out all of the central teachings of Jesus, those difficult injunctions to turn the other cheek, help the poor, and love enemies.
Robert S. McElvaine: Unbuckling the Bible Belt from the Legacy of Slavery
George Washington did go to church, five or 10 times a year. But when people tried to box him into making a religious stand, he deftly evaded them. He gave moral advice to his adopted children, but, so far as we know, never urged religion on them. He wrote: "Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. So if you are judging candidates by their religious stands, perhaps we should look to the model of the old George, the one who kept whatever faith he had to himself, and be more than a little worried about the candidate who more closely resembles our George. The one who gets bad guidance from God.
Larry Beinhart: Keep Religion Away From the Ballot. The Albany Times-Union
Religion is founded on a clear inability to reason with logic and clarity. It requires that the individual surrender his or her autonomy to that which does not exist, leaving him or her in a state of diminished responsibility in his or her own mind. Many people find this a highly desirable state, being unable to face the full consequences of being responsible for the self and the self’s actions. Or perhaps they are simply lazy and prefer not to bother. It is always easier to shift one’s burdens to a deity, to ask a deity to “take over from here,” to tell a deity you’re “sorry for what you did” and have thereafter the feeling that what you did no longer matters where it counts. A believer is a weakling, and wants everyone else to be a weakling right alongside him/her. Two of the three monotheisms are missionary religions -- they can’t be happy unless they are out there converting other people. It’s not enough to believe themselves, they have to push themselves and their beliefs on everyone else. It’s a compulsion they have, and as any psychologist can tell you compulsive behavior is an indication of an underlying weakness of character.
Posted by ACC July 29th, 2008 5:41 pm
"If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross- examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office."
Theodore Roosevelt
I don’t think the abortion question is about religion, except insofar as most religious people think that God doesn’t like it because it destroys a human life. What kind of a god worries about the destruction of some unviable human tissue but designs human reproductive systems with a 50 percent attrition rate? What kind of god gives males the choice to conceive a baby but doesn’t give females the choice to reject it? What kind of god allows older children to starve so that younger ones may be born, or permits babies to be born to a life of want, violence and fear? Not one I want to have anything to do with. And I won’t accept the “It was ever thus” argument about human frailty. Just because we humans have always done badly doesn’t excuse us from trying to do better, for ourselves, because we are all one family.
That said, however, I have to retreat a step. I do have a kind of religious faith, pretty much defined by what it is not. The Skeptic in me demands that the utilitarian condition must be satisfied -- God cannot be less than as source of Goodness -- love, grace, fulfillment -- that is available to all creatures and living systems. But my Resident Mystic keeps insisting that a God worthy of human experience must be more than a bearded old man obsessed with sex and virgins, strewing goodness about while withholding it from sinners and showering wealth on entrepreneurial men, handing down Ten Immutable Rules for human behavior, torturing the wicked, and advising George W. Bush on how to conduct his war on terror. I believe we are called to imagine a God of Truth and Uncertainty, Beauty and Disorder, Joy and Loss, while we are challenged to love our neighbors and seek to live with them in peace.
But neither the Skeptic’s God nor the Mystic’s God speaks to me about abortion. Abortion isn’t about God, it’s about power. And it’s not even about male power vs. female rights -- only whether a person is to be allowed to make decisions about her or his body independent of the rules of religion, society or the civic order. The prevailing mythology today is that women cannot be trusted to make the right decision or take responsibility for their bodies and must be forced to do so by law. Men are excused from responsibility because sex is “natural” for them. And Viagra, Cialis, and other male sex-enhancing materials are big sellers in our society.
Caroline Arnold: Abortion: A Matter of Power, Not God. Kent—Ravenna Record Publisher. August 11, 2008)
"Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people."
Bill Moyers: Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?
The Church of England's vote for women bishops will be an "obstacle" to reconciliation between Anglicans and Catholics, the Vatican has said. The Church of England's General Synod voted in favour of consecrating women and against safeguards demanded by traditionalists opposed to the move. But Roman Catholic leaders believe this goes against the will of Christ, who chose only men as his apostles. In a statement, Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, said: "For the future, this decision will have consequences for dialogue, which until now had borne much fruit. Such a decision is a break with apostolic tradition maintained in all of the Churches in the first millennium, and is therefore a further obstacle for reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England."
The first women priests in the Church of England were ordained in 1994. The Scottish Episcopal Church has already cleared the way for ordaining women bishops, as have churches in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. But in May, the Vatican issued a decree which vowed to punish attempts in the Roman Catholic church to ordain women priests with automatic excommunication.
Vatican voices Synod vote concern. AP
Just this week, a group of Republican senators re-introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which, as we know, would ban gay marriage. (. . .) Rallying the far-right troops with an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution -- even though it has no chance at even getting so much as a hearing -- might be helpful to the conservative movement. But the funny part is looking over the list of the 10 original sponsors. Most of the names are predictable but there are two whose names stand out: Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho). Yes, two of the principal sponsors of a constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage include one far-right Republican who hired prostitutes and another far-right Republican who was arrested for soliciting gay sex an airport men’s room.
The Federal Marriage Amendment is back -- with Vitter’s and Craig’s support. Permalink
I was born in a time when the majority of young people had lost faith in God, for the same reason their elders had it -- without knowing why. And then, since the human spirit naturally tends towards judgments based on feeling instead of reason, most of these young people chose Humanity to replace God. I, however, am the sort of person who, always on the fringe of what he belongs to, seeing not only the multitude he’s part of but also the wide open space around it. That’s why I didn’t give up on God, while improbable, might exist, in which case he should be worshipped; whereas Humanity being a mere biological idea and signifying nothing more than the animal species. The cult of Humanity which its rites of Freedom and Equality, always struck me as a revival of those ancient cults in which gods were like animals or had animal heads.
Fernando Pessoa: The Book of Disquietude. (1888-1935)
A world that can be explained even with bed reasons is a familiar world. But on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting is properly the feeling of absurdity.
Albert Camus: Myth of Sisyphus
America was founded as a secular Republic. The Constitution which was drafted later by Madison begins with the memorable words, “We the people of the United States?.” It does not say that there is a divine right of monarchs or rulers. Sovereignty is derived from the people, not from God. The Bill of Rights, later enacted, begins with the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof. This is the foundation of the separation of church and state, the first nation to clearly affirm that principle. Jefferson authored the Statute of Virginia for Religious Liberty, which was adopted by the House of Burgess in Virginia (1779, 1786). James Madison, too, was a heroic defender of religious liberty -- he believed a person should have the right to believe or not believe in whatever creed he chooses. Liberty of thought and conscience is thus enshrined in the great American experiment. The Constitution clearly states that there shall be no religious qualification for public office. Would that our candidates for office today pay heed to that provision!
Paul Kurtz: The Influence of the Enlightenment on America: Reflections on this past July 4th
Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Breathing is habit. Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits, since the individual is a succession of individuals. (. . . ) Habit then is the generic term for the countless treaties concluded between the countless subjects that constitute the individual and their countless correlative objects. The periods of transition that separate consecutive adaptations (. . .) represent the perilous zones in the life of the individual, dangerous, precarious, painful, mysterious, and fertile, when for a moment the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being.
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species -- and my culture in America specifically -- have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power. And perhaps it’s just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there’s disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don’t consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word ‘cynic’ has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. ‘George, you’re cynical.’ Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?
George Carlin
Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one word, from EXPERIENCE; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself.
John Lock
But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters. She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.
Interview with Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason"
Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attendants said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching. In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion. "The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion. "There's a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences," he said.
When Mr. Sarkozy was made an Honorary Canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome last December, he proposed a “positive secularism” that “does not consider religions a danger, but an asset.” He was even more provocative in declaring that “the schoolteacher will never be able to replace the priest or the pastor” in teaching the difference between good and evil. In Saudi Arabia last month, he infused his speech with more than a dozen references to God, who, he said, “liberates” man. He also said last month that it was a mistake to delete the reference to “Europe’s Christian roots” from the European Constitution. In France, a country where one’s religion is typically kept private, Mr. Sarkozy heralds his religious identity, referring publicly to his Jewish grandfather and wearing his Roman Catholicism on his sleeve. “I am of Catholic culture, Catholic tradition, Catholic belief, even if my religious practice is episodic,” he wrote in a book of essays in 2004. “I consider myself as a member of the Catholic Church.” Still, Mr. Sarkozy’s conduct in his personal life seems to contradict the image of Catholic spirituality. Twice divorced, three times married, he has alienated the country to the point that there is widespread disapproval of his behavior in his personal life.
Alaine Sciolino: By Making Holocaust Personal to Pupils, Sarkozy Stirs Anger
"God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us."
Joel Osteen’s writing
"Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, [religion] no longer offers an explanation of anything important".
Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything
Hebrew scripture includes stories extolling wine as a harbinger of joy, as well as cautionary tales of how too much wine has brought low the mighty, including Noah, whose grown sons saw him naked -- a big no no -- when Noah was drunk, and Lot, who got drunk and had sex with his daughters. And Christianity, the predominant theological voice in our culture, is even more ambivalent about whether to drink or not. Gospel accounts say Jesus' first public miracle was at a wedding in Cana where he turned jugs of water into fine wine -- think Chateau Margaux, not Two-Buck Chuck -- for wedding revelers who were already three sheets to the wind.
Cathleen Falsani: What Would Jesus Drink?
"God has always been hard on the poor."
Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793)
"We have rudiments of reverence for the human body but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind."
Eric Hoffer
For many people the human soul feels like a divine spark
within us. But neuroscience has shown that our intelligence and emotions consist
of intricate patterns of activity in the trillions of connections in our brain.
True, scholars disagree on how to explain the existence of inner experience --
some say it's a pseudo-problem, others believe it's just an open scientific
problem, while still others think that it shows a limitation of human cognition
(like our inability to visualize four-dimensional space-time). But even here,
relabeling the problem with the word "soul" adds nothing to our understanding.
People used to think that biology could not explain why we have a conscience.
But the human moral sense can be studied like any other mental faculty, such as
thirst, color vision, or fear of heights. Evolutionary psychology and cognitive
neuroscience are showing how our moral intuitions work, why they evolved, and
how they are implemented within the brain.
This leaves morality itself -- the benchmarks that allow us to criticize and
improve our moral intuitions. It is true that science in the narrow sense cannot
show what is right or wrong. But neither can appeals to God. It's not just that
the traditional Judeo-Christian God endorsed genocide, slavery, rape, and the
death penalty for trivial insults. It's that morality cannot be grounded in
divine decree, not even in principle. Why did God deem some acts moral and
others immoral? If he had no reason but divine whim, why should we take his
commandments seriously? If he did have reasons, then why not appeal to those
reasons directly?
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the department of psychology at Harvard University.
Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
Montaigne (1553-1592)
But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, “We the people.” Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I’ve known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.
Bill Moyers: Beware The Simplifiers. PBS.org
Terrible simplifiers are the self-styled “people of faith.” To ingratiate themselves with one another they feign belief. Faith is what we can have instead of conviction, and religion is something we can do instead of the right thing.
Posted by stepfour May 4th, 2008 12:34 pm
The Democrats being overly independent on their corporate donors, they too will have trouble speaking truth to power, and with no fervent opposition party fully dedicated to the realization of American democracy, the people will have trouble speaking out and being heard. And yet the theocratic movement will remain the gravest threat to our democracy, for that self-hating drive is evidently inexhaustible.
Mark Crispin Miller: Cruel and Unusual - Bush/Cheney's New World Order. 2005
If passed, the Academic Freedom Act (Senate Bill 2692/House Bill 1483) would provide fundamentalist religionists the opportunity to incorporate Bible-based religion into public school science curricula to be taught on equal footing with a scientific understanding of the biological, chemical and physical nature of the universe and their interrelationships. It is an attempt to introduce an ancient, pre-scientific era religious book -- the bible -- and, at least one scientifically discredited text -- Of Pandas and People, into science classrooms for equal consideration along with modern scientific texts, despite the fact that the basic science in the bible is mathematically false and the science in Pandas is inaccurate and misrepresents evolutionary theory. The mathematical symbol Pi does not equal three as calculated in First Kings, 7: 23-24 and Second Chronicles 4: 2-3. If such a travesty were to become law, the consequences will be dire since it could impair students’ critical thinking skills and their ability to differentiate scientific from non-scientific information, thus negatively impacting their chances for success in the 21st century workplace.
Sheldon F. Gottlieb: The Florida Academic Freedom Act
"Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
Leo Strauss German born (neo)conservative philosopher
The only creator that seems possible is the one Einstein
abhorred—the God who plays dice with the universe. Now, such a God could still
exist and play a role in the universe once the universe exploded out of chaos.
We no longer have total disorder; but disorder still dominates the universe.
Most of the matter of the universe moves around randomly. Only 0.1 percent, the
part contained in visible parts of galaxies, has any significant structure. If
he is to have any control over events so that some ultimate plan is realized,
God has to poke his finger into the works amidst all this chaos. Yet there is no
evidence that God pokes his finger in anyplace. The universe and life look to
science just as they should look if they were not created or designed. And
humanity, occupying a tiny speck of dust in a vast cosmos for a tiny fraction of
the life of that cosmos, hardly looks special. The universe visible to us
contains a hundred billion galaxies, each with a hundred billion stars. But by
far the greatest portion of the universe that expanded exponentially from the
original chaos, at least fifty orders of magnitude more, lies far beyond our
horizon. The universe we see with our most powerful telescopes is but a grain of
sand in the Sahara. Yet
we are supposed to think that a supreme being exists who follows the path of
every particle, while listening to every human thought and guiding his favorite
football teams to victory. Science has not only made belief in God obsolete. It
has made it incoherent.
Victor J. Stenger is emeritus professor
of physics and astronomy, University of Hawaii, adjunct professor of philosophy,
University of Colorado, and the author of seven books including God: The Failed
Hypothesis—How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
"Every aspect of our mental lives depends entirely on physiological events in the tissues of the brain."
Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker
The
Vatican has welcomed Tony Blair's decision to become a Roman Catholic. “The
choice of joining the Catholic church made by such an authoritative personality
can only arouse joy and respect
said.” Federico Lombardi Vatican spokesman. (. . .)
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, who is the head of Catholics in England and Wales,
said he was "very glad" to welcome Mr. Blair into the church. "My prayers are
with him, his wife and family at this joyful moment in their journey of faith
together," he said. (. . .) Last year, Mr. Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said
he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq.
Vatican hails Blair Church switch. BBC News
"I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife. I came here to ask you to pray for her. And to vote. Do whatever you want. Show up. Our country is in dire distress. I just want you to pray for her and to make your voices heard."
Former President Bill Clinton, addressing the congregation at Church of the Pentecostal in Asheville, N.C.
"It seems free (will) to you, but it's the result of things you are not aware of."
Biologist Francis Crick
"A presumption of atheism or agnosticism is universal in academic life. . . The conventions of academic life, almost universally, revolve around the assumption that religious belief is something that people grow out of as they become educated."
Kenneth Miller: Finding Darwin's God
There is, however, another subtler issue and it has to do with Carter's religious focus. There is a weird scene toward the start of the book in which Carter, a born-again Christian, goes to see Prime Minister Golda Meir on his first visit to Israel in 1973. She asks his impressions. ''I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.'' Meir, a secular chain smoker, could only shrug. Carter seems impressed with his own temerity, as he calls it. But the episode hints at his tone deafness about Israel and Jews. Today, those most opposed to Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank are not the secular Labor Party leaders that Carter worried about. They are the leaders of the religious Zionist parties who consider the West Bank not a Palestinian area where Jews once lived, but their God-given birthright that must not be yielded. Carter never tells us how he squares his notions of God's punishment of secular Jews with the policies of such devout politicians.
Ethan Bronner: Jews, Arabs and Jimmy Carter
"If humankind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species."
Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson: On Human Nature
Atheism
is a religion, just like:
1) not collecting stamps is a hobby
2) not playing baseball is a sport
3) "bald" is a hair color
Posted by Joe Bob at
8:19AM on
Apr 7th 2008
"No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature . . . whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature."
Stephen Jay Gould: Darwin's Legacy
“Darwin proving that life is the result of a natural process . . . without any need to resort to a Creator."
Francisco Ayala: Darwin's Revolution (in the book Creative Evolution)
Christian math: t + t = ttt. Oh look, a miracle!
JefFlyingV at 4:38AM on Apr 7th 2008
A Catholic magazine once found that far more Italian Catholics prayed to Padre Pio than to any other icon of the faith, including the Virgin Mary or Jesus. Some 7 million people visit his tomb every year. There are some 3,000 "Padre Pio Prayer Groups" around the world, with a membership of around 3 million. The friar, born Francesco Forgione, died in 1968 aged 81. Among the stories that surround him is one that he wrestled with the devil in his monastery cell. Padre Pio is also said to have predicted future events, to have been seen in two places at once, and to have been able to tell people their sins before they confessed them to him. Pope John Paul II made him a saint in 2002 at a ceremony that drew one of the biggest crowds ever to the Vatican after the Church said it had found evidence that the miraculous cure of a sick woman was due to the dead monk's intercession. But Padre Pio was dogged during his life and even after his death by accusations that he was a fraud. A new book last year suggested he was a self-harming man who may have used carbolic acid to create wounds in his hands mimicking those of Christ when he was nailed to the cross. Church officials have repeatedly denied that he was a fake.
Philip Pullella: Popular Catholic Saint Exhumed in Rome. Reuters
"Modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws. (. . . ) We must conclude that when we die, we die, and that is the end of us."
Biologist William Provine: Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism.
A 1703 list of rules spells out a crackdown on Huguenots and heretics and those sheltering them. Huguenots were persecuted French Protestants. A 1599 edict targets game hunters, bird hunters and fishermen who were poaching at a Vatican estate south of Rome. . . . The Holy Office "wanted total control," said Monsignor Alejandro Cifres, one of the show's curators and on the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Holy Office. The Church in past centuries had its hand in everything, ranging from "culture to literature to economics, even architecture," Cifres said. The Holy Office relied on reports from Dominicans, Franciscans and lay people, he said, and the Church had a "network" of monitors.
Frances D’Emilio: Rome Unveils Rare Vatican Documents. AP
[…] Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
Carl Sagan: The Dragon In My Garage
"By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous."
Douglas Futuyma: Evolutionary Biology
While in serving in the house, (Rick) Santorum was asked by a reporter to explain why his record on environmental policy was so dreadful. Santorum replied by observing that the environment was of little consequence in God’s plan. “Nowhere in the Bible does it say that America will be here 100 years from now.” (The reference was to the Rapture, which apparently is impending.)
Jeffrey St. Clair: Santorum: That’s Latin for Asshole. Counterpunch
My favorite religious moment in the campaign so far came when (after ignoring him on all other substantive questions) George Stephanopolus asked Dennis Kucinich whether he believed in God, to which DK replied: “George I have been praying for the last 40 minutes that you would finally call on me to contribute” – which predictably brought the house down.
Posted by Poet January 14th, 2008 8:45 pm
“The hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet.”
Democratic Presidential contender John Edwards. 2008
An 80-year-old leader of a suburban mega-church (in Atlanta) who is at the center of a sex scandal has been charged with lying under oath for saying he had sex outside marriage with only one other woman, court documents show. Archbishop Earl Paulk, co-founder of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit outside of Atlanta, has been charged with lying under oath. The case involves former church employee Mona Brewer who is suing Palk, his brother and the church for allegedly manipulating her into an affair by telling her it was her only path to salvation. In a 2006 deposition stemming from the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer. But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.
“I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought. And that’s all one can expect or hope for.”
Democratic Senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. 2008
Despite the way the later authors of the Bible preferred to see it, there is abundant evidence that interest in Yahweh was always pretty thin, and other gods were most of the nation’s history held in equal, if not higher, esteem. For many, Yahweh was no more than the Israelite war god, useful in time of battle but a fairly lowly figure when viewed against the full pantheon of the gods. The names given to notable Israelites down the ages shows a strong respect for Baal, and even the most ardent Yahwist would not pretend that the Jews of this period believed in only one god.
Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas: The Hiram Key
"And as the only person here on the stage with a theology degree, there are parts of it I don't fully comprehend and understand, because the Bible is a revelation of an infinite god, and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it. If they do, their god is too small."
"I think I'm stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It's a theocratic war. And I don't know if anybody fully understands that. I'm the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well."
Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee. 2008
"So my arguments have been historical, legal, constitutional, moral, strategic, utilitarian. And they have been arguments -- about American history, Western civilization, and winning a war. They have not been religious arguments. And I certainly don't believe that opposition to torture depends on a religious base. Many, many atheists and agnostics have been heroes in the long history of outlawing torture. The two most influential on me, over the years, have been Camus and Orwell, two atheists whose sense of morality outshines that of many Christians."
Andrew Sullivan: The Right and Religion
"If Christ were here now (on earth) there is one thing he would NOT be . . . a Christian."
Mark Twain
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.
Jon Hutson (describes the video game Manhunt 2)
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and
corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
James Madison
". . . religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he
owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative
powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation
between church and State."
Thomas Jefferson
Mormons & Civil Rights
Whatever they may do or leave undone about their Negro brethren, most U.S. churches hold that all men are equal before God. One notable exception: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Mormon teaches that the colored races are descendants of the evil children of Laman and Lemuel, who impiously warred against the good children of Nephi and received their pigmented skin as punishment. Last week a Utah State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights drew on this Mormon scripture in a scathing report on the state of the tiny nonwhite minority in Utah. "The Indian in Salt Lake C