Friday, May 26, 2006

Praise Jesus! At least one of His followers “gets it.”

Over in the Restore the Pledge Forums, discussing a recent case in Kentucky in which a Judge blocked a school-sanctioned prayer at a high school graduation ceremony and the Christian students’ response, rnrstar linked to a Letter of the Week at World Net Daily that gave me hope that there are at least SOME Christians who have taken the time to “walk in others’ shoes.”

Gary Christenot is an evangelical Christian who, while working with a youth group during service in the Air Force in Hawaii, attended a high school football game in a predominantly Buddhist area and came face to face with being a member of a minority religion in a public religious ceremony involving invocations and practices that were anathema to him.

The point is this. I am a professional, educated and responsible man who is strong in his faith and is quite comfortable debating the social and political issues of the day. Yet when placed in a setting where the majority culture proved hostile to my faith and beliefs, I became paralyzed with indecision and could not act decisively to defend and proclaim my own beliefs. I felt instantly ostracized and viewed myself as a foreigner in my own land.

We often advocate the practice of Judeo-Christian rituals in America’s public schools by hiding behind the excuse that they are voluntary and any student who doesn’t wish to participate can simply remained seated and silent. Oh that this were true. But if I, as a mature adult, would be so confounded and uncomfortable when faced with the decision of observing and standing on my own religious principals or run the risk of offending the majority crowd, I can only imagine what thoughts and confusion must run through the head of the typical child or teenager, for whom peer acceptance is one of the highest ideals.

I would say in love to my Christian brothers and sisters, before you yearn for the imposition of prayer and similar rituals in your public schools, you might consider attending a football game at Wahiawa High School. Because unless you’re ready to endure the unwilling exposure of yourself and your children to those beliefs and practices that your own faith forswears, you have no right to insist that others sit in silence and complicity while you do the same to them. I, for one, slept better at night knowing that because Judeo-Christian prayers were not being offered at my children’s schools, I didn’t have to worry about them being confronted with Buddhist, Shinto, Wiccan, Satanic or any other prayer ritual I might find offensive.

The student in the Kentucky case, it turns out, was a Muslim. 

It has been tradition at Russell County High School in Kentucky for graduating seniors to elect a “graduation chaplain” who delivers a Christian prayer at the graduation ceremony. This year, a Muslim student filed a lawsuit and a judge issued an injunction to prevent it. As the principal began his opening remarks, 200 students stood and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Most of the rest of the audience gave a standing ovation.

When the Muslim student went up to receive his diploma, he was booed.

Ah, feel the Christian Love^™…

I agree with Gary Christenot.  Every Christian in America should be required to attend at least one government-sponsored event in which a non-Christian religious ritual is performed as part of the official ceremony.  Or perhaps have the Eleven Satanic Principles posted in their child’s school, or have their taxpayer dollars spent erecting a monument displaying them at their county courthouse.  Sadly, I think that’s exactly what it would take to get these thick-headed, self-righteous sons of bitches to understand that the only way to guarantee equality for ALL is for the government to stick to the absolute neutrality in matters of religion that the First Amendment requires.

Constitutional matters aside, the response of the Christians at the graduation ceremony was shameful, rude and just plain mean.  Once again we’re treated to a demonstration of the all-too-common attitude of superiority and self-righteousness of the Christian majority.  They’ll rise up to shout out a prayer (or the unconstitutional Pledge, as those congressional fucksticks did a few years ago) in defiance of a judicial ruling, all the while complaining that said ruling is evidence of their “persecution” in America!

People give me shit all the time for calling Christians delusional… but if their acceptance of fable as fact isn’t enough evidence to support that notion, their claim of persecution in the United States clearly qualifies!!!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Udargo sums it up

Found in the comments on one of PZ Myers’ posts on Pharyngula, concerning Rabbi Avi Shafran’s assertion that atheists can’t be moral:

There’s something disturbing about these people who can’t comprehend how humans can be moral without fear of the “glaring cosmic policeman.”

And this perhaps shows us the true value of religion: There are a lot of people who need a belief in the glaring cosmic policeman to keep them in line. If Rabbi Shafran wasn’t a rabbi, he’d probably be a pretty scary dude. He’d be raping, pillaging and murdering, apparently.

And maybe some people will never be able to develop a more sophisticated moral awareness, based on empathy and respect for the truth (which I believe are the twin pillars of a healthy, adult morality). Maybe that’s why we do need religion. Maybe it does us more good than we realize.

I think this is actually what many of the Founding Fathers believed about the Christian religion. It was something necessary to keep those less philosophically sophisticated in line. Maybe they were right.

Posted by: udargo May 21, 2006 03:59 PM

Respect for the truth, and empathy… that’s what “morality” boils down to for me.  The only way to educate is to tell the truth, and the foundation of nearly every religion on earth is “treat others as you’d like to be treated.”

Not only does religion, and in particular Judeo-Christianity, require one to ignore certain truths, but by painting humans as inherently sinful beings’ whose only salvation lies in denying their natural biological instincts except under strict rules (say… sex exclusively within marriage), it fosters guilt and shame that leads to secrets and lies. In turn those “sins” or vices end up breeding entire subcultures where there are bound to be extremists. Not to mention entire families whose “history” is peppered with lies because someone was afraid of what the ladies at church would say about Grandpa’s “breakdown” or Aunt Sally’s unwed pregnancy.

The truth may not be pretty, or welcomed… in fact, it may be downright offensive or painful to hear.  But it’s infinitely more useful to have accurate information by which to live your life, and in the end spares you the unnecessary pain of having been deceived.  It’s not always the easiest or most comfortable course of action to tell the truth, either, and as cliche as it may be, honesty IS always the best policy.

Except of course, when listing one’s weight on her driver’s license