Endorsement of coercion

Some days, I really don't understand my fellow humans.

The latest example of my complete incomprehension comes because of a case that was just decided in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, wherein a self-styled Satanist had brought a lawsuit against the United States government to have "In God We Trust" removed from currency, on the basis of its being an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.  The lawsuit was thrown out a couple of days ago.  The court's ruling said, in part, "a reasonable observer would not perceive the motto on currency as a religious endorsement."

I read the entire story with an expression like this on my face:

Let's just review what the phrase "In God We Trust" means, shall we?

It means "we trust in God."  I.e., God exists.  I.e., Christianity is right.  I.e., endorsing a particular religious viewpoint.

The ruling went on to say, "The inclusion of the motto on currency is similar to other ways in which secular symbols give a nod to the nation’s religious heritage... similar to the phrase 'One Nation, Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance."

No, the phrase is not a "nod to religious heritage."  Depictions of the Puritans founding the colony of Massachusetts is a "nod to religious heritage."  But then, so would depictions of the witches being hanged in Salem, so maybe that's not where we want to go, either.

What escapes a lot of people about all this is that the motto of the United States was changed in the 1950s from E Pluribus Unum -- "Out of Many, One" -- in order to show the godless commies what for.  Same for adding "One Nation, Under God" in the Pledge.  Neither of these has a long historical timeline, and only appeared when the Christians started feeling threatened and required that everyone state their belief in God whether or not a person thought it was true.

The mandate for the phrase to appear on currency comes from a bill introduced by Representative Charles Bennett of Florida in 1955, wherein Bennett argued that "In these days when imperialistic and materialistic communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, we should continually look for ways to strengthen the foundations of our freedom."

Including, apparently, the freedom to believe anything you want as long as it's Christianity.

I also take issue with the suggestion that the founders of the country intended this kind of coercion with respect to religion.  Take, for example, what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, when he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777:

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

James Madison concurred, observing, "Torrents of blood have been split in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion."

Even more to the point, Jefferson wrote, "What has been the effect of [religious] coercion?  To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.  To support roguery and error all over the earth."

And more fundamentally, I wonder why the religious want religion to appear on currency.  Isn't there the whole "render unto God what is God's, and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" thing in the Gospel of Matthew?  And as far as the Pledge goes, what earthly purpose can the "one nation, under God" phrase serve?  If you say it but don't believe it, you're lying.  If you already believe it -- well, you already believe it.  Why is a public affirmation in a secular space required?

The bottom line is that you are free to participate in any religion you want to.  Even as a staunch atheist, I have no desire whatsoever to constrain what you believe, or how you express those beliefs.  But that tolerance comes to a screeching halt when you try to coerce me, or anyone else, to adhere to your beliefs simply because people of those beliefs are currently in the majority in the United States, and hold nearly all the positions of power.

I suppose it's heartening that even the people in favor of it recognize they're on such tenuous ground that they have to make such outright ridiculous statements as "'In God We Trust' is in no way a religious endorsement" in order to defend it.  What's unfortunate is that we have to spend our time and resources arguing about this stuff, when there are considerably more pressing matters to attend to, such as the fact that our president seems to regard the Constitution as a list of suggestions.

If he's actually read it, which I'm beginning to wonder.

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This week's featured book is the amazing Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which looks at the fact that we have two modules in our brain for making decisions -- a fast one, that mostly works intuitively, and a slower one that is logical and rational.  Unfortunately, they frequently disagree on what's the best course of action.  Worse still, trouble ensues when we rely on the intuitive one to the exclusion of the logical one, calling it "common sense" when in fact it's far more likely to come from biases rather than evidence.

Kahneman's book will make you rethink how you come to conclusions -- and make you all too aware of how frail the human reasoning capacity is.

A fight over decals

One of my guiding principles in life is "Don't be a dick."

I don't mind taking on battles when I need to, or when I think the outcome is sufficiently important; but I truly don't understand people who do choose to do things solely to piss others off.  What are they getting out of this?  At the end of the day, I do not judge how good a day I had, or how happy I am, based on the number of total strangers whose cages I rattled.

But to me, that seems like the only possible reason for the recent rash of police and fire departments slapping decals with crosses and "In God We Trust" all over their vehicles.  It's happened in Baytown, Texas; Youngsville, Louisiana; Covington, Louisiana; Cedartown, Georgia; Bay County, Florida; and Stone County, Missouri.

And those are only the ones in the last couple of months.  It's spreading like wildfire, and has generated more than one lawsuit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the most recent in Brewster County, Texas.

Most of the arguments you hear against the practice are that the decals imply two things.  First, that the decals are a sly way of hinting that anyone who is an agnostic or atheist (or a practitioner of another faith; no one's in any doubt about which god the slogan's referring to) is liable not to receive the same police protection as Christians do.  The second is to ask how non-Christian police officers might feel about having to ride around in a squad car with a Christian religious slogan on the side.  These are government-owned vehicles, and therefore paid for by taxpayers, Christian and non-Christian alike.  The idea that these vehicles are emblazoned with a decal promoting religion -- worse, one particular religion -- is an unfortunate reminder about policies regarding inclusion, tolerance, and equality.

[image from the Hutchinson County, Texas Sheriff's Department Facebook page]

And I certainly agree with all of that.  But the question no one seems to ask is why these decals should be on the vehicles in the first place.  What is the argument for why they're necessary?  If you claim that without the decal, god wouldn't protect the cops in the car, then all I can say is that you have a pretty odd conception of how a benevolent deity might be expected to behave.  If it's patriotism, there are many other patriotic slogans you could choose.  So what purpose do they serve?

What purpose, in fact, does "one nation, under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance serve?  Or "In God We Trust" printed on our money?  No one's saying you can't paint bible quotes on the roof of your privately-owned house if you want.  Or, like a farmer who lives near me, post signs with cheerful slogans like "The Wages Of Sin Are Death" along the highway.  But these are government-sponsored, government-endorsed declarations of religion.  Why do the religious feel compelled to promote religion on the sides of police cars and fire engines -- and on our money?  Why is it moral to require students in every public school in America to recite a Pledge every morning that forces non-Christian students either to refuse to say it (sometimes at the cost of punishment and humiliation), or to lie publicly about their beliefs?

The only good answer I've been able to come up with to this question is: the Christian majority, i.e. the people who make the laws in this country, do it simply because they can.  If it pisses people off -- well, that's just too bad.  In fact, some of the most vocal proponents of the religious decals on police cars seem to be happy that they're making people mad.  Take, for example, Police Chief Adrian Garcia of Childress, Texas, who was told he risked a lawsuit from the FFRF for his decision to put big decals saying "In God We Trust" on the backs of his squad cars.

"They can go fly a kite," Garcia said.

So it boils down to people who really don't care if what they do excludes, devalues, or angers other American citizens, doing something because they're in a position of power so formidable that no one can stop them.  Further evidence that the much-talked-about-on-Fox-News "war on Christianity" in the United States is complete horseshit.

But it's a position I really don't get.  Like anything, political correctness can get out of hand, and there will always be people who will get their knickers in a twist over nothing.  But deliberately setting out to marginalize a significant percentage of Americans for no good reason, at the public expense?

That is called "being a dick."

Money, allegiance, and faith

Someone I know posted a cartoon on social media a couple of days ago.  It had a pissed-off looking old woman on it, and the caption was, "It's 'One Nation Under God," or bite my ass and leave."

I've always been a little mystified about the fervor with which some people demand that those words be in the Pledge of Allegiance.  The same fervor is invoked when anyone mentions taking "In God We Trust" off our currency.  Besides the fact of marginalizing people in this country who are not religious -- a number that by recent polls now amounts to one in five -- these statements also imply that Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, and members of other religions who do not worship the Judaeo-Christian god have no place here.

More to the point, however, I've never heard a cogent argument for why those phrases should be part of our statement of allegiance to our country, or on our money.  In the first case, you're expecting people either to recite a statement in public that is, for them, a lie, or else refuse (or at least refuse to say that line) and invite censure.  But even more mystifying is the statement of faith on currency.  What happened to "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) and "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and unto God those things that are God's" (Mark 12:17)?  It seems to me a little odd to put a religious statement on something that the bible repeatedly derides as bad.  (Remember "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?")

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Be that as it may, every so often you hear vitriolic attacks launched against people who, like me, would like that language removed, not because we object to other Americans believing in any god they want to, but because the implication that we all have to believe that way is exclusionary.  You can pray anywhere you like; contrary to popular belief, you are free to pray in public schools, as long as (1) those prayers don't interfere with what's going on in the classroom, (2) you're not requiring anyone else to pray along with you, and (3) such prayer is not school-sponsored.  (I'm guessing there's a lot of praying going on immediately prior to my final exam, for example.)  Why the demand that there be public, government-endorsed language that seems to exist only to make a good quarter of American citizens feel that they aren't welcome in their own country?

As more and more people recognize that such statements are not only disrespectful but unnecessary, the people who want to keep them where they are become more and more desperate.  Take, for example, what religious writer Jessilyn Justice had to say last week about her views and those of radio talk show host Paul McGuire. Apparently, Justice and McGuire think we have to keep "In God We Trust" on the dollar bill, because otherwise we're going to initiate the End Times:

Money and spirituality are heavily intertwined, says eschatology professor and prolific author Paul McGuire.

"The world system is a control system that is both spiritual and economic," McGuire said at the Prophecy in the News conference.  "Money is all about captivity, slavery and control.  That is its essential purpose.  It's [sic] essential purpose is not an economic instrument of exchange.  It's about control and the occult and spirituality." 

McGuire points to one of the founding theories of atheism, Darwin's theory of evolution, and Space Odyssey co-author Arthur C. Clarke to connect atheism, money and the occult: Science is magic. To remove God from the money would allow the occult to take over. 

McGuire says the dollar bill is bursting with blatantly occult symbols, meaning the United States economic system is based on magic and sorcery opposed to logic and principles.

"The world system of economics is based on magic and illusion.  It's based on your willingness to believe in it," McGuire said.  "It's about the manipulation and control of the masses. That's what Jesus is talking about when he's talking about Mammon and the world system."... 

The answer?  To keep God in money, McGuire says, which could mean leaving Him on the bills, as well.

Well, first of all, Arthur C. Clarke didn't say "Science is magic," he said, "Magic is science we haven't understood yet," which is kind of the opposite.  And second, I don't think having "In God We Trust" on our currency has had much effect in keeping money from being about manipulation, power, and control.  If that's why the phrase is there, it's not working.

But third, something I've found puzzling is why a lot of the Christians go on and on warning us about preventing the End Times.  You'd think they'd be knocking themselves out to encourage us atheists to do stuff to bring the End Times on, because don't they believe that the first thing that will happen is that all of the holy people will be assumed bodily into heaven?  Meaning that after that, they won't have to deal with all of the annoying people who don't believe exactly like they do?  You'd think they'd be saying, "Go ahead.  Take "One Nation Under God" out of the pledge.  See what happens next.  Ha ha ha."

But they don't.  Most of the stuff I've read is all about making sure that individuals and governments do everything they can to prevent the End Times, which is a little peculiar if you really believe that you're going to get your eternal reward in heaven and all the bad guys are going to get their just deserts.

Almost sounds as if they aren't completely convinced that stuff is true, either.

So the bottom line is, unless you believe in some sort of occult magical significance of the words, there's no good reason to keep statements of religious faith in the Pledge of Allegiance and printed on our money.  But given that McGuire was right about one thing -- this isn't about logic and principles -- I'm expecting that change isn't going to happen any time soon.