Praying with captives

Maybe ten years ago I got in a protracted argument over the phone with a local man.  The subject was an online social media group he'd started, and which I initially had joined, that protested the privatization of nursing homes in our area.  The practice, the group description rightly said, has put appropriate health care for the elderly out of the reach of all but the wealthiest.

The call that evening was precipitated by the fact that I left the group.  Quietly -- I posted a quick note that the group was heading in a direction I wasn't comfortable with, and disconnected.  My reason for doing so was one member, who was (and is) stridently ultra-left, going so far as to ridicule and/or call evil anyone who didn't share his views.  The long screeds he posted were not only unpleasant, they were outside of the specific focus the group had been created to address, and as a result the group was devolving into a rant-filled political free-for-all.

The gentleman who started the group (I'll call him Steve) demanded to know what it was that I had disagreed with so vehemently that I felt the need to exit.  I was a well-known and well-respected figure, he said, a veteran teacher, and my leaving the group would be seen as a blow to its standing.

I told him that it wasn't about disagreement, it was about partisanship.  "I teach several classes which have political aspects," I said.  "If I'm seen as being publicly partisan, I will lose credibility with my students about being unbiased and open-minded."

"Don't you have opinions?" Steve shouted at me.

I sighed loudly enough that he heard me, and said, "Of course I have opinions.  But that's what they are: opinions.  I don't foist them off on my classes.  I present my students with facts, ideas, and critical thinking strategies, and let them come to their own conclusions."

"What if a kid asks you for your opinion on something like politics or religion?"

"I have one of two answers," I replied.  "If it's not germane to what we're discussing in class, I'll say so.  If it is, my usual response is, 'Why do you need to know my opinion?'  If the answer is simple curiosity, which it usually is, I just shake my head and tell them I'm not going there.  I steadfastly refuse to tell students what my religious views are and what political party I belong to.  Students are a captive audience.  It's way too easy for 'this is my opinion' to morph into 'and it should be yours, too.'"

By this time, Steve was so mad he was about to burst a blood vessel.  "But this isn't at school!  It's online!  You can't state your opinion to anyone?"

My own temper was fast rising, but I kept my voice level with an effort.  "I didn't say that.  What I'm saying is that I'm very careful.  Like it or not, I'm a public figure, and if I get involved in publicly-visible online partisan rants, it will damage my standing in the classroom."

He lost it.  "I can't believe someone as smart as you is just fine with private corporations taking over every fucking health care facility in the region!"

I snapped back, "I'm not fine with it.  I hate it.  For fuck's sake, my wife's a public health care nurse.  What the hell do you think my opinion is?"

That shut him up.  At least momentarily.

The bottom line, though, is that he never did get my point; students are required to be in school, so teachers have to be really cautious about how they use their position of power to maneuver students' opinions, even inadvertently.  Sometimes our beliefs can't help but be exposed; I never hesitated to confront racism, sexism, and homophobia in the classroom, for example.  But I always tried to be as careful as I could on most other topics.  Students look up to and trust teachers (well, most of them do most of the time), and if I used my authority to push my religious or political views, it would be a significant betrayal of that trust.

Which brings us to Monday's decision by the United States Supreme Court that a high school football coach praying with his athletes on the field was protected free speech.

[Image is in the Public Domain]

The decision, unsurprisingly, was 6-3 along ideological lines.  In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, "We are aware of no historically-sound understanding of the Establishment Clause that begins to (make) it necessary for government to be hostile to religion in this way."

I'm no expert in law, but I do see that saying, "You can't pray with students at an event they're required to attend" is not equivalent to "hostility to religion."  Just like teachers in the classroom, coaches are looked up to by athletes.  Gorsuch said that "students were not required nor expected to participate [in the prayer]," which is disingenuous to say the very least.  Show me one high school athlete who, at a practice or a game, would be willing to say to a well-respected coach, "I'm not going to participate in this prayer, I'll just stand here to the side and let everyone watching stare at me.  Tell me when you're done."

But it also brings up the question of why having the coach lead a prayer is a good thing.  Despite Christian alarmists screeching about God not being allowed in schools, no one stops students from praying privately.  I knew a young man who always quietly recited the Grace Before Meals prayer before eating lunch, and I never saw anyone bat an eyelash.  (And I bet there are lots of prayers wafting aloft right before final exams.)  If students want to pray, they certainly can do so.  Why does a coach or a teacher need to cross that line into leading a prayer?

It also brings to mind a particularly inconvenient quote from Jesus himself, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.  I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen."

And as an aside, I wonder what the Supreme Court vote would have been if the coach had led the players in a prayer to Allah and asked them to bow toward Mecca.  Or any of the other hundreds of religious expressions of faith that are out there in the world.

What's most infuriating about this is the same basic thing I was arguing with Steve about; saying "doing this is inappropriate" doesn't mean "I'm anti (whatever the topic is)."  I am not anti-Christian; I have lots of Christian friends and mostly we get along just fine.  The frustration I have is with the subset of Christians who equate the secular society's insistence that Christianity not drive public policy with a desire to destroy Christianity itself.

I have no problem with someone saying "my faith requires me to do this."  I have a big problem with someone saying "my faith requires you to do this."  And that includes situations where the coercion is implicit, such as what school personnel say to young people.  Monday's decision should be deeply troubling to the religious and non-religious alike.  But given the current makeup of the court, I'm worried that we're only seeing the beginnings of an attempt to reestablish the hegemony of Christianity over the lives of all American citizens, irrespective of their own beliefs or lack thereof.

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A moment of Judeo-Christian silence

Let me start out with a reality check: despite what the Religious Right and the pseudo-pundits on Fox News want you to believe, there is no law against students praying in public school.  Nor is it against the rules for any student in any public school in the United States to have, or read, a Bible.  Nor to cite it (or Jesus) as an influence in their lives in personal essays.  No school has stopped students from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because it contains the words "under God."  Bible study and Christian fellowship groups are allowed to hold meetings on school property as long as attendance is completely voluntary.

Anyone who claims otherwise is wrong at best, and flat-out lying through their teeth at worst.

What is not legal is mandating prayer in school, or using Christian membership or affirmation as a qualification for... well, anything.  Schools cannot legally force students to follow the precepts of any religion.  The upshot is that public schools are simply not the venue for generating religious adherence, or (for that matter) preventing it.  It is no more teachers' place to alter their students' religious views in either direction than it is for churches to teach their congregations algebra.

As a personal case in point:

• I responded to questions about my own religious beliefs with "that isn't relevant to the discussion" -- even while we were studying fraught topics like evolution.
• I had a Bible on the bookshelf in my classroom.  I was given it by a student many years ago, and saw no reason it shouldn't be there.
• I saw students praying before exams and saying grace before lunch, and no one ever stopped them or had any problem with it.

As a brief aside, there is an explicit conflict in the "under God" part of the Pledge, in my opinion, because if it's recited by students -- which it still is, in public schools across the country -- it pressures non-religious students to affirm something they don't believe it (i.e., to lie).  I find that people who argue against taking out the words "under God" (which, by the bye, were not original to the Pledge but were added in the 1950s) often can't come up with a cogent reason why the words should be recited in a public school where (1) attendance is compulsory, and (2) there are students (and adults) of all different gradations of belief and disbelief.

But of course, that "live and let live" (or, as my mom used to put it, "your rights end where my nose begins") attitude isn't enough for the sanctimonious spokespeople of the Religious Right, who will stop at nothing to inject religion back into public schools.  And not just any religion, of course:

If there was any doubt about this, it should be put to rest by what happened in Florida (of course it was in Florida) last week.  A new law was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis that will mandate a sixty-second "moment of silence" that must be observed in all public schools.  The proponents gave some lip service to a broad-minded sentiment behind this -- that students need to have time to engage in meditative self-reflection -- but the real reason was given away by the bill's sponsor, Representative Randy Fine, who tweeted triumphantly, "Just joined Governor DeSantis to sign my fourth bill of the 2021 Legislative Session, allowing prayer back into schools via a moment of silence for all our schoolchildren.  I won't stop fighting against woke radicals who which [sic] to drive out Judeo-Christian values from every aspect of our lives!"

You'd think that anyone with any sense would recognize that saying this explicitly is just asking for the filing of lawsuits to invalidate the new legislation, but DeSantis, who certainly wouldn't be in contention for the "smartest governor in the United States" award, not only didn't contradict Fine but immediately agreed.  "The idea that you can push God out of every institution and be successful," DeSantis said, "I'm sorry, our Founding Fathers did not believe that."

"Students are free to believe what they want" isn't enough for these people; Fine and DeSantis make it clear that the "moment of silence" bill is just a foot in the door for reinserting prayer -- Christian prayer, of course -- back into public school classrooms.  And call me a "woke radical" if you like, but no compulsory prayer of any kind belongs in publicly funded institutions.

And for fuck's sake, it's not like public school teachers have time to do some kind of subversive anti-religious indoctrination.  I was a teacher for 32 years, and never once did I say, "Okay, kids, we've got an extra twenty minutes today, I will now teach you how to blaspheme!"  I had enough on my hands trying to get high schoolers to understand the Krebs Cycle and Mendel's Laws and the reactions of photosynthesis, I definitely didn't have the space in the curriculum to devote to undermining students' dearly-held religious beliefs.

Nor, might I add, did I have the desire to.  I may be a staunch atheist myself, but I am firmly of the opinion that everyone arrives at their understanding of how the universe works in their own time and fashion, and while I may disagree with someone's worldview, it's not my place to criticize it -- or honestly, even to make a judgment about it at all.

Unless that worldview involves compelling others to alter their own beliefs and actions.  It's all very well to say, "I do this because it's required by my religion;" when you start saying "you have to do this because it's required by my religion," you're going to have a fight on your hands.

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One of the most devastating psychological diagnoses is schizophrenia.  United by the common characteristic of "loss of touch with reality," this phrase belies how horrible the various kinds of schizophrenia are, both for the sufferers and their families.  Immersed in a pseudo-reality where the voices, hallucinations, and perceptions created by their minds seem as vivid as the actual reality around them, schizophrenics live in a terrifying world where they literally can't tell their own imaginings from what they're really seeing and hearing.

The origins of schizophrenia are still poorly understood, and largely because of a lack of knowledge of its causes, treatment and prognosis are iffy at best.  But much of what we know about this horrible disorder comes from families where it seems to be common -- where, apparently, there is a genetic predisposition for the psychosis that is schizophrenia's most frightening characteristic.

One of the first studies of this kind was of the Galvin family of Colorado, who had ten children born between 1945 and 1965 of whom six eventually were diagnosed as schizophrenic.  This tragic situation is the subject of the riveting book Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker.  Kolker looks at the study done by the National Institute of Health of the Galvin family, which provided the first insight into the genetic basis of schizophrenia, but along the way gives us a touching and compassionate view of a family devastated by this mysterious disease.  It's brilliant reading, and leaves you with a greater understanding of the impact of psychiatric illness -- and hope for a future where this diagnosis has better options for treatment.

[Note: if you purchase this book from the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

 

Subversion, suppression, and dissent

Of all the worrisome trends I'm seeing in the world in general, and the United States in particular -- and there are a lot to choose from -- what has me the most freaked out is the move toward intolerance of dissent and suppression of free speech.

Let's see what we have, just in the past week:

• The Justice Department prosecuted journalist Desiree Fairooz for laughing at a particularly absurd thing Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during his confirmation hearing.  Fairooz was found guilty and is now facing a possible one-year prison term.  For laughing.
• The FCC has launched an investigation of Stephen Colbert for his acerbic comments about President Donald Trump, which included a statement that "the only thing Donald Trump's mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's cock-holster."  Colbert is likely to be fined for obscenity.
• Across the Atlantic, Stephen Fry is under investigation by Irish authorities on charges of blasphemy -- which yes, is still a punishable offense in Ireland.  Fry was being interviewed, and was asked by the interviewer what he would say to God if he had the chance.  (Fry is a prominent and outspoken atheist.)  Fry responded, "I’d say ‘Bone cancer in children, what’s that about?’  How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault.  It’s not right.  It’s utterly, utterly evil.  Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"  A complaint was lodged against Fry, and if convicted he could face a fine of €25,000.
• In Saudi Arabia, yet another atheist has been sentenced to death simply for being open about his beliefs.  Unless the courts intervene -- and it is unlikely that they will do so, given that Saudi King Abdullah declared atheists to be terrorists three years ago -- some time in the next few weeks Ahmad Al-Shamri is likely to be taken out into Deera Square in Riyadh, forced to his knees, and publicly beheaded with a sword.  Despite this, the Saudis are still our staunch allies, and (with no apparent awareness of irony) are members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

And that's just in the last week.  The trend is increasingly toward jailing (or worse) anyone who speaks up, anyone who holds unpopular opinions, and (especially) anyone who ridicules the people in power.  As Voltaire put it, "To learn who is actually in power, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

At the same time, there is a huge push by the people who are on top to consolidate that power -- in part, by giving the impression that because there is dissent, they are the persecuted ones.  Here are a few recent examples of that:

• Ken Ham, the science-denying founder of Answers in Genesis and the driving force behind the "Ark Encounter" theme park, got his knickers in a twist over the demand by American Atheists spokesperson Amanda Knief that a bench with a plaque saying "Men who will not be governed by God will be governed by tyrants" be removed from government property.  But replacing it with a plain old secular bench?  That, to Ham, is a direct slap in the face to Christians everywhere.  "Atheists don't want freedom of religion," Ham snarled.  "They want freedom from Christianity.  They want their religion only in public... Atheists, like many against free speech, are intolerant & bullying people with their religion to remove Christian symbols...  I encourage people to educate the public that atheism is a religion, an anti-God intolerant religion out to impose their religion on culture."
• Lizette Franklin, of Kinross, Scotland, has launched a campaign against UK discount store Poundland for a promotion called "OMG," that puts the acronym on signs for price reductions.  Poundland says it stands for "Oh my goodness," but Franklin isn't buying it, and is trying to get Christians to boycott the store.  "To me it expresses the name of the Lord and can be taken as disrespectful," Franklin said.  "If it was to mean 'Oh My Goodness' they should have written it out...  I am an absolute fan of the store.  But when I saw this I was really in shock.  It was as if the name of the Lord has been made fun of and disrespected all over the store.  It is as if the name of the Lord was being used in vain to promote prices and this is revolting to say the least.  This is disrespectful to us as Christians and should be removed at once."
• State Representative Rick Saccone of Pennsylvania, who recently announced a bid for the U.S. Senate, has said that he was motivated to run for office because "God has set out a plan for us.  He wants godly men and women in all aspects of life.  He wants people who will rule with the fear of God in them to rule over us.  And if they don’t, then the evil side will take over and the government will control and run over the good people and so they have to stand up, that’s just part of it.  If you don’t have good people in government, then you’ll have bad people in government—and when bad people are reigning over us, the people will not be happy."  You may recall Saccone as the fellow who in 2012 sponsored a bill, which was ultimately (and fortunately) unsuccessful, to call that year "The National Year of the Bible" and to have "In God We Trust" posted prominently in all public schools.  Because, apparently, having it on our currency is simply not enough.

And so forth.  The general sense is that just being free to believe what you want is not sufficient; the symbols and slogans of that belief have to be everywhere, both private and public, or "religious freedom" is being trampled on.  Free speech is also great -- as long as that free speech doesn't criticize or ridicule the dominant paradigm.

There can be no challenge to the hegemony of the ones in power.

This, however, is the ideology of fascism.  If you can't criticize the government, if examining ideas is characterized as blasphemy, if (especially) the people in charge are convinced that they are ruling because it's the will of God -- you've taken a dangerous step toward totalitarianism.

We who believe in actual free speech can't let ourselves be cowed.  It's time to take some chances and risk vocal dissent.  We can't let the people running the governments in the world think that just because they can silence someone's voice, they've won.  

I'll end with a quote from George R. R. Martin, who put the words in the mouth of his iconic character Tyrion Lannister.  "If you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him wrong.  You are only showing the world that you fear what he might say."

Giving away religion

There's another war brewing over the idea of freedom of religion, this time in the state of Tennessee.

Turns out, Bledsoe County School District has for years been handing out bibles to kids.  It hasn't, fortunately, been mandatory; the bibles are put out on tables in elementary school libraries in the district, and students can take one if they want one.  And recently, a decision was made to discontinue the practice.

Unsurprisingly, everyone is up in arms.

"We simply go in, we lay it on the table, we tell them what it is and who we are and if they want one…they freely take one," said Charlie Queen, Chaplain for Sequatchie Valley Camp of Gideons, who sponsors the giveaway.  "We do not hand it to them, they take it freely and voluntarily...  I look at it more as a loss of a freedom more so than anything else.  We are right here on Veterans Day…. people have fought, sacrificed and died for their country and for these freedoms.  Now another one is trying to be taken away, that’s what breaks my heart."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Predictably, Christians in the area are outraged.  Pastor Bill Wolfe, of Lee Station Baptist Church, said, "My whole congregation is very upset.  We talked about it yesterday morning.  They [the Gideons] come in and they don’t force anything on any child.  It’s an opportunity for them to receive a New Testament Bible.  They can take it if they want one and they don’t have to take it if they don’t want one.  This has been going on…well I’m 51-years-old and I still have mine that I received in the 5th grade, so it’s been going on for years and years."

That it's been going on "for years and years," of course, is not much of an argument.  Slavery, flogging for misdemeanors, and denial of women's right to vote also went on "for years and years," and that didn't make any of that right.  But it does bring up one question, that I think answers both Queen and Wolfe:

Why do you think it is the function of public schools to pass out religious materials?

If Wolfe is so furious that the giveaway has been discontinued, why doesn't he invite the Gideons into his church to give a bible to all the kids there?  There's only one reason to give bibles away in schools instead of in churches -- and that is in the hopes of convincing people who weren't already convinced.

I.e., proselytizing.

And that is not acceptable within a school.  What would Queen and Wolfe say if I, as an atheist, purchased a thousand copies of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and started handing them out free to fifth graders?  Or if Buddhists, Hindus, or (gasp) Muslims started doing the same thing?

I think the only thing that would send them more ballistic than my handing out copies of Dawkins is if some imam went in and started giving out copies of the Qu'ran.  But how is that any different?

The problem, of course, is that these people don't play fair.  They don't want freedom of religion, in the sense that all religions (and the lack thereof) are treated equally in the public arena.  They want exclusive access, which isn't the same thing.

Unsurprising, of course, considering where this all took place.  Hell, this is the same state where two months ago, parents flipped out when their kids were taught about Islam in seventh grade.

You read that right; these are the people who not only don't want their kids becoming Muslims, they don't even want them to know what Islam is.

Teachers, and schools, are here to expand children's worlds.  To make them more aware, to encourage them to question, to teach them how to tell fact from fiction, to give them the tools to be lifelong learners.  They are not here to perform religious or political indoctrination.

I do not bring up my atheism in my classes.  There is no reason to.  Do kids know I'm an atheist?  Probably a lot of them do; it's a small town, and I'm known to be a blogger.  But when I'm asked in class what my religious beliefs are, my stock response is, "Why is that relevant?"  Because it rarely is.  I'm a science teacher, and there should be no Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist science, no Republican or Democratic science.  There is only science, which is what we know to be supported by the evidence.

And I would be no more in the right to proselytize for my own beliefs than the Gideons are -- even if I do try to be cagey about it by saying "take it or leave it."

The devil went down to Georgia

In a move that many are characterizing as the latest end-run past anti-discrimination laws by the extremely religious, Georgia's Senate has passed Bill 129, the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," by a vote of 37-15.

The legislation would "prevent the government from intruding or abridging faith-based beliefs," stating explicitly that "laws neutral toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise."

Opponents of the bill were well aware of its hidden agenda.

Senator Curt Thomas, who voted against the bill, said that he believed that the measure was a direct response to the spread of marriage equality laws in the United States.  "There’s no way anyone’s going to convince me that that’s not what’s happening now," Thomas said.   He made reference to similar measures that have been instituted in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court just ordered judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "We don’t want to be the next Alabama and be the next circus that they are becoming."

He was not the only one who recognized the law's subtext.  Marty Rouse, National Field Director of the Human Rights Campaign, was even more blunt than Thomas.  "This bill is a reprehensible attack on LGBT people and their families in Georgia," Rouse said, in a statement released last Thursday. "It does not address any legitimate problem with current law and creates harmful consequences for businesses throughout the state.  It threatens not just the LGBT community, but women, members of minority faiths and other minority classes.  All Georgians deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and we need all fair-minded people in the state to help stop this bill."

It now goes to the Georgia House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass, and then be signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal.

The whole thing has LGBT advocates seething, for understandable reasons.  Religious rights have been cited more than once in the past few months as reasonable justification for denial of services to LGBT individuals, and the RFRA is expected to give the anti-LGBT crowd legal standing in doing so.  But given the wide support the bill has in the Georgia legislature, what can be done?

Just ask the Aquarian Tabernacle Wiccan Church.

In a statement that should go down in the Annals of the History of Bluff-Calling, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church thanked the Georgia policymakers for their "forward-thinking... dedication to religious freedom."  They then outlined their practices that would be protected under the RFRA, citing which lines of the legislation covered each of them.  These practices included:

• Polyamory.  "Marriage is a religious institution," the statement reads.  "A uniting of souls before the almighty...  Many Wiccans live in multi-partner households, and until now have been unable to realize their religious right to marry the partners they are in love with.  Many of these partnerships have children from multiple partners all living under the same roof.  SB 129 has now opened the way for those children to all be under family insurance/health plans, as outlined in lines [22-23].  And if lines [34-35] hold true to their intent, then the least restrictive means of enforcing this change, is a simple revision to existing policy."

• Ingestion of psychotropic plants.  "With the passing of GRFRA," says the statement, "the ATC will be informing all Wiccans within the state of GA that there are no longer restrictions on which plants they may grow, own, harvest, ingest, distribute, or refine into compounds that the practitioner finds need to use within their religious practice, so long as no other laws besides substance abuse are broken...  As Government's definition also includes lines [82-83] “authorities; [...] or other person acting under color of law” it should be a matter of course to inform all officials to begin their refrain from detaining the practitioners for, and impeding the lawful use of said plants and animal parts.  This includes, but is no way limited to this non-comprehensive list, all plants currently residing upon any list of banned substances, plus any and all animal parts that may be found on the property or in the possession of anyone practicing the faith of Wicca within Georgia State limits."

• Drug screening by employers, and other restrictions based on "bodily sanctity."  "[The RFRA] means that all Wiccans are to be free to choose to be exempt, at the individual’s discretion regarding the sanctity of their essence, with no repercussions from Government bodies [77-83] upon an employer adhering to these inalienable religious rights, from urinalysis, blood tests, hair follicle tests, breathalyzers, tattooing, rfid chipping, or anything else that adds to or removes parts of our essence."

To which I have only one thing to say:  BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *falls off chair*

Man.  This should be good.  How many times do the clowns in elected office have to be shown that "freedom of religion" doesn't mean "freedom for the majority religion to do whatever it damn well pleases, and to hell with everyone else?"  Perhaps this will finally get it through their thick skulls that religious freedom (1) doesn't trump anti-discrimination laws, and (2) works best when the government just keeps its grimy paws off of religion entirely.  People should be free to practice whatever religion they want, in whatever way they want, unless such practice contravenes existing federal or state laws.  And that includes laws against discrimination.

How hard is that?

I certainly hope that the Aquarian Tabernacle Church pushes this as far as they can.  They seem to have done their homework, and although I can't say I buy their worldview, I applaud what they're doing, here.  And I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the legislators in Georgia backpedaling like mad to undo what they've done once they realize its implications.

Opening the floodgates

There's a bizarre battle going on right now in the state of Florida.

First, a Christian group was allowed to hand out bibles to students in eleven high schools in Orange County.  So an atheist group asked the Orange County School Board for permission to hand out atheist pamphlets, and was denied.  This resulted in a lawsuit from the atheists, which was summarily thrown out.

The school board wouldn't comment on the reasons for their denial, only saying that the atheist literature would be "disruptive."  Others opined that since atheism isn't a religion, it's not covered under the freedom of religion clause.

This last suggestion, however, opened the floodgates.  The next to step up to the plate was the Satanic Temple, who applied to the school board to pass out promotional materials including a book called The Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities, the cover of which I show below:

[image courtesy of the Satanic Temple]

The tall kid looks kind of grumpy, doesn't he?  You can tell he's regretting posing for this picture.  Maybe he was coerced somehow, you think?  ("If you won't be part of the group photo, we won't let you take part in sacrificing the goat on the equinox tomorrow.")  And the kid on the left could probably use going up a shirt size or three.

The Satanic Temple, of course, was trying to make a point, and they were completely up front about it.  "There has to be an understanding that they probably have a student body that is generally aware of Christian teachings," Temple spokesperson Lucien Grieves said.  "Kids know about the Bible. They probably go to church on Sundays with their parents. But our material juxtaposed to that offers differing religious opinions, not just the view that's dominating the discourse."

"We don't argue the merits of any one voice in a school environment," Grieves added.  "We think it's in the best interests for everyone, especially the kids, that the district not to have religious materials of any kind distributed in schools."

If that wasn't enough to make the school board question the wisdom of their actions, just yesterday we had another group throw their hat into the ring.  This, unfortunately, was the Raelians, a religion based in France that believes that the Earth was created by an extraterrestrial species, who are still more or less managing matters.  The core beliefs of the Raelians are that we should strive for world peace, feel free to have lots of sex with anyone who is willing, and both men and women should run around shirtless all the time.

"It's about equality for all," Donna Newman, spokesperson for the International Raelian Movement in South Florida said.  "No violence, peace on Earth.  If society is just leaning towards just one specific doctrine, it's not fair.  Why can't they open up their doors to other beliefs?  Let the children choose, not just pound one doctrine into their heads all their lives."

So.  Yeah.  If the whole debacle brings up the phrase "Be careful what you wish for," I have to say that it did for me, too.

But the main thing that bothers me, here, is that none of the groups -- Christian, atheist, Satanist, Raelian -- seem to be thinking much about the children, here and now, who are in the middle of what is turning into a four-way tug of war.  Sure, the school board created this mess, through a misguided Freedom-Of-Religion-As-Long-As-It's-The-Right-Religion approach.  But now the kids are the victims, hearing every other day about some new group who wants a crack at their allegiance.

Can we clarify one thing, here?  Schools are about free education.  They are not about proselytizing, a lesson that I can only hope the Orange County School Board has learned.  But they are also not about using high school students to score political points, however important the issue is (and I do think this issue is important).  Children are not pawns on a chessboard, and partisanship has no place in the classroom.

Being an out atheist in my community means that a good many students walk into my classroom knowing my views on religion.  But that's no different, really, than students seeing one of their teachers walk into any of the half-dozen or so churches in our village.  I keep my religious opinions (and my political ones, as well) out of my classroom.

And so should every teacher.  And so should school boards.  The Orange County School Board's misstep, therefore, serves as a shining example of what not to do.  All of us -- religious and atheist alike -- hopefully get that by now.  So to all the groups currently clamoring for these poor Florida teenagers' ears, I can only say one thing:

Point made.  Time to lay off.

SATs, STDs, and school prayer

Yesterday, we saw one example of mistaking correlation for causation -- that being a skeptic (or materialist, or rationalist) is why two prominent skeptics had apparent serious moral lapses.  Today, we'll look at a second -- a group that is claiming that the elimination of school prayer is why student SAT scores have dropped in the United States.

The American Family Association of Kentucky currently has a petition out asking people to vote on whether or not prayer should be allowed in public schools.  First, we have the following photograph, to put us all in the right frame of mind:

And then, there's the meat of the argument, if I can dignify it with that term:

Prayer was in our schools for over 200 years before the anti-God forces took it out in 1962. After prayer was removed from our schools, teen pregnancy went up 500%, STD’s went up 226%, violent crime went up 500% and SAT scores went down for 18 years in a row, opening the door for the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture.

WE NEED PRAYER BACK IN SCHOOLS!

We need to do this, the author of the petition (Frank Simon) says, in order to "return God's protection to America."

Wow.  Where do I start?

First off, if someone is claiming that two things are not only correlated, but exist in a causative relationship, the first thing to do is to determine if there really is even a correlation.  So I looked up the Commonwealth Foundation's breakdown of SAT results state by state.  If god really does care about SAT scores, to the point where he awards the best scores not to the kids that are the smartest or the hardest working but to the kids who pray the most, there should be a correlation between the most religious states and the highest scores, right?  Interestingly, in three states that are pretty solidly Christian -- Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana -- only 4%, 8%, and 9% of qualified high school students even took the SATs last year, although admittedly the average scores of the students who did take it land those states solidly in the middle of the pack.  And I guess even god can't give you good scores on an exam you didn't take.

So what about teen pregnancy?  Once again, if you think the spread of atheism has caused this supposed 500% increase in teen pregnancy, you should see the godly states having lower rates than the ungodly ones, right?  So I looked at the National Campaign to End Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's page on state data, and guess where Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi fell?  14th, 8th, and 2nd worst (i.e. highest teen pregnancy rates) overall.  Other states in the top ten were Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, also so-called "Bible-Belt" states.

Hmm.  I guess that when it comes to preventing teen pregnancy, sex education and availability of birth control work better than praying.  Whoda thought?

And because I'm nothing if not thorough, I decided to check STD rates state-by-state, so I went to the Center for Disease Control's Data Atlas, and guess where the most new cases of STDs in 2012 were?  Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  In that order.

Well, well.

I think what bothers me most about this, though, is the way these people are framing this as a religious freedom issue -- the subtitle on the petition page says, "Restore Student Religious Liberty."  One of my first mentors, when I started teaching, was a wonderful science teacher who was also a devout Christian.  I was discussing religion with him one day, and he said something that was very interesting.  "I never bring up religion in class," he said.  "My own beliefs are irrelevant in the classroom.  But more than that; teachers need to keep in mind that they are talking to captive audiences made up of kids of diverse backgrounds and beliefs.  Because of that, you have to be extremely careful when discussing anything that has bearing on political or religious issues.  The best teachers challenge all of their students, not just the ones they disagree with."

So, the bottom line is, students are free to pray in their churches.  They are also free to pray, silently, during class, or any other time during the day.  (I suspect a lot of prayer goes on prior to my administering exams.)  On the other hand, it is not ethical for teachers or administrators to lead prayers in public schools.  At that point, it is no longer an issue of religious liberty, it is an issue of forced proselytization.  And that, actually, is the opposite of liberty.

The oppression of the majority

I wonder what it is about the mere existence of atheists that is so terrifying to some Christians.

Now, right up front, I want to emphasize that I'm not talking about all Christians, here.  I have friends who are devout Christians, and friends who are members of various other faiths, and mostly we all get along pretty well.  But it seems to me that there is a growing number of Christians, mostly of the evangelical stripe, who are threatened by people like me -- atheists/rationalists/secular humanists who won't just shut up and let the dominant majority religion run things, as it has for the last thousand years.

This all comes up because of two news stories from last week.  In one, Anthony Foxx, mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, declared May 2 not only to be a "National Day of Prayer," but a "National Day of Reason," stating that "it is the duty and responsibility of every citizen to promote the development and application of reason."   Seems an innocent enough statement, right?

Nope.  The backlash was immediate and vitriolic.  Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women of America, blasted Foxx's move as anti-religious in general and anti-Christian in particular, ending a screed on Fox News with the quote, "You know the Age of Enlightenment and Reason gave way to moral relativism.  And moral relativism is what led us all the way down the dark path to the Holocaust."

Then, there was the story that appeared in Breitbart News that claimed that Christians in the military were in danger of being court martialled if they "shared their faith."  The whole thing apparently started with a demand by Mikey Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, that commanding officers enforce the long-standing no-proselytizing rule, explained as follows by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen:

Service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one's beliefs (proselytization).  If a service member harasses another member on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability, then the commander takes action based on the gravity of the occurrence.  Likewise, when religious harassment complaints are reported, commanders take action based on the gravity of the occurrence on a case-by-case basis.

Breitbart, and later Fox News, interpreted this as a "Christian cleansing of the military" by the Obama administration that would lead to the abolition of chaplains, and ultimately to court martial of any Christian in the military.  (Weinstein himself was called an "anti-Christian extremist.")

The story was accompanied by the following photograph, in case the plight of the poor, oppressed Christians didn't yank at your heartstrings enough:

Okay, can we just clarify something, here?  You Christians are still in the majority.  Virtually every position of power in the United States government is held by a self-professed Christian.  You have used your majority status to institute legislation that compels public school students to treat your holy book as if it were science.  You have mandated prayers before governmental meetings, and are determined to try to work prayer back into classrooms.  "In God We Trust" is still on our currency, and "one nation, under God" still in the Pledge of Allegiance.  People are still sworn in with their hand on the bible.

How, again, are you oppressed?

The problem, of course, is that you're unused to being challenged, and you're mistaking having someone push back against your hegemony with being persecuted.  You have been, for centuries, in sole control of everything in the United States and western Europe, with government and religion so deeply entangled that it was often hard to see where one started and the other ended.  But now, what has some Christians spooked is that people like me are becoming more numerous.  A recent poll put the number of atheists and agnostics in the United States at 20% -- a new high -- and put Protestants in the minority for the first time ever, at 48%, although Christians as a whole are still an overwhelming majority, at 76%.  The increase of non-belief, to the point that we're too numerous to subdue into silence, is terrifying to a group that has long held unquestioned dominance in every sphere of American life.  There are more self-professed atheists now than ever before in history, and we're refusing to do what we've always done -- which was to hide.

The ironic thing is how unfounded those fears are.  While atheists, agnostics, rationalists, humanists, secularists, and free-thinkers -- and those who hold to all other gradations of disbelief -- are often vocal in their disavowal of Christian ideas, very few of them have any grudge against Christian people.  The vast majority of the aforementioned nonbelievers think that Christians, and members of other faiths, are free to believe whatever they want, as long as they accord the same right to us.  And that's the critical point, here; we just want the same freedom that you have had for the last thousand years -- to be open about our convictions, without fear of repercussion, and without having to put up with religious folks demanding that we do things their way, or else.

So, to that subset of Christians who desperately want to appear oppressed because you're finally not getting your own way, I'd like to end by saying: no need to be afraid.  We atheists have no intent to do to you what you'd like to do to us.

Establishing a state religion

There is something going in on North Carolina right now that I bet a lot of you haven't heard about.  It's gotten barely any press coverage, which is weird, because if it doesn't scare the absolute hell out of you, you're not thinking hard enough.

A bill, filed by two Republican lawmakers from Rowan County on Monday (and backed by nine others), had as its intent to supersede the United States Constitution with respect to the establishment of a "state religion."  The bill was written by Representatives Carl Ford (R-China Grove) and Harry Warren (R-Salisbury), and says, in part,

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

Backers claim that the bill is in response to President Obama's moves to establish universal health care and to alter gun laws, and they characterize it as fighting "federal tyranny."

Now, before you start writing letters, allow me to mention that this bill died yesterday afternoon in committee.  But the fact that it got as far as it did is like a dash of cold water down my back.  And if you think that this is a feint, or a political move intended just to "send a message," consider what Michael Bitzer, a professor of political science at Catawba College in Salisbury, had to say about the bill: "[I]t is attempting to appease to a certain base of supporters here in Rowan County, but also probably throughout the state, that believe very firmly in the needs for religious liberty."

Now wait, Dr. Bitzer, let me get this straight: allowing North Carolina to establish an official state religion, and thus compel prayers in schools, prayers before governmental functions, and (presumably) state control over what can and cannot be taught in science classrooms, is a move toward religious liberty?  Can I just take a moment to remind you of what theocracies are actually like?

Because a move toward a Christian theocracy is what this is, of course.  No one in his or her right mind believes that all religions in North Carolina will be given equal respect.  This is just the old "America is a Christian nation" thing, rebranded as some kind of fight against the power of the federal government.  Take a look, for example, at the billboard campaign that has begun, in support of this move:

Many local churches have been vocal in their support of the bill, and vow to continue the fight now that this iteration of it will not be voted on.  "It's very exciting," minister Bill Godair of Cornerstone Church in Salisbury told WBTV on Wednesday.  "I was thrilled about it...  I know this money could have been given to the poor and I feel like we do so much and I feel like we elected these men, the fact that they're standing together unified, all five of them, I just feel like that we have to stand with them."

I find the whole thing profoundly frightening.  In this time, when there are large, organized, well-funded private groups that have as their official goal mandating the infiltration of religion into every aspect of our lives -- determining what we can do with our own bodies, how we have to teach our children, what we can and cannot say in public -- that this sort of thing is now being considered by government officials is horrifying.

And for those of my readers who are yourselves Christian, I hope you have the sense to recognize why this would be a terrible move.  Because, after all, it's not like Christianity is one thing; it is a diverse system of belief, a term that encompasses everything from the liberal, bible-as-metaphor approach of the Unitarian Universalists to the hard-as-nails biblical fundamentalism of the Pentecostals.  (Notwithstanding the fact that some of these sects say about the others that they are "not true Christians.")  So, if there's to be a state religion, which one?  If you take just that parts they all agree on, there won't be much left.  One of them has to be chosen as the actual state religion -- which should rightly terrify members of the others.

In any case, keep an eye on North Carolina, and other states in the "Bible Belt."  This fight isn't over yet.  And for those atheists, rationalists, agnostics, and freethinkers who somehow survive down there -- speak up.  Now.

Before it's too late.

Tax return of the Beast

Well, it's happened again.  Another person has refused to handle a piece of official paper because it was stamped with the number 666.

In November 2011 we had the story about Georgia factory worker Billy E. Hyatt, who refused to wear a badge that said "666 Days Without An Accident."  He was fired, but basically claimed that his soul was more important than his job -- apparently he really, truly thought that if he pinned the badge on, then Satan would have burst upward though the floor, spurting flame and laughing maniacally, and dragged him off to hell.  (You have to wonder how he explained that this didn't happen to all of the hundreds of other workers who were cheerfully wearing the Mark of the Beast for the day.)

Hyatt, incidentally, was eventually rehired with back pay, after a court found that the company he worked for had infringed upon his religious freedom.

Now, though, we have federal law involved, and you have to wonder how this will play out.

Just last week, Clarksville (Tennessee) maintenance worker Walter Slonopas quit his job and is saying he will refuse to file his taxes after receiving a W-2 form stamped with the number 666.  [Source]  Slonopas, a born-again Christian (as if I even needed to mention that), said that the choice was go to work, or go to hell.

"If you accept that number, you sell your soul to the devil," he said in an interview with The Tennessean.

Interestingly, this isn't Slonopas' first encounter with the Number Of Evil.  When he was hired in April 2011, and was given a number to use to clock in, he was supposed to be given the number 668, but the human resources department at his company (Contech Casting, Inc.) miswrote it as 666.  Slonopas complained, and was reissued a new number.

Man, Satan must really want this guy.

Unlike in the Hyatt case, Slonopas says that he doesn't want his job back, because if he took it it would appear that he valued his job more than his faith.  "God is more important than money," he said, and added that he was sure that god would take care of him and his wife until he could find a new job.

As usual, I'm of two minds as to how to respond to all of this.  On the one hand, I'm all for the basic rule of "don't be an asshole."  Don't go out of your way to upset people, just on principle; respect others' rights to think differently than you do.

But there comes a time, I think, that people have to stop caving in to the crazy demands of zealots that everyone has to handle their Bronze Age mythology with kid gloves, that we all have to act as if it were true.  When will we start simply demanding that people act rationally?  "I'm sorry, Mr. Slonopas, if you don't file your taxes, you will be fined, just like any other American -- just because your W-2 was stamped with a number that gives you the heebie-jeebies doesn't mean that superstition trumps US tax law."

But my fear is that we, as a society, are still too afraid of religion to let that happen.  Courts, although designed to be as fair as possible, are run by humans and are subject to cultural and societal pressures.  If I were a betting man, I'd bet that any challenge to Mr. Slonopas' stance in the legal system will be found in his favor, on the basis of "religious freedom."

Which, despite my general "don't be an asshole" philosophy, leaves me feeling like this: