Why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than atheist, activist

Last weekend, the Danish Atheist Society (Ateistisk Selskab) and Atheist Alliance International hosted an atheist conference, Gods & Politics, in Copenhagen.

I went there, together with a bunch of pharyngulites (people who comment at the Pharyngula blog), and had an informative and all-round great time.

Still, the conference reminded me of why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than an atheist. Or rather, why I focus on skepticism rather than atheism these days.

The reason for this is that being an atheist is not evidence of rationality.

During the conference I ran into both global warming deniers and 9/11-truthers, and even got accused of being dogmatic by the later, when I said that his claims were moronic.

Well, if maintaining a rational view on things is dogmatic, then I'd be happy to be so.

Skepticism on the other hand, requires rationality - otherwise it's denialism (denial of things, in spite of evidence).

As an atheistic skeptic, I will fight many of the same battles as atheist activists, since these battles are also skeptic battles, and I think that skeptics and atheists could and should work together to make the world move towards a more rational place. I just also think that many atheists can be harmful to the skeptical movement (Bill Maher is a good example of this), and I equally consider them a hindrance for a rational world.

In other words, if you're an atheist, I will work together with you, but I don't necessarily think that we're allies, just because we both don't believe in gods.

The stupidity ... it burns! D'Souza edition

I haven't been posting in a while, so I thought that I would look a little around on the internet, and see if I could find something to write about. I came across a few things, but nothing that really made me think "that'll work". Until I came to an article titled What Really Riles Muslim Extremists?
by Dinesh D'Souza. Jackpot.

Let the fisking begin.

More insurgent bombings in Iraq. More Taliban strikes in Afghanistan. What's up with these people? Just Wednesday, a deadly car bomb exploded in Peshawar, Pakistan, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad. Is Islam the problem?

No. Islam is not the problem. There are many peaceful adherents of Islam. Fanaticism on the other hand, is the problem.

Many atheists, and even some believers, would like us to believe that Muslim fanatics are doing this in the hope of going straight to heaven, so that they can enjoy the company of 72 virgins there. Some go as far as saying that religion itself is to blame, because it makes people susceptible to fanaticism, terrorism and violence.

Actually, it would be more correct to say, "Many people believe that Muslim fanatics..." Many other people understand that there are multiple reasons behind these terrorist attacks. Having said that, religion is to a large degree responsible for the particular mode of attack.

An example of this is described here. As the article explains, Iraqi women were raped, and afterward pressured to become suicide bombers to remove their shame. This is only possible where religious and cultural norms creates an atmosphere where it is better to be dead than live "in shame".

But this accusation against religion is nonsense. Even against Islam, it's questionable. Robert Pape's study of insurgency and suicide bombing shows that these actions have nothing to do with promises of heavenly reward. Rather, extremists are motivated by more mundane motives: they invaded our country, they stole our land, they raped my sister, and so on.

Again, I refer back to the article I linked above, which shows that the motivation can be religious in nature, even if there is no expectation of heavily rewards.

Whether or not this is true, Islamist terrorism is a special case. The original suicide bombers, the Japanese kamikazes, were not motivated by religion but rather by fanatical loyalty to the emperor.

D'Souza demonstrates his appalling lack of cultural awareness and lack of historical knowledge. The Japanese soldiers were fanatically loyal to the emperor exactly because of religion!

The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka conduct suicide attacks in a desperate struggle over land and self-determination.

Yes, it's true that Tamil Tigers conduct suicide attacks, but not in the numbers that Islamic terrorists do. I would also claim that there is a vast difference between the oppression that the Tamil face in Sri Lanka, and the conditions in Pakistan.

If religion is the problem, where are the Buddhist suicide bombers?

Buddhists tend to be non-violent, but again, D'Souza shows his ignorance. The very example he mentioned himself, the Japanese pilots, where often Zen Buddhists.

Nor has anyone been able to identify the Christian bin Laden, the Christian equivalent of al-Qaida or Hezbollah, or the Christian country today run along the lines of post-Khomeini Iran.

Do I need to explain North Ireland, the IRA etc.? How about Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda?

Regarding a Christian country run along the lines of post-Khomeini Iran, try to look at what some of the far-right groups in the US are trying to introduce.

Most people in the world believe in God and the afterlife, yet hardly any of them launch suicide attacks in the hope of going straight to heaven.

A religious belief is not sufficient for launching suicide attacks. That requires fanaticism and perceived oppression. I say "perceived", since many of the right-winged terrorist attacks seen in the US since Obama was elected, were made by people who perceived themselves as oppressed, without any evidence of them being so.

The atheist attack on religion fails.

Even if every example that D'Souza had given had been non-religious, it would not make the "attack on religion" fail. It could perhaps be overly broad, but even if suicide attacks were unique for one particular subset of religion (which I have already explained isn't the case), doesn't mean that religion wasn't the cause.

But even more significant, it boomerangs on the atheists. To see why, you have to understand the larger atheist critique. For two centuries, atheists have said that belief in the next world detracts from the pressing task of improving this one. The afterlife, in other words, is anti-life. We see this in the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens' book, How Religion Poisons Everything. But the most famous atheist to make this accusation was Karl Marx.

Even if everything D'Souza had written so far was correct - and it isn't - this wouldn't follow logically.

Interestingly enough, suicide attacks could be considered a way of trying to move the world towards a particular path, and thus improve it (in the eyes of the suicide attacker).

Marx famously said religion is the "opiate of the people." He meant that religion is a kind of drug that numbs us from being aware of social injustice.

No, that wasn't what he meant. What he meant was that religion was a force in getting people to accept social injustice. That's not quite the same.

Marx's call to eradicate religion was taken up with a vengeance by a host of dictators: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ceausescu, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-il. These despots have collectively killed millions more than even bin Laden could ever dream of orchestrating.

Kim Jong-il created a different religion, with him as a deity.

For the rest of them, it's important that their defining characteristic was not that they were atheists, but that they were totalitarians, and thus wouldn't allow any potential groups to become too powerful. Stalin is a good example of this complexity - at times he heavily prosecuted the Orthodox Church, and others he allowed it to grow and become influential. It was dependent on what suited him at the time.

Had these despots been so avidly atheist as D'Souza believes, and had atheists really believed that religion completely removes religious peoples' focus on the current, then why wouldn't they let the religions continue? It would make things easier for them. The answer is, of course, that the despots understood that religion can distract, but it can also be used to get people to do things - such as suicide attacks - which means that they either needs to control it, or get rid of it.

Beliefs in God and life after death have proven far less dangerous to society than the attempts to establish the God-free utopia.

Please give just one example of any society where they have tried to create a God-free utopia.

Most of the time, the focus were on getting rid of the earlier despots - the Russian Revolution and the Long March happened for a reason. It wasn't like the earlier regimes were exactly likable. Much like how the Iran Revolution also happened for a good reason, likewise the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

After that, the focus were on staying in power, often through ruthless suppression of anyone who might be a threat, including religious groups.

Fine, let's listen to the atheists who say we need to watch out for heaven-seeking Muslims bent on blowing up civilians and flying planes into buildings.
But let's be just as vigilant against atheist fanatics who are willing to murder millions in order to establish their version of heaven on Earth

Only one of these groups is real - the religious fanatics. The other groups is a strawman, since there are no one willing to kill millions for atheism. There are people who wants totalitarian power, and those we should indeed look out for, be they religious or otherwise.

The stupidity ... it burns!

Yes, I know that I have used that post title before, but it's still true.

So, what stupidity am I talking about this time? I'm talking about a blogpost over at Darwin's God called The (Real) Problem With Atheism

You can see from the title alone that this is going to be a goldmine of stupidity, can't you? Well, let's dig in, and do some fisking.

Did you know the new atheism is on the wane? Did you even know there was such a thing as the new atheism?

Yes, I am aware that there is a group of people commonly being referred to as "new atheists", and that they have spearheaded a push to get atheism into the open, letting atheists know that they are not alone, and that it's perfectly alright to be an atheist.
I didn't know it was on the wane however - I seem to see quite a few references to the new atheists in the media, and there were (and still is) a lot of coverage of the atheist bus campaigns around the world. Perhaps you could provide us with some evidence for this claim?

In recent years there has been a surge of activity from atheists. Organizations, web sites, conferences and books advocating the materialistic world view have entered the spiritual marketplace. Fueled by strong convictions, these thinkers have made little attempt to make their hard-edged attitudes palatable to the unsuspecting public. Instead, they have force-fed their ideas onto searchers, insisting that atheism is mandated by science and logic. When you strip away religious sentiment and just look at the data, they declared, atheism is required.

Yes, authors publishing books about atheism, and why they don't believe in a god, can only be considered force-feeding ideas to other people. Unlike the many books by religious people about their religions and why they are religious, which are of course just informative.

How dare atheists publish slogans like "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" on billboards, without attempting to make it palatable to the "unsuspecting public"?

No, seriously, the author of the blogpost obviously haven't read the works by the new atheists, which are generally quite respectful towards other people (if not their beliefs). Reading these books would also have made the writer aware that none of those books, articles etc. claims that atheism is required based on the scientific evidence, but instead that the scientific evidence doesn't support any religious claims, and thus makes atheism a viable option. This is very different from what he claims that the atheists says.

Initially the new atheism attracted quite a bit of attention but now, as Bryon McCane pointed out this week, it is fading fast.

The evidence McCane provides for this claim is the fact that there are no books by new atheists on the bestselling charts. No great surprise, given the fact that none of the big names in that movement (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett) have published anything recently.

I take some solace in its demise not because I dislike atheists but because the new atheism sowed needless confusion. Atheism is, and always has been, irrelevant in the origins debate. But the rise of the new atheism made atheism appear more important than it really is.

I have read through this part several times, and no matter how many times I've read it, it makes no sense.

There can be two sorts of debates about origins: a science-based one, and one based on religious views. In the first case, I agree that atheism is not important, since religion plays no role, and thus is kept out of it. In the second case, atheism plays a very important role, even if you're religious - it's what keep dragging the debate back to reality. If religion, no matter how moderate, gets to dominate that debate, science won't be allowed to do its job without interference - that's why even religious people should appreciate the atheistic view in that context.

Unless of course they are not willing to conform their religious views to reality, in which case, an atheistic counterpoint becomes even more important.

For many, atheism is the driving force behind evolutionary thought. Isn't the origins debate between religious people and those who reject god? Did not Princeton's Charles Hodge early on identify Darwinism as atheism in disguise? Is not the rise of twentieth century atheism evidence for this? After all, it was the leading atheist Richard Dawkins who admitted that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

It's only among the fundamentalist religious groups that science, such as the Theory of Evolution, is equaled to atheism. In the rest of the world, e.g. among Catholics, it's accepted that one can be religious and understand science as well. If science and religion conflicts, religion adjusts (as both the former Pope and the Dalai Lama has acknowledged).

What Dawkins meant by his comment about "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" (which wasn't an admission but an explanation) was that until Darwin explained evolution, atheists might well realize that there were no gods, but they couldn't explain how humans came to exist. After Darwin's book, atheists could now understand how this might happen, even though there were no gods around.

It would be a mistake to think, however, that this meant that Dawkins (and others) didn't think that people couldn't be atheists before Darwin wrote his book - back then, there were still the same problems with the lack of evidence for any gods, and the problems with a multitude of religions. They just didn't have an alternative explanation (something which entirely valid - one can discard a hypothesis without having another in its place).

The rise of the new atheism seemed to confirm such views. Evolution, it seems, is all about atheism.

If you think that, you obviously haven't been following the subject very closely. Dawkins, and to some degree Dennett, did involve evolution in their arguments, but Hitchens and Harris didn't, and even Dawkins focuses much more on the lack of evidence for the existence of a god, than on evolution.

Maybe it would be better to actually read some of the authors that you criticize?

Before we close this case, however, let's take one more look. First, there are no arguments for evolution made from atheism. If you study the evolution genre, and especially that part that argues for the veracity of the theory, you will have great difficulty finding atheistic premises. In fact, I have not found any.

If you haven't found an atheistic premise for evolution, then you haven't understood anything about science. All science operate under the fundamental premise that there is nothing super-natural involved, including gods. Since the Theory of Evolution is science, the fundamental premise behind it, is that no gods have been involved - do you know what "atheist" means?

In other words, the whole damn premise of our understanding of evolution, is based on atheism.

This doesn't make science anti-religious as such, but only allows science to operate in the known, observable world, instead of the unobservable realms of the super-natural.

The strong arguments for evolution are, and always have been, from theism. God would not create this gritty world so it must have evolved. There is no meaningful distinction between theist and atheist when it comes to belief in evolution--they both rely on the same theological premises. An evolutionary theist, such as Francis Collins, and an evolutionary atheist, such as PZ Myers, use arguments that rely on the same theological assumptions.

I am sorry, but you, sir, are a moron. The strong arguments for evolution has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with observable facts - the very sort of facts that lead Darwin to understand the fundamentals of evolution in the first place. Facts such as bio-diversity and the fossil record, mutating diseases, genes etc.

For you to think that the arguments for evolution are from theism shows such a confounding stupidity, that it's a wonder that you're even able to type those words.

Oh, and I've been reading PZ Myers' blog for years, long before it moved to ScienceBlogs - could you point me to any place where he bases his arguments on any theological premises? And no, the base premise of science (which I explained above) is not a theological premise.

This is the dirty little trade secret of atheism: it is parasitical on theism. Atheism, itself, has nothing to add to the origins debate. As McCane notes, "the new atheists’ biggest mistake, by far, was to be openly intolerant of religion. They mocked, derided and made fun of it."

Atheism is the lack of religion. Nothing more, nothing less. "New atheism", or vocal atheism as I prefer to call it, is a push against the religious fanatics, which tries to impose their religious views on other people, including through removing the teaching of evolution from science classes. Pushing against such people, explaining why their arguments are not only wrong, but ridiculously wrong, is not parasitical to those arguments.

And in a science context, theism has nothing to add to the origins debate, and every time someone tries to argue from a theistic view-point, they just end up getting their arguments disproved. This is why the smarter religious sects, such as the Catholic Church, avoid doing so.

Indeed, atheism is motivated by skepticism of theism. It is not a positive argument for atheism, but a negative argument against theism. But an argument against theism usually entails theological convictions. Talk to any atheist and you're liable to hear strong convictions about what god should and should not do.

If you talk with an atheist in a strongly religious country, this is obviously the case (you are a product of your environment after all), but talk to an atheist from a secular country, and they will have a very relaxed attitude to religion (sorry, you probably didn't realize that there might be atheists outside the US).

One thing is true though, there is not really any positive arguments for atheism. There can't be - again, atheism is just the lack of belief in a god. Most people become atheists by following the evidence for gods to where it leads - nowhere. Being an atheist is a default option, where no other option makes sense to you.

As the atheist Myers wrote in the LA Times recently:

We go right to the central issue of whether there is a god or not. We're pretty certain that if there were an all-powerful being pulling the strings and shaping history for the benefit of human beings, the universe would look rather different than it does.

How do they have any idea what god would and would not do? Because they hold certain beliefs about god. Their atheism relies on their theism. Unbelievable. The folks who bring you the new, cutting edge, atheism rely on, yes, their own ridiculous pious pleadings. How pathetic.

Like many other atheists, PZ Myers didn't start out being an atheist, so he actually knows a fair bit about the beliefs of others. In this case, his argument is based on the concept of god as most people hold it, which is as a beneficiary deity.

I am leaving out a part where the author goes into atheism in the past, making no point whatsoever, and start where he returns to the now.

The story is no different today. Scientifically the theory is a muddle, but metaphysically it is mandated. Its truth is derived from the rejection of design / creation. Today, as in centuries past, the arguments come from the theists and are borrowed by the atheists.

If the past paragraphs had left me in any doubt about the lack of knowledge of the author on the subjects of atheism and evolution, this paragraph would have left me no doubt. The Theory of Evolution is one of the most well-tested, well-founded theories of science, and for someone to claim that it "is a muddle", just serves to demonstrate that he is a moron. Something we were not really in doubt about, but which has now, once again been demonstrated.

Again, evolution is clearly demonstrated as have happened in the past as well as happening now. There are no theistic arguments involved, and while design/creation is rejected, it's not only necessary to do that, because theists (such as the Discovery Institute) try to inject those concepts into the sphere of science.

Evolution is not about science, it is about god, and atheism is irrelevant. It makes no difference whether the theological arguments come from a theist such as Francis Collins or an atheist such as PZ Myers, the science is asinine either way.

What can one say in the presence of such grand stupidity - is it even possible to gleam a coherent idea from the above paragraph?

Evolution is a natural phenomenon, happening as I write this. In science, the Theory of Evolution explains the mechanisms for evolution. Science is based entirely on an atheistic premise.
Of the things that he mentions, science, god, and atheism, the only thing that is irrelevant for evolution, is god. The very thing he claims it's about.

And what was it that Dawkins said? "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Note the causal relationship. It was evolution that enabled atheism, not the other way around. The real problem with atheism is not that it is the driving force behind evolution; rather, the real problem is that it masks the driving force behind evolution. It is theism, not atheism, that is the driving force behind evolution.

I think I have already addressed this.

Reading through this garbage, I notice that not once does the author try to provide any evidence for his claims about theism (or god) being the driving force behind evolution. Not surprising, I guess, since there is no evidence for this.

The stupidity ... it burns!

It's been a long time since I last fisked anything on this blog, but today, I came across something which just begged to be fisked.

It's posted in something called the Christian Post so you just know it gotta be bad.

Is atheism ever morally justified?
By Randal Rauser

The title starts out burning brightly with stupidity. Atheist is simply the lack of belief in a deity, so talking about it being "morally justified" is just nonsense. You could ask if it's justified by the evidence (I think so), or if it's possible for an atheist to be moral (an old discussion, to which the answer is "of course it is"), but the whole idea of justifying lack of belief morally is just plain stupid.

"Tell me about the god you don't believe in because I probably don't believe in him either,"

There is a lot of truth in this old quip. Whenever someone identifies him or herself as an atheist we should always take the time to ask for a definition of the god this person does not believe in. It may just be that we don't believe in this god either.

Someone obviously fail to understand the whole concept of being an atheist. It's not one specific god that atheists don't believe in - it's all gods. No matter what personality your god has, the atheist doesn't see any evidence for his or her existence, and thus doesn't believe in him or her.

I think here of a well known academic who avowed disbelief in the Christian God because he was told -- with a notable absence of pastoral sensitivity -- that a childhood Jewish friend who died in a car accident was burning in hell. As a result this academic came to believe that the Christian God is arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. So when he says that he disbelieves in God, he is saying he disbelieves in a god who is arbitrary, capricious and unjust. But I don't believe in such a god either.

I understand that it might be hard to understand for a person like Rauser, but people usually becomes atheists gradually (unless of course they've always been one). What did incident did, was to lead the future academic in question down the path towards atheism. What happened, was that he started evaluating his belief in the god he was raised believing in, and found out that he didn't believe in him. That process lead on to him realizing that he didn't belief in any god.

Rauser doesn't believe that his god is arbitrary, capricious and unjust (something which he clearly is, if one is to trust his holy book), but this hasn't lead him to question the whole concept of a god.

This does not mean that the atheist friend is exonerated, that his disbelief is wholly without fault. Maybe his disbelief is in part a rationalization for a rebellious human will that refuses to submit to the divine will. (How could I know?) But is it possible that at least in part his disbelief might arise from a refusal to recognize a conception of God which is rightly rejected?

Being religious requires faith, which means belief in something in spite of lack of reliable evidence (otherwise, no faith is required). One cannot be at fault for not believing in something without evidence, so yes, the atheist friend is indeed exonerated.

Here's another example. I was raised on Jack Chick tracts (little cartoon books that convey a hyper-fundamentalist Christian faith). In one of these tracts titled "Somebody Goofed", a young man is tricked into hell. (Read the tract here: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0003/0003_01.asp )

I find this to be a complete distortion of the doctrine of hell, and one which paints God as cruel and capricious. If this is what atheists think of the doctrine of hell then I can understand why they reject the Christian faith.

While Chick tracks are quite extreme, their general message is well supported by the Bible, which is the firmament of the Christian faith. Still, many people, including Rauser apparently reject this particular aspect of the Christian faith. That doesn't mean they are atheists.

Atheists reject the core concept of the Christian faith (and the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, the Hindu faith etc.) - the existence of a divine being. They don't reject it out of spite, or in the face of overwhelming evidence, rather they reject it, as they find no evidence supporting the existence of such divine beings.

The discussion boils down to this. Perhaps before we judge the disbelief of the atheist, we should judge our own household. To put it bluntly, how often does our witness in the world offer moral justification for atheism?

I find the message interesting. The whole concept seems to be that atheists simply reject religion as a whole because of the mean content of some religions. This is of course nonsense - many atheists are actually fairly well versed in different religions, and understand the different nuances. What they reject is not the different messages in different religions, but instead the very core that those religions are built upon.

Still, I guess that it's likely that fewer people start on the path to atheism, if the are not confronted with the most ugly, base aspects of their religions. This allows them to safely ignore their doubts, and just continue being part of the flock (their word, not mine).

The poor doctors want to be able to proselytize

Via several of my facebook friend, I read this BBC article

Doctors want right to talk faith

Doctors are demanding that NHS staff be given a right to discuss spiritual issues with patients as well as being allowed to offer to pray for them.

Medics will tell the British Medical Association conference this week that staff should not be disciplined as long as they handle the issue sensitively.

The people in question might call it "talk faith", I call it proselytizing, and I find it entirely wrong for any medical personnel to be involved in that - no matter the faith in question (I would also find it wrong for an atheist to try to deconvert people in hospitals).

There are several reasons for why it's wrong, but the one most people should be able to understand, is the fact that the patients are a captured audience, who can't just get up and leave. They should also feel comfortable with the medical personnel they come into contact with, and if said personnel tried to proselytize in any way or form, it would make a great number of the patients feel uncomfortable.

I really can't see why this should be so hard to understand.

And to make it even worse: as the article makes clear, there are even dedicated personnel to cater to peoples' religious needs.

However, the Department of Health said it was the responsibility of the NHS Chaplaincy Service to meet the spiritual needs of patients.

A spokeswoman said: "We are committed to the principle of ensuring that patients and staff in the NHS have access to the spiritual care that they want, whatever faith or belief system they follow.

"Although all staff should be sensitive to religious needs and preferences of patients, the delivery of spiritual care should be provided by the hospital chaplaincy service."

Still, some of the people interviewed in the article doesn't get it.

But Joyce Robins, co-director of Patient Concern said: "Most complaints from patients are about being on a conveyor belt of care. They don't rate with staff as real people.

"Offering to say a prayer is a warm and kind thought. Most patients will accept it as such. It is no more offensive than being offered a sleeping pill. You can say thanks but that sort of thing isn't my cup of tea.

As an atheist, I would kindly ask the doctor, nurse, or whatever to bugger off and never bother me again. I would also complain to the hospital, and ask them to ensure that said person had nothing to do with me in any way or form again. It's not only because I would find it offensive, which I would, but also because I would find it disturbing and profoundly unprofessional. I would, in other words, loose my trust in said person.

Still, my reaction would be mild compared to the reaction of e.g. a Muslim, Jew, or Hindu person, if a Christian person offered to say a prayer for them (and vice versa). To many of those people, it would be an insult of the greatest degree.

For a person like Joyce Robins to not understand this shows how sheltered from other cultures she has been.

It's really not a question about freedom of religion, but a question of being a professional. As someone employed as a medical personnel you are entitled to your religious beliefs, but you are not entitled to push them on other, while acting in an official capacity. What you do outside your workplace, is your own business (with certain legal limits of course).

Book Review: Society without God

Society without God - What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment by Phil Zuckerman

About 10 years ago, while I was studying full time, I had a part-time job in the evenings. One evening, when I was at work, I was talking with my colleagues, and the subject of our talk turned to religion. This is not an usual subject to talk about in Denmark, except in general terms and not touching upon personal opinions. This time was no different, and we somehow touched the idea that some people take the Bible literally, believing in a seven day creation etc. Much to my surprise, even shock, one of my colleagues told us that she believed exactly that. I was stunned, and after asking if she really believed that the world had been created by the Christian God in seven days, we all dropped the subject.

At the time, I was 24 or 25 years old, and that was the first time in my life I experienced a biblical literalist (or at least one who told me that he or she was one), and I have yet to meet another such in Denmark.

Depending on where you live, this story could surprise you in different ways. If you live in the Bible belt of the US (or even most of the rest of the US), you'd be surprised that I've only worked with one biblical literalist in nearly 35 years of life. On the other hand, if you're Danish, you'll surprised that I've actually met a biblical literalist, and that she admitted it.

The difference between these two cultures are really that stark.

It was these differences that Zuckerman experienced when he moved to Denmark for 14 months in 2005, and being an atheist, he appreciated the differences. What's more, Zuckerman noticed that while fundamentalist, evangelistic Christians in the US always claim that non-religious societies will descend into amoral atheistic anarchy, this was far from the picture he saw in Denmark and the neighboring Sweden, two of the least religious countries in the world. As a matter of fact, a good case could be made that those two countries could be considered among the best to live in in the world (he argues for this by presenting a number of metrics by which this could be measured, in which Denmark and Sweden usually rank among the highest in the world).

Given this fact, his atheism, his profession as a sociologist, and the simple fact that he, as he admits, has an axe to grind, he decided to set out to find out what godless countries like Denmark and Sweden might teach religious countries like the US.

Very early in the book Zuckerman made a distinction between a society without religion and a society without God, since Danes and Swedes to a large degree are members of the official churches and call themselves Christians, but don't believe in God, the divinity of Jesus, nor heaven and hell. Outside Denmark and Sweden, these concepts would seem essential for being Christian, but here, being a Christian is considered a cultural thing. People consider themselves Christian since they come from a country with a Christian background, and because they like the Christian ideals, not because they actually believe in the supernatural baggage the Christian faith carries along.

Unrelated to anything in the book, I should perhaps mention that this is something that causes problems with integrating immigrants and children of immigrants. You'll frequently hear people refer to others as Muslims, even though the people being referred have grown up in Denmark, and don't hold any religious faith. Since their parents come from a predominantly Muslim country, people think of them as Muslims, and thus non-Christians (and thus non-Danish).

Well, back to the book. Zuckerman tried to get to understand the religious feelings of Danes and Swedes better by interviewing both religious and non-religious people from both countries, trying to get them to answer questions about religion and their views on life. Based on these answers, Zuckerman has written a book with chapters focusing on such issues as "Fear of Death and the Meaning of Life", frequently referring to the answers he got, and the experiences he had while interviewing these people.

Now comes the part where my review will probably differ from what the experience people from religious countries will have.

What I found interesting about the book wasn't so much the answers to the questions, since they were pretty much as I would have expected, but rather the absolute astonishment that shines through the pages. Let me give you an example.

The first noteworthy part of the "group interview" [of 3 Swedes on a train] came when I asked them if they believed in God. Two of the women immediately said no. But the third, Katarina, hesitated before answering. She sat there, paused in thought. We quietly awaited her reply. She looked out the window, at the night blurring by. And then she said that she hadn't really thought about it before. She didn't know whether she did or didn't believe in God - not because she was philosophically agnostic, per se, but rather, because she found it somewhat a novel question. She asked for some time to think it over. Finally, after several moments, she came to her conclusion: no, she didn't think so. What struck me as so remarkable about her response was not that it was in the negative (I was quite used to that), but that she had needed time to mull it over, having admitted that it just wasn't something she had pondered much before. This was a slight shock to me. Never thought about belief in God before - come again? How is it possible to be in one's thirties and not yet have formed an opinion in God

Emphasis in the original. While not having thought about religious questions is a bit unusual, even in non-religious countries like Denmark and Sweden, it's not really that unusual (I believe Zuckerman found approx. 15% mot having done so), yet Zuckerman acts as I felt when I experienced a perfectly intelligent person tell me that she actually believed that a God created the Universe, Earth, and life in literally seven days (and not figuratively as Danish religious people usually do).

So, while the book will give Americans a good introduction into what a non-religious country can be like, it also will give Danes and Swedes an idea of how prevalent religion is in the US. This is probably not something Zuckerman had in mind when he wrote the book, but is just a lucky side effect.

In other words, I highly recommend the book, whether you are an American trying to understand non-religious countries, or you're a Dane or Swede trying to understand how our societies appear to outsiders.

Religion in Denmark and Sweden

A couple of days ago, the NY Times had a really great article on religion in Denmark and Sweden, which I thought I'd comment a bit on. The article is about both Denmark and Sweden, but I'll focus on the Danish perspective.

Scandinavian Nonbelievers, Which Is Not to Say Atheists

Phil Zuckerman spent 14 months in Scandinavia, talking to hundreds of Danes and Swedes about religion. It wasn’t easy.

I understand Zuckerman's problem when talking about religion. There are some very vast cultural differences between Danes and Americans relating this - the most easily apparent probably being the fact that it's considered rude to ask about peoples' religion. It's okay to talk about religion as a concept, but what peoples' personal religious views are, is not a subject which people feel comfortable asking about.

A simple example of this, is the simple fact that I have no clue about the religious views of neither my co-students nor my co-workers. I assume they are atheists, or at least agnostic, but I don't really know (my assumption is based upon the fact that all surveys show that majority of the younger generations in the area of Copenhagen are non-religious).

The many nonbelievers he interviewed, both informally and in structured, taped and transcribed sessions, were anything but antireligious, for example. They typically balked at the label “atheist.” An overwhelming majority had in fact been baptized, and many had been confirmed or married in church.

Though they denied most of the traditional teachings of Christianity, they called themselves Christians, and most were content to remain in the Danish National Church or the Church of Sweden, the traditional national branches of Lutheranism.

Many Danes are what can be called "cultural Christians", in the sense that they identify as Christian, but don't really believe in any god. Even if they don't identify as Christian, it doesn't mean that they are not members of the state church. I've been an atheist all my life, but even so, I was a member of the church for years.

The Danish atheist society (Ateistisk Selskab) try to convince people to leave the church by explaining how much they pay in church taxes, rather than arguing that they shouldn't be members when they don't believe in a god.

At the same time, they were “often disinclined or hesitant to talk with me about religion,” Mr. Zuckerman reported, “and even once they agreed to do so, they usually had very little to say on the matter.”

Were they reticent because they considered religion, as Scandinavians generally do, a private, personal matter? Is there, perhaps, as one Lutheran bishop in Denmark has argued, a deep religiosity to be discovered if only one scratches this taciturn surface?

“I spent a year scratching,” Mr. Zuckerman writes. “I scratched and I scratched and I scratched.”

And he concluded that “religion wasn’t really so much a private, personal issue, but rather, a nonissue.” His interviewees just didn’t care about it.

Beyond reticence, Mr. Zuckerman found what he terms “benign indifference” and even “utter obliviousness.” The key word in his description of their benign indifference is “nice.” Religion, in their view, is “nice.” Jesus “was a nice man who taught some nice things.” The Bible “is full of nice stories and good morals, isn’t it?”

Beyond niceness came utter obliviousness.

People don't really care about religion. If someone talks about their personal religion, or perhaps even tries to argue for a specific viewpoint, based upon religion, they are generally considered very religious, bordering on being extremist. On the other hand, people who are too vocal in their opposition of religion are also considered somewhat extremist. "Can't we all get along without pushing our religious views on others" seems to be the general view.

When Danes travel in the US, they are always taken aback by questions on religion and religious views, as these are taboo in Denmark.

As I said, it's a really great article, so if you haven't read it, go read it. Hopefully it gives people something to think about.

Living in a bubble of stupidity

Rebecca Watson made a good post about living in a bubble. Coming across a post/article at the Evangelical Examiner, I couldn't help thinking about it again. Where Rebecca's bubble is one of rationality, the author of the EE piece live in a bubble of ignorance and stupidity.

But don't take my word for it. Let's go through it together.

The accidential atheist by Jake Jones

Every week I see articles from various sources about Atheism, and in general non-believers. Merriam Webster OnLine describes the word “atheist” as “one who believes that there is no deity”. Christians on the other hand believe in a deity who has created the Universe including the Earth, all of the life forms on planet earth including man himself. Christians believe that God (the Christian deity) is in control of the Universe and our lives and we should be obedient to Him.

The dictionary definition is a bit imprecise. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a deity. In other words, it's a lack of belief rather than a belief, something which the dictionary make it sound like.

Most Christians would say that they believe they have what is commonly called “free will”. In other words, Christians can make choices that even Atheists can make and visa versa. However, some of those “free will” choices can be, or lead to sin for the Christian, but, Atheists don’t have to worry about a darn thing because they don’t believe in any kind, form or type of deity! Nothing for them to worry about at all because everything is ACCIDENTAL!

Atheists also believe in something which commonly can be called "free will", and unlike religious people, they actually mean it. We don't believe that any deity controls or directs us, thus invalidating the whole concept of "free will". What we do believe, however, is that there are certain actions which are unacceptable in a modern society, which results in laws against these things. Think of it as "sin", just with consequences.

And everything is not accidental. The existing of our lives is cause by a number of random chances and responses to outside simulation (e.g. evolution).

Atheists say that they do not worship a deity or have to answer to a higher authority But do atheists worship a deity? Hmmmm.... they seem to worship the ACLU! I guess not, but the atheist organizations look to the ACLU to save their tails when things don't go their way. Na! The ACLU is not a deity. Just a thought.

"Society" could be considered a higher authority, and as members of the society, we all have to answer to it. If we don't we face direct consequences (legal or social).

The ACLU is an organization focusing on defending core parts of the US constitution, including the separation of church and state, and is as such, much appreciated by the US atheists. For us atheists living outside of the US, it sounds like a good organization, but it has little relevance to us.

So if there is no God, what is the rhyme or reason for Atheists making a big stink about prayer almost anywhere and any time?

Maybe because they are frequently forced to participate? Or because they respect the Constitution? Do note that it's not only atheists who dislike public prayers. People belonging to other religions are also not too fond of them.

They try to tell us that the Constitution prohibits prayer in school when it doesn’t, it was the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court does not, in itself, have the power to prohibit something. The only thing they can do, is to look at the evidence, and to rule if something is legal or not. It happens that the Supreme Court looked at the evidence, and found that public prayer is illegal.

They are offended when anyone prays, or prays in Jesus name or uses the word God in the public square.

Atheists might not like any prayer, but they are not able to do anything against other people praying. What they can do, and have done, is to stop publicly endorsed praying, like school praying, as it's against the US Constitution.

If people want to pray on their own, they are welcome to do so. But that's not what they want, is it? They want to force their religion down everybody else throat.

What gives? Why sould they care if Christians pray, worship in public, talk about Jesus, God or the Bible. There is no rhyme or reason to their complaints.

Of course Christians can do all that. They just can't force everybody else to participate.

Sure Christians look like fools in the eyes of the Atheists, but if the Atheists ever figured it out they would allow Christians to go on looking like fools. The Atheists would be on the winning side without having to "call on the deity of the ACLU" to save the day for them.

If Christians are allowed to force everyone else into participating in their rituals, it's not like the atheists can just ignore them, is it? I'm pretty sure that Christians wouldn't like to have to participate in Hindu or Islamic prayers, yet they feel no qualms in trying to make everyone else participate in theirs.

That leads me to the title of this article. Atheists believe that the whole universe was an ACCIDENTAL formation of millions of Galaxies, solar systems, suns, planets, moons and smaller objects simply obeying “no one” but ACCIDENTALLY remaining in the necessary locations so that there is no major chaos in the Universe.

No. The universe is a random occurrence, following the laws of the universe. There is nothing accidental about it - when the process is first started, it's going to result in something. The fact that it ended up like it did, is to some degree pure chance, but while the possible results were countless, they were not unlimited.

The positions of the astronomic bodies are a result of the expansion of the universe, combined with the natural forces, such as gravity. Nothing magic, or accidental, about that.

The word "chaos", as it's used in this case, is imprecise, but it could be argued that the collisions of planets, stars, indeed entire galaxies, would be considered chaotic.

In just our Galaxy alone the odds of that happening would be hundreds of trillions to one.

If I play a game of cards with my friends, the odds of us getting the cards in the exact order is astronomically small, yet no one would claim that it's impossible for us to have gotten those cards in that order.

That would mean that every mamal, insect, fish, amphibian and man himself was strictly an ACCIDENT!

Only if you're a moron.

It's obvious to me that the formation of the Universe was a calculated and precisely timed event at the hand of God.

That's nice. Of course, it doesn't make sense, but that hasn't really stopped you before, have it?

There is more proof that God is real than there is proof that there is no God.

It's generally not possible to prove a negative, so lack of proof of the negative is not impressive, and does not mean that we should take it as evidence of the positive. And there isn't really any evidence of there being a deity.

The proof is the Bible and the archeological discoveries that prove the Bible as an accurate and divine manifestation of God’s Holy Word.

Given the fact that the bible is historically wrong on many accounts, and that there is no (credible) sources for the authentication of the stories in the New Testament, this is a pretty credulous claim. Wouldn't the mere fact that the bible contradicts itself be a pretty good indication that it's hardly divine?

Which one makes sense to you? Atheism or Christianity?

Let's see, one side is based on the present evidence, while the other is based on a self-contradicting book without any real evidence on its side. You know what, I think I'll go for atheism.

I believe that this whole “ACCIDENT” of creation that the atheists believe is just plain silly. I choose to stand on the ‘solid Rock’, because all other ground is sinking sand.

This is what I mean about the bubble of stupidity. The author is so protected from evidence that he doesn't understand the subject he is writing about, and seem to think that just saying something makes it so.

There are many religious people who are keenly aware that their faith is not based on fact (hence, it being faith). These people understand that the existence of life, the universe, and all that, can be explained without a deity. They just have faith in something more.

Pat Robertson makes a prediction

I just came across this piece of news

Pat Robertson: Israel will strike Iran

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson is urging prayer before Election Day to stave off an imminent Middle Eastern war he said could bring nuclear attacks on the United States.

In a letter on his Web site, www.patrobertson.com, Robertson said his opinion was that Israel would bomb Iranian nuclear sites between Nov. 4 and the inauguration of the United States' new president.

Robertson tied his warning to biblical prophecy. His letter, which starts out describing his concerns about Russian aggression in Georgia, predicted that Russia would also enter the war, though the United States would not. "However, we may not be spared nuclear strikes against coastal cities" in America.

Why is anyone taking this guy serious? The concept of Israel taking out Iran's nuclear sites is not totally far-fetched, though the timing is doubtful (to say the least), but Robertson ties this to biblical prophecy! And the idea that the US and Russia will go to war over what happens to Iran is quite ridiculous.

Of course, the call for prayer gives an easy way out - when the prophecy fails to come true, the prayers will be used as an excuse.

Contrasting US and Turkish campus freedoms

As people might be aware, the Turkish prime minister is calling for allowing students to wear headscarfs at Turkish universities, similar to what he calls American campus freedoms. A Turkish journalist at Turkish Daily News explains what American campus freedoms really is, and contrasts them to Turkish laws.

Yes, let's talk about American campus freedoms!

Mr. Prime Minister, you want American campus freedoms, including the turban? Go ahead, and this columnist will be one of your millions of supporters

Many people really underestimates how repressive the Turkish society is.

Divorce equals firing

This is one of the most screwed up things I've read in a long time. Well, perhaps not, given how many screwed up things that I come across all the time, but it is twisted.

Divorce: Grounds for Dismissal

Kent Gramm, a full professor of English at Wheaton College, in Illinois, is amidst two painful separations.

He and his wife are divorcing. And, because he’s choosing not to discuss the terms of that first separation with his employers — to determine whether the divorce falls within what the college considers to be appropriate Scriptural parameters — he’s resigning from Wheaton in what he calls “a mutually agreed-upon separation. And the alternative of it would be to be fired.”

“This is sort of an additional and very significant separation. I’ve been there for 20 years. I’m very attached to the students,” Gramm says.

“There’s a considerable amount of grief, but I was aware that this would be the consequence, and I’ve been aware of this for a long time. So, in another sense, I’ve prepared myself ahead of time for this.

It's quite bad that when someone goes through a hard period of their life, they have to worry about the work as well.

Wheaton does allow their employees to get divorced, but only under certain circumstances

If an employee or applicant’s divorce falls outside the acceptable parameters for divorce listed in the policy – desertion or adultery on the part of the partner – a divorce is grounds for firing, Jones confirms (or, not hiring). When asked what would happen if an employee were in an abusive relationship, Jones answered that while it’s tricky to speak of hypothetical scenarios, the college would not want to force such a relationship’s continuation. “Desertion can take different forms, as also can adultery. We try to extend all reasonable compassion to the plight that all individuals face.”

So, in other words, there is no explicit allowance for getting out of abusive relationships, but instead you're dependent on the goodwill of the people making the call. And we all know how supportive many people are of victims of abuse - think of all those nice churches that shun wives who ask for a divorce of such grounds.

I can simply not understand how it can be legal to bring in peoples' private lives as a parameter for employment. There are certain types of jobs where some aspect might be relevant (the obvious one that is always mentioned is pedophiles in jobs involving children), but under no circumstances can a divorce be relevant.

What a strange article

I came across a rather strange article about some troubles that Pakistan prime minister candidate Jabil Bush Hussein has run into.

Pakistan prime minister candidate denies he is Christian

I was rather puzzled by the story, since I had never heard about the candidate before, and I was actually pretty sure that the Pakistani election was over. Still, I began to read it, and found the story fascinating, not only because of the rather weird tone of the article, but also because of the obvious parallels to the current US preliminaries.

Turns out that I was suckered by a parody article. The obvious parallels were there for a good reason.... Still, quite worth reading.

I'll admit that I got all the way down to the references to President McCain before I actually caught on.

And I though Ron Paul was bad

It's no great secret that I am not a fan of the current crop of Republican candidates. With the possible exception of John McCain, I consider them nearly as bad as the current President, and I even consider Ron Paul worse, because of his well documented ties to extremists. Seems like Ron Paul isn't as bad as Huckabee though.

dogemperor over at Daily Kos has the story:
BREAKING: Mike Huckabee member of Bill Gothard cult

If this is true, and dogemperor certainly presents compelling evidence that it is, then it's really bad news.

You can get a bit of a glimpse of Gothard's character in this article in In These Times, or read dogemperor's earlier posts on the subject.

Huckabee needs to be kept away from any position of influence.

Edit: I should probably make clear that I have no patience with Ron Paul supporters spamming the comments. This post is about Huckabee, not Ron Paul.

Pushers of bad ideas target Australian teens

US chastity evangelist targets Australian kids

A CONTROVERSIAL teenage chastity campaign based in the US is on its way to Australia.

The Silver Ring Thing project uses rock music and videos at its events to encourage boys and girls as young as 12 to pledge publicly to stay virgins until they are married. They then buy an inscribed ring for about $20 that they are told to wear all the time, as well as being given a "chastity Bible".

It is the fastest-growing abstinence campaign in the US and is led by Denny Pattyn, an evangelical youth pastor who, during rallies, admits to a wild past of promiscuity and drinking before finding God. But the campaign has attracted criticism for making misleading statements about safe sex and contraception and for frightening youngsters into pledging.

In theory abstinence sounds like a good idea, but in reality, focusing on that instead of sex education have very bad effects.

Evidence suggests abstinence campaigns might delay the age at which youngsters first have sex, but most who sign up break their pledge and might indulge in more risky sexual behaviour.

One 10-year study documenting that, can be found here (.pdf), a review of others relating to HIV-AIDS and pregnancy and abstinence can be found here.

Not only is it ineffective, abstinence only programs often contain misleading information about sex and preventions (.pdf). Also, abstinence buys into the whole idea that there is something wrong with having sex - something that's quite natural. People should never feel pressured into sex, but it's not a good thing to case sex as something that should be avoided.

All in all, not only is it ineffective, and potentially dangerous, it also leads to a (in my opinion) unwholesome view on sex and sexuality. Hopefully the teens drawn to this program, will still receive good sex-ed, ensuring that they don't participate in risky behaviour if they decide not to abstain any longer.

Scientology members charged in Belgium

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

Charges against Scientology in Belgium

After a ten-year investigation, Belgian prosecutors have charged twelve members of the Church of Scientology. The accusations include fraud, extortion, illegal practice of medicine, and infringement of privacy law, among others. The decision opens the way for Scientology to be considered a criminal organization.

Scientology is not recognized as a religious organization in Belgium. Not that it would have made any difference in the charges against them, though I am sure Scientology will play the "religious prosecution" card.

I seriously hope that they will be classified as a criminal organization. That could lead the way for rewoking their status as a religious group in other European countries, such as Denmark.

Does religion and feminism mix?

That's the question I can't help wonder about, after reading this Media Transparency article.

Are high-profile evangelical leaders endangering victims of domestic violence?

Dr. James Dobson and Dr. John MacArthur, two influential evangelical family counselors, 'blame' battered women for their plight, says Christian evangelical author Jocelyn Andersen.

Before going on, I should say that I am talking about organized religion, not people being religious.

When looking at religions, one can't help notice that they have a strong trend towards patriarchy, with the focus on males as the rulers. The example most commonly mentioned these days is Islam, where women are often treated as second-class people, having to cover up, and some times getting murdered for not doing so. However, there is also similar tendencies in Christianity, where some groups puts a heavy emphasis on men as the head of the families, and the fact that women should not speak out, as dictated by the Bible.

The Media Transparency focuses on Christianity in the US, where the evangelical groups can pose a danger to victims of domestic violence.

While domestic violence -- also known as intimate partner violence -- is in no way limited to any particular race, religion, ethnic group, class or sexual preference, author Jocelyn Andersen maintains that for far too long too many evangelical pastors have tried to sweep the problem under the rug. According to Andersen, the problem of physical, as well as emotional and spiritual abuse, is being exacerbated by the outdated teachings of several high-profile conservative Christian pastors.

In the introduction to her new book "Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence" (One Way Cafe Press, 2007), Andersen points out that "The practice of hiding, ignoring, and even perpetuating the emotional and physical abuse of women is ... rampant within evangelical Christian fellowships and as slow as our legal systems have been in dealing with violence against women by their husbands, the church has been even slower."

Andersen maintains that domestic violence in Christian families "often creates a cruel Catch-22 as many Christians and church leaders view recommending separation or divorce as unscriptural, but then silently view the battered woman, who chooses not to leave, with contempt for staying and tolerating the abuse. Victims quickly pick up on this hypocritical attitude and either leave the church altogether -- or begin hiding the abuse. Either way they are giving up the spiritual guidance, and emotional support, they desperately need."

I see several problems here.

The major problem being the domestic violence that takes place. I don't know of any statistics that shows it happens more often in evangelical households than other households, though given the willingness of some religious people to physically punish children, it would seem likely.

The second problem is that the churches creates an environment where the victim either shuts up, and prolongs her abuse, or has to break with her current life, since she won't get any support from her surroundings.

The third problem is of course that some people depend on churches for "spiritual guidance, and emotional support" - while I can understand why you would depend on churches for the first, it seems to me that the second is something that's rarely to be had in fundamentalist groups, such as evangelical churches.

The first problem is something that must addressed by the law, and by society as a whole. Domestic violence is too widespread in the US, and as long as it's somewhat accepted, or that people blame the victims, it will continue to be so.

The second problem is something that needs to be addressed within the churches. Something which Jocelyn Andersen appears to be working on with her book.

The last problem is a little harder to deal with, but if atheism became more widespread, more religious people might realize that it's possible to find support of all kinds outside religious settings.

Unholy water?

I'm sure that most people have heard about holy water - water blessed by the clergy, often used against undead beings, if they happen to pester you (would that work against Jesus or the Holy Ghost?).

Well, somehow I can't help thinking of this as unholy water.

Falwell's dream of selling bottled water nears reality

Falwell envisioned the 16.9-ounce bottles of Liberty Mountain Natural Spring Water as novelty items. Plans are to sell it at the museum bearing his name, the school's visitor center and possibly at athletic and church events, school officials said.

"He saw it as sort of a souvenir," said Jerry Falwell Jr., Falwell's son who took over as chancellor of the university after Falwell died on May 15. "He thought it was a memento that people could take back home after visiting Liberty."

The spring is located university property once owned by the late U.S. Sen. Carter Glass, who used it to provide water for his mansion, which now serves as the school's administrative offices.

The spring had been out of commission for at least three decades until about six months ago, when Falwell decided to get it going again. Before his death, he frequently drove up to what he called Liberty Mountain to check on its progress.

In other words it's another money making scheme, to rip off the faithful.

Religion and politics in the US

Too many Americans want faith-driven decisions by the President

A new poll conducted by Time magazine reveals that, by a two-to-one margin, Republicans want a U.S. president who will let his faith guide his decisions.

By the same margin, Democrats are against this notion, stating they believe a U.S. president's faith in a higher power should not be a factor in how he governs.

That's pretty horrible numbers, since it means that half of the US voters seems to think that faith is a good guide to political decisions. Or maybe not. The questions people answered were this:

Do you think that a president should or should not allow his own personal religious faith to guide him in making decisions as president?

and

We are a religious nation and religious values should serve as a guide to what our political leaders do in office.

Not quite as bad as the article stated, though I would still say no to those questions. The reason I say it's not quite as bad, is that "religious values" can cover such things as humility, kindness etc., rather than thinking that one should govern by some specific understanding of a book written by a bunch of goatherders nearly 2000 years ago. There is even a question directly related to the use of the Bible in decision making.

"Do you think that a president should or should not use his or her personal interpretation of the Bible to make decisions as president?"

To this, 61.5% of the likely voters answered no, while 29.1% answered yes. Way too many for my taste, but hardly the kind of numbers mentioned above.

Time has of course a number of articles based upon the survey, all of them focusing on the religious aspects of it. However, unsurprisingly, they write the article in such a way to make it sound like the Democrats have a huge problem because of religion.

Well, looking at the numbers from the survey (can be found here), I can't help noticing that there is a lot of other stuff worth mentioning about the poll. I will comment on these things, as I go along discussing a particularly bad article from Time.

TIME Poll: Faith of the Candidates

The hoary joke that a "religious Democrat" is more of an oxymoron than "jumbo shrimp" couldn't be more wrong in this election cycle, in which it's the Democrats who are talking comfortably about faith while their Republican counterparts dodge the subject. Even so, as the results of a new TIME poll show, the conventional wisdom about the two political parties and religion may be so ingrained that no amount of evidence to the contrary can change perceptions. That may very well help Republicans in 2008 despite their various religion issues. And it may also mean that most Democrats, with one important exception, will have to try twice as hard to reach faith-minded voters.

Ok, first of all, let's look at the number of likely voters who said that they would vote for the different parties if there was an electiontoday. 34.3% of the likely votes said that they would vote for the Democrats, while 30.3% said that they would vote for the Republicans. The rest were undecided (29.4%) or refused to answer.

Straight of the bat, it seems like the votes are evenly divided betweent the two parties, which means that the religious vote could have an influence. However, for that vote to have an influence, it would be necessary for the people to vote because of the religious stance of the candidate.

A question if the poll was "Have you ever voted for or against a candidate mainly because of the candidate's religious beliefs?", to which only 12.1% said yes (R.:14.8%,D.:10.4%,I.:8.5%). In other words, religious belief is not the deciding issue when deciding who to vote for, especially not among the important independents.

That doesn't mean that the religious stance of an candidate doesn't have an influence, as the answers to the following question indicates:
For each, please tell me if that characteristic makes you more supportive or less supportive of the candidate.

Catholic: More: 23.6%, less: 8.7%, No diff.: 66.7%
Muslim: More: 6.8%, less: 47.3%, No diff.: 42.3%
Mormon: More: 10.2%, less: 30.2%, No diff.: 56.5%
Jewish: More: 18.4%, less: 10.9%, No diff.: 68.4%%
Fund. Chris.: More: 29.3%, less: 29.4%, No diff.: 35.4%
Atheist: More: 5.3%, less: 60.1%, No diff.: 33%

So, while the candidates religious stance is not the deciding issue, being an Muslim, Mormon, or especially an atheist could be the final straw for many voters.
Given that none of the Democratic candidates belongs to either of these groups, that hardly seems relevant though.

As Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy report in this week's TIME cover story, the three Democratic frontrunners are leading a fundamental shift in how their party thinks about religious Americans, which includes the first party-wide effort to target and court Catholic and evangelical voters. Republicans, meanwhile, have been lining up to receive the seal of approval from Pat Robertson and James Dobson. But at the same time, Mitt Romney has gone to great lengths to avoid talking about his Mormonism, John McCain's religious advisors quit his campaign in disgust, and when the AP inquired as to what church Rudy Giuliani attended, the former mayor essentially told them to mind their own business.

Democratic candidates in the past have targeted Christian voters. J.F. Kennedy didn't talk loud about his Catholicism, but people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have always been willing to play to the religious base. Heck, Carter belongs to it.

In spite of all that, according to the new TIME poll, only 15% of registered voters believe that Hillary Clinton is "strongly religious," compared to 22% for John Edwards and 24% for Barack Obama. Perhaps more problematic for Clinton is the fact that nearly one-quarter of respondents (24%) say they know she is "not religious" — that's almost twice the nearest candidate, Rudy Giuliani (13%).

On this point, Clinton undoubtedly suffers from the double whammy of being a Democrat and a Clinton. Even Democrats tended to chalk up her husband's religious fluency to his general political skill, the ability to be everything to everyone, while Republicans saw him as a fake who exploited religion for political purposes and pandered to voters. Now Senator Clinton, the lifelong Methodist and one-time Sunday school teacher, is in a bind: So many voters think they "know" she can't possibly be religious that when she speaks about her faith, they interpret it as pure political posturing.

Interestingly enough, it's possible to see what percentage of people who think someone is either strongly religious, moderately religious or not religious )or don't know), and if you add the religious categories together, you get a different impression of how religious people think Clinton is compared ot others.

When you look at the Republican candidates, McCain is considered religious by 57.8%, Guiliani by 51.8% and Romney by 47.7% - funny that the person who probably is the most religious, is considered the least so.

On the Democratic front, Clinton is considered religious by 52.9%, Edwards by 58% and Obama by 60.2% In other words, only McCain among the Republicans, is considered religious by more likely voters than Clinton. Maybe that's not such a big problem after all? Maybe people not obsessed with hating Clinton realizes that she is religious?

Still, for at least one Democrat, another piece of conventional wisdom is working in his favor. Democrats have long outsourced religion to their African-American members, showing up in black churches the weekend before elections to clap along to gospel tunes, and treating black ministers as cuddly social justice mascots. As a result, black politicians rarely need to prove their religiosity-they're given the benefit of the doubt. Obama is no exception. On the ranking of candidates with strong faith, Obama comes in second (24%) among all voters. And even Republican voters put him (18%) above John McCain (17%), Rudy Giuliani (14%), and Newt Gingrich (14%).

Is Gingrich even a candidate? Well, he is considered even less religous than the other Republican candidates (43.3%).
And maybe Obama is considered religious because of him being religious? Remember his Democratic convention speech in which he kept on harping about God? Why is it that Democrats are considered non-religious by default by the writers, having to prove themselves 'religious'? The Republicans don't have to do that (except to the fundamentalists), so why presume the Democrats need to do so?

When it comes to the Republican field, Mitt Romney ranks far above the rest of the pack. Fully 26% of all voters think Romney is a person of strong religious faith, and among Republicans that number rises to 32%. What should worry Republicans, however, is that Romney's numbers are nearly double the closest Republican and still far below George W. Bush's in 2004. They also suggest an opening for Fred Thompson, who is expected the enter the race within weeks. James Dobson may have declared on his radio show that Thompson isn't a Christian, but given the alternatives, social conservatives are likely to disagree.

Ok, time for a reality check.
If religion is really that important to the voters, you'd expect this to refelcted in the number of likely voters who have a favorable impression of people.

Luckily, the poll also asked people what their impression of the candidates were, and funny enough, there were no correlation with the perceived religiosity. For example, Clinton and Edwards are considered favorable by an equal amount of people, and more people had a very favorable impression of Clinton than Ewdards (24.8 vs. 14.3). The Republican most people had a favorable view of, is Giuliani, which 53.7% considered favorable (17% vary favorable).

Could we stop focusing on the damn religion, and instead focus on policy? And maybe we should look at what the poll really show us, if we ignore all that nonsense about religion.

The poll clearly shows that Democrats have a small lead over the Republicans, with a large number of undecided. McCain and Giuliani are considered favorable by a majority of the likely voters (50.4% and 53.7%), with the later currently leading the pack of Republican candidates. McCain isn't too far behind, while Romney is nearly joining Gingrich with single digit backing among the Republican and Republican-leaning voters.

Among the Democrats, all of the three main candidates, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, are liked by a majority of the likely voters, though there is a large group of people who have a very unfavorable view of Clinton (35%) and Edwards (31.9%). While Obama is not out of the race by any means, Clinton is the front runner among the Democrats. Edwards seems to be trailing far behind.

What this poll shows me, is that neither the religious stance, nor the perceived religious stance, of the politician has absolutely no relation to how well they do. In other words, there is no need to try to pamper for the religious vote. Instead, the candidates should try to sell themselves on the issues they stand for.

For fundamentalists, it's always the gays who are to blame

Ampersand has a great post up at Alas, A Blog

Fundamentalist Flunks Bar Exam And Sues Because Of Exam Question Involving Lesbians
I suggest people go read it and the comments. The rest of this post will be about the article he linked to in the post.

He links to a story in the Boston Herald: Bar-exam flunker sues: Wannabe rejects gay-wed question, law

A Boston man who failed the Massachusetts bar exam has filed a federal lawsuit claiming his refusal to answer a test question - related to gay marriage - caused him to flunk the test.

Stephen Dunne, 30, is suing the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, claiming the “inappropriate” test question violated his religious convictions and his First Amendment rights. Answering the question, Dunne claims, would imply he endorsed gay marriage and parenting.

The suit also challenges the constitutionality of the 2003 SJC ruling that made Massachusetts the nation’s first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Dunne, who describes himself as a Christian and a Democrat, is seeking $9.75 million in damages and wants a jury to prohibit the Board of Bar Examiners from considering the question in his passage of the exam and to order it removed from all future exams.

“There’s a different forum for that contemporary issue to be discussed, and it’s inappropriate to be on a professional licensing examination,” Dunne told the Herald. “You don’t see questions about partial-birth abortion or abortion on there.”

I might be wrong, but a bar exam is about showing that you have sufficient understanding of the law to become a lawyer. So, in so much the contemporary issues are law-related, they should be reflected in the "professional licensing examination".

If you are against the laws, that's very fine, and you're free to work on getting them changed. However, it doesn't change the fact that they are the current laws, and you are supposed to know and understand them to become a lawyer. If you find it impossible to do so, then law is the wrong field for you, much like becoming a butcher is probably a bad choice for a vegetarian.

The worst part is that the question that he was asked, wasn't actually about the special status that homosexuals have in Mass. compared to other states. The article included it.

“Yesterday, Jane got drunk and hit (her spouse) Mary with a baseball bat, breaking Mary’s leg, when she learned that Mary was having an affair with Lisa,” the bar exam question stated. “As a result, Mary decided to end her marriage with Jane in order to live in her house with Philip, Charles and Lisa. What are the rights of Mary and Jane?”

Notice something? It doesn't matter if it was a homosexual couple or a mixed gender couple. But to Stephen Dunne it was a litmus test to weed out people like him. In a sense he is right, but only insofar that all questions in the test are litmus tests to weed out people like him - people who are incompetent and unsuited to practice law. It looks like it worked in this case.

Oh, and I am looking forward to hearing all the right-wings decrying this frivolous lawsuit. There haven't been such a clear-cut example of one in quite a few years.

Zuzu has more over at Majikthise

An example of how a moderate Christian can help

Like many other atheists, I consider many moderate Christians as part of the problem, since they are too respectful of fundamentalist beliefs. Now, I see that there is one moderate Christian who is writing a book addressing the very problems with fundamentalist belief.

Jesus for the Non-Religious

This is not, as the title suggests, a theological riposte to the hugely popular God-denying books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Rather, as Spong, a retired bishop, explains in the prologue, it tries to answer the 21st-century questions: "Is it possible, Jesus, that we Christians are the villains who killed you? Smothered you underneath literal Bibles, dated creeds, irrelevant doctrines and dying structures?"

This book embraces modern science and all the controversial contemporary theological history and tries to reach beyond that and discover a Jesus that is "the source of life, the source of love, the ground of being, a doorway into the mystery of holiness".

Of course, any book that has as its goal to "discover" Jesus doesn't embrace modern science, but the book goes against the concept of an inerrant Bible, which is a major roadblock to teaching proper science.

The author also seems to address the problems with the New Testament accounts of Jesus' life, and make clear that they are impossible, and certainly shouldn't be understod literately. That of course leads me to wonder what keeps the author to believe in a divine God and his son? (a check of his wikipedia entry indicates that he doesn't believe in a divine son of God)

Anyway, I welcome the voices of more moderate Christians who speak out against fundamentalism, and reject giving crazy ideas any undeserved respect. Something we see all too rarely. The author of the book, John Shelby Spong seems to have been at it for a while though, with noticable less success at changing the US debate than the current bunch of atheist books. Maybe his time has come, now that the public discurse has changed in the US?