Constitutionally Clueless Legislators
"Apparently, some legislators are upset enough by courts actually, you know, enforcing the First Amendment that they've decided to resurrect a Ten Commandments Defense Act," intended to smooth the way for religious displays on government property, writes Julian Sanchez in Reason's blog.
If religion is so great, how come all these congressmen think they need to get government to publicize it, with glaringly unconstitutional bills like this? Sanchez notes a truly pressing need, on the part of these legislators, to go back for a little remedial government -- as in, a little Schoolhouse Rock -- so they can learn that about that "separation of church and state" thingie. Scary. Obviously, "the best and the brightest" are doing something other than running our country.
Belittling religion is good clean fun. And the enthusiam Hitchens brings to the sport after all these years has recently convinced me that I've been slacking, and it's important to keep up the heat on those fuckers.
But still...
BILLIONS across the globe practice faith. It occurs in all sorts of cultures. It's brought tremendous comfort to lives of unimaginable suffering and deficiency. And this is important: It's perhaps the only institution left that INSISTS people be good. That those people fail shouldn't sour you on the institution.
Religious belief is one of those deeply human forces, like exaggerated sexual enthusiam in teenage boys, or a reckless jones for child-bearing in fertile women, that you might think society would be better off without. But there it is.
Crid at September 5, 2003 7:12 PM
BILLIONS across the globe smoke cigarettes.
Using examples like "sexual enthusiasm" in boys and "jones for child-bearing" in women suggests you believe an evolutionary advantage lies in the desire to practice religion. But religions are invariably vicious suites of memes that serve to assuage fear -- mostly fear of death. So there's no biological advantage in practicing religion itself, just a biological advantage in being able to fear (getting eaten alive/blown to bits DELETE ONE ONLY).
Sicilicide at September 5, 2003 8:40 PM
Um, I'm a fertile woman and I don't have "jones for childbearing". In fact, I don't want to have children. Not now, not ever. I have a niece and nephew I adore. But I don't want kids of my own. And, you know what's really weird? I'm not alone! There's plenty of other people who feel the same way! Wow! Maybe it's NOT a deeply human impulse. Hey, wait... not everyone believes in a deity either! Maybe you're wrong about that too? Or are you saying that the agnostic childfree woman is no longer human?
On a different subject, nobody was insulting religious people. We were making fun of stupid people who think nobody will believe anything unless their faith is shoved into everyone else's face. I guess they don't think religion (or at least Christianity) is a deeply human impulse either if they think we can't be religious of our own accord.
Ulyyf at September 5, 2003 10:05 PM
I'm with you on the kids thing, Ulyyf. (That's a lot of vowels. Are you Swedish?) I find children "loud, smelly, and expensive." I like other people's children on a selective basis -- if they're interesting, intelligent, and behave like they weren't born in a barn.
(Amy Alkon) at September 5, 2003 10:44 PM
I think you're wrong, but thanks for not making fun of me for mispelling enthusiasm twice in a single freakin' comment.
Crid at September 5, 2003 10:46 PM
Hey Crid -- and thanks for misspelling "misspelling" (it's got 2 s's, baby).
Lena Cuisina at September 5, 2003 10:57 PM
Brute.
Crid at September 5, 2003 11:50 PM
Hi! I wanted to reply to Crid's statement that religion is "perhaps the only institution left that INSISTS people be good." There are also secular humanist and Unitarian Universalist groups. (UU is usually considered a religion, but it is based solely on moral values. Atheism is perfectly acceptable in UU circles. Therefore, it is a "religion" only in the broadest possible sense of the word.)
If Christianity were to dissapear tomorrow, I think the only long term change would be that the crosses in churches would be taken down and replaced with UU chalices and Happy Humanists. And sermons would be replaced with rational lectures and group discussions.
I also disagree with Sicilicide's assessment that religions "serve to assuage fear -- mostly fear of death." I'm sure that's part of it of course, but I think the most important function of religion for the individual is to provide a system for making sense of one's life experiences - sort of like an operating system for the brain.
Making sense out of life for an Atheist requires an understanding of science and philosophy, so it takes more work. Religion reduces things to stories - everything comes down to the actions of characters. Atheism is confusing, but any child can get the general idea of Christianity. As a result, religion is more marketable.
Where death is concerned, I think atheism does at least as much to alleviate fear. The teachings of Epicurus are particularly good to meditate on. "When we are, death is not. When death is, we are not." Nonexistence is a state that can never be experienced, so why should it be feared? All that matters is how we live our lives.
All the Best,
Charles
GodlessRose at September 6, 2003 10:48 AM
For what it's worth, there are some points to living in a religious society. People in the American South really ARE more friendly and helpful to strangers than people in other parts of the country, and their kids are polite and respectful (addressing adults, including their parents, as "Sir" and "Ma'am"). I am not religious and I don't favor religious displays in public buildings, but having lived in different parts of the South I have noticed that the religiosity of the population has some upsides. Obviously, as the South comes to look more and more like the rest of the country, I assume people there will acquire the same lousy manners and lack of consideration for their fellows that characterizes life elsewhere in our republic.
Incidentally, no Southerner ever treated me like an infidel for not going to church. I think it probably never crossed their mind that I actually am hostile to religion (which, corny as it sounds, I really do think is inherently inimical to reason)--that just wasn't part of their frame of reference. In one little town in MS where I lived, there was in fact a synagogue (in a town of maybe 1,000 people).
Jeff at September 6, 2003 12:10 PM
If only more people thought like you, Charles (aka GodlessRose). And Jeff, you can't just leap to attribute manners to religion -- it's a stretch -- faulty logic. I know very polite southern atheists, FYI, so there's a big chasm in your argument right there. I also recently encountered a snide, ungracious southerner who I'd was at least raised to believe in god, whether or not she actually does at the moment. Also, for all that talk of southern manners, I'd be willing to bet all those southern racists who lynched black people spoke very nicely to their mommas before they went out and and murdered people who were guilty only of having more melanin in their skin.
(Amy Alkon) at September 6, 2003 2:00 PM
Well, yes, I imagine that some of my neighbors were in the Klan at one time. In fact, I know they were because they told me they were. However, they realized that was all in the past now: America has changed, and they, although they don't like it, must change too.
I suppose the point I was trying to make is that modern society has destroyed the old forms of courtesy, but it hasn't replaced them. It has simply left a void in manners. This is a topic I used to want to write an article about: how the great revolutions of the modern era (France, Russia) attempted to find new forms of courtesy to replace those of the ancien regime.
Jeff at September 6, 2003 3:01 PM
Charles --
Do we really know if religion is less confusing to children than atheism is? "God" is a pretty hefty abstraction, and children do much better when things are straightforward and concrete (which is why we use blocks or apples or whatever when we're teaching them to count). When my nephew was quite young, he readily came to the conclusion that it's silly to believe in ghosts. If he weren't in a religious household, I'm sure he'd do with same with the idea of God.
Is there any work in developmental psychology on this question? Sounds like a great study.
Lena
PS to Amy and Jeff: One of most gracious, intellegent, and kind people I've ever met (and dated) was a guy raised in an atheist household in North Carolina. He was not raised to "believe in atheism." His parents simply spared him any prolonged exposure to ideas about the supernatural. If only I'd been so fortunate.
Lena Cuisina at September 6, 2003 3:34 PM
I guess those allegedly post-racist types (excuse me while I keel over laughing) asked very politely, "Homer, would y'all please hand me my white sheet and hood?" And becoming a...heh, heh...recovering racist because it's out of fashion...please forgive me for not exactly being impressed by their new-found racial tolerance.
And Lena is right. I think the incomprehensibility of god is why there's a tendency to anthropomorphize for children, leading them to picture god as something along the lines of Charlton Heston in a wing chair in the clouds, holding The Ten Commandments.
Amy Alkon at September 6, 2003 6:42 PM
Originally, I think I was impressed by the initial point that the first poster made, that religious belief does serve some valuable social purposes. Then I wanted to make the point that, yes, religion is dying, but that's not an unmixed blessing.
Amy, yes, I kind of thought you might find it funny, the idea of people ceasing to be racist. I don't know that they've ceased to be racist, but they're polite to their black neighbors now, don't kill them, etc. Let me put it like this. In the town in MS where I lived, the guys I worked for were lawyers who had been practicing a long time. At least one of them was in the KKK in the 60s, and this had cost him a federal judgeship. But times had changed, and he saw that. When I worked for him, we had many cases with black attorneys, and a lot of them remembered the old days too (one of them once pointed out to my boss that his (my boss') father had been the head of the local White Citizen's Council in the Jim Crow era), but they also knew that times had changed. It's social progress, of sorts (not too much integration in the neighborhoods, though).
Jeff at September 6, 2003 8:45 PM
Amy, people really can improve over time. In liberal directions, even! See Welch this week, he's talking about how profoundly things are different for gays than just short years earlier. Anyway, the point of righteousness is not to hold a grudge.
How come liberal mockery of conservative thinking always involves pop figures from the fifties (Chuck Heston, Robert Young, etc)?
Am I wrong, or were the Christian churches of the south, and their courage, PIVOTALLY important to the civil rights improvements of those years?
Crid at September 7, 2003 1:12 AM
Actually, you're wrong -- it was, disproportionately, Jews, working hand in hand with blacks (Mississippi Burning is a movie about this), in the civil rights movement.
(Amy Alkon) at September 7, 2003 1:38 AM
PS Just because I don't want to see our country governed according to "What Would The Jesus Freaks Do?" doesn't mean I'm a liberal. And Charlton Heston holding the ten commandments -- I would venture that's pretty close to the picture of god most people have; hence, why I used it. Touchy, touchy.
(Amy Alkon) at September 7, 2003 2:16 AM
Note to Crid and Amy: Churches in the south were important in the civil rights struggle, but not the predominantly white ones. The white church has remained a stalwart of de facto segregation. For example, there's been a huge growth in white "christian academies" in the south since the public schools were desegregated.
Lena Cuisina at September 7, 2003 8:02 AM
Actually, I was only thinking of white churches in the context of Crid's comment, but you're quite right Lena...and I actually covered the 20-year anniversary of the SCLC's (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) March On Washington when I was an intern at UPI in D.C., where Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young, and others spoke to thousands. (PS That's United Press International, NOT United Parcel Service!)
(Amy Alkon) at September 7, 2003 8:34 AM
Thanks for the compliment, Amy.
Lena, I should have said "a person of limited education" or somesuch, rather than "any child". I wasn't thinking of the developmental psychology angle. And I'm not a psychologist, so I can't shed light on the matter regardless. Sorry if I seemed smarter than I am. :)
That would be interesting to read about, though. I understand that evangelicals don't normally become born again before their teen years, around the time they get interested in sex, alcohol, etc. (And judging from what I've observed here in Kentucky, being born again does little to curb enthusiasm for either.)
Regarding manners, the atheists I've known here have generally been very well-mannered people, and the manners of many of the fundamentalists I know are less than impressive. Of course, the atheists are better educated on average. Most of the atheists I've met are students or faculty at the local university. I think I've yet to meet a high school drop-out who is an atheist.
Now that I think of it, I can't recall the last time I heard a minor say "sir" or "ma'am". Maybe the southern manners didn't quite make it to Kentucky.
All the Best,
Charles
GodlessRose at September 7, 2003 10:11 AM
That particular feature film was rightfully critiqued upon release for its bogu-tude. A fond memory sees Hackman sputtering fecklessly on tv's Nightline when the central conceit of the picture --white (gummint!) people flew down the to make good things happen for the helpless Negro-- was savaged by genuine civil rights workers. It's only the movies. These images (Hackman, Heston) were produced FOR PROFIT... So they're wonderfully accessible, but not reliable peeks into the human psyche. And they're shitty history.
Are we allowing that at least blacks can pray to a Christian god, and maybe post a commandment here and there, without fear of ridicule?
Love the blog: this is not a troll. Though I am kinda short.
crid at September 7, 2003 11:35 AM
I would hope that everybody -- black, white, whatever --comes to the conclusion that it's irrational to believe in anything without a shred of proof that it exists.
(Amy Alkon) at September 7, 2003 11:39 AM
Sometimes people interpret the fact that a belief is widely held as evidence that it's true.
Lena Cuisina at September 7, 2003 12:07 PM
If only that worked on people who wear Birkenstocks.
Amy Alkon at September 7, 2003 1:47 PM
To set the record straight: GOD HATES BIRKENSTOCKS. I have a Callahan cartoon on my refrigerator door that documents this fact. Moses is standing before the Burning, um, Bush (sshhh, Amy) in full North Berkeley/Old Testament garb, and the Bush, which is indeed FLAMING (thank you very much), says "Tell me those aren't Birkenstocks."
Lena Cuisina at September 7, 2003 2:54 PM
is He cool with Earth Shoes?
crid at September 8, 2003 7:28 PM
Crid -- He is cool with Earth Shoes! And the Whole Earth Catalog! And Eartha Kitt!
Lena Cuisina at September 8, 2003 11:10 PM
To anyone who was looking for the link to the comments spam placed here by William Cooper (linked to Raj's blog), I erased it, and sent him the following words in an e-mail:
Look, you turd, don't spam my blog again, or I'll sue your irrational religious ass. I've already complained to the publisher -- and erased the off-topic crap you put on my blog -- and IP-banned you so you can't come back. Fuck off, you piece of squashed shit. There is no god, and you're an idiot.
Here's William Cooper's e-mail address, in case you'd like to tell him what you think of blog-spammers...and I hope you will.
coopr2000@yahoo.com
Amy Alkon at December 26, 2003 1:52 AM