Taken by Steven Depolo

Now I understand that many people may not believe in God or they may pray to a different God, but isn’t America for the people by the people? Well if so then I believe those people that believe in God or the christians are the majority. In fact, it is estimated that 83% of America is christian. Now I understand we should respect others beliefs but why do our beliefs have to suffer? This of course isn’t the first time the majority in America has made sacrifices to make the minorities happy. There are bigger issues facing America but yet this one keeps popping up. So, I’m going to have my say on the issue and give you a brief history lesson along the way.

So, if they’re not worried about Islam, let alone considering the possibility of its followers attempting to take over the country, it’s unlikely they would do much to prevent it. Our country would be ripe for takeover by radical followers of Islam. And that is why (I hope) that Gingrich linked these three totally different groups together.

Now, if that wasn’t his train of thought…. well, I might be forced to overtly campaign against him regardless what he planned to do going forward on the grounds that he’s either mentally unstable, or just plain losing his ability to think clearly. I’m leaning toward the concept that either he was thinking as I’ve outlined above, or he was merely pandering to his audience. If it’s the latter, while I wouldn’t bother saying much against him, wouldn’t say much for him either!

Now, it is largely ruled by a desire to promote Christian values as rule of law. As a result of this, there is a great deal of hatred and intolerance in the wind, particularly where homosexuals are concerned. Hatred and intolerance are not Christian values, period. Blaming the theoretically sinful behaviors of others for whatever is wrong in this world is bluntly insane. There is no divine message being delivered.

The death of Tyler Clementi was a tragedy. I am pleased to see so many people taking time out to offer their condolences and prayers to his family on Facebook. However, the following is certainly an indictment against those that choose to twist Christian values to their own devices.

In Honor of Tyler Clementi all comments that seek to harass his tormentors, his family, or his memory will be removed from this page; all hate speech or comments that fail to respect the grieving communities will be removed from this page. This page will only be published and open for comments on a random basis, as a way to limit the hate-speech, and cruel, vulgar abuse that has swarmed it…

The real Christian value is the fact that the people involved with the maintenance of that Facebook page have not only forbidden hate speech against Tyler or gays, but also posts against the ones that tormented the young gentleman.

1. – The business of politics is dirty. This is not news, and was used as an argument against granting women the vote – we didn’t need to be concerning ourselves with all that filth when there was filth enough at home to clean! But for whatever reason, people selectively forget this when they get it in their heads to argue political points from a religious perspective. They forget that religion is meant to be sacred – decidedly not dirty. Just think to yourself, every time someone brings God to the political table, they’re smearing mud on what should be pure.

2. – Religion is personal. Sure, it’s been said that politics is personal. It’s a nice saying, but outside of the wonderful world of political junkies, it’s generally inaccurate. Most people do not live and breathe politics. However, religion is invariably personal. Yes, there is a limited number of religions out there, but the way those religions are observed (or not) is limited only by the number of people on this planet. There is even diversity of faith within any given religious organization. Suggesting that political bodies govern based on any religious precepts is the greatest attack on religious freedom. Suggesting that political bodies protect the rights of the people to observe their personal belief systems as they choose is the true way to guarantee Freedom of Religion.

3. – Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as secular morality. Anticipating the inevitable argument that religion is the basis of many laws, atheists are not necessarily immoral. They are capable of recognizing that there is good and bad in this world, and that it is a good thing to avoid doing bad things. Humans are generally moral creatures by nature, and while useful in encouraging people to be well-behaved, they do not “need” the threat of retribution from a mystical force to keep themselves in line. Earthly punishments are typically enough to keep most in line, and the ones that don’t seem to be able to follow the rules wouldn’t anyway. There’s a reason why serial killers and career criminals are called aberrations.

4. – Like men, all religions were created equal. This one has gotten me into quite a few arguments over the years, primarily because I do not hide the fact that I distrust all religions equally. Every religion has skeletons in its closet. Every religion has caused men to act in a negative manner at some point in its history – some still do. They have all been the source of war and death at one point or another. And it doesn’t matter “when” in that history atrocities have occurred for the sake of a given faith. The fact that it did occur once (or more times) means that a similar situation could happen again.

5. – No religion is “right” – no religion is “wrong”. On the purely theoretical level, there is no way to prove which faith is right or wrong. That is the very nature of faith – believing in something without the benefit of proof. People following religions are the ones doing right and wrong, but qualitative statements for or against any given religion based on the actions of the followers are an exercise in stupidity as well. See number two here. No matter how organized a given religion may be, there is no way to absolutely control all of the followers, period. There will always be someone that takes things too far, and does things that are contrary to the precepts of a given faith, typically through misinterpretation of sacred texts. We call it “radicalism”. If these people were doing what the majority of a given faith believe is “right”, then we wouldn’t bother pointing out that they were on the fringe, now would we? And to keep things fair, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have radicals. I don’t typically come across ones from the last two, but I regularly get abuse from the first.

From the beginning, there has never really been any argument over the fact that Obama’s father was Muslim, and that Obama himself had attended a Muslim school for a short period of time in his early childhood. Today, ABC posits that there is a definite prejudice against Muslims when it comes to voters considering candidates for public office. Yes, this is the land of the free, and yes, we’re generally more tolerant than most other nations, but it’s been under a decade since 9/11. Ground Zero remains under construction, and there’s a heated debate on what should be done with the real estate surrounding it. We’re still at war with Al Qaeda, and there is no honest end in sight. Comparisons with Pearl Harbor have been made many times, so here we go again. Would anyone honestly be screaming that we’re intolerant bastards if we were against voting in individuals of Japanese descent to high ranking offices in the years following that bombing, particularly if WWII had dragged out much longer than it did?

Now, that addresses the general distrust of Muslims in general, justified or not. It’s the truth, ugly as it may be. As for the perception of Obama, I’ve been thinking for some time now that it’s not so much about thinking that he is actually a Muslim, as it is a matter of not perceiving him as a Christian. We are still being bombarded with stories of potential terrorist attacks by radical Muslims, and spent the last several years being spoonfed the concept that any Muslim can end up being twisted into a dangerous radical. (Ironically enough, that theory is most often supported by radical Christians, but I digress, or not…) Religion has been politicized severely since 2001, and sadly, it has nurtured a climate where Christians seem to be increasingly of the opinion that if you’re not obviously with them, you’re against them. If you’re against them, more likely than not, you’re Muslim (assuming you’re not just one of those evil atheists.) Since Obama doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve, he’s not obviously with the Christians, so he must be what? Oh yeah, Muslim. Rewind to the previously known information about his father and his childhood, and there’s the likely root of most of the current rash of incorrect perceptions.

Politics is perception, and when people are silly enough to ignore that First Amendment separation of religion and politics, the perception of public officials’ religious beliefs become relevant to their political careers. (Yes, I know I didn’t say “church and state”, so don’t bother yelping about it. My standard answer for that is that the framers saw the folly in mixing faith and politics, and chose terms that fit their times, and mollified the more religious amongst them. Politics is filthy. Religion doesn’t deserve to be made dirty by it.)

Another issue that the Secular Coalition of America was meaning to address with the administration today is the closure of loopholes in federal law regarding medical neglect – a situation that allows parents that believe in faith-healing to maintain custody of children that need medical attention to live. This issue can be considered the flip-side of the abortion debate, in that it provides protections for parents that choose to deny medical treatments for their children on religious grounds – something that reveals hypocrisy from some members of the religious right.

Defining precisely where conservatives are supposed to stand was the point of the recent Mount Vernon Statement. The last principle of Constitutional conservatism in this statement lays the groundwork for misuse by the religious right – “It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.” Defense of faith is a necessary part of our Constitution, as stated in the First Amendment. However, the bastardization of this tenet through attempts to legislate morality can by no means be considered protected by that amendment.

The primary problem is that after years of protecting religion from the state, we haven’t shifted gears to prevent the opposite. Wording of the First Amendment, stating the separation of “church and state”, hasn’t been translated to fit modern needs. The “church” that the framers were concerned with was the Church of England, and since that time, the only time concern over a specific denomination exerting control over our government was seriously considered was when Kennedy took office. Now, government does not need protected from a specific church, but from a specific group of churches – Judeo-Christian faiths.

What then is the relation of law to morality? Law cannot prescribe morality, it can prescribe only external actions and therefore it should prescribe only those actions whose mere fulfillment, from whatever motive, the state adjudges to be conducive to welfare. What actions are these? Obviously such actions as promote the physical and social conditions requisite for the expression and development of free—or moral—personality…. Law does not and cannot cover all the ground of morality. To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality. Happily it is impossible. No code of law can envisage the myriad changing situations that determine moral obligations. Moreover, there must be one legal code for all, but moral codes vary as much as the individual characters of which they are the expression. To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters.
ATTRIBUTION: R.M. MacIver (1882–1970), Scottish sociologist, educator. The Modern State, ch. 5, Oxford University Press (1926).

The previous is a long form of the statement “you can’t legislate morality.” That statement is often mentioned in the context of the abortion and marriage equality debates, as well as a myriad of other issues surrounding the intimate relationships of adults. Those seeking to create laws to prohibit their neighbors from engaging in the supposed “immoral” behaviors regularly assert that there is a majority of citizens in agreement with them, so therefore it is only right and just that a law should be created. However, that claimed majority pales when one considers McIver’s statement.

“To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters.” A majority of individuals that happen to end up on a list of willing participants in a survey, that is theoretically representative of the population as a whole could never be considered proof “most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains.” There is a group of countries that are attempting to legislate moral codes today – their “code” is called Sharia Law.

Drawing religious beliefs and codes into the political arena is dancing on the sword’s edge. On one side is the oppression of all citizens that do not share the belief systems of the majority, and on the other is the potential to destroy the value of the religious beliefs that the laws are being created to protect and promote. “To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality.” The value of morality and faith lies in the fact that it is a choice, not a legal obligation.

Robert Wright explores these ideas, and many others in his expansive work, The Evolution of God. Readers are provided with a multi-disciplinary text that reaps from anthropological, historical, and theological sources to create an all-encompassing study of the human race’s predisposition toward religion and deities.

The Evolution of God places religion in general – with a great deal of focus on the Abrahamic faiths – in context with their times. This may not be well received by individuals that follow a fundamentalist path in their faith. Pulling religious texts out of context is an unfortunate commonality in many faiths, so reading anything that places scriptures in their historical context may be difficult for some to handle.

Wright offers the opportunity to place faith and religions in general in a logical context based on recorded history. He also presents an interesting theory on the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There was a time when all three coexisted, and probably interacted fairly well.

Robert Wright has offered an extremely valuable resource to anyone who has real desire to find out about the historical and anthropological roots of religious faith. The Evolution of God should be on the suggested reading list of every high school in America, and should be required reading in every college and university. It provides the context for religion that is rarely offered in any place of worship – something that is sorely needed, particularly today.