-E. B. White

A new poll from the First Amendment Center reveals that I may have misunderestimated the American people. They are far more ignorant than I had believed, and most of them see no need to go to the trouble of seeking truth when PR and rumors fit effortlessly into that same space in their consciousness. The majority of Americans (55%) believe that the Constitution established a Christian nation, and even more (65%) believe that the founding fathers intended the United States to be such.

This is disturbing on several levels. First of all (and least obviously), it means that at least 10% of Americans believe that the founding fathers were too stupid or incompetent to actually get their intentions down on paper. This tremendous insult to the memories of the great men who gave birth to the grand experiment that is the United States saddens me. More clearly, these results highlight both the success of the religious right’s marketing machine and the failure of the American educational system. I don’t know about any of you, but thinking back, I was never required to actually read the Constitution in school. We learned about what it says, but I suppose the four page document was deemed too hard. After all, so many of our elementary school children can barely read a comic book, much less an 18th century legal document.

Now, I was not so naive as to assume that all Americans understood the secular nature of our founding document, but I honestly didn’t expect the informed to be a minority. In a democracy, majority is truth, so welcome to the Christian States of America, heathens.

On a subject only tangentially related to the topic of this blog, the survey also indicates some unsettling trends in the public’s thoughts on the freedoms granted to us in the Bill of Rights. 74% of people want to prevent public school students from wearing T-shirts with slogans that might offend someone, and 42% don’t feel that musicians should be allowed to sing songs with potentially offensive lyrics. 34% believe that the press has “too much freedom,” and 40% think that the government should be able to require broadcasters to report a certain amount of “positive news” as a prerequisite for being allowed to use public airwaves. A quarter of Americans even believe that the first amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.” Of course, they can’t even name those rights. Of the five freedoms granted by the first amendment, speech was the only one that could be named by the majority of respondents (64%). Only 19% were able to name freedom of religion, but since only 56% believe that freedom extends to all religious groups, I guess it doesn’t make much difference.

I recommend not just reading the article, but perusing the actual survey tables. Look ignorance and authoritarianism in the eye. And don’t blink.

~I AM~

On May 22, the Pew Research Center released a study that I’m sure most of you have already heard about. The headline on their report was “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.” Of course, anyone who actually looked at the results knows that the most important word there is mostly. Pew learned that a mere 26% of U.S. Muslims under the age of 30 feel that suicide bombing of civilian targets to defend Islam can be justified. For the entire Muslim population on the whole it was 13%. When I think about the kinds of feelings that would make someone say “I don’t know” or even refuse to answer the question, I think I’d be justified in adding in the 9% of people who did one or the other for a grand total of 22% of the total Muslim population, but let’s just work with the 13% for now.

Pew estimates that there are 1.4 million Muslims living in the United States. So, this means that at least 182,000 American Muslims are down with suicide bombing. Does that sound like good news to you? We’ve seen what 19 can do. 182,000 can lead to a very bad day indeed. Now 13% doesn’t seem very high at first glance, but it depends on what you’re talking about. If a diet product has 13% as much fat as the regular version, that sounds pretty good. However, if I were to ask you to get into a box with 100 cobras, but assure you that 87 of them have been defanged, 13% starts to seem pretty damn high. Always remember to multiply probability by severity of outcome for a real sense of what’s going on. If there’s a 13% chance I’m going to get a papercut today, I don’t really care. If there’s a 13% chance that I’ll be beaten to death in the street, that’s clearly too high.

Another bit of good news from the survey is that only 5% of American Muslims have a favorable view of al Qaeda. 10% have a “somewhat unfavorable” view. I think the real story here, however, is the 27% that didn’t know or refused to answer. Hmmm… Let’s think about this… Why might someone refuse to answer that question in a telephone poll? This is America. It’s not like the government is tapping… oh, that’s right. Never mind.

So, what do we learn from all this aside from the fact that 182,000 Americans wouldn’t flinch if somebody blew up himself up in your favorite Starbucks? We learn a little more about the role of religion in terrorism. I can’t remember how many times people have told me that Palestinians are driven to don suicide vests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because they’re poor, or because they’re politically oppressed. In this country, where our Muslims are mostly middle class and we constantly trip over ourselves to avoid the appearance of racial profiling or the slightest offense to the “religion of peace,” what’s the excuse of these 182,000 people if not Islam itself?

~I AM~

P.S. A note on the death of Reverend Falwell: yippee

My guess is that most of the more prolific atheists simple ignored Avi’s first post on this subject, and that he neglected to do any research on the topic of atheist morality. Otherwise, he would have found that there is a plethora of opinions out there on how one can derive a moral viewpoint without God. In general, these morality systems seem to fall into one of three very broad groups of thought; morality derived from God (or some other place outside of human existence), morality derived from individual rights (absolute individualism), or morality derived from arbitrary social constructs (moral relativism).

The more difficult concept for many people to swallow is that of moral relativism. Even amongst those that claim to support moral relativism, there are certain things that most people consider absolutely wrong, such as murder or rape. As with Avi, when confronted with the notion of complete moral relativism, most people exclaim “but, without some moral absolute, then there’s no real morality and anyone can do anything!”

Yes. So what?

Morality is relative. Get over it.

There are no absolutes, there is no “purpose” to life. If that means your life is meaningless, that’s your fault not mine. The meaning in my life is my family, my career, and a quest for knowledge. My life is affirmed every time I hold my daughter, kiss my wife, achieve at work, or observe the awesome spectacle of existence. I don’t need anything else. Why do you?

According to Avi, atheists are intellectually cornered into “…a place where the very concepts of morality and ethics are rendered meaningless, a worldview in which a thieving, philandering, serial murdering cannibal is no less commendable a member of the species than a selfless, hard-working philanthropist. (In fact, from an evolutionist perspective, the former is probably better positioned to impart advantages to the gene pool.) It is a thought so discomfiting to an honest atheist that all it can yield him is fury.”

From a tit-for-tat approach to this debate, I could point out that the Old Testament is filled with examples of thieving philandering serial murderers who earn not just forgiveness, but rewards from God, and that therefore this line of argument is perhaps a bad choice for the theist. But, that would just feed into his point about angry atheists. So, instead I’ll point out that I’m definitely not furious over this issue. In fact I find it quite exciting. We, all of us, are in control of the world we live in. Not some arbitrary set of rules handed down by a faceless imaginary sky monster. We decide, as a group, what is “right or wrong”. Personally, I find this to be far from infuriating, and in fact rather liberating.

There is no evidence for, nor any need for, an outside source (God) for morality. No, the bible doesn’t count as evidence. Should anyone be able to bring forward any actual evidence for God, and/or his terminator style enforcement of morality, then I will be happy to reconsider divine absolute morality. In the mean time, I won’t hold my breath.

Similarly, moral absolutism based on individual rights, is on equally shaky ground. Proponents of individual moral absolutism suggest that morality can somehow be scientifically qualified, and that individualism itself somehow imparts each of us with a magic bullet of moral self importance. But, placing the root of morality in the individual, is no less arbitrary and imaginary than placing it with God.

We are all individuals, but we are not solitary individuals. We do not exist, nor can we exist in a vacuum. Whether we like it or not, it is necessary for us to interact with other individuals. In these interactions we will not always have the same self interest. I may want a smoke free environment, you may want to smoke. If we are both in an area designated as “public” property, who’s need is greater in that situation? Some might argue that given the potential for harm caused by secondhand smoke, that I have a right to a smoke free environment. Others might argue that the smoker should have a right to light-up when they want, and that any law that restricted their right to do so, would constitute coercion and thus would be “morally wrong”. Who’s right? In our country there is a growing number of people that feel the non-smoker has more rights than the smoker on this issue. But, in many other countries the trend is just the opposite. Ultimately, there is no “absolute” morality on this issue, though I am certain there will be those that disagree.

Take another example; two individuals are lost in a desert, they are two weeks away from any hope of rescue, and there is only enough water for one of them to survive. Given no other information, and assuming that the two individuals are of equal age gender status etc.., what is the right moral course of action? If they share the water, they guarantee that they both die. If one of them keeps the water for themselves, they condemn the other to certain death. More important than what they do is, how do they decide? They will have to come up with a system, a mini social contract, to decide. Perhaps they’ll draw lots. But what happens if they can’t agree on a system? Neither of them wants to die, if they can’t agree peacefully, they’ll be forced to fight for the water or die in indecision. It’s in neither of their self interests to concede to the other taking the water. To capitulate would be the same as committing suicide. So, is it wrong for them to fight over the water? If one of them dies as a result of the fight, should the victor be considered a murderer?

Those types of struggles are faced by humanity everyday. Without an imaginary friend in the sky to tell us what to do, we must create rules, systems, or “social contracts” to define how we will interact with each other. When we create these rules, not everyone is going to agree with them. It’s not in the self interest of those that have agreed to the rules (society) to allow those that disagree with the rules (criminals) to ruin it for everyone else. So society protects itself through laws, and enforces those laws through punishment. If the disagreement escalates, or if large groups disagree, then we get wars. But no matter what, the rules are all still arbitrary constructs of social interaction.

That’s it. There’s really nothing more to it than that. Who decides the rules? Everyone does, just like Wikipedia, the stock market, or open source code. Do some people have more influence than others? Of course, there will always be individuals that hunger for power and control, and there will always be people that just want to live their life and stay out of the way. In the end, everyone participates in creating the rules, whether they think they do or not, and they always have the choice of not following the rules or attempting to change them.

For those that lack the mental fortitude to grasp the vagueness of such systems, this must be a very scary concept. For those that embrace them, they open up a world of possibilities. But, as long as most people are convinced that there is some kind of magical “right” or “wrong” we will continue to be stuck in the moral stone age with the Avi Shafrans of the world.

LBBP 

I recently read The Da Vinci Code, and I was reflecting on its immense popularity. It’s not just a bestseller or a blockbuster movie, it’s a phenomenon. Now, I’ve heard both positions argued, but I have to say that after having read it, no good Christian could tolerate it. If I truly believed in Jesus Christ, I would be sending Dan Brown hate mail every day. However, in a country that self identifies as 85% Christian, it’s been a goldmine. People can’t get enough of it. They’ve read the book, seen the movie and watched the 317 different “documentaries” about it on cable. Something doesn’t add up.

Then, a few days ago, I saw The Omen at the drive-in. It’s been a very successful movie. It came out on 6/6/06, and Christian America flocked to see it. Then, just to top it off, SPOILER: THE DEVIL WINS! The people who go see this movie aren’t going home and saying Hail Marys afterwards. They’re not appalled by the blasphemy. They love it. (Well, they like it, at least; it wasn’t that great.) Once again, something’s a bit off here.

Just yesterday, my wife was reading the June issue of 5280 magazine (a Denver publication), and read me an interesting passage from an article entitled “People’s Republic of Porn,” by John Dicker. (No, I’m not making that up.)

In conservative Cincinnati, for example, one cable operator will only carry Pleasure, TEN’s single X channel. However, as Boenish [Oh, grow up.] notes, market research consistently shows that the more conservative a community is, the more adult entertainment is purchased – often on the order of a usage rate that’s up to 100% higher than in other markets.

“The Bible Belt is awesome for us,” Boenish says with barely restrained glee.

So, Christianity has a strong positive correlation with porn consumption. The calculus grows ever more complex.

Howard Stern, The Daily Show, most rap music, half the dramas in prime time TV… hugely popular and distinctly distasteful to anyone who really believes that Jesus Christ is his lord and savior and that there is a real risk that he’s going to hell. There is only one explanation that makes all of this insanity gel. There are a lot more atheists in America than anyone realizes. Many of these “Christians” are checking that box on the census because either that’s what they were taught to do or they identify the word with their culture or they were well trained during the cold war that atheists are the enemy… NOT because they’re sitting home on Saturday nights waiting for the Rapture.

If I’m right about this, then PR is incredibly important in our cause. We have to remove the stigma that’s so strongly tied to the word atheist. We have to educate people and teach them that “Christian” is not a default; it’s a choice. If we can do that, I think we’ll find that we have a lot fewer people to deconvert than we once thought.

~I AM~

Read that last sentence again.

One more time.

I’m practically speechless.

Now, I’m hardly a pro-choice activist. Don’t get me wrong. I am pro-choice, but with pro-life sympathies. I’m with Bill Clinton on this one. Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Even outside of a religious context, I can understand why some people are so vehemently opposed to the idea of abortion, though I don’t understand why anyone feels they have the right to make this decision for someone else. My moderate position on this topic is why I never write about it.

However, no one can possibly have a moderate position on this law in South Dakota. Even an evangelical Christian should be able to see that this legislation is absolutely horrifying. Any person who could sit face-to-face with a woman carrying a child fathered by a rapist or family member and tell her that she has to give birth to that child is a monster, and anyone who couldn’t do that, and still supports this law, is a first-class hypocrite. Monster or hypocrite. Those are the choices. I wonder which one Mike Rounds is.

When a news story like this one surfaces, I have to reorient myself. I forget momentarily which country I’m in. This is a headline you expect in Iran or Somalia, not a western nation. If this law is upheld (and it might be given recent changes in the Supreme Court), it’s time for the United States of America to shut the hell up on human rights issues. Exactly what soap box can we stand on while preaching to China if an American state is allowed to keep a brutal law like this one? I am generally proud to be an American, but I’ve noticed that almost every time I have reason to be ashamed of it, it’s because the billowing flag of freedom has become snagged on the sharp corners of a cross.

~I AM~