Category: Politics And Religion - franz kiekeben

TRUMP VS. JESUS

2/7/2020

In case you missed this, Trump specifically disagreed with Jesus — and did so during the annual National Prayer Breakfast!

That event's keynote speaker, Harvard's Arthur Brooks, argued for more unity in our politically divided country, saying that we need to go beyond mere tolerance and actually “love our enemies.” Which is, of course, something Jesus said. Trump, however, who immediately followed Brooks as speaker, began his talk by saying “Arthur, I don't know if I agree with you.”

This is the same guy who said that he has never asked for God's forgiveness — who in fact said that he doesn't “like to have to ask for forgiveness,” adding that he is “good” anyway.

And still evangelicals love him.

And not as an enemy.

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[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

ROY MOORE

9/28/2017

Roy Moore, the controversial former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, famous for his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building, is now a nominee for the U.S. Senate. In case some here aren’t all that familiar with him, here are some of his views:

The “pursuit of happiness” refers to following the commandments, since “you can’t be happy unless you follow God’s law.”

Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress.

Reagan’s characterization of the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world” is something that can be said of America today, since among other things we now have gay marriage.

“Homosexual conduct should be illegal.”

9/11 was God punishing America.

"Religion" in the constitution means "Christianity," since that is what the framers meant by it. (This implies that the freedom of religion is exclusively about Christianity, though Moore denied claiming such a thing.)

He also claims to have a “personal belief” that Obama was not born in the U.S.

It’s a sobering thought that he won his party’s nomination, not in spite of such views, but because of them.

[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

DAWKINS ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND'S SIDE

11/24/2015

Richard Dawkins recently criticized some U.K. theater chains for refusing to run a Christian ad encouraging prayer. More specifically, he objected “to suppressing the ads on the grounds that they might ‘offend’ people. If anybody is ‘offended’ by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.”

I sometimes wonder if Dawkins says these kind of things mainly to confound his critics. Nevertheless, I think he's right: society has become overly sensitive.

On the other hand, this is not, as the Church's communications director said and as Dawkins himself initially tweeted, a freedom of speech issue. The theater chains are private concerns and have the right to whatever policy they deem appropriate. (They currently do not run ads of a political or religious nature – and so would presumably refuse atheist ones as well.) So the theater chains are free to refuse the ad if they want. But of course anyone who disagrees with their policy also has the right to criticize them.

(Dawkins later retracted his claim that the theaters were violating free speech.)

For more, see here.

BEN CARSON'S PYRAMID SCHEME

11/12/2015

Ben Carson has been criticized for his bizarre claim (made in a commencement speech seventeen years ago) that the Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain, and rightly so. But there was something else almost as bizarre about his claim that is actually more telling, and it is something most reports have ignored.

Carson's reason for thinking the pyramids were grain silos, in case you don't know, is simple: the Bible says that Joseph had the Egyptians store enough grain to last them for seven years, and so Carson argues that whatever they used to store it in “would have to be something awfully big, if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time...”

But the other thing Carson said about the pyramids is what I find even more interesting:

‘‘And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for a reason. And various scientists have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they had special knowledge and that’s how they were...’ – you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.”

Yes, presidential candidate Ben Carson actually thinks that scientists (or at least “various scientists,” which is bad enough) believe that aliens were responsible for the pyramids. That says a lot about how much he understands science.

RUSH LIMBAUGH ON GOD AND HEAVEN

11/9/2015

Rush Limbaugh rarely discusses the issue of the validity of religious belief, and a good thing, too. But today he did and, well, you be the judge:

He was talking about an argument made by his father when he, Rush, was a child – an argument that he apparently still finds persuasive today. It goes like this: A loving God, Rush's dad told him, would not have created us with the ability to imagine a place like heaven – or eternal life, for that matter – unless it were real. For, to create beings capable of imagining such a thing if it weren't real would simply be cruel.

(I can't help wondering if he thinks the same thing about hell.)

This is almost as bad as the argument he presents in his book The Way Things Ought to Be – and which I also once heard him make on his show – to demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God:

“The human mind... is incapable of imagining the size of the universe, its origins, or even where it is. Although some incredibly arrogant scientists believe that they are capable of scientifically unlocking every mystery of the universe and of understanding everything in purely material terms, I believe there are certain things that the mind of man simply cannot discover or ascertain. There are certain things we were not meant to understand, cannot understand, and must accept on faith.” (pp. 153-154, italics in the original)

(I especially like that part about us not knowing where the universe is!)

All of this is funny, of course, but what isn't as funny is how Rush uses his religion to back up his political views. His belief in a creator is, he tells us, his principal reason for denying climate change: “My views on the environment are rooted in my belief in Creation... I don't believe that the earth and her ecosystem are fragile...” (p. 153)

One can certainly have a serious discussion about climate change. However, the religious approach of Rush and his followers is essentially to not even have a discussion, not even look at any evidence, because after all, we already “know” that climate change can't be true! And that's scary.

RICK PERRY'S BLINDNESS

9/24/2015

Today on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, former Texas governor and sometime presidential candidate Rick Perry weighed in on the question whether it would be okay to have a Muslim as the leader of our country (the current controversy having started when Ben Carson said that it would not be okay). Perry's comments display a kind of blindness that is really quite remarkable:

...the fact of the matter is, if it's someone who says that the Koran is going to... supersede the Constitution, then I think most Americans are gonna say, “You know what, we've got a problem with that” – 'cause we put our hand on the Bible and we make a pledge to uphold the laws and the Constitution of the United States.

Yes, he actually appealed to the centrality of the Bible in explaining what would be wrong with putting the Koran ahead of the Constitution. And yes, he seems to be completely oblivious to any problems associated with that. What's more, this sort of thing is actually quite common among conservative Christians, as can be seen by the widespread support (including from presidential candidate Mike Huckabee) for Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who violated the Constitution “on God's authority.”

Of course it would be a problem to have a president who says the Koran legally supersedes the Constitution. And for exactly the same reason, it would be a problem to have a president – or a county clerk – who says such a thing about the Bible.

WHY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS SHOULD LOVE ABORTION

4/17/2015

How anyone can read the older parts of the Bible and find it inspirational is beyond me. What could Christian philosopher Paul Copan possibly be referring to when he mentions “the warm moral ethos of the Old Testament”? Yahweh, as anyone with decent morals and a rational mind will agree, was an evil monster who commanded, among other things, that children and infants in conquered tribes – as well as the mothers holding them – be put to the sword by the ancient Israelites.

Such evil commands are among the most difficult things for the religious to justify. But of course that doesn't prevent them from trying. Copan, along with such apologists as William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, Thomas Howe, and probably many others, claim that this slaughter of children was in fact a good thing. Why? Well, according to Craig, since “God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation” – the idea being that otherwise they would be hell-bound. Geisler and Howe, in their Big Book of Bible Difficulties, even have the gall to describe the slaughter as “an act of God’s mercy” towards these helpless victims.

Now, atheists of course aren't going to agree – but that might be because we do not follow the dictates of an all-knowing and perfectly good being, and as a result have a screwed-up sense of right and wrong. If, however, one does believe that Yahweh is morally perfect, one must find some justification for the slaughter – and the only way such an action could be justified is if the children actually benefited from it. Anything less (such as Craig's alternative justification that God has the right to kill whomever he pleases) is – again for anyone who is decent and rational – wholly inadequate.

But even if one is convinced that the slaughter was good for the children, a problem remains. For if the fact that killing the conquered children at an early age was justified as a way of giving them a “get into heaven free” card, then why wouldn't the same thing go for many – in fact, most – children living today? After all, only some of us, according to Christian apologists, make it to heaven, so allowing anyone to reach an age at which they might believe in the wrong thing places their eternal soul at great risk.

Now, there are a few ways an apologist might attempt to differentiate the Biblical slaughter from other cases of infanticide. For one thing, God commanded the Biblical slaughter, but apparently isn't commanding anyone to go on a similar rampage today. But that doesn't really work, not if what justifies the Biblical slaughter is that it was a good thing for the children. Whether or not God commands it is in that case irrelevant.

Another thing one might say is that in the Ten Commandments, God specifically prohibits killing. However, the real meaning of that isn't “thou shall not kill,” but rather “thou shall not murder.” Killing can be justified, for instance, in self-defense, certain wars, and so on. And if what one is doing is a good thing, why wouldn't it be justified? That is what the apologists usually claim in the case of the Biblical slaughter: there is something that makes those killings good rather than bad; otherwise God would be commanding something wrong (and would be violating his own injunction against murder).

The best way for the apologist to avoid the horrific conclusion that infanticide ought to be practiced is for him to point out that there is a better alternative. It is preferable to send souls to heaven even earlier. An abortion, especially one in the first trimester, is certainly easier to accept than infanticide, and is in several respects better. (There is much less emotional attachment on the part of the parents, the fetus doesn't have any desires or beliefs yet, it is easier to convince the nonreligious to have one, it isn't against the law, and so on.) And yet, according to the view under discussion, it too sends a soul straight to heaven.

Those who approve of the Biblical slaughter of children should therefore regard abortion very positively. It has all the good benefits and much less in the way of bad ones. In fact, given that presumably it is a good thing to send as many souls to heaven as possible, Christian conservatives should be encouraging women to get pregnant for the sole purpose of aborting their fetuses – and doing this as often as they can! They should stop protesting abortion clinics and instead hand out fliers informing women of the religious benefits associated with the practice, and encouraging them to do the godly thing.

Or maybe they should just reconsider Old Testament morality instead...

RELIGION AND HOMOPHOBIA

3/9/2015

Ben Carson received a lot of attention over his comments last week that homosexuality is “absolutely” a matter of choice – and rightly so, given that he is considering a presidential run. But of course such claims from religious conservatives are old hat. To hear the latest in religious homophobic thought, one needs to listen to those who are at the real forefront of the gay-bashing movement, people like Bryan Fischer and Scott Lively.

Fischer,a well-known radio show host, blames Nazism and the Holocaust on homosexuality, saying that “Nazi Germany became the horror that it was because it rejected both Christianity and its clear teaching about human sexuality.” According to this theory, the Nazis started out in a gay bar in Munich, Hitler liked men, and the Holocaust was a result of homosexuals in the German military.

Fischer apparently got these ideas from The Pink Swastika, a book co-authored by attorney, anti-gay activist, and former candidate for Governor of Massachusetts Scott Lively.

And just last week, Lively was a guest on Fischer's program to discuss other important matters in the war on sodomy. Among the claims he made are that homosexuality is “worse than murder, worse than genocide,” and that if the Supreme Court rules against gay marriage bans, we will cross a line against God that hasn't been crossed since before Noah's Flood. Lively also believes that such an action could result in the arrival of the Antichrist by year's end.

There is of course no point in arguing against these views: after all, what could be said that is worse than the statements themselves? But what Fischer and Lively don't seem to realize is that by making such claims, they can potentially do a lot more to promote atheism than Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris combined. We should all commend them for their great work.

Part of Fischer's interview with Lively can be seen here:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/lively-homosexuality-worse-murder-and-worse-genocide

IS AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION? (PART 2)

10/29/2014

An important question in the debate over the relationship between church and state is how broadly the religion clauses in the First Amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” – should be construed. Those on the religious right insist on a narrow reading: the government cannot establish a national church, but nothing in the Constitution prohibits, say, state-sponsored school prayer. Strict separationists on the other hand interpret this passage more broadly: any government encouragement of religion is a “law respecting an establishment of religion”; thus, school prayer and the like violate the Constitution.

Since there is disagreement, it might be interesting to know how those who were most directly responsible for this law viewed it. The two people whose opinions are the most significant on this question are James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Madison, the “father of the Constitution,” actually drafted the religion clauses. Jefferson, his mentor, was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which strongly influenced Madison, and the person who convinced Madison of a need for a Bill of Rights – one “providing clearly for freedom of religion.” And how did they view the matter? As it turns out, both of them interpreted the religion clauses broadly.

That this is the case can be seen from a variety of examples. For instance, when he was president, Madison vetoed a bill that would have given federal land to a church because it would have set “a precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies.” He was against the appointment of chaplains to Congress for similar reasons, and there were several other instances during his presidency that clearly show he read the First Amendment clauses rather broadly. And Jefferson had if anything even stronger opinions on this. His position is very clear: in a well-known letter to a group of Baptists, he wrote about his reverence for “that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between church and state” [emphasis added].

Members of the religious right are quick to point out that the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. While that is true, it is clear that both Jefferson and Madison believed that the idea it expresses is implied by the First Amendment.

As with Part 1, the main source for the above information was The Godless Constitution, by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.

IS AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION? (PART 1)

10/28/2014

It has become common among the religious right to maintain that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Sarah Palin, for instance, said on the Bill O'Reilly show that the founders and the founding documents are “...quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments...”

Now, if our laws are based on the Ten Commandments, then it seems we should pay attention to the first of these commandments, the one that states “I am the Lord your God... you shall have no other gods before me” – which of course would make anything other than Judeo-Christian views illegal. It made no sense, then, when O'Reilly asked “What do you say to the people... who come from a different religious culture?” for Palin to answer, "We get to say to them, 'Yay, welcome to America, where we are tolerant and you have a freedom to express whatever faith... that's what America is all about'." Yes, that is one of the things America is all about, but it most definitely is not what the Ten Commandments is all about.

As everyone ought to know, our government was in fact explicitly based on non-religious principles. John Adams wrote that none of the architects of American government “were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven” and thought that governments should be “founded on the natural authority of the people alone,” while the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by Adams and unanimously ratified by the Senate, states that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Our government's non-religious basis used to be recognized by those who opposed a secular constitution. Early opponents of that document often complained about its godlessness. One New Hampshire delegate warned that to ratify the Constitution would mean to create a godless America, and even worried that with it, “congress might deprive the people of the use of the holy scriptures.” Another critic warned that because of God's absence from the law of the land, America would face the fate that Samuel prophesied to Saul: “because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee.”

This recognition of the Constitution's godlessness persisted among the religious right for quite some time. In 1811, Reverend Samuel Austin – who would later become president of the University of Vermont – wrote that the document's “one capital defect” is that it is “entirely disconnected from Christianity.” In 1820, the chaplain of the New York state legislature scolded the founders for their “ingratitude” – which he regarded as “perhaps without parallel” – in omitting even “the slightest hint of homage to the God of Heaven.” And by the 1860's, many regarded the Civil War as divine retribution for the belief that government shouldn't be divinely ordained. There was even an attempt at the time to amend the Constitution so as to make it into a Christian document. The (very scary) proposed change to the preamble read:

“We, the people of the United Sates, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, The Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among the Nations, and His revealed will as of supreme authority, in order to constitute a Christian government... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was only in relatively recent times that the religious right changed its tune and began claiming that the Constitution was never godless after all. That way, rather than attempting to change it, they can instead convince the ignorant to misunderstand it.

In the O'Reilly interview, Palin complained that those who disagree with her are attempting to rewrite history. The irony, of course, is that it is people like Palin who are doing just that.

Notes:

Main source for the above information: The Godless Constitution, by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.

Palin's interview with O'Reilly can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LahUxkyaRh8