Today is Sunday, and a large majority of Americans are currently sitting in their respective houses of worship. Another large number of people, like myself, are not. More than likely, I’ll be asleep when y’all are reading this.
To lay it out for those who don’t know: I’m particularly fond of religion, for myself at least, but neither am I in any way against it. I don’t care if people go to worship on Sunday, Saturday or the fifth Wednesday of every month ending in Q, just as I also don’t really give a rat’s patootie what anyone does on any other day of the week, so long as they’re not hurting anyone or making plans to do so (or raising my taxes). If someone wants to talk to me about religion, they’d better be wanting a theological discussion, because I’m not converting.
But there are some folks who most especially do not feel that way. While I have decided to refrain from posting an episode of “The Dumbest Thing I’ve Read All Day” series on Sundays, I only do so to give the dumb people of the world a break in the hopes that if I stop calling them dumb, they’ll stop writing dumb things.
It doesn’t seem to be working because I read something extremely dumb today.
Oregon high court rules for Scouts, against atheist mother
A Portland elementary school didn’t discriminate against an atheist first-grader by requiring his presence at a Boy Scout recruiting session held at lunch time, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
The Scout oath requires members “to do my duty to God and my country,” but simply providing information to pupils in public schools isn’t discrimination under Oregon Law, the court said.
Reversing the state appeals court, the justices denied the claim of atheist Nancy Powell, whose son, Remington, was in Harvey Scott Elementary School when the dispute began in 1996.
For some odd reason, in the world outside the blogosphere, I tend to be a magnet for the most militant anthiests/agnostics you have ever listened to. I’m beginning to think it is because I am in one of, if not the most, irreligious states in the union. I do not think that my own irreligiousness is to blame, because part of my non-religiosity means I don’t talk about religion at all if I can help it. Use the search box to see just how little I write about it here, and then cut that in half to find the amount of talking about religion outside the blogosphere.
The reason I found this particular news story so dumb is that if this woman is such a militant athiest that she’ll file a lawsuit that specious, she probably believes that mainstream Christians “brainwash” their children into also becoming Christians.
Yet in court documents, she laid out that she, as an athiest, was sure that her son with the cool first name, in the 1st Grade, was also an athiest because that was how she was raising him. Call me crazy, but I would be willing to lay down triple-digit money that she would not admit to “brainwashing” the boy.
I would also be willing to lay down an amount of money in the upper eschalons of double digits that she has at least one book, if not one from each of the authors, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett on her bookshelves.
From a review of these guys from the onegoodmove Blog: Dawkins, Harris and Dennet:
“…treat belief in God as a superstition the modern world can no longer afford”
Sounds to me as if they’re getting a bit militant about making other people believe as they do. If I could be allowed an understatement here, I’d have to say that they sound just a little bit against that whole First Amendment of the Constitution thingee.
Dawkins and Harris are not writing polite demurrals to the time-honored beliefs of billions; they are not issuing pleas for tolerance or moderation, but bone-rattling attacks on what they regard as a pernicious and outdated superstition.
(In the spirit of scientific evenhandedness, both would call themselves agnostic, although as Dawkins says, he’s agnostic about God the same way he’s agnostic about the existence of fairies.) They ask: where do people get their idea of God? From the Bible or the Qur’an. “Tell a devout Christian … that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible,” Harris writes, “and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.”
He asks: How can anyone believe in a benevolent and omnipotent God who permits a tsunami to swallow 180,000 innocent people in a few hours?
Because omnipotent gods have had to kill grandmothers and puppies to keep the world going around throughout history.
Even disregarding Harris’ childish argument, it is people like these three and their supporters that make the deeply religious feel they’re under attack. They admire and promote the Danbury Baptist Letter idea of “The Separation of Church and State”, a false ideal, I might add, which does nothing to keep the two sides speaking kindly to each other.
I have often wondered whether which was worse: Being told you were going to hell or being told you were dumb?
Not that it matters much to this irreligious fellow, I’m calling these three and the athiest mother in Oregon “Dumber than a bag of retards”.
I call em as I see em.
I’m not particulary religious myself (although my wife is, and I attend church regularly with her), but there is indeed tangible value in religious belief. If most folks adhere to their basic precepts, regardless of affiliation, then they believe in — and practice — such things as basic decency for others (“thou shalt not kill” etc). They contribute to the common good through donations of money and their time. They behave well and public and pitch in during times of need. They help their neighbors out. In short, they generally practice precisely those values that make civilized life civilized. Even if I didn’t have some degree of faith, I at least realize that religious belief fosters decent behavior. These folks live by a code. THIS IS GOOD!
People (especially those you cite) who spend their tie questioning why people still have faith miss a larger point. Religious belief generally fosters decent civilized behavior (Islam aside — don’t get me started!).
Dawkins is proposing an idealistic athiesm, but like most idealists he ignores reality.
The reality is that biologically we are wired for belief. We are similarly wired for music, art, love, and other non logical things.
The “best” way to control these non logical urges is to limit them in useful ways.
Some famous wag said that the advantage of teaching wshy washy weak forms of religion in school was that it innoculated you against becoming fanatical as an adult. Merely forbidding religion does not lead to athiesm, but pseudo religious creeds such as Naziism or communism.
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