Everybody has an ideology, right?

I think by now, anyone who has spent any time reading my timeline and stuff I post on Facebook (much less my blog “The Cybernetic Atheist”) is aware that I am an unapologetic, out-and-out atheist.  No surprise there.  As I’ve explained before, I’m an atheist because of what I’ve learned about the Bible, and from the lack of any real evidence of the existence of God.  (From which I surmise that Christ cannot exist - no Father, no Son, right?  So, Christianity is man-made.)

But, as so many people have noted, and I myself have also said, atheism is not a belief, it is the LACK of a belief.  Over 8,000 gods/goddesses which mankind has invented over the millennia, and I don’t believe in any of them.  For much the same reasons, in fact.

But, isn’t it true that everybody has to have something which guides them?  Some moral compass?  Some (for lack of a better term) ideology?  I think that’s true, and mankind has come up with literally hundreds of such ideologies, if not thousands, in the course of our becoming humankind designing all of the myriads of civilizations (and accompanying gods) which have come and gone since.

Oh, what was that?  What do I believe?

Funny you should ask, I was just about to get to that.

For starters, it also isn’t a surprise to my Facebook friends to note that I seem to be a liberal.  I used to call myself an Independent, but the Republicans have managed to push me much further to the left over the last ten years (though mostly over the last six for obvious reasons).

But there’s more than that, a political ideology isn’t a moral one, as moral as it may be possible for political ideologies to be.

Morally, I like to identify myself with Secular Humanism.  The basic ideals of that group of people resonate with me closely.  Just to make it easier, here is one example of their beliefs:

* A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
* Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
* A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
* A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
* A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
* A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
* A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

Obviously, there are other interpretations and versions of these, Secular Humanism is not a religion and has no universally recognized tenets or principles, though these are a good example of the general direction most Humanists tend to go.

Another principle I admire is one contained in the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm”.  If there is one overriding idea which intertwines itself into virtually all of the above principles, that would be it.  As a human being, into whose DNA the very urge of being a socialist animal is cooked, that seems to be the best guide to living one’s life, if one had to boil it all down to its basic elements.

That, I think, is one of the major differences between Humanism and religion - Christianity being my focus because of where I live.  Why?  Well, just look at the Ten Commandments, which Christians tend to look at (at least the Fundies here do) as the basic guidance provided by their God.

Without belaboring the point, look at the second commandment:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Look at the passage I underlined.  That is the very opposite of “do no harm”.  To punish the innocent?  For the neglect and disobedience of their ancestors?  (I always kind of thought the jealousy was a sin.)

On the other hand, There is no example of jealousy or hatred in the Humanist principles above.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

Another reason why I think Humanism is better than Christianity (as well as others) is because of longevity.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Secular humanism is merely a couple of hundred years old at the most.  So, what gives?

As a movement, that’s true.  But the principles above are based on literally hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.   While our intellectual experience giving us the ability to express them well is fairly recent comparatively speaking, the basic experiences themselves derive from the totality of human experience going back over two hundred thousand years, fading back into our evolutionary past.  These principles are so well understood that they were expressed, discussed and argued over in various ways even as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, who debated many of these very ideas well over two thousand years ago, predating christianity!

Yet, Christianity is only around two thousand years old, its Jewish antecedents go back perhaps another two thousand or so, and the developmental periods for both religions are rife with violence, tribalism, slavery and misogyny.  Hardly an atmosphere to encourage humanistic principles!  Granted, the Greeks weren’t a prime example of being a hotbed of modern liberal ideals either, but their philosophers fought for the idea of trying to make humanity better than we were, at least some of them did, and their example resonated with the fathers of the Enlightenment thousands of years later!

I firmly believe that religion is, to a general degree, concerned with one thing:  Its own survival.  For an excellent example, look at the first five of the Ten Commandments.  Every one of them are devoted to the preservation of the authority of God and his earthly representatives.  Keeping people in the fold, under the pain of death.  (Perhaps not an earthly one, but if hell isn’t a kind of eternal death, I don’t know what is.)

Certainly the fact that most if not all of His other dozens of commandments/laws in Leviticus command death as a punishment qualify as antithetical to Humanist principles.

Yet, Humanism is not.  Not a single principle above is devoted to ensuring the survival of a “Humanist religion”, mainly because there isn’t one!  The closest one can come is where it says, “A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.”  Which does not at all entail a self serving principle of survival.

As you might have guessed by now, another focus of mine is that of anti-theism.  I am, admittedly, an anti-theist.  I believe strongly that religion, as a belief system(s) which encourages people to believe things which are false and contrary to reality, is harmful to not only individual humans, but humanity as a whole.  Much of my writing is focused on struggling to spread the truth about false beliefs and their harmful affects.

But even that is an outgrowth of my Humanist principles - see the next to last one above.  Religion is not a good introduction to ethical conduct - quite the opposite, in fact, as it encourages a plethora of unethical conduct, mainly by example, which precisely undermines its attempts at ethics through the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus.  There may be millions of Christians who defy this, by being good - but that happens because they adhere to the Enlightenment principles expressed by our Founding Fathers, ignoring the more harmful and violent examples and verses of the Old Testament.  (One can see that, because of the various examples of Christians who do the opposite - adhere to the Old Testament’s more intolerant and violent prescriptions of conduct, and do all they can to undermine and violate the egalitarian principles contained in our Constitution.)

So, to make a long story shorter, while my focus may be on the harmfulness of religion and my attempts to explain how I arrive at those conclusions, my very positive beliefs are what informs that fight, wishing with all my heart that more people could see how much better America and the world would be without the falsehoods of faith.

I hope this helps to make my efforts more understandable.

Ssshhh!! It’s a Secret…

It’s a hard thing to do, exposing people’s secrets.  It’s rude, tasteless, obnoxious, and utterly necessary.

In this case, the secret at hand is the answer to a question many folks I know on the left side of the political divide are asking themselves:  Why is it that otherwise respectable, educated and intelligent people are spouting the most extreme, batshit crazy opinions in increasingly painful amounts?  What could they possibly get from it?  Could they really believe it?

Of course they don’t.  Don’t be silly.  (Before going any further, read this.)

The secret is this:  All that batshit crazy nonsense does one thing, it keeps the racial, political and religious tension in this country at a fever pitch.  It keeps the extremist right wingers at a constant high pitch of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

FUD is useful stuff.  It keeps the faithful (this is NOT a slap at Christians - this one is about right wing crazy fundies) in the fold, ready and willing to donate their money and their political votes to the right wing “in” crowd.

The inner ingredients to the secret include one essential element - their sacred persecution complex.

Right wing Evangelists consider themselves to be the only “true” Christians.  All the others are either “watered down” Christians, or affected in varying degrees by Satan or one of his subordinate demons.  (Yes, really)  This results in the numbers of “true” Christians being down to an alarming (to them) 15% or so of the population.  Think about that for a moment.  This is why they talk so much about persecution, and “taking back” this country.  When you think the percentage of “real” Christians has shrunk from a majority of over 80% to less than 15%, you are talking about a truly alarming and horrifying trend of the country away from what they see as “the arms of God.”  In their little fantasy world, God cares about these things, and acts to destroy a country that He thinks has “turned away” from His true path.  The very idea frightens them to no end.

But, never mind, the Bible has a solution!

Fundamentalist Christianity has as a central element the idea that when a Christian is persecuted for his/her faith and does not waver, admission to heaven is almost guaranteed.  You become one of the favored few Christ will admit in the final days.

So, in order for them to be admitted to heaven in spite of their sinful ways, it is required for them to be persecuted so that their many shortcomings (which they are painfully aware of) can be overlooked.  Being a big fish in a very small pond is much better than being a small fish in a considerably bigger pond.

So, it is necessary to keep things going inside their own little echo chamber, where nobody dissents, everybody admires them for their strength in opposing the heathen, and are willing to donate money and votes to keep things rolling right along.  For somebody like Dylann Roof to suddenly come along and take their words seriously is a tremendous threat, believe it or not.

Remember, to themselves, they are good decent people.  They are (my generation of conservatives) living in a safe secure world where, in reality, they have little fear of personal violence, which is why their tactic of FUD is so effective.  When someone like Roof blows nine people away (after spending an hour talking to them) they are, once they wake up to the rest of society’s responses to it, quite horrified.  Not because of the violence done to innocents, but to the possibility that the violence will wake up the rest of the very liberal population, which might then take action conservatives do not have the will or power to prevent.

The possibility of being made personally responsible for the consequences of their own words is horrifying, not because it is consequential to themselves, but because it would end this neat little political gravy train they are riding.  The tension keeps the country off balance and prevents us from seeing the Conservatives’ lack of answers and inability to fix the country’s problems.  It keeps the faithful donating and voting them into office, and distracts the rest of us.  Remember, they LIKE having the rest of us so liberal, because it gives them a legitimate reason to claim persecution.  But we have to be distracted, so their fan base is able to gain the traction to get them elected to office.  Since they have no real solutions to the problems they would face, the prospect of actually being in charge and expected to perform is frightening.  Being a minority and persecuted is much better.

That’s the entire secret.  Obfuscation, distraction, projection all are tools of the Conservative mindset.  But don’t you dare upset the neat little scheme, the money is rolling in as planned…

What is at the heart of religion's harmfulness to society?

I’ve written a lot about the harm I feel religion causes in society.  And, to be clear, there is a lot, familial strains and breakups, rejected children over LBGTQ issues, laws reflecting specific religious practices that not all citizens agree with, forced chipping away of the rights of certain classes of folks over biblically prohibited things of one type or another, especially sex, and a hundred other things.

But, in the end, I think there is one over-riding element of religion that makes all the other stuff happen.  One thing it does to us all, regardless of the specific religion, that creates the canvas upon which all the other harm is painted.

You see, Christian preachers proudly tell their congregations that all they need to believe, and thus be saved for, is to have faith.  Faith is the rock upon which belief is founded, or so they will say.

In reality, what is faith?  Some will say that it is the proclivity to believe something without evidence.  And, to en extent, so it is.

But really?

Faith is the training you receive from childhood that teaches you to believe whatever you are told by some authority is the truth.  No questions, no skepticism, just faith.  Shear, unadulterated gullibility, in other words.  From your childhood, you are taught that these authorities know what in truth, it is impossible to know, or so common sense would tell you.  But you are trained to ignore common sense.  You are taught that you cannot question these things.  They are simply taken as truth, by faith.

This allows those authorities to replace your own worldview with one of their choosing.  Like wiping a hard drive clean and replacing it with a flawed image of a brand new operating system - but one which includes some special programing.  Programming which allows you to live your life thinking you are doing good, even when you are not.  Programming which tells you that up is down, right is left, good is bad, and bad is good.

It is, in short, the programming that will allow a good person to do bad things, thinking that all of it is, instead, quite good.

Things like rejecting a family member, like a child, because they are gay.

Things like supporting a foreign war because god told the President to invade an otherwise innocent country.  Or so he said.

Or things like curbing the reproductive rights of women because god says women should be under the authority of men.

I could go on.  I could go on because this learning of faith is the basis for what society otherwise calls gullibility.  It allows you to believe all kinds of things without evidence, things like astrology.  Or ghosts, or ancient aliens.  Conspiracy theories like how Jews are supposed to have control over the world using some secret cabal.  Or the Illuminati.

Instead of children being taught to think for themselves, we are teaching them WHAT to think.  Not how, not how to be skeptical or to ask the proper questions, not how to verify something someone tells them.


Think of how much different our political system would be if we taught our kids to be skeptical of what they hear!  If we taught them how to verify things they’ve been told.  If we taught them how to use the Internet to scan the things politicians tell them to check for lies and prevarications.

How much different would our system work?  How different our elections would be!

That is the harm religion is doing to us.  It is teaching us to be gullible, to believe nonsense on faith.  To accept the authority of those preachers, to leave our kids in the tender care of clergy who often goes on to hurt them and sexually molest them.  To surrender the responsibility we have as adult human beings to examine the world around us to those who would instead harm us by teaching us harmful things, untrue things.

And, in the end, it teaches us to pass that harmful lesson on to our kids, keeping alive for one more generation the lesson of gullibility.

We don’t have to be gullible to be good.  We can let life teach us to be kind to others, to share our good fortune with those who have suffered the unkind hand of fate.  There are thousands, millions of good people whose examples serve to urge us to follow their good works with our own.

We don’t need superstition and fantasy tales to do that.

Let’s teach our kids to think for themselves.  Teach them to be skeptical.  Teach them how to ask questions and how to determine the right questions to ask.  Teach them that every claim of truth needs to be verified, then teach them how to verify those claims on their own.

In other words, let’s stop teaching our kids to be gullible, and teach them how to be strong and independent.

I think the world would be a better place for it.

Freedom of Speech and Religion

By now, the world has had time to digest the horrific attacks on the Paris newspaper which has resulted in the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie in social media.  Twelve people dead, four of them journalists and one the founder of the paper.

Sure, the paper was known for its harsh graphic criticism of Islam in the past, and had been firebombed last fall over previous drawings of Mohammed.  But did you know that it is also known for some pretty harsh stuff criticizing ALL religions?

I want to make my stance here perfectly clear.

In EVERY case, freedom of speech trumps anyone's heartfelt beliefs, whether religious or secular.  No belief system is sacrosanct against criticism.

None.

Not yours, not mine.

Criticism helps us grow, it points out our weaknesses, exposes our flaws.  Responding to criticism helps us sharpen our debating techniques, correct the flaws in our thinking and brings us back down to a human level, instead of existing in the clouds of our own perceived perfection.

I know, it's hard.  It often hurts.  Believe me, I am no angel when it comes to receiving criticism.

Ask my wife.  She knows!

But, really, at no time should criticism deserve a violent response.  Not a punch to the nose, not a pistol shot, not a firebomb.

Surely not a barrage of AK-47 bullets resulting in multiple deaths.

Any ideology or theology which requires, or even allows, the penalty of death for criticism neither deserves such protection nor can, obviously, tolerate it.

Our response should be to post the offending images, everywhere, spreading them as far and wide as possible, with the reason why posted prominently therewith.

Therefor, here is my contribution to that:

The Muslim world isn't sitting back silently, no matter what Fox News may want you to think. To quote:

“What have you really accomplished?” 

Yesterday you killed 12 people and freedom of expression. You say that you avenged the Prophet. You were violated because caricatures were drawn. Charlie Hebdo had a circulation of 50,000. You changed this yesterday. Those caricatures you thought were worth killing for, so that no one would ever again dare to caricature our prophet? Those cartoons had a circulation of 500 million yesterday. At the very least.

Newspapers worldwide have the cartoons on the front pagte today, online, on paper. Millions have changed their profile picture to a caricature of Muhammad . You said “Charlie Hebdo is dead.” The world responded by saying “Je suis Charlie,” “I’m Charlie.” You’ve made ​​Charlie Hebdo immortal. And freedom of speech has reemerged stronger than ever. And did you know that many Muslims, who in 2005 and 2006 were hurt and depressed over the Mohammed cartoons, yesterday wrote that they have changed their minds? They say that the killing of the defenseless is a far greater insult against Muslims than caricatures will ever be. They say: “Draw, draw, draw.” This is what you have achieved.

It's called the Streisand Effect, folks.  Try to suppress something today, especially on the Internet, and that WILL backfire.  So many more people will hear about it, you'll be sorry.

Instead of loading that AK-47, try sitting down and looking at yourself.  There is a reason millions of your co-religionists are also lambasting you on various Arab TV networks, including Al Jazerra.  Engage them, talk to them, learn from them.

By shooting your critics, you merely multiply them.  You hurt your cause, you do not help it.

---

Changing course a bit here, and bringing up the criticism some have brought up against those who are pursuing what they claim is "Islamaphobia", I will only say this:

The suffix -phobia is intended to indicate a fear of something.  I do not "fear" Islam.  I abhor it and all religions.  Religion condones, teaches, and advances non-critical thinking, subjection to unquestioned authority and adherence to non-scientific, superstitious beliefs which do not advance our knowledge of the material world.  Such beliefs cause us to advance solutions to problems which do not exist and stop us from pursuing solutions to real problems.

This has real and extremely harmful consequences to real people, billions of them, worldwide, which deserves the full and most scathing criticism and/or satire possible.  Wherever we can, however we can.

Harmful theologies, as with harmful ideologies, deserve no respite from criticism, nor protection from satire.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Shattered feet of clay.

It is always unsettling - and a bit sad - to see an icon fall.  Our society so badly needs its heroes and icons, and when one's feet of clay are finally exposed, a lot of people are often terribly disappointed.

But some icons need to be exposed, because the things they represent are so sordid and harmful to society, yet have been touted as being good.

Mother Teresa is one such icon.

Her public figure has always been a saintly one, so loving, so giving, the head of an order (which she established) devoted to caring for the poverty stricken in need of medical attention, and possessing over 400 missions around the world. Such goodness, such devotion to poverty, she was depicted as living as poorly as her charges.

Christopher Hitchens exposed her for what she really was - a hollow figure, callously sequestering millions of donated dollars, refusing to provide the medication and care her charges so badly needed, she essentially forced them into the suffering she felt was so central to her public faith.   But when she needed care, she got it at an American hospital.  One of the best, at that!  Flew first class, was feted by the high and mighty.  Especially by dictators and warlords, who lavished her with donations, which she gladly took and often funneled directly to the Vatican.

And talking about her public faith; privately, she agonized over a disbelief she admitted in letters and private writings, one which could never be made public.  In reality, she admitted she never heard Jesus or God speak to her, and wondered if they even existed.

Now, in a peer reviewed study, two Canadian researchers have revealed new information, corroborating Hitchens completely, and totally exposing the raw truth of her perfidy at allowing a media campaign which twisted her into a public saint.

What is worse is that the Roman Catholic Church not only allowed that campaign, but probably orchestrated it in a callous and deliberate attempt to create another saint.  A figure meant to illustrate and illuminate the church's dogma of poverty and suffering, which it claims brings its adherents closer to God.

A dogma which, in actuality, simply controls its members by helping them to be happy in their poverty, fooling them into complacence and compliance.

When I write about harm from religion, this is what I am talking about.  Policies and actions which take a true shameful condition of millions of people around the world - one which could be alleviated - and turns it into a control measure to avoid those unhappy people from upsetting the current political order.

While the current Pope talks about how terrible secular capitalists are about hoarding money and perpetuating poverty by paying poverty level wages, the organization of which he is the absolute monarch is busy propagandizing those unhappy poverty stricken millions into believing that their plight is a blessed one to be embraced instead of improved upon.

In the meantime, the world marches on, pouring billions and billions of monetary units around the world into military capabilities with which to grind those unhappy millions into human paste.

Thank you, Mother Teresa.  On behalf of a frustrated world population which yearns for a world at peace, thank you for helping to perpetuate a world at war.  A world which encourages poverty and suffering.

Like you did.

The Negative Consequences of Believing in Superstition - Part III

This is Part III of a three part series.  (Go read Part II if you've not seen it yet!)

Politics/Law

America is in the middle of a severely dysfunctional period of political and social change.

Over the last hundred years, technology has rocketed us from the horse and buggy days to jet aircraft and rockets to the moon.  From simple telephone tech to cell phones and computers in our pockets.

A hundred years ago, information was limited to those who could read, which for the population of the US as a whole was about 90%.  In 1979, that rate was 0.6%.  The ability of people to distribute information was limited.  For a regional audience, newspapers were the norm, and was limited to what the editors would print.  A wider audience could be reached in book publication, but that was limited to what the major publishing house editors thought would sell.

Accordingly, the public picture of what was normal was limited to what people could read, and that was tightly controlled, even with what was then a fairly free press.  The abnormal was easily ignored and any contradicting speech or dissension was often swept under the rug.

Until women got angry, and began working to change things.  By 1920, the 19th amendment allowed women the right to vote after a long and contentious public debate, including protests outside the White House, often resulting in arrests.

Today, information is everywhere.  The Internet allows instant connection to just about any repository of information that has an online presence.  Many traditional repositories of information, including the Library of Congress, are rapidly digitizing their collections.

The Internet has changed communication as well.  In the early 20th century, overseas telephone calls were expensive and rare, requiring coordination by letter so both parties were available at a coordinated time.  While this got easier with time, even as late as the 1960's, calling overseas often required advance reservations of a time slot, and were still not cheap.

By the 1970-'s, with modern satellite communications systems well under construction, such calls became both cheap and easy compared to just a decade earlier.

The Internet changed all that.  Today, there are multiple methods for connecting to people, even across the globe.  Email, texting, land line calls and even cell phones can be used to connect to people instantaneously.  While the online bulletin boards of the early 90's allowed communications by text, today, with such Internet giants as Facebook and Google, communication with huge numbers of people across wide swaths of the globe are as easy as sending an email, posting to a Facebook page or setting up a web site.  Skype and FaceTime allow instant face to face communication across the globe.

Any of this can be done on a cell phone.

This communication explosion has greatly changed the character of our political discourse.  While Americans slowly and quietly moved away from devout religious observance during the course of the late 20th century, the 21st, with the advent of instant internet communication, has resulted in an explosion of secular movements and groups.  The demographic of "None" as related to religious affiliation is the fastest growing category world-wide, not merely in the US.

Many in the movement attribute this to the Internet and the ability of people of a secular point of view to see - for the first time - that they are not alone and are part of a growing and dynamic community.

The growth of secularism, from the 60's on, resulted in a backlash of religiosity, starting with the Moral Majority, and Ronald Reagan's Presidency.  This backlash has grown in political influence, spurred on by the Republican Party allying itself with the religious right in a bid for increased political influence.  Successfully, I might add.

The Religious Right (RR) has gained influence on a regional and local basis through intense local organizing and political activism.  The resulting political power thus gained has allowed the Republicans control of a substantial majority of State Houses, allowing the RR to bend the political discourse far to the right of center.

A movement known as Dominionism (of which I've written here extensively) has orchestrated much of the successful passage of laws undermining education and science, causing much social controversy and political division, especially in the area of abortion and women's reproductive health.  In many States, there is a virtual dearth of any legal means of abortion, and now the fight is being directed towards a subject everybody thought was won decades ago - contraceptives.

So, today, after decades of successful advancement of women's rights, including the right to vote, the right to divorce, including no fault provisions, the right to contraceptives and abortion, and the right own property (largely won in the 19th century), women's groups are now having to gear up and spend vast amounts of money fighting for the continued existence of rights once thought secure.

Most of this is due to religion.  Patriarchy, biblical proscriptions against women (whether real or not) and a Dominionist movement intent on converting the US from a democracy to a theocracy have all brought the American political scene to a complete and utter standstill.

RR's efforts haven't stopped there.  There is a litany of things they are working on.

abstinence-only education - Instead of medically accurate information and thoughtful conversation about intimacy and childbearing, teens get promise rings and slut shame. 

Opposing protections and rights for children.  Thanks to the influence of biblical Christianity, the U.S. stands alone with Somalia in failing to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  

Undermining science - The scientific method has also become an existential threat to Bible belief. We know now that the Genesis creation story is myth, neurotransmitters rather than demons cause mental illness, mandrake roots and dove blood don’t improve female fertility or cure skin diseases, and the cognitive structures of the human mind predispose us to certain kinds of religious belief.

Promoting war - George Bush didn’t need to seek input from his earthly father about the invasion, because he asked his Heavenly Father.  Besides, Jesus is coming soon and war in the Middle East is predicted in the Bible.  That makes it not only inevitable, but—in a manner of speaking—desirable.

Abuse of LGBT persons and refusal of equal rights - They've fought equal rights for these folks for decades, and still are, and it would be bad enough if we were simply talking about history. But homophobic American Christians, thwarted at home, have turned to inciting oppression in Uganda and Nigeria where their hatred still finds fertile ground.

Destroying Earth’s web of life and endangering future generations - Climate change denial and refusal of reasonable methods of keeping our air and water clean and unpolluted is based on biblical scripture giving man "Dominion" (there that word is again) over the earth and all its animals, as well as the believed inevitability of the Second Coming, where God will simply create a new and better Earth guarantees that the RR will refuse to assist in doing anything to protect the environment or protect future generations from the consequences of our irresponsibility today.  Add Republicans' devotion to Corporate welfare, and the die is cast.

(Thanks to Valerie Tarico at Salon.com for her ideas and some of her language.)

I guess the greatest harm in general that religion (right wing fundamentalism in particular) does to this country is through its insistence that we support Israel.  The most vile technique they use is to accuse detractors of being anti-Semitic.  Even people who have reasoned and logical arguments against that support are branded with that epithet.

I am not, in principle, opposed to Israel.  I am not even against some form of support for it.

But our foreign policy regarding Israel is held hostage by the RR for religious reasons (because of the Second Coming) and tolerates no deviation from complete and total support.  Regardless of whether American interests are harmed or even devastated by that support, they insist that we continue to support Israel, blindly and without digression.

This has resulted in anger towards the US and much hatred of us by the Muslim world, and has resulted directly in the attacks on the World Trade Center (both of them), and a continued campaign of terrorist activity against American interests.

Our responses to that have been goaded by the RR to the point that our constitutional rights are now under attack at home and US Intelligence has eroded America's reputation for even handedness and high standards of morality to the point of almost nonexistence.  The RR's toleration and indeed, insistence on, classifying water boarding and "advanced interrogation techniques" as acceptable has completely destroyed the ability of this country to hold other countries accountable for similar actions against our own citizens, resulting in the inability of the government to protect American Citizens overseas.

Even if the Progressive movement (such as it is) managed to gain political ascendancy in the next election by some miracle, it would take decades for us to regain our good reputation for being a humane and law abiding nation.  As it is, forget it.

Obviously, this examination of the negative affects of having the population of this country believe in superstitious Bronze Age beliefs is incomplete.  If I tried to classify it all, I'd have to write a series of books.  One wouldn't be enough.

But the short story is a beginning.  If the only negative affects of religious belief were what I have touched upon here, it would be bad enough to justify organizing the secularists of this country to incite political influence and action to combat it.

But it is far, far worse than this.  The struggle to overcome religiosity and its negative affects on this country will continue into the future, and may never be fully complete.  Christianity, Judaism and Islam have been here, collectively, for over three thousand or more years.  That kind of influence doesn't go away overnight; we've been fighting it since the beginning of the Renaissance in the 12th century.

Let's not allow it to make a comeback.

The Negative Consequences of Believing in Superstition - Part II

This is Part II of a three part series.  (Go read Part I if you've not seen it yet!)

Sex

The subject of sex in the US is so screwed up, and it is mainly because of religion.  The system of patriarchy discussed above forces men and women into gender based roles.  While the social aspects of patriarchy are bad enough, the affects on sex and human sexuality are even worse.

As noted above, men are forced into a false and totally artificial image of "manhood", that is as false and artificial as the image of "womanhood" the ladies are forced into.  This produces mental and psychological stress and often damage that hurts the individuals, their families and their friends - often their employers as well.

Why?  Why is it damaging?

Several reasons.  (Stick with me - I'll get to LGBT issues in a bit.)

I think the most obvious is in personal confidence.  Body image, and how a person portrays him or herself sexually is extremely important in this country.  Heck, for that matter, in much of the world.  It affects our social standing, our family and how it is viewed by the larger society, and eventually, how and whether we are accepted as marriage potential.

Accordingly, we are obsessed by sex, we are obsessed with youth and the sexual aspects of it.  The secular commercial realm tells us that sex is good, it is natural and wholesome and, well, whoopee!

But...

In American society, sexual beauty and attractiveness is so skewed from the norm that millions of Americans, both men and women, suffer from severe lack of self confidence because they perceive themselves as unattractive, through failing to live up to an artificial and false vision of beauty.  No, this isn't because of religion, it is because of rampant and unregulated capitalism.

Religion, or the so-called "Judeo-Christian" or "Abrahamic" religions, especially in this country, as mentioned above, enforce a patriarchy.  A large part of that system is the second class status of women, and therefore, control over their public behavior.

Christianity especially, enforces a view of sex that restricts sex to the role of procreation within a family context.  This comes, probably, from the role of the family, or the clan, as the center of Roman life.  The individual wasn't important, the family or family group, was.  Loyalty to that group was paramount, and for women, that meant only having sex with their husband, to preserve the purity of the bloodline.  Hence the religious obsession with sex as procreation, looking down on both abortion and contraception.  One because it is an "illegal" rejection of the man's seed, and the other as rejection of a man's control over his woman.

So, religion forces us into this weird, twisted image of sex - the patriarchal picture of gender roles, mixed with the god-smacked rejection of women as full humans, subservient to men, and under their full control.

This results in our social culture allowing this culture of rape.  Men are supposed to be virile, strong and manly, which is supposed to drive women into raptures of sexual frenzy.  Women are supposed to belong to men, which means they owe us sex, and they owe us their love and devotion.  Women who reject this and refuse to go along are subjected to campaigns of hate and vitriol, threats of rape and violence.

If a guy doesn't fit that manly, virile picture, he is a failure, and is ridiculed as such.

So.

For women, you have to fit this image of womanhood that reflects the stay at home mother, homemaker, sexy wife and willing brood cow, while the larger social milieu tells you that you've got to be beautiful, sexy, and available to any guy that pinches your ass.  If you don't, you're a prude, and you'll never find a husband, especially if you are ugly.

In the meantime, religion tells you that if you DO, you are a slut, a sinner and you'll go to hell.

Guys, largely, get a pass on the religion thing because, you know, patriarchy.  Unless, of course, they aren't manly, so they're failures.  Or if they allow their wives to "hen-peck" them, they aren't following the bible, so they'll go to hell then, too.

Double-failures.

Especially if they are rejected by the ladies.  Since this isn't anticipated by the traditional patriarchal framework, guys that see themselves as manly and virile who get rejected by the ladies anyway can't comprehend that rejection.  They get mad and blame their failure on the ladies, who, of course, OWE them sex.  Severe mental pain and emotional confusion are common resulting from this condition, and has been known to generate violent reactions.

Is it any wonder that Americans are so screwed up about sex?  The true wonder is how any of us manage to grow up with normal pictures of reasonable and responsible relationships in time to have families.

But wait, I'm not finished.  Not everybody is a cis-gendered, heterosexual human being.  Some folks are homosexual.  Some folks are trans-gendered, and some are bi-sexual.  There are other categories, but I don't feel qualified to talk about them.

These traditional roles I spoke of above, as screwed up as they are, aren't the whole picture, especially since they ignore our LGBT friends.  That alone is responsible for untold misery,  family fights and estrangements.  Since these folks don't fit the "normal" categories, they have traditionally been either ignored or forced into playing roles they were not comfortable with, and often beaten or killed for refusing.  All of them are condemned by religion, and totally ignored by the patriarchal system unless they rock the boat.

The 21st century's success in this country in advancing marriage equality for homosexual couples is a remarkable story of the LGBT movement's ability to go mainstream, but is still being fought tooth and nail by the religious right.

Demographics tells us that the religious will lose this fight.

But wait!  That's not all, folks!

Let's examine some other issues, like clergy abuse of both children and adults, sexually.

Everybody knows, by now, of the Roman Catholic child abuse scandal.  The RCC has spent millions of dollars in the US alone just to make this go away.  Not much to actually stop the abuse, but surely to make it go away.

One wonders, as one examines the issue and how the RCC hierarchy responded to the scandal at first.   How prevalent IS the abuse of kids by Catholic clergy?  And how long has it been going on?

There are some clues.

First, in Ireland, we've all heard of the "laundry scandal", where unwed mothers and their children were warehoused by the Church (with complicit authority from the Irish government of the day) in homes, and were made literal slaves in big laundries.  Scorned by the Church for their sexual sins, their children were as badly treated as they were.

This broke even bigger a couple of years ago and again recently when news broke (over here) of the discovery of almost 800 graves in a hidden graveyard, with an unknown number of bodies even hidden in an old unused septic tank.  Graves going back over a hundred years.

Also in Ireland, the scandal of a few years ago of stories of child abuse and murder in Irish Catholic monasteries. possibly going back hundreds of years.  Horrific stories of terrible abuse, both corporal and sexual, often combined.

In Europe a number of decades ago, there were archeological discoveries of monasteries and cloisters, built fairly close by one another, with hidden tunnels linking the two.  The most horrific part of the discovery were chambers off that tunnel containing the graves of infants and fetuses, most of whom were probably buried hours after or before birth.

All of this is evidence of a terrible epidemic of sexual malfunction in a religious hierarchy, over a thousand years old, denied sexual release and access due to official greed, excused and justified by religious scripture.

(For those who don't know, the RCC finally outlawed marriage not for religious reasons, but to end the bleeding of "church" property through inheritance to families of clergy, especially to noble families with large estates.  With no marriage allowed, thus no heirs, their property was "inherited" by the Church.)

Don't think that only the RCC is involved, preachers of almost every Protestant denomination regularly are arrested and either fired or also charged for either child abuse or sexually predatory abuse of adults.

It's all over the place.

Not to be outdone, Islam isn't far behind, as you may have noticed in the recent re-emergence of the quote of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

He says: ‘A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate vaginally, but sodomising the child is acceptable. If a man does penetrate and damage the child then, he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl will not count as one of his four permanent wives and the man will not be eligible to marry the girl’s sister… It is better for a girl to marry at such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband’s house, rather than her father’s home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.’ 

Read more.

Not only is this considered child abuse, but Islam has doubled down on it and authorized it because Mohammed did it.

At least, the Muslims are honest - they'll tell you God wants this to happen.

Talking about child abuse, let's talk about masturbation, something Christianity in most of its forms doesn't like to do.  In many denominations, it is banned and called out for being sinful and of the devil.

But now, scientifically, we know that it is not only a natural urge (even infants play with themselves) but it is known to be actually good for you!  It releases hormones and endorphins that make you healthier and live longer.

Heck, we know, both from scientific study and from statistics that people who have a long term sexual relationship that is happy for both parties not only stay together longer, but also live longer.  Regardless of whether they have kids or not.

So, in summary, religion in this country (and throughout the world) twists sex and sexuality in humans to the point that millions of people are, at best, dysfunctional and at worst, mentally ill and twisted towards pedophilia and sexual predatory practices, even the clergy.

It taints our marriages, our dating practices, and inculcates a culture of rape that regularly threatens the lives and well being of over a half of all women in the United States and probably causes a significant percentage of our divorces.

It directly harms our LGBT friends through violence and intimidation, forcing them into hidden lives and damaging stress by denying them a happy and healthy lifestyle.

And because sex keeps us healthy and can help us live longer, by discouraging sex in most forms and twisting our sexual practices so badly, religion is also killing us.

Are you mad yet?

(Come back tomorrow for Part III)

The Negative Consequences of Believing in Superstition - Part I.

I was perusing Ophelia Benson's Facebook page Saturday morning and ran across a post she put up Friday about the post on Dave Muscato's wall regarding Jaclyn Glenn's Youtube video slamming feminism and how she is disappointed - no, outraged - that AA is supporting Glenn's anti-feminism.

One of the comments (which I can't find to quote, dang it) made a comment about the negative consequences of believing in superstition.  It rang a bell with me, so here we are!

There are numerous negative things religion brings to society which many religious folks either overlook or are brainwashed into thinking they are good, mainly because they believe it's good because they're told it is, but have never actually examined the issues to see what the reality is.

But today, we're going to look at a few things.

As I see it, there are at lease three major areas in which religion (believing in a superstition) brings negative consequences to society.

1. Patriarchy (Part I)
2. Sex (Part II)
3. Politics/Law (Part III)

Of course, these aren't the only things at issue, but each of these are major, affecting broad areas of society.  So, let's take them one at a time.

(This is going to be a long post, so I will post in installments.  This is the first, the others will follow tomorrow and Monday.)

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is defined as:

1.  social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly :  control by men of a disproportionately large share of power
2.  a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy

This sounds very clinical, and almost reasonable, doesn't it?  But what are the consequences of these things?

In the modern context of our present day political scene, the relevant part of that is about the legal dependance of women and children, though we will see other consequences of it as well.

In today's western society, especially the US, the practice of patriarchy is at least partially based on religion.  In the Republicans' "War on Women", it IS based on biblical strictures requiring men to be the head of the household, and women being denied the right to be "in charge of" men.

In other words, they are relegated to second class citizens.

Now, in the larger US society, in the last hundred or so years, we've managed to back some of that off.  Women can now own property in their own names, vote, drive cars, work outside the home (and in fact, at jobs traditionally reserved for men), and can marry (or not) according to their own wishes.

But, I am going to back things up a bit and note some negative consequences of allowing the Fundies to begin denying women those rights, as they seem to want to do - which will highlight some ways in which we have failed to progress into a more modern way of thinking about women.

First of all, think about the term "dependance" in that definition above.  Legal dependance, especially. What does that entail?  Briefly, it means a woman (or a child) has no legal rights of her own.  She has to have a male guardian who has the right to "care" for her, as a legal responsibility.

That has two consequences.  The most obvious is that she has no rights of her own.  He can pretty much force her to obey his every wish, and she has no legal recourse, unless he is neglecting her welfare.  She is, in fact, virtually his property.  In many countries, this is in fact, the case.

But wait, there's another side to it.  HE is obligated to care for her.  That means he is responsible, legally, to feed her, clothe her and provide her with shelter.  This isn't something he has a choice in, it becomes his legal obligation, for which he is liable if he fails.

What if he can't?  What if his resources aren't up to the task?  Sure, he can neglect her to her detriment, but that leaves him vulnerable to accusations of neglect which may, if his society cares, cost him.

Either way, this kind of situation isn't exactly fair to either one.  Worse for the lady, since she is the one losing rights, but if she is prevented by the social or legal rules to not be able to work, the whole family suffers.  In fact, the entire society suffers.

This is actually the worst part of the patriarchal system.  The entire society, from the individual, to the family, to the potential employer, to the city, State and the entire country, everybody suffers, both socially and economically.  To stop half of the population from working is to cut your potential GDP in half, at the very least.  Even if you only go halfway and allow women to work, but restrict them to certain jobs (and, equally, restrict men to certain jobs) you are still preventing people from working in their best way and potentially most skilled career.  The potential of people working at their best level and in a skill that they are best suited for is huge, and the frustration (for both men and women) in being prevented from doing that is as huge as the potential.  The cost of such false restrictions based on arbitrary and unnatural reasoning is perhaps not as bad as a complete ban on women working, but it is a non trivial figure.

Society suffers in other ways.  Women are, actually, as smart as men, and as capable of doing anything men can, save perhaps (on average) some jobs or tasks requiring major body strength.  (...and even there, some women exceed that standard and do quite well in those circumstances, as on the other hand, some guys fail!) In the US, after over a century of women working, there is plenty of evidence that many aspects of society are better off with the participation of women.  Corporations find that women make better organizers, deal better with adversity and are better at mediating conflict.  In politics, women (when allowed to work independently) are often better at compromise and negotiations than men.

As costs have risen in recent decades, women have been forced into the workplace, bringing in much needed resources and allowing single women to raise children alone under better economic conditions than once was allowed.

I could go on, but it is obvious from these examples (which are only a few examples of many) that were women forced back into the home, the economy of the US would take a hit that would guarantee our immediate slide into third world status.  Poverty would become, instead of merely commonplace, rampant and virtually the norm.  The middle class would be destroyed, and those in poverty would be devastated completely.

Notice that I haven't even touched on the health care aspects of women's rights, and the devastation the American family would suffer were women no longer allowed to control their reproductive rights.  In fact, the proposed restrictions on contraceptives would be devastating to not only women, but to the entire country, as it would push us back into a time where women were not capable of stopping pregnancy.  (This does, of course, include the prohibitions against abortion.)  The social consequences of this would be to push many women out of the workforce, and reinstate the social pressures against allowing women to work, with the consequences noted in the previous paragraphs.

I haven't addressed the other side of the issue, which is the damage to men a patriarchal system can and does do.

This system not only imposes restrictions on women, but imposes strict (depending on the time period and the culture involved) roles for the two different genders.  (Note here, the refusal of this system to even acknowledge the existence of the LGBT folks!)  This framework of strict roles is restrictive and limiting for both men and women.  Men may have a larger menu of choices, but they are no less prevented from crossing that line than women are.

Some women are great corporate managers.  Some are great politicians.  Some aren't.  Many men just suck at those roles, and choose to do other things, including these days, staying home to take care of the kids.  Numerous articles have been written by guys who have done this, and it is liberating for them to be able to do so.  As it is liberating for women to be able to be corporate managers.

Some guys are fantastic secretaries, or office managers, or nurses.  Men can be social workers, cooks, day care workers, pole dancers and strippers.  And they can be good at it.

Patriarchy would prevent them from doing all this, as those are not "traditional" men's jobs.

Men are forced into a false and totally artificial image of "manhood", that is as false and artificial as the image of "womanhood" the ladies are forced into.  This produces mental and psychological stress and often damage that hurts the individuals, their families and their friends - often their employers as well.

It also forces men into this culture of rape we all know so well, but I'll deal with that in the "sex" topic.

In short, patriarchy is not a system that is supportive of society, but is damaging and harmful to a society that hopes to progress into a modern, peaceful, and productive society which accords equal rights for all citizens.

In short, it is un-American, in accordance with the ideals declared by us in the Declaration of Independence.

Some of the last points I raised also apply in the next section.

Come back tomorrow for Part II!

Aaghhh! Demons!

Ah, but which is the demon?

Is it a malicious evil being out of medieval church belief or is it the exorcist himself - or maybe just the belief?

According to this ABC News article, exorcism is widely believed in the US.  In Africa, demonic possession is so much a part of the social fabric, you are probably a bit strange if you don't believe in it!

But for my purposes today, the focus will be on the Catholic Church.  It seems the Pope has accepted the rite of exorcism and a group of priests who practice it as an integral part of Catholic Dogma.

Pope Francis is said by some to have performed an exorcism on this young boy.

Obviously, that means that the Catholic Church really, truly believes in the existence of demons.
This is not good, folks. This is medieval stuff, superstition.

By now, we should be so far beyond this, it should be laughable.  We live in the 21st century.  We fly in aircraft that hold 500 people at a time from one side of the planet to the other.  We have cured diseases that killed people for centuries, and delved into the very DNA that makes us human.  We've flown to the moon and gazed through the eyes of our robots at the furthest reaches of our solar system.

Even in the US, people really, truly believe in demons.  Look at this Catholic forum on exorcism.

But I'm not laughing, because in Africa, they still BURN witches. Exorcisms are, literally, torture sessions where priests torture children, in the guise of driving out demons.  Beatings, burnings, cutting.  (Not Catholics, by the way, from what I saw.)

This is evil, incarnate. I don't care how reasonable Pope Francis seems to you, this drives that right out of the conversation.  The belief in demons is superstition.  It is worse than believing in ghosts, it assigns the designation of evil to invisible yet supposedly powerful beings in order to prevent human beings from looking into the true reasons why people do bad things, and as in the exorcisms in Africa, give people an excuse to torture innocent children which hides the actions of malicious adults who would be the true perpetrators.

I suppose the RCC doesn't condone torture as a way to exorcise demons.  Not any more, I'd hope, at least not physically.  But to have the most powerful and pervasive Christian Denomination in the world tell the entire planet that it believes, as part of its dogma, that demonic possession is real and can be "cured" by a ceremonial ritual gives the others an excuse to continue to practice the worst of the rituals that DO involve torture.

Until now, my picture of the Catholic Church as an organization that condones some evil was limited to the child abuse scandal.  That the Church itself, as dogma, didn't condone the abuse, but that it was condoned by the priests and higher ecclesiastical ranks as individuals - a kind of invisible, good-ole-boy network from the remote past that would be hard for the "good" priests to root out.

Not any more.  This is rot of the highest order, straight from the top, condoning and actually teaching superstitious dogma as fact.  In your face, institutionalized evil incarnate.

For me, the Pope just stripped his friendly face completely away and exposed the ugly underside of religion.

Raw, unadulterated superstition.

#childabuse, #cruelty, #mentalhealth, #HarmfromReligion, #Religion, #RomanCatholicChurch,

Concrete Angels Never Make it to Heaven.

For the first time in a while, I took a walk around the block this evening.  It was hot, and I'd changed into shorts.  I like to wear my headphones, too, when I'm going to be alone in a quiet space for a while, to listen to my music library.  It is an eclectic collection, ranging from country to celtic to classic and way back to the rock & roll of my youth. (Ha!  I had you there with all the c's, didn't I?)

When I set the iPhone music app to "songs", it bounces around and I never know what song will pop up next, or even which genre!  Kinda nice sometime.

I was about halfway around the block when one of my favorites came on, Concrete Angel by Martina McBride.  It's the story of a child, a girl, and how she is abused physically by apparently a parent or guardian, which results in her death.  Hence the "concrete angel" part, describing both her outer defensive facade in life and the statue on her gravestone in death.

The verses describe the story, which is literally legion around the world, and is not unique, so I won't bother to quote any of it here.  What I want to talk about is the refrain.

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone


In a world that she can't rise above


But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place


Where she's loved 

concrete angel

Now, Martina McBride is a wonderful singer and performer, and her recording of this song is truly magnificent.  She is really one of my favorite country performers.  She is a devout Christian, apparently, and she makes no apologies for it.  Her music reflects that belief, which I do admire.  (The reflection of the belief, not the belief, folks.  I'm not re-converting!)

I also admire her use of her music and her public platform as such to stand against both child abuse and violence against women.  She deserves full and complete recognition and credit for doing that - many people wouldn't have the guts.

So, don't take this as any criticism against her personally.  It isn't.

This is something I noticed in the past week or so, but it really didn't hit me until now, listening to that song - the refrain, specifically.

There has been another spate of men being caught molesting children recently.  Some ministers, some not.  This is not a screed against religious guilt in child abuse.  Not today.  I want to mention that what I noticed is that we focus primarily on the abuser.

The stories always tell us about the abuser who commits these horrid crimes, but we quickly turn the page (so to speak) and shake our heads, thankful that another one is getting removed from where he (or she) won't hurt any more kids.  That IS true.  We ARE glad of that.

But what about the kids?

This country is supposed to have one of the best health care systems in the world (it really doesn't, by the way) but one thing we lack is a competent and easily accessed mental health system.  The system we have is expensive and is usually covered by health insurance only minimally, if that.

We know, from research, that children who have been molested sexually have a fairly high number of victims who turn into perpetrators.  And those who do have a fairly high rate of recidivism if not treated immediately after their victimization by competent mental health professionals who deal professionally and often with these victims.

As a country, we fail miserably to care for the victims of crime in general, but especially those victimized by pedophiles.  One reason, of course, is that it is a difficult crime to detect, and is often not reported or prosecuted properly.  Another, I think is embarrassment.

But, I have different idea why not.

Look at the refrain of the song.

But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place


Where she's loved 

It is often difficult to interpret someone else's poetry - and poetry set to music is what a song is.  It is often imbued with double meanings, and this one is no different.

Obviously, it speaks of her dreams in life - dreams of having a loving family or at least someone who cares and won't abuse her.  We do "fly" in our dreams, don't we?

But there is another meaning here, and the song's title reflects it.  Angels fly, too.  And they fly to heaven, where they will, in the modern sense of the Christian afterlife, be loved.  So, according to this song, even though abused and eventually beaten to death (Look at the video of the song, and that is heavily implied), she flies to heaven and is there loved as she never was in life.  The video implies that she will be joined with other abused kids there, where they apparently form a self-help group.

As an atheist, my attitude is different.

Having no faith in an afterlife, and having the belief that once dead, we simply cease to exist as living entities, I think this gives a false and deceptive picture of a happy ending where in life, sadly, there isn't one.

Every single child who is killed by an abusive adult will never grow up.  He/she will never know the pleasure of getting out from under the cruel control of that abusive adult, and experience the ability to control their own life.  This false picture of a happy ending gives us cover.

It gives us the cover to ignore how badly we fail to protect children from abuse and how badly we fail to provide the healing treatment needed by the survivors.  It gives us the false impression that even if we have failed (as God says we do every day) He will step in and take care of these kids in our place.

Forever, right?  So, hey, it might have been bad for them on earth, but they're in God's arms now, right?  Happy?  Loved?

Not so fast.

From my perspective and the perspective of every atheist on the planet, there is no heaven, no loving arms of god, there is only...death.  A life cut short, and not cut short by accident, but cut short in cruelty, in violence, in raw, unadulterated anger.  A loss for all of us, for all the decades of productive adulthood cut short and thrown away, like trash.

How can I convey the horror, the sheer terrible loss of just one single child, and the decades of life lost?  How can we, even with a false sense of relief over an imagined happy ending, ignore the cruelty of that child's death?  However temporary one might see this mortal coil to be, while here, it is very real, and we feel, deeply and at our deepest levels, every emotion, every physical cut or bruise or broken bone.

It should cut us to the center of our being, that failure to protect.  The failure of care, of healing for the survivors.

For some, it does, and those folks do all they can to help.

But for others, we see the false ending, the happiness of "heaven", and imagine that there is a god who has our backs.  And we sit back and turn the page or click on the next story.

Religion hurts.  It provides, every day and in a thousand ways, the excuses for us to sit back and keep on being comfortable in our faith that this deity, this "father" figure, will make it all right.

Well, I hope from now on, you'll see those concrete angels and remember.

Thanks, Martina, for a beautiful song, and for using your platform to speak of human cruelty and the need to fight it.

#childabuse  #cruelty  #mentalhealth  #healthcare  #martinamcbride  #concreteangel  #harmfromreligion  #violence  #violenceagainstwomen

Another Dominionist Nail.

I had to work today to remain calm after the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby.

I've written long and hard about the Dominionist movement trying to convert this country to a theocracy.  I know it sounds like some crazy conspiracy theorist ranting against chem trails.

But please consider for a moment.  The religious attitude about contraception displayed by the plaintiffs is a very small minority of Christian far right wing groups.

Witness the article written by Jack Jenkins over at ThinkProgress.  Go on over there and read it, I'll wait.

Ok, done?  Good.  I think I waited for even the slow readers to get back, if not, just let me know.

It is plain to see that the majority of religious Americans do not agree with Hobby Lobby.  Certainly the majority of religious institutions representing religious Americans don't.

So, why is this being touted as a win for "religious freedom"?  Because the guys loudly proclaiming victory are representatives of that Dominionist movement.  It is a tactic used by movements in the past whose goal is to overturn the established political order - loudly proclaim your goals to be in tune with the majority, even if your actions betray a very different path.  This tactic worked for Communists in Europe in establishing big Socialist parties, and it definitely worked for the National Socialists (the Nazis) in Germany.  It confuses the issue, because people in general are very forgiving and assume that what people say in public - especially in the press - is what they really mean.

Most people require pretty substantial proof to show that a group's public statements hide a sinister or publicly unpopular position.  These folks are taking advantage of that.  They know you are, basically, fair.

They have no such scruples.

Please note that many of the things the right wing is fighting for are laws which disadvantage women.

Note that this is, in a small way, an extension of the fight against contraception.  A fight liberals thought we'd won decades ago.  Remember the constitutional amendment they tried to put to the vote in Georgia (or maybe it was Mississippi) in 2012?  The one proclaiming that "personhood" begins at conception?  Yeah, it sounded harmless enough, until you realize that many of our contraceptives work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the womb.  Meaning, of course, that the amendment would have made 90% of the contraceptives American women use illegal!

In one fell swoop.

Notice that the proponents of that amendment never said squat about that.  They tried to focus the argument on abortion, carefully avoiding the unpopular part of the consequences of approving that amendment.  Yeah, that's another way they work.  Sneak this stuff in when you're looking the other way!

Notice a pattern here?  A progression?

Most of this stuff is about the reproductive rights of women.  On the surface, that is.

But think about it.   When a women gets pregnant, it doesn't just become an inconvenience for a time.  It changes her LIFE.  Having a child doesn't just tie up 9 months until the kid pops out.  The pregnancy itself is a hazard to your life.  It gets worse when institutions like Planned Parenthood (which is devoted to women's health services exclusively) are defunded and forced to close, because then people whose careers are devoted to knowing what to do for a women who is in a distressed state of pregnancy are no longer available.  When certain procedures which can save your life are not performed in 90% of American hospitals because they are related to abortion procedures.

Not to mention the labor itself, in which not insignificant numbers of women die each year as a result of.

Then, of course, assuming you and the child survive the pregnancy and the labor of childbirth, there's the next ... oh, something like the next 30 years of your life, raising and nurturing that child, since these days kids aren't always on their own until they're in their thirties.

No, pregnancy is not a simple thing, and for all of these reasons, some women don't want to get pregnant.  Heck, some guys, even husbands, don't want to be fathers!  Some couples just aren't suited to be parents, and for the sake of the kids, they shouldn't be forced to be.

But if these right wingers have their way, they'll force that on us.  All of us.

Where will it stop?  Will they be satisfied to just keep you ladies barefoot and pregnant?  Think so?  Might they someday begin talking about the scanty and immodest clothing women wear?  Do ya think they might some day force you to wear - skirts?  Or worse yet - dresses?

Heck, if they can force you to get pregnant, isn't it reasonable that they might force you to stay at home with that child?  Be dependent on some guy for your upkeep?  Maybe they'd prefer that if that man dies, you just get tossed out on the street, since you won't be able to get a job.

Is that what you'd want for your future?  Or for your kids?  To have our society forced back into 19th century thinking where women have no rights, no personhood?

Because if we let them do it, that's where they're going.

As a male, I object.  I didn't marry my wife to be a servant.  I don't want my daughters to be servants. I want my kids to be full, productive citizens, with all of the rights and responsibilities men do.  I want to see our society to grow into a progressive, caring, forward looking society.

One where all people have the same rights, the same benefits before the law and the same opportunities to make their way in the world as they see fit.  A good education, healthcare, and employment prospects.

If we leave the country to the tender mercies of the Dominionists, we'll never see that.

If you agree with me, vote.  Tell your friends to vote.  I don't care where you live - VOTE!  Even if you live in rural Alabama, or Georgia, or even Mississippi, where rednecks think they rule the roost.  If enough people who object to this progression towards theocracy get out there and vote, we can show them different!

Throw out the seditionists who want to put preachers in power!  Throw out the republicans-in-name-only who are really Tea Partiers and religious extremists.

This November is more important than you think.  It may be a mid-term election, which are usually not that important - but then so was 2010, and that one gave the House to Republicans!  Let's take it back.

VOTE!  and vote Democratic this November!

#Dominionism  #Religion  #SupremeCourt  #politics  #harmfromreligion

Time to come clean, or just clean house.

By now, many of you have seen the latest news from Ireland, about the almost 800 bodies of infants and children found in a septic tank on the grounds of one of Ireland's many "mother and child" homes maintained at government expense by the Catholic Church across Ireland during much of the early 20th century.

What you may not understand is that those kids were tossed in without ceremony, without last rites, unwanted in death as they were unwanted in life.  When the site was discovered by accident in 1975, it was re-covered by a new concrete slab, and Catholic prayers were said over it, quickly, by a priest before it was again forgotten and ignored.

Bad enough that women were enslaved by the church at the expense of the theocratic Irish government of the time, forced to work for little or no money, and had their children ripped from their arms simply because they became pregnant out of wedlock.

Bad enough that Catholic priests have, for a length of time unknown to all, sexually molested the children of even their most devout followers, and covered up the facts through Church approved rules and regulations to prevent public discovery of these sad and outrageous actions.

But to discover that the Church in Ireland, at countless homes scattered throughout that long suffering country, was actually killing these children through willful neglect, is simply beyond the pale of what a civilized world should accept.

Now we find that at least at one such home, the children so callously killed through willful neglect were also shamefully tossed into a septic tank like so much human feces.

Was this a common practice?  Were all such children disposed of so casually?  How widespread was this practice?  Are they almost all in unmarked, unsanctified mass graves?

Now, a UK based media outlet has asked those questions, and is demanding accountability.

While I think it is about time this is finally brought to light, I would take it further.

How many other countries have seen similar such homes and similar conditions?  This cannot be a phenomena unique to Ireland.  This was an intrinsic, imbedded and very authorized practice throughout that country, indicating that the Church Fathers (read:  College of Cardinals) not only approved, but allowed it to occur and made it official and part of the Church bureaucracy.

What part of the enslavement of women and the neglectful death of children was covered by the New Testament?  Where are the words of Christ that allowed and approved of the death of children for the sins of their parents?  Where is the justification in the teachings of Christ for this complete and utter failure of the church to stand up for its dogma and it's teachings?

Not to mention the shameful coverup of its crimes by throwing the bodies into a septic tank.

It is beyond time for the world to stand up and demand that the Roman Catholic Church come clean.  Time for it to admit to its crimes, worldwide, and to take real, measured actions to atone for the crimes of its past, by funding the uplifting of the poor of this world through the sale and liquidation of church wealth and property it has accumulated and hoarded for almost two millennia.

Time for an abject apology and real atonement.  Or it's values mean nothing, and it's teachings are mere window dressing for its real goal - collecting and hoarding wealth.

Shameful, indeed.

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States of America took the next step towards the dismantling of the Bill of Rights.  For years, they have chipped away at various parts of it, mostly having to do with citizens' rights in encounters with the police and other parts of the Justice System.

Today, they dealt a body blow to the First Amendment.

In a case brought in regards to a city council holding sectarian prayers (specifically Christian prayers mentioning Jesus) at the beginnings of city council meetings, they basically said it's ok.

Let's look at that again.

They said it is OK for a governmental body made up of elected officials to hold sectarian prayers.  That it is ok to push citizens of other religious beliefs into an official second class citizenship status by virtue of having to listen to prayers endorsed by the majority of those elected officials.  And by virtue of some of the language in the majority opinion, it is the right of the MAJORITY to force their religion into those prayers.

So, how long will it be until a small town somewhere becomes dominated by Muslims who then endorse a specifically Islamic oriented prayer - thereby causing redneck heads everywhere to explode with rage upon discovering that a five justice majority consisting of all Catholics ruled that such a display of sectarian religious ceremony is legal and supported by their precious Constitution?

I sincerely hope that is within the period of my lifetime.  I really, really want to watch the fun, especially when Scalia's head is among them...

If he can even remember how he voted on this ruling by that time!

Two income families should be terrified of the Republican Party!

Why would I say that?  Why, when a fair percentage of those families are themselves supporters of the Republican Party?

I say it because the result of the Republicans' War on Women ongoing as we speak will inevitably result in the loss of women's rights.

All of them.

I kid you not.  Currently, Republicans are rapidly destroying the Supreme Court-assured rights to abortion.  While the Government sits by and does nothing.

They are talking about destroying your rights to contraception.  They are talking about destroying your rights to employer provided health care insurance.

They are fighting, tooth and nail, the push to ensure the rights of women to equal pay for equal work.

It is a small step from that to forcing women to stay home and from there to destroying your rights to even owning property.

Back to the eighteenth century, when a women could not own property, could not vote, could not (except for certain highly restricted jobs) work outside of the home, even if alone and single with no family.  You were forced to be the ward of either family members who were male or a ward of the state, who could take your property and force you to live anywhere, even on the streets.

All of this with no regard for any children she may be responsible for, male or female.

Have you ever seen Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol"?  Remember the abject poverty depicted there?  Just about any story of the country of England from the advent of the Industrial revolution until early in the 20th century will show some aspect of that country's poverty-stricken lower classes.

People living on the streets with no shelter, no income, rags for clothing, living in a city and country in which there were few of any soup kitchens, or free shelters, or health care of any kind.

Pretty much like many American cities of today, in fact, with the major difference that there does exist, until now, some forms of government provided assistance intended to keep families off the streets.  At least until the Republicans get themselves elected to a majority of the Senate to match their control of the House and put a Republican puppet of the Oligarchs in the White House.

At which time any assistance programs will cease to exist, public education will no longer be provided, consumer protection of any kind will be gutted if not destroyed, and any control by the government of any activity taken by Corporations will either cease to be effective, or will be ended altogether.

It won't take long before women will be prevented from working at all, and families that depend on their income will find themselves on the streets in very short order, their property taken, their ability to work completely destroyed.

Don't ask what that will do to single women, married lesbian couples or even widows.

I know this paints a terrifying picture, and a lot of folks will take one look and exclaim, "That can't happen here!"

But it can.  I never thought that a woman would be brought up on murder charges for having a miscarriage, but it has happened.  I never thought that a woman who simply fired a warning shot (in a "Stand Your Ground State!) would get tried for attempted murder and threatened with 60 years in prison, but that trial is ongoing as we speak.

How far could we be from complete destruction of every progressive advance in civilized legal rights this country has seen since 1776?  It isn't as far as you'd think, should Republicans win control of our government.

I mean, look at Louisiana - which has advanced a bill to make the Bible the STATE BOOK.

In complete defiance of the Constitution, as written.

Do you think for a moment that they would pay any attention to the rest of that document once they win control?

It's enough to make a grownup cry.

There are some famous (or infamous, if you please) names associated with cults in this country.

Charles Manson.  David Koresh.  Jim Jones.  I'm sure I could Google that and come up with a dozen more if I wished.  All of them dangerous, all of them, once exposed, horrified the average citizen with what a cult could make a perfectly normal person do once under the influence of the cult's leader.  They made us wonder why people would put up with the things they were forced to do.  In fact, many of the people once under the influence of a cult would tell you they were seldom actually forced to do anything, but did what they were expected to do voluntarily.

There are studies that explain the psychological reasons why people do those things and fall under the influence of cult leaders.  I'm sure they are mostly done well and are most probably adequately peer reviewed, too.

But I've got another point of view.

You'll notice that most cults are religious in nature - that is, they begin as a group that seems to worship in accordance with an established religion - or at least one that has an attraction to a certain kind of person.  Some are often counter-cultural.

Some are nationalistic.  Take North Korea, for instance.  There, an entire family has been the subject of what has become a religion.

First, a disclaimer.  I am NOT a Sociologist.  I'm not a psychiatrist nor a psychologist.  This is merely my opinion, and not the result of any professional study or theories.

Got it?  Just my not-so-humble opinion.  (Hey, I'm a blogger - we don't DO humble!)

It's religion.

A majority of people across this wide wonderful world we have profess a belief in one religion or another.  Christianity, Islam, Judaism.  Hinduism.  Jainism.  Buddhism.  There are thousands of local versions of these and other, older religions held by indigenous people all over the globe.  I'm sure I missed a hundred other 'minor' religions too.  There's a web site that professes to list as many gods as we can claim to know about, including those historically known but no longer worshipped.  Some eight thousand, the last time I looked.

Every single one has one thing in common with all the others.  They all are included in a theology that includes elements which one can only confirm by dying.  Which, as we all know, is a one way street.  Or, well, MOST of us know that - some folks have a belief that one can go around multiple times.

With, I might add, not much proof.

Which, in the greater scheme of things, makes a belief in the supernatural a perfectly normal state of mind.

Think about that.  No matter what you, personally, believe, there is a very large chunk of humanity that, in your mind, believes in superstitious bunk.  Richard Dawkins has a point he makes about that.  He notes, fairly accurately, I think, that the only difference between a religious believer and an atheist is the belief in just one god.

To those of us who are atheist, the rest of you are delusional, to be moderately nice about it.

To you, WE are the delusional ones, even worse than the other folks who believe in the wrong god.

Which, in the greater scheme of things, means that your belief, and the propensity of every other theist on this Earth, allows the very dangerous cultists to exist under the protective coloration of religion. Since they profess to have actually founded a religion, at least in this country, they are allowed to be protected and can operate with the protection of the law, so long as they do not violate weapons laws or something similar.

Even if they coerce their members to give their possessions to the cult.  Even if they are coerced by the cult to give up even their women to the leader to do with as he wishes.  Even if their daily practices are bizarre and strange and psychotic, as long as they don't stray into illegal territory like child molestation or stockpiling illegal weapons, they will get away with it.

Because, you see, religion is NORMAL.  To believe in a supernatural being, no matter how strange in its demands upon its adherents, no matter how bizarre its rituals, somehow, simply the fact that it is tagged a religion puts it Off Limits to scrutiny or criticism.

Yes, I know, all those others are kooks.  And the ones of your religion who are more extremist or more liberal aren't TRUE members of your religion, are they?

If that's your attitude, Google the phrase "No True Scotsman".  Here, I'll do it for you!

https://www.google.com/#q=No+True+scotsman

That brings back 4,200,000 results.  Go read some of it, the first is, predictably, Wikipedia.

As a defense that is, frankly, bullshit.  Exactly the same thing can be said about YOU by the other guy, because HE interprets your holy scriptures differently, and in HIS mind, it is YOU that is crazy and reading it all wrong.

To me, you are both crazy.

You are because your belief in a supernatural being (no matter how real to you) allows every other normal human being to engage in the same exercise, with predictably different results that allow them to claim everybody else is the crazy one.

And everybody thinks this is normal.

The truly sad thing is that it IS normal.  To think that over six billion human beings see as normal that one can believe in a non-material, invisible being who can, nevertheless, affect the normal material world, and can, if enough devotion is displayed, be persuaded by the prayers of billions of us to do a trillion contradictory things.

All at once.

This species has a lot of growing up to do.