Sick Transit

Interesting NYT article about Robert George, a Princeton professor who seems to have taken over as the intellectual leader of the Catholic-Evangelical political alliance after Neuhaus died. (I admittedly would likely not have clicked through to the article if Tyler Cowen had not blurbed it as “proof that intercourse is special.” At least from the summary in the article, however, it seems simply like a rewording of standard Catholic arguments.)

The article brings back memories for me, because George is a Thomist, and I was very attracted to the Scholastics when I was a Christian. The claim that Christian morality can be arrived at through universal reason is, I suppose, the only way that someone who loves intellectual rigor can justify imposing their beliefs on the rest of the world.

What’s flabbergasting, looking back, is how incredibly weak the edifice is. Sure, us mushy relativists have a hard time making a coherent case for any single position. But George is attempting to carry the meticulously jointed weight of a skyscraper on premises blatantly selected for their end result:

First, he contends that marriage is a uniquely “comprehensive” union, meaning that it is shared at several different levels at once — emotional, spiritual and bodily. “And the really interesting evidence that it is comprehensive is that it is anchored in bodily sharing,” he says.

In other words: sex only belongs in marriage because marriage is about sex.

I understand the pleasure of certainty. I remember the comfort of believing that the world actually has a right answer. But I also remember the nagging–and later searing–doubt of knowing that the whole approach was build on a few, highly doubtful assumptions. I’m sure George is too smart not to realize that, and I don’t envy him that feeling.

A Yom Kippur tradition I was not familiar with:

The ritual of Kaparot, in its traditional form, involves swinging a live chicken around one’s head, symbolically transferring one’s sins to it. Afterwards the chicken is slaughtered and donated as food to the poor.
…
Many Jews, as an alternative, place money in a handkerchief, swing it over their head, and then donate it to the poor.

My first thought was: “But that doesn’t make sense! How can you transfer your sins to money?”

But then I quickly recovered and realized that it makes as much sense as transferring your sins to a chicken.

The government of India wants to dredge a shipping canal through shoals which, according to Hindu myth, were built by the God Rama. Howard Friedman picks up the story:

Defending the project in the court challenge against it, ASI’s affidavit said that the shoals were the result of “several millennia of wave action and sedimentation” and “the issue cannot be viewed solely relying on the contents of mythological text.” It added that there is no historical evidence to prove the “existence of the characters or occurrence of events” in Ramayana (the epic tale of Rama). Quickly, a leader of the Hindu BJP party charged that the language in the affidavit was “an insult to millions of Hindus all over the world.”

By Saturday the government had agreed to withdraw the controversial parts of the ASI affidavit. Culture Minister Ambika Soni suspended two officials over the matter and offered her own resignation. Meanwhile BJP leader L.K. Advani said the affidavit amounts to blasphemy that is punishable under Sec. 295 of the Indian Penal Code as a defilement that insults the Hindu religion.

We may have attempts to mix religion into our educational system here in the US, but at least statements of basic science aren’t a criminal offense.

In all the controversy over Plan B, it never occurred to me that an actual rape victim, being treated at a hospital, might not receive Plan B. That’s not true at Catholic hospitals, however.

There’s an e-mail forward going around, as follows:

Did you see in the news last week where the supreme court doesn’t want any crosses on Federal property?

Crosses on Federal Property?

Well duh………

Let them try and remove these. 

What are these people thinking?

At what point do we say, enough is enough?

Of course, the funny part of this is that US military grave markers aren’t always crosses. In fact, while it’s not on the officially approved list yet, one solider (after a protracted fight) even had a Wiccan pentacle on his headstone.

So I’m sure that the people promoting the placement of crosses in public spaces will, by the same logic, be ready to support the Star of David, the Sufism reoriented symbol, the Muslim crescent, and perhaps even the Wiccan pentacle, right?

Continuing from my previous response to Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation, I wanted to discuss Harris’ claims about the prevalence of fundamentalism in the U.S. He says in his opening note that “many of us may not care about the fate of civilization” because:

Fourty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years. (xi, emph. orig.)

There’s no reference for this claim; the most relevant statistic I could find with a web search was from this Newsweek article from 2004:

Fifty-two percent of all those polled believe, as the Bible proclaims, that Jesus will return to earth someday; 21 percent do not believe it. Fifteen percent believe Jesus will return in their lifetime; 47 percent do not, the poll shows.

These numbers are obviously far higher than they should be in a rational society. Still, there’s no way to square “fifteen percent believe Jesus will return in their lifetime” with Harris’ claim.

The other fact that Harris seems to miss is that most religious people are very good at compartmentalizing their beliefs. Even among those who do notionally believe that Jesus will return in their lifetimes, how many do you find who actually don’t have a 401(k) or a pension plan?

Clearly, it’s disturbing that people hold irrational beliefs, and many of those beliefs do have real-world consequences; but there’s a definite difference between beliefs that people hold abstractly, and beliefs that actually influence their everyday behavior, and Harris doesn’t seem to recognize this.

Perhaps it’s wrong to ask for psychological subtlety from a book that explicitly chooses to “engage Christianity at its most divisive, injurious, and retrograde.” (ix) But if that’s the case, Harris should at least be honest about the extent of the problem, rather than using inflated numbers.

Another instance of opponents of church-state separation getting a taste of their own medicine:

Last summer, conservative Christians convinced the Albemarle County, Virginia School Board to open its so-called “backpack mail” to religious nonprofits, as well as secular groups, so flyers advertising a Vacation Bible School could be sent home with elementary school students. But now some Christian clergy and others are upset because some local Pagans who attend a Unitarian Universalist church have used “backpack mail” to distribute a flyer advertising a program that will “explore the traditions of December and their origins, followed by a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.”

So are the original campaigners now accepting that religion is kept out of the public schools for a reason? Or perhaps they’re embracing tolerance, politely ignoring the advertisements of faiths they don’t accept? Nope:

Jeff Riddle, pastor of Jefferson Park Baptist Church in Charlottesville, wrote on his personal blog: ”… This kind of note adds weight to the argument that it is high time for Christians to leave public schools for reasonable alternatives (homeschooling and private Christian schools).”

(For a previous instance of similar schadenfreude, see this post.)

Bona fides of Universal Life Church ordinations called into question.

At a friend’s recommendation, I borrowed and read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. While Harris is a good writer, and he and I share the same fundamental metaphysical belief (atheistic materialism), I believe that much of his book is wrong-headed or naive.

(more…)

Religion was an excuse for a lawsuit against the expansion of O’Hare airport:

The approved plan involved relocating the remains of those buried in a nearby cemetery. Members of a church that owned the cemetery and descendents of those buried in it argued that moving the remains would substantially burden their religious exercise because of their belief in the physical resurrection of the bodies of Christian believers.

So God can’t bring back the bodies if they’re moved a few miles? He must really have a hard time with people whose bodies were lost at sea, or crushed, or otherwise destroyed.

Undoubtedly, the real source of this claim is concern about property ownership, not religion. But the notional focus on burial arrangements as a way of securing the afterlife seems more suited to ancient Egypt than to 21st-century America.

Howard Friedman’s blog has been a great source of material lately. Today, it’s the riders to a Scottish University’s recognition of a Wiccan student group:

At Wiccan events, participants may not utter incantations or spells that might harm others, raise spirits or to call up dark forces, or engage in ritual nudity.

Makes you wonder if the college administrators were reading Scary Go Round.

I took a class in college on ‘The Supreme Court & Freedom of Religion’ (with Dean John Sexton of NYU Law School, now President of the University). My views on church and state were more accommodationist at the time than they are now (a function of the religious beliefs I held, and perhaps also of Dean Sexton’s unabashed liberal and pro-religion bias).

However, I still have a difficult time, as I did then, with the idea that the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses are necessarily in tension. I believe that there has to be a range of ‘permissible but not required’ accommodation, within which democratic processes can operate. All too often, however, our current jurisprudence leaves us in a state where government–most often school districts–must decide between potentially violating the Establishment Clause, and potentially violating the Free Exercise or Freedom of Speech clauses.

Via Religion Clause, this case is a good example:

The class valedictorian departed from her prepared speech that had been approved by administrators and began reading from a version that contained religious and Biblical references. Administrators cut off the microphone.
…
Administrators had earlier reviewed Brittany McComb’s speech and cut out six references to God or Christ, two biblical references, and a detailed reference to Christ’s crucifixion. The high school’s policy does not permit the school to censor religious references by speakers who have been chosen “on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria.” However, school district lawyer Bill Hoffman said that while the regulation allows students to talk about religion, they cannot cross over into the realm of preaching or proselytizing. School officials said that permitting McComb to continue would have amounted to school sponsored proselytizing.

My first reaction was that the school’s actions were blatantly unconstitutional; they were engaging in viewpoint discrimination. And yet, the Supreme Court has held that voluntary, student-led prayer at official school events is impermissible; and understandably so, since the school is responsible for the program of an official school event. But what if the school doesn’t schedule a prayer as part of the graduation ceremonies, but the valedictorian includes a prayer in his or her address? What if the school officials know about this in advance, or perhaps even encourage it? Drawing the line is difficult.

That’s why I think the courts need to pull back. The real key to avoiding religious entanglement in schools is not trying to strip out religion–which will always provoke a backlash–but requiring strict religious neutrality. You want to have prayers before the football game? Fine. As long as you let the Muslims, Wiccans, and Atheists pray, chant, speechify, or whatever they want to do before the game as well. Nothing gets the Baptists to shut up quicker than the idea that they might have to give equal time to the Wiccans.

Via Religion Clause, a very interesting church/state case in Texas:

Their attorney says that the pair thought they had revealed their sins to Watermark’s pastor confidentially and that their behavior should not be made public.
…
In this case, the man refused the private interventions and said he was quitting the church, church officials said. But Watermark’s bylaws say a member “may not resign from membership in an attempt to avoid such care and correction.” Watermark’s next step would have been to send more than a dozen letters to people who know “John Doe” – half to Watermark members and half to members of other churches who know and have worked with him.

That’s when the lawsuit was filed.

“The basis of the lawsuit was the church wanted to go outside of the church and the community at large, including potentially even their employers,” said Jeff Tillotson, attorney for the man and woman.

This case is interesting both from a legal and religious perspective.

Legally, I think the question is whether the church has the right to send the letters in the first place. The plaintiff’s resignation is actually irrelevant to that question; there is no legal obligation to submit to church discipline, whether or not you are a member of the church. (Of course, the church is also free to kick you out if you don’t submit. But for this church, that’s apparently not enough.)

IANAL, but I can see two possible grounds why the letters might be illegal: libel, or invasion of privacy. Truth is a defense to libel, and the plaintiff does not seem to be denying the truth of the allegations. Invasion of privacy, OTOH, is probably a stronger claim (under grounds of public disclosure). As far as I know, however, neither claim would justify a prior restraint. (In other words, the court could punish the church after the fact, but could not prevent them from sending the letters in the first place.) Another possible complaint would be breach of fiduciary duty, but the courts have generally shied away from assigning a fiduciary duty to clergy, since it would involve defining the clergy’s responsibilities in a way which might be incompatible with church doctrine.

Religiously, the ‘Roach Motel’ aspect of this is very disturbing; as the plaintiff’s lawyer said: “The typical notion of a Dallasite is that if you don’t like a church, you can just leave, and that’s that is [sic] apparently not shared by some of these churches.”

As an ex-Jehovah’s Witness, the Pastor’s comment was particularly creepy to me:

Church officials say they are only following a process of church discipline outlined in the Gospel of Matthew and written into the church’s bylaws.

“Basically, we’re being sued because we’re seeking to love ‘John Doe’ in accordance with the principles outlined by God’s word,” said the pastor, the Rev. Todd Wagner.

The notion that ‘love’ means imposing your morality on someone who disagrees with it is a disgusting and dehumanizing concept. While this instance may not be as severe as the Witnesses’ practice of “disfellowshipping“, they’re both instance of the same controlling, self-righteous mindset.

As a former Jehovah’s Witness, I have a great deal of respect for Barbara Anderson, the Watchtower researcher who blew the whistle on the church’s cover-up of child molestation. She recently wrote the story of her time at Watchtower Society Headquarters, and while it’s not brief (24 single-spaced pages), it’s definitely a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in JW history.

Initially, reading that “25 percent of those who had read [The Da Vinci Code] said it helped them achieve personal growth or understanding” did not give me a very positive feeling about our nation’s culture.

But maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way:

“Few people said that reading the book had actually changed any of their beliefs,” he said. “That was only 5 percent. Most people said that it essentially reinforced what they believed coming into the book.”

What they believe is what Mr. Barna calls “pick and choose theology.” It’s a trend that Christian conservatives find scary and maddening, but that liberals tend to embrace as “big tent” inclusiveness.

“Americans by and large consider themselves to be Christian, but when you try to drill down to figure out what they believe, you find that among those who call themselves Christian, 59 percent don’t believe in Satan, 42 percent believe Jesus sinned during his time on Earth, and only 11 percent believe the Bible is the source of absolute moral truth,” said Mr. Barna, a conservative evangelical who regards these as troubling indicators.

In other words, the success of The Da Vinci Code is a symptom of the decline of fundamentalism and the rejection of religious authority.

So maybe all the conservative Christians protesting the book and the movie actually do have a point. Their protests, however, are just a futile attempt at suppressing the evidence of a loss of power that they are helpless to reverse.

There’s absolutely nothing new in PZ Myers’ fisking of a Rabbi’s essay on atheists and morality, at least not to anyone who’s been through the ever-repeated debate at least once before.

The post is very much worth reading, however, purely for its entertainment value. I won’t post quotes, because you really need the context to appreciate them, but just go ahead and click on the link and read it. It will brighten your day.

Muslim family law can get interesting:

In 2003, Nazma Biwi’s husband Sher Mohammed, while drunk, divorced her by pronouncing triple talaq. He later changed his mind and decided to live with his wife and three children. Even though the couple originally received a religious ruling that the divorce was ineffective because it was carried out under intoxication, local clerics at Bhadrak in Orissa issued a Fatwa holding that the couple was divorced and could not live together unless Nazma performed ‘Nikah Halala’ (marrying another man, consummating the marriage, then getting a divorce and remarrying her first husband).

Brunswick County (North Carolina) backed off on a plan to include religious literature in the school library when they realized they couldn’t restrict it to religions they agreed with:

During the discussion, board Vice Chairwoman Shirley Babson held up two books on pagan religions that a group had requested to distribute in schools.

“There would be a disclaimer on the tables stating that the board of education does not support this,” Babson said. “But if students saw this, they might think, ‘Mrs. Babson supports this.’ Mrs. Babson does not support this.”

Milligan said recently that the board has already received inquiries from Unitarian Universalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Buddhists asking how they could distribute literature in the schools.

I think that a lot of people are in favor of religion in the schools, until you start trying to define which religion.

This Jack Chick parody (linked to by Orac) is funny, but I think that the original is actually funnier. How come none of this happened in my D&D group?

A few months ago I expressed my fear that fundamentalists promoting Bible classes in schools would eventually wise up and make preserving the Establishment Clause more difficult than shooting fish in a barrel.

Rather than realizing my fears, however, a group of Christian and Jewish scholars have actually created a strictly academic, non-devotional Bible Literacy textbook that, by all appearances, I could actually support being taught in public schools.

I still think a general course on ancient religious texts is probably more appropriate to the high-school level than a specific focus on the Bible. But there’s no denying that the Bible has a central role in Western culture; and especially in areas of the country where Christianity is still a very public force in the culture, it’s certainly reasonable to help students make sense of such an important text in a sound academic context. Plus, as Amy Sullivan points out, it can be a great political move to steal some of the Republicans’ pro-religion thunder.