Garden Variety Atheist

A Week on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:38:00 +0000

Those of you on Facebook may or may not know about Richard Dawkins' Out Campaign project; and there's a related grassroots campaign to get atheists to show their solidarity by changing their profile picture on Facebook to the Scarlet A this week. So if you're on Facebook, RSVP to the A week on Facebook event and set your picture to the Scarlet A for the week...

The Scarlet Letter represents how atheists are labeled by mainstream society...and now it can also show that we are proud of our label, we are proud to be atheists, we are not ashamed!

What Happened to the 1st Amendment?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:16:00 +0000

The 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Based on how it has been interpreted in the recent past, and how it is interpreted today, it might read:

"The government and/or any extension of it, may not express any favoritism towards one specific religion, or prevent anyone from the exercise of his/her religion [without compelling interest]; the government may not prohibit freedom of speech and/or expression, and press; the government may not prohibit the people from peacefully demonstrating; the government may not prohibit the people from suing to redress a wrong they suffered."

The part of the 1st which deals with religion (The Establishment and Free Exercise clauses) is naturally of the most interest to me, as well as to other atheists, secularists, and humanists. I, and the people listed, would like to see the 1st Amendment enforced; unfortunately, our government doesn't feel the same. The Establishment clause is blatantly violated every day, and no one blinks an eye; the Free Exercise clause is abused and gives free license to the government's chosen religion, Christianity, while it seems not to apply to other religions at all. To get the ball rolling, here's some examples:

Establishment Clause Violations (and the reason each problem is a violation, discussion, and respective solutions):

Problem: "...one nation, UNDER GOD..." in the Pledge of Allegiance our children say every morning, 5 days a week
Reason: Public schools are controlled by the Department of Education, a federal institution.
Discussion: It wasn't in the original pledge. Making it voluntary to say is not enough. It is a violation for it to be there at all. What child wants to be the one who doesn't stand up, the one who doesn't say it?
Solution: 'under God' must be stricken from the pledge.

Problem: "In God We Trust" on our currency
Reason: Currency is minted by the government.
Discussion: Our country founded on Christian principles? No, it was not. The exact opposite is true.
Solution: The motto must be removed from our currency.

Problem: Religious mottoes on government buildings; nativity scenes, crosses and religious displays on public (federally regulated) property
Reason: Government buildings and property; mottoes and displays amount to endorsement, promotion, and establishment of one religion over another, or lack thereof.
Discussion: Christian principles argument is useless; our country was founded by atheists, agnostics, and deists to be a secular country with freedom of religion (or lack thereof). Freedom of exercise is not violated here; the Establishment Clause overrules it.
Solution: Either all religions are displayed, or none are.

Problem: Prayer in schools (graduations, sports matches, etc.)
Reason: Public schools = DoE = government.
Discussion: Non-mandatory participation in prayer isn't enough. It is a violation for any school official (teacher, coach, principle, etc.) to lead prayer during school, on school property, and/or at any school-sponsored event. Free exercise only applies to students (i.e., students may pray on their own).
Solution: No school-sponsored prayer; no school official may lead prayer. Students may pray on their own if desired. No benedictions at graduations, commencements, etc..

Free Exercise Abuses (same format):

Abuse: Religious drug use
Example: Supreme Court has ruled that a church in Oregon may legally use DMT, a hallucinogen
Discussion: One need only say that their religion requires them to use drugs, and they're allowed; however, users of medical marijuana, which has been clinically proven to have strong therapeutic effects and medical value, are still subject to federal prosecution.
Solution: Legalize marijuana and other recreational drugs, or stop protecting the use of drugs because some religion "believes" they need them to understand God.

Abuse: Using Free Exercise to protect hate speech
Example: James Nixon, a 12-year-old student in Ohio won the right to wear a t-shirt bearing the words "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!" (Impressive how powerful indoctrination is; to be able to drive an innocent preteen to such hatred...it's a shame he was born into an intolerant family)
Discussion: His school sent him home for wearing the shirt to school; his parents sued. They used the principle of freedom of RELIGION, not speech. This might have been covered by free speech; religious hatred, bigotry, and intolerance shouldn't be legally protected under free exercise.
Solution: Evaluate all cases from the viewpoint of freedom of speech; freedom of religion does not, and should not extend to hate speech.

Example: Christians are against No Name-Calling Week because it "interferes with the rights of Christian children" to spread anti-homosexual hate speech and bigotry.
Discussion: It is not a religious right to spread intolerance. Bullying is bullying; hate speech is hate speech. No one would allow a religion the right to spread anti-black bigotry, so why do we allow it for those who would spread anti-gay bigotry? Religious protection needs to end; nay, religion itself needs to end.
Solution: No protection for hate speech; and parents who promote bigotry in their children should be prosecuted for corrupting minors.

In the end, the 1st is only enforced when it protects the agenda of Christians; it takes a Supreme Court case to allow any expression by other religions and groups. This unfair application is in itself a violation of the amendment; Christians can do whatever they want, and slide through the law, while an atheist has to sue just to get a winter solstice display allowed. No one does anything, because the government is Christian. It's like trying to enforce an anti-smoking ban with a government full of smokers.

I'll continue to rant about it, though; and, in the spirit of the late and great John Lennon, to imagine no religion...

U.S. Military on Christian Crusade?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:04:00 +0000

The U.S. Military uses products from many different contractors, foreign and domestic; but a few products from a Michigan contractor, Trijicon, are raising interest. Trijicon supplies our military with telescopic sights; inscribed with Bible verses! The sights, which use radioactive tritium to allow the shooter to see in the dark, are standard issue to U.S. special operations forces.

The inscriptions are included at the end of the stock number; one model carries the inscription "JN8:12" referencing John Chapter 8, Verse 12

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"

Another model carries the inscription "2COR4:6" (2nd Corinthians Chapter 4, Verse 6)

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

Weapons carrying the inscriptions are even being given to Iraqi forces; our military can't even respect the religious freedom of other countries, let alone their own members! In the United States Military, there are laws against proselytizing; not to mention the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution expressly forbids favoritism towards any religion by the government. The military is a part of the government; and equipping our soldiers with weapons bearing religious inscriptions is a blatant violation of the Establishment clause.

Military officials, however, have said that the inscriptions do not violate any laws and they will not stop using the sights. Air Force Maj. John Redfield, the spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said "This situation is not unlike the situation with U.S. currency...Are we going to stop using money because the bills have 'In God We Trust' on them? As long as the sights meet the combat needs of troops, they'll continue to be used."

Yes, this situation is just like the situation with religious mottoes on our currency. Does it favor one religion over another? Yes! Does it violate the Constitution? Yes! Will the sights (and our religion-favoring currency) continue to be used? Yes! Do you know why? Because there's no one to fight it. The military officials don't see any violation, because they're Christian. The government doesn't see any violation, because they're Christian. Our country no longer possesses the ability to enforce its most sacred tenets, because the overwhelming majority of the people, and the government itself doesn't WANT them enforced.

To paraphrase another point from the article, made by Mikey Weinstein from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, what would the reaction be if verses from the Koran were inscribed on our weapons? There would be an uproar. When seen from that perspective, it should become painfully obvious to our government how wrong this is.

What can I do? What can any atheist, secularist, humanist, and 1st Amendment supporter do? Make noise. We are a tiny minority, standing in the face of a Christian populace that wants a theocracy, and a government that isn't far from it. So make noise, my friends. Make noise.

Christian Privilege, FCC Style

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:58:00 +0000

Kept from the sweet darkness of sleep due to what can only be described as obscene amounts of caffeine, I sit on my couch watching half-hour segments of Comedy Central Presents. As some balding middle-aged man with a microphone failed to maintain my interest, something suddenly jerked me from my pre-sleep thoughts. The thing that caught my attention was the bleep, which, by itself, isn't out of place in the routine of your average stand-up comic (Brian Regan doesn't count). What suddenly piqued my interest was what was being bleeped.
The comedian had said "God damn," and Comedy Central had elected that its viewers would be better off hearing "BLEEP damn." Compared to other words deemed worthy of being bleeped, "God damnit" isn't nearly on par with the other things.

While we're here, let's examine the other words deemed worthy of bleepage by the FCC:

Fuck = BLEEP

Shit = BLEEP

Cock = BLEEP

Cunt = BLEEP

Asshole = AssBLEEP (This has always confused me; why the addition of "hole" makes saying "ass" so much worse is beyond my understanding)

God Damn = BLEEP Damn

(In hindsight, the preceding list almost makes me worry about offending my readers; but then again, the people who would be offended by the simple mention of a word are usually the people who would never read an atheist blog)

Why is God bleeped? God is not a curse word. Children don't get soap in the mouth for saying God. The word "god" is only bleeped when it is followed by "damn" or some variation. Surely there must be some government precedent for this oddly specific censorship?
Not at all. For the source of this, one need look no further than the 7th Commandment in the Christian Bible.

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." (Exodus 20:7 KJV).

Our friends at the FCC have decided to protect our innocence by saving us the egregious aural distress of hearing someone else take the Lord's name in vain. I am all too familiar, and disgusted by, Christian privilege in our society; but when I noticed the bleep example, I realized to what extent it reaches. Where does this censorship come from? Is the FCC, using the [true] assumption that most viewers are Christian, simply trying to avoid offending anyone like always? Is the FCC folding to Christian pressure on a word that otherwise wouldn't be offensive? Or, because the FCC is, like the viewers, mostly Christian themselves, simply sprinkling their censorship with their own views? The first is annoying; the second is frightening; the third is intolerable. Whichever it may be, the only solace I receive in the knowledge that our government bends over backwards to cater to the ever-so-sensitive ears of religious folk is that they at least do so for all religions. Just as they will bleep "God Damn," they will censor an image of the prophet Muhammad and the Islamic god Allah. At least if they're going to violate the Constitution, they do so in an unbiased manner.

Personally, I think Christians should lighten up about hearing someone say "God Damn." Not only is it not offensive, it doesn't violate the 7th Commandment, even if they still choose to respect it! They are prohibited from saying it, not hearing it! And Muslims need to lighten up about the image of their idols; it's the same case as with Christians. They are prohibited from depicting Muhammad and Allah; not from seeing it (an interesting point can be made about religion's propensity for crying persecution here: Allah has no image. Therefore, how is simply drawing something and calling it "allah" depicting Allah? If Allah has no image, how can one depict Allah? And Muhammad is one of the most common names in the world; is not each one of those people depicting themselves as Muhammad?).

Religious people are not actually offended. They act offended and cry persecution because their dogma tells them they should be offended. They have no personal thought about it; they simply know they are supposed to be angry about these things; and play the part as their religion dictates.

As far as the FCC goes, there is no reason to bow to the eccentric demands of superstitious dogmatists with sensitive ears. One would also hope that something shown at 2:30 AM wouldn't need any bleeping in the first place.

This is a sign that Christian privilege is far too well-rooted in our society; if we are censoring what we are allowed to hear on television and radio because of the wishes of a religious group, things have gone entirely too far. Although there are countless other more important, more influential examples of religious privilege in our society; I find this one (and others like it) to be the most frightening. The fact that things have gotten this far is a sign that it should have been stopped a long time ago. If religious people have achieved every item on their list of priorities so as to be able to fret about petty things like censoring "God Damn" and images of religious figures, hope for a secular-governed society is more bleak than I thought.

(An even darker outlook on this occurred to me...can you recall the last time that religion controlled what we could do, say, read, hear, and think? That was called the Dark Ages. How would things be if religion controlled more of what we could see and hear in media? Imagine if the FCC conceded to the simple whims of these people, instead of just the doctrines written in their holy texts? The only thing left on TV would be televangelists and a 24 hour network showing a documentary on Kirk Cameron non-stop)

Know Thine Enemy

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Taking inspiration from Atheist Revolution's Idiot of the Week series, I will be posting semi-periodic entries in my series, Know Thine Enemy. This series will highlight people, groups, and legislation that is considered to be an enemy of secularism, free thought, human rights, and religious freedom.

This series is an effort to give the secular community knowledge about the entities that fight against them; and to expose the hatred, intolerance, and backward thinking of these entities themselves.

I have many organizations on my list who will certainly be included in this series...and the list grows as I research more.

Atheism; Is it a choice?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:12:00 +0000

I've often wondered whether atheism is a choice or not; certainly one can choose to no longer take part in their parent's religion, or the religion they were in. But was that person predisposed to eventually become an atheist? I think the answer is most likely yes; I'm sure I speak for many of my fellow atheists when I say that the idea and practice of religion just doesn't click with me at all, and it never has.

In the movie Angels and Demons, based on Dan Brown's novel of the same name, Tom Hanks's character tells Ewan McGregor's character this quote:

"Faith is a gift I have not yet received."

I can entirely relate to his plight; the ability to believe in something like a god would certainly reduce my stress level. My view on faith is bittersweet; I envy the faith of religious people, but I am also glad I don't have it. I find myself unable to believe in something for which there is no evidence; and that I frankly don't believe exists.

I do not regret my atheism. People of faith can pray to their chosen deity, and be filled with hope and the knowledge that their problems are in the hands of their god. Personally, I know prayer doesn't work, and if it appears to, it is only because of coincidences. I believe it's always better in the long run to take responsibility for your problems and work on them yourself, instead of giving them up to God.

In closing, while my life might be easier if I was a person of faith, I regret nothing about my lack of belief. To me, it seems entirely obvious that religion is false; it seems so blatantly untrue, so unbelievable. I can only imagine that this is how faithful people feel about NOT believing in what they do; I empathize with them. Assuming the basic principle that God (any god) is only an element of our psyche, then faith and lack of faith are both just as good for your psychological welfare. Faith allows you to have hope even in the most dire of situations; lack of faith allows you to have faith in yourself.
Personally, I prefer the latter.

First Post

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Hello; this is the first post on my newly created blog. As I type this, I'm sitting on my bed wondering why I can't sleep. I'm excited to see how popular this blog can get...and looking forward to talking about my views. Even if no one ends up reading this, it's nice to just hear yourself say what you believe; it allows you to analyze your views and better understand why you think the way you do.