Pop quiz. True or false.

Did Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 “wall of separation” letter tell the Danbury (Conn.) Baptist Association that there are limits to the free exercise of religion?

I was multitasking at the neighborhood park last night – watching my children while reading Rob Boston’s book Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State – when I was blown away by a passage in Jefferson’s Danbury letter.

I have read, perhaps I should say “seen,” Jefferson’s Danbury letter many times. My focus has always been on the part that says:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence 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.

What set off bells and whistles last night was what Jefferson said immediately preceding his famous “wall of separation” statement. Read the following quote several times: “the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions”.

While eminently intuitive, perhaps too obvious, is an implication that I now draw from the letter — that, in Jefferson’s view, government can regulate (some) religious acts without violating the free exercise clause. I admit that this interpretation of Jefferson’s words is so far reaching as to be astounding.

Or is it? For example, neutral laws of general applicability apply to actions by everyone, including those actions performed in the name of religion. See Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990). Stated another way, the free exercise clause is not a free pass to violate federal, state or local laws in the name of religion.

So the answer to the pop quiz is: TRUE.

Oh, I can hardly wait to quote Mr. Jefferson in a future brief to the Supreme Court and drive the Christian Right batty.

This morning, USA Today reported that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in defense of religious freedom, will take on a case representing a group of Amish men in Mayfield, Kentucky, who were charged with not displaying mandatory lights and an orange triangular symbol on their horse-drawn buggies.

On one side, the Amish men contend that putting lights on their buggies constitute accepting “possessions that are too worldly,” a violation of their religious beliefs. On the other side, Kentucky state law requires that slow-moving vehicles have flashing lights for safety reasons.

Where do we draw the line between the best interest of public safety and safeguarding religious freedom? The ACLU would have to prove, in the tradition of other religious freedom cases, that adhering to the law would cause an unnecessary burden on practicing one’s religious rituals.

I’m not a scholar of the Amish religion, but “possessions that are too worldly” sounds pretty vague to me. Perhaps flashing lights and symbols can pass as “worldly,” but not “too worldly.” The point is, such a phrase is open to interpretation, which might make it difficult for the Amish to win their case.

As for me, I might be in the minority among humanists who tend to lead toward religious freedom “no matter what,” but in the interest of safety for both the Amish men driving the buggies and every day drivers of motorized vehicles, I’m in favor of keeping the Kentucky law. The rules of the road protect everyone.

When we hear about biofuels we tend to think of happy, green, renewable and sustainable energy. Bio anything is usually a good thing right? Well a new report called The Gallagher Review indicates that biofuels may not be our salvation but just another step deeper into trouble. Amoung other things the report concludes

“… there is a risk that the uncontrolled expansion and use of biofuels could lead to unsustainable changes in land use such as the destruction of the rain forest to make way for the production of crops,” she said. “This might in turn actually increase greenhouse gas emissions as well as contribute to higher food prices and shortages.”

The problem with biofuels comes, as does our oil dependence, from a supply and demand issue. The European Union is looking to meet 5.75 percent of its transport power by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020 from biofuels. The United States is looking for 35 billion gallons a year. If we could meet our own quotas, there wouldn’t be any problem. But while we create jobs in other countries we are moving into rain forests and reducing the number of plots being used for food production.

In an opinion piece from the International Herald Tribune Eric Holt-Giménez, the executive director of the Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy says this:

Hunger results not from scarcity, but poverty. The world’s poorest already spend 50 to 80 percent of household income on food. They suffer when high fuel prices push up food prices. Now, because food and fuel crops compete for land and resources, both increase the price of land and water.

The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. Caloric consumption declines as price rises by a ratio of 1:2.

This again raises the issue of how interconnectedness of humanity and nature. Normally our actions impact animals and plants, but this time we’re directly having an impact on human welfare. Jobs may help people have income to spend, but if those jobs force the price of food up we’re faced with an unending cycle. I know we need alternate fuels and we need them now, but we also need to keep our heads on straight when thinking about these issues. We have the ability to implement the use of biofuels in a way that limits the impact, while decreasing our dependance on oil, and hopefully doing something to clean up the environment.

Army Spc. Jeremy Hall defies the old phrase, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” He’s an atheist in the United States military who even served time in Iraq. But after he was pressured to pray at meals, denied a promotion due to his lack of belief, and even had his life threatened by fellow troops, enough was enough.

In March, Hall sued the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated, as several activities occurring in the U.S. military suggest an endorsement of religion.

Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.

Two years ago on Thanksgiving Day, after refusing to pray at his table, Hall said he was told to go sit somewhere else. In another incident, when he was nearly killed during an attack on his Humvee, he said another soldier asked him, “Do you believe in Jesus now?”

Hall isn’t seeking compensation in his lawsuit — just the guarantee of religious freedom in the military. Eventually, Hall was sent home early from Iraq and later returned to Fort Riley in Junction City, Kansas, to complete his tour of duty.

He also said he missed out on promotions because he is an atheist.

“I was told because I can’t put my personal beliefs aside and pray with troops I wouldn’t make a good leader,” Hall said.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is also participating in the lawsuit and claims over 8,000 military members who have complained of “pressure to embrace evangelical Christianity.” He cites groups like Christian Embassy, where seven top military leaders participated in the group’s promotional video endorsing Christian evangelism, and the Officers’ Christian Fellowship, whose vision is to create “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform empowered by the Holy Spirit.”

Gates can’t comment on pending litigation, but does tell CNN that, “Proselytizing or advancing a religious conviction is not what the nation would have us do and it’s not what the military does.”

On a similar note, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a formal letter to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on behalf of nine students who experience discomfort at having to stand during prayer at noon meals.

The Department of Defense has until midnight tonight to respond to Hall’s lawsuit. It is my hope that Hall seeks justice for his proud work defending our civil liberties. True patriots not only defend our country from terrorist attacks abroad, but defend our constitutional freedoms at home.

“Two wrongs make a right.” That is my lead in a friend of the court brief I filed in the Supreme Court on June 23rd.

Can you believe that I dare inform the High Court that that would be the principle if it affirmed the appellate court decision in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum? The fact of the matter is that sometimes cases are very simple.

In the Pleasant Grove case, Summum – a small religious group in Utah — asked the city if it could put a monument of its Seven Aphorisms in the same park where the city had allowed the Fraternal Order of Eagles to put a Decalogue in 1971. Certainly what is fair for one religion, is fair for another. Let’s call that either free speech or government neutrality.

In deed, that is precisely what Summum is arguing in a case to be heard by the Supreme Court this fall.

But not so fast. In a brief written by my legal intern, George Younger, and myself, we argue — on behalf of the American Humanist Association, The American Ethical Union, Atheist Alliance International, the Institute for Humanist Studies, the Secular Student Alliance, the Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Unitarian Universalist Association — that just because the city was wrong in permitting one religious monument to be put in its park doesn’t mean that it can fix that wrong by allowing a second religious monument to be put in its park. And then a third, fourth and so on.

As persons of reason, we tell the Supreme Court that the way to fix the problem is to dismiss Summum’s free speech claim and have Pleasant Grove remove the Decalogue. Well, its a little more complicated than that because the Decalogue and Establishment Clause claim that it raises are not officially part of the upcoming oral argument. No problem, AHA tells the Court. Send the case back for briefing and oral argument on the real problem, namely, inherently religious monuments that are owned, controlled and maintained by the city send the message that nontheists and persons of differing religions are unwelcome and, therefore, violate the First Amendment prohibition respecting an establishment of religion.

Click here to read AHA’s brief in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. I highly recommend section IV for a discussion on the Establishment Clause problem.

Last month I found myself on a plane seated next to the reportedly recently deceased Congressman Jeff Flake.

On my visit to speak to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix (a wonderful visit to a terrific group), one of the audience members informed me that their House member, Representative Jeff Flake, had died two days before. I was quite surprised, especially since I generally receive real-time updates on such matters from Roll Call and hadn’t heard of this.The local humanist assured me he was certain that the untimely death of this 45-year-old member had occurred only days earlier.

Needless to say, I was quite surprised when Representative Flake took his assigned seat (next to me) on his flight from Phoenix to D.C. I turned to Mr. Flake, introduced myself and the Secular Coalition for America, and said, “This will certainly sound strange, but I just spoke to a local humanist group, and one of the members told me that you had died a couple of days ago.”

“Oh yes,” he responded, “My uncle, Jake Flake died a few days ago, and everyone is getting us confused. The rumors of my death…”We both said the rest of the famous Mark Twain quote in unison, “…are greatly exaggerated.”

The rest of the trip was uneventful, but our conversation about the Secular Coalition for America’s constituency, nontheistic Americans, and the issues that the Secular Coalition works on was fun. Mr. Flake is definitely not known for supporting any of our positions, but by the end of our conversation, I think he had a much better appreciation for our values and who we are.

In a June 25th article from the Science section of the New York Times we discover that the latest link between fish and tetrapods has been discovered.  The 365 million year old skull and sundry body parts discovered in Latvia is thought to be the oldest tetrapod, or four-legged creature in the Earth’s history.  The discovery continues to close in on the transition between fish to four-legged animals “by presenting the skull, exceptionally preserved braincase, shoulder girdle and partial pelvis of Ventastega curonica from the Late Devonian of Latvia, a transitional intermediate form between the ‘elpistostegids’ Panderichthys and Tiktaalik and the Devonian tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) Acanthostega and Ichthyostega.”

Now the sixty-four million dollar question; So how does this knowledge benefit us today?  Well as biologist Neil Shubin explains:

“When you know how to look, fish are just one way station in our historical path. In fact, we share deep similarities with all living creatures on our planet. Seeing the history inside our bodies is like peeling an onion: The first layers we see reveal the history we share with primates (large brains and opposable thumbs). Peel deeper and we find the layers of history shared with other mammals (hair and breasts), reptiles (our distinctive way of chewing food), fish (arms, legs, backbones and heads), worms (an anus on one side of the body and a mouth on the other), jellyfish (the DNA recipe that builds our bodies), sponges (our many celled bodies) and so on.

Even as we are discovering more about the DNA that builds animal bodies (including our own), new fossils from around the world are continuing to crop up that help explain our anatomical history. Just as we have a family tree that extends to our parents, grandparents and so on, our human family tree extends to other living beings. The same DNA technology that allows courts and forensics experts to identify perpetrators and fathers allows us to categorize the relationships between our species and others. Do this and we see that inside every organ, cell and gene of our bodies lies more than 3.5 billion years of the history of life.”

If we didn’t share a history with the everything from bacteria to apes, we might not have the physical ails that afflict us.  The evolutionary path that winds through the many twists and turns that have created our less than perfect and at times fragile physiques.  Still, the problems we share through are evolutionary history also mean we can study other species mean that work with flies and bacteria may be the source of great medical advances for humans. Work on a worm that is no bigger than a comma is helping us understand how our genetic material functions in both health and disease. 

Our shared history makes it possible for work done on flies and even worms to lead to health advances for our own species.  I think we ignore these possibilities at our own peril.  Again as Neil Shubin says,  Is there any more powerful statement about the importance of our deep evolutionary connection to the rest of life than that?”

While this may be more of the same old same old, Anglican conservatives declared on Sunday that they would defy the church’s historic lines of authority and create a new power bloc within the church led by a council of predominantly African archbishops. The decision was announced at the end of a week long meeting of Anglican conservatives in Jerusalem. The conservatives are upset over what they consider to be a “false gospel” that allows a malleable, liberal interpretation of Scripture. More specifically, a gay bishop and acceptance of homosexuality in general.

This group called The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FOCA) held a conference in Jerusalem called the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). A statement was issued that,while not officially creating a schism, is none the less calling for big changes. They have announced that Anglicanism was not “determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury”, Rowan Williams. They also revealed plans for a new “primates council” comprising senior bishops and archbishops who had attended the Jerusalem summit.The council will serve to to “regulate the “chaos” within the Communion and at the same time “defend the Gospel … from revisionist or liberal theologies’.”

The statement also calls for the creation of a new province, in the United States and Canada that would absorb the churches that have been outraged by the American church’s consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003 and the Canadian church’s blessing of same-sex unions. The new province is hoped to unite believers who left the church over the last few decades over the ordination of women priests and bishops as well as the acceptance of homosexuality.

Schism is obviously a dirty word here, because this sounds like a schism even if they aren’t officially breaking away.  Given the situation around GLBT rights in America, Gay Marriage in California and ultimately the entire country and the general battle over including GLBT in hate crimes legislation versus the churches right to proclaim it’s message which may include negative messages about GLBT people, I think it’s worth taking the time to follow this story.  How this all plays out may impact the election as well as this very large church.

The Washington Post ran an opinion piece taking on Dobson’s critique of Obama’s theology.  While normally theology isn’t an issue that Humanists are going to jump in on it was curious to see the reaction to Dobson’s statement.  I generally agreed with the Post article, however, I found another article that really cut to the core of the matter.

While Landover Baptist isn’t the first place I would normally go for a hard hitting critique of the events of the day, I’m realizing how much the Reverend Fred and Landover really has to say.  The article “Focus on the Pharisee” points out in no uncertain terms the differences between Fundamentalist pronouncements and the words of Jesus. Just reading the table comparing Jesus’ words to an interpretation of the far rights position, is startling. While the comparison is meant for an non-theist group, it would resound for many Christians as well. Some might judge it too harsh in its general mocking of the church but read Jesus’s words and think about the opposing views. Think also about Obama’s statement:

“And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles now. Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles.”

While Father Fred is waaaay over the top, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think you can accuse him of not reading his bible. Maybe if we all we’re more familiar with the bible we’d realize as the Washington Post’s author points out :

“…why the words of Scripture do not provide a ready policy blueprint for modern American society. Indeed, many of us have grappled with how to arrive at a theologically informed and fair-minded reading of the Bible that takes its moral principles seriously without simplistically applying to our time the cultural norms of previous eras.”

I don’t base my morals on the bible, but I’ve got a lot more to talk about with someone like the author of the Post article than with someone trying to impose the cultural norms of the bible onto the current world.  I hope they have an inclination to talk with Humanists as well. Til then, we can read Landover Baptist and smile while getting a pretty good education.

George Carlin’s death raises the question, was he a humanist? He was an atheist who certainly “told it like it is” regarding religion, and he advocated progressive values, civil liberties, and the First Amendment. But Carlin’s regular lamenting of “humanity’s bullshit” and a statement like, “I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it’s natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse,” doesn’t exactly scream humanism to me.

Or does it? You could say Carlin was a humanist in the way Kurt Vonnegut was a humanist (except that I don’t think Carlin ever called himself one). That is, they worshiped at the altar of absurdity. But wait, absurdity is defined as, “The condition or state in which humans exist in a meaningless, irrational universe wherein people’s lives have no purpose or meaning.” Again, not very humanistic! But remember—these guys were artists and entertainers. Exposing the absurd was both Carlin’s and Vonnegut’s bread and butter, their shtick, their—quite literally for Carlin—act. How we respond to it is what matters. George Carlin’s talent rested in his ability to lay open what’s absurd about life and the human species, and in doing so to make us mad. And to make us think.

And so I would propose that illuminating the absurd is an act of rebellion that adds meaning to a seemingly meaningless world. Sisyphus with a smile. (Or is it a wink?) Now, what do you think—is this a humanist’s take?

This is a horrifying news development that I simply had to share and know will garner comments from the humanist community.

John Freshwater, a middle school teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, taught creationism in his science class and kept copies of the Bible and other religious material in his classroom. It was inappropriate enough that Mr. Freshwater was breaking the law by not sticking to the basic science curriculum standards of the state, which I’m pretty sure does not include proselytizing.

But he went even further: he apparently used a device to burn the image of the cross on the arms of his students. One family is suing the school district after their child arrived home with a burn mark that lasted for weeks.

I doubt anyone would disagree that Mr. Freshwater should not only be outright fired, but sent straight to jail. His horrific actions are criminal enough to keep him away from children for a long time.

Dinesh D’Souza is nothing if not prolific. Saying that, he is also very shrewd. However, I think he overreached himself in his article, “What Science Cannot Tell Us.” He tries to prove the limits of science with the argument that the really important questions can’t be answered by science.Let’s look at his summary of the argument:

Consider some of the most important questions facing us as human beings: Why are we here? Where ultimately did we come from? Where are we going? Science can provide us with very limited answers. As the philosopher Wittgenstein once put it, one has the feeling that even if all possible scientific knowledge could been obtained, the biggest questions of life would remain largely untouched and unanswered.

He shrewdly quotes Wittgenstein to give authority to his statement, but does the argument really play out?“Where ultimately did we come from?” Scientists are making great strides into the questions of where we came from both as species on planet earth and how the cosmos evolved. I don’t have time to demonstrate these (could anyone) but these articles can give a flavor of these advances.

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab
Laurence Krauss Takes on the Universe
Talk Origins

D’Souza is very clever in how he downplays science in the article:

I call this the “atheism of the gaps.” The basic idea is that if science hasn’t figured something out, just wait a few years, because the brilliant scientists are working on it. Have faith that they will come up with good answers in the future, just as they have in the past. In other words, we should assume that people who are smart enough to make toasters are also smart enough to figure out whether there is life after death.

He dismisses scientists as folks who make toasters. It would be laughable if it weren’t so affective. Also by creating the phrase “atheism of the gaps” he tries to dismiss the “God of the gaps” by turning the argument on its head. The problem with his argument is that it isn’t “atheism of the gaps” but it’s really science advancing into the gaps. And unlike the “God of the gaps” whose area of influence grows smaller with each scientific advance, science grows more impressive and awe inspiring as it advances into the gaps.

Can we see where we’re coming from?Is it scary to some people? I think the answer in both cases is yes. Why are we here? I suppose the answer that nature of this planet and the way bacterium evolved into eventually up to man is not a real answer to some people, and yet it is fascinating and humbling. We are a part of this planet and related to everything on it. How can one not be awed by such a realization?

The Louisiana House voted to for a bill called the “Louisiana Science Education Act” which is supposed to promote “critical thinking” by students on topics such as evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. Pity the bill doesn’t seem to be designed to actually promote critical thinking but appears to be an attempt to get religion in the form of intelligent design and any other method into the science class room. As American’s United describes it:”the bill would promote teaching creationism in public schools and said some teachers might use supplemental materials produced by fundamentalist Christian organizations.”

I’m all for teachers being able to teach controversial subjects but I don’t think anyone wants religious debates being carried on in the classroom. As Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University and a founding member of the Louisiana Coalition for Science (LCFS), says,

“The legislature shouldn’t be allowing creationists to undermine Louisiana public schools. The House of Representatives just gave the Religious Right a green light to use other people’s children for their own agenda.”

Patsye Peebles, a veteran biology teacher from Baton Rouge and a founding member of the LCFS adds,

“I was a biology teacher for 22 years, and I never needed the legislature to tell me how to present anything. This bill doesn’t solve any of the problems classroom teachers face, and it will make it harder for us to keep the focus on accurate science in science classrooms. Evolution isn’t scientifically controversial, and we don’t need the legislature substituting its judgment for the scientists and science teachers who actually know the subject.”

Similar bills have been introduced in several states over the past year and have been supported by opponents of evolution. I fear this may be the issue republicans use to mobilize voters for the upcoming election. This could be a devasting turn of events for science education in America.

South Carolina’s Attorney General Henry McMaster thinks the Ten Commandments should be posted in public buildings. And he thinks the Lord’s Prayer should be thrown in as well.

The AP reports:

McMaster says the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer have an established place in teaching American constitutional history and civic virtue. He says they and other documents on display would teach morality, ethics and integrity.

The bill would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public buildings as part of a group of documents that helped set the foundations for U.S. law.

The Religious Right would have you believe that the Founders refer directly to the Ten Commandments in the formation of the Constitution when the exact opposite is clear. There is not a single reference to a worship of a god or gods, unlike the first Commandment (”I am the Lord Thy God”).

In fact, the idea of keeping religion and government separate from the public sphere was so important that it was listed as the very first amendment (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”).

But readers of this blog already know all this. It’s bad enough that the Attorney General thinks the Ten Commandments had anything to do with the formation of American law. But the Lord’s Prayer, too? I’d really like to hear his arguments for that.

I am the father of three children. If my state took them from me without evidence that I had abused them, my outrage would be indescribable.

Thus it was no surprise to me to read that a Texas appeals court ruled last week state authorities had no right to seize more than 460 children in a raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints’ (FLDS) Yearning For Zion (YFZ) Ranch in early April.

The appellate court decision is being hailed as a vindication by members of FLDS who claimed that they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. Here’s why.

Every child on the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas was taken from the FLDS based on uncorroborated “tips” from a caller to a family shelter crisis line who claimed to be a pregnant, abused teenage wife at the ranch. The caller has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

But that is not really the starting point. Texas authorities have been investigating the group for the last four years. It seems that the regular Texas Bible thumpers are not particularly tolerant of non-mainstream religions.

In Texas, bigamy is a felony in which a man is legally married to one woman and either marries OR lives with a person other than his spouse “under the appearance of being married.” Thus it would seem that a man with a wife and a “spiritual wife” could be charged with bigamy (but not the women?).

While I believe in the rule of law, in the United States we have seen a number of occasions in which the courts have overturned lifestyle laws involving consenting adults. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages (1967) and Texas’s sodomy (2005). Moreover, the supreme courts of Massachusetts and California have ruled in favor of gay marriages. Is polygamy next?

Now follow this logic. The warrant authorizing the Texas’s raid on YFZ Ranch was based on apparently false allegations of child sexual abuse. Nevertheless, the warrant is probably still valid.

However, having sex with a person under the age of 17 years of age who is your spouse is not a crime in Texas. Therefore, if polygamy were legal in Texas, and the men had married their spiritual wives, then there would be no child sexual abuse with respect to girls 16 years of age or over (14 years of age or older prior to 2005), the minimum age for marrying in Texas.

So I am greatly concerned that the Texas raid was really for the purpose of breaking up FLDS, and that protecting children was the state’s cover. This conclusion is tentative, but given Texas’s bizarre claim that the YFZ Ranch constituted a single household so that wrong doing by a few could be imputed to the entire group and the lead investigator in the case alleging that the FLDS belief system facilitates a lifestyle in which “male children are groomed to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and the girls are raised to be victims of sexual abuse,” I do not foresee changing my view.

Texas has appealed the appellate court’s decision to the Texas Supreme Court. Given that the state failed to prove imminent harm to the children — a critical requirement to justify taking children from their parents — it is likely that the appellate court’s decision will be sustained and most of the children returned to their parents (except possible several underage girls who are pregnant or recently gave birth).

The bottom line is that while I am concerned for the welfare of the FLDS children, it is important not forget the right of parents to raise their children free of governmental interference (absent evidence of actual
abuse) and what appears to be a general lack of due process at the trial level.

A letter sold on May 15th for the astounding amount of 170,000 pounds ($330,000) in London may help clarify Einstein’s beliefs or lack of beliefs about God. In the 1954 letter to Eric Gutkin, Einstein is fairly blunt about his religious views:

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

“For me the Jewish religion, like all others, is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

An abridged version of the letter is here

Richard Dawkins, one of the losing bidders, said that while he was disappointed with losing the bid, he was pleased to see that people so highly valued this letter. In fact, Rupert Powell, the managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, said the letter attracted unprecedented interest from around the world. He speculated that the letter had captured peoples imagination because it is such a clear statement of the Einstein’s views.

It is indeed intriguing how highly this letter was valued, it presents no scientific evidence for or against the existence of God, but is only the opinion of one man. A genius in the world of physics both atheist and theist have been trying to make Einstein one of their own for years. But Einstein doesn’t fit either definition very neatly.

His sense of religion and of God owes much more to Spinoza than to any established church. In fact, it probably owes much more to his own scientific investigations than any church. In a separate letter also from 1954 he wrote:

“If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Whether we choose to think of Einstein as a atheist, theist, deist or something else altogether, it is important to remember that we must make decisions about our beliefs for ourselves. It’s nice to feel like smart people think the same way you do, but at one time smart people thought the Earth was the center of the universe. I think Humanist could do a lot worse than approaching religion in the way Einstein appears to have. Making up his own mind and allowing room for spirituality and wonder in the world we live in.

Though I haven’t been following everything that the chattering masses have been saying about NARAL Pro-Choice America’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president, I wanted to toss out my support for their decision. Not because they endorsed Obama per se, but because they were willing to actually endorse a man, in an election cycle that included a woman.

I don’t know about the specific voting records of Obama or Hillary Clinton when it comes to choice issues, and I don’t pretend to know about the internal deliberations that must have gone on inside NARAL Pro-Choice America when coming to this decision (at a party over the weekend, a NARAL staffer summed it up as “blowback” when talking about the endorsement). However, NARAL for whatever reason, looked beyond just endorsing a woman because she’s a woman, and made an endorsement on who they honestly thought was the best choice.

As a guy who is pro-choice, I’ve always felt slightly unwelcome in the pro-choice/feminist movements. I’m not sure if it’s me projecting, or if there is a disconnect, ever so slight. Where does a man fit in, in the framework of women’s empowerment? Is my support appreciated, or seen as condescending? If it is allowable for my voice to stand out in support of choice issues, what about the man who stands against a woman’s right to choose? If his voice negated because he’s a man and against choice, why should mine be allowed simply because I’m saying the right things?

For NARAL Pro-Choice America to take this step, shows, ever so slightly, the direction they’re leaning in the debate about a man’s place in the women’s movement.

While I generally make it a habit not to read WorldNetDaily, an article that made it into the local meetup list got my curiosity going, so I checked out William J. Federer’s Tyranny of the atheist minority. The basic premise of the article is that since The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life identifies “the people” (as in a government of the people, by the people, for the people, etc) as follows:

This survey “of the people” reported that 80.2 percent of Americans hold Judeo-Christian beliefs (51.3 percent Evangelical/Mainline Protestant Christian; 23.9 percent Catholic; 1.6 percent Orthodox & other Christian; 1.7 percent Mormon; and 1.7 percent Jewish.)

Those not reporting or who said nothing in particular represented 12.9 percent, while 1.2 percent were Unitarian-Universalist-Spiritual-New Age-Native; 0.7 percent Buddhist; 0.6 percent Muslim; 0.4 percent Hindu; 0.3 percent Other World Religions, 2.4 percent agnostic … and only 1.6 percent atheist.

His argument therefore is that since the people are made up of a majority Judeo-Christian people why aren’t all are laws biased in favor of that majority? Federer, of course, believes that the atheists have some how taken over the government and made the laws of the land atheist thereby becoming a tyrannical minority inflicting it’s belief on the majority.

Now given the disparity of beliefs about God and the bible represented in the 80.2 percent of Americans I find it hard to believe that 80.2 percent is a homogeneous group demanding, among other things, forced prayer in school, or that religious displays need to be in courthouses etc and so forth.

If we always let the majority of the people have it’s way, most of our laws would be controlled by the desires of the highest populated states at the expense of the needs of the more sparsely populated states. I suppose since this no longer applies to religion this argument is not relevant, but it is exactly the point.

I wrote a post about California’s requirement for teachers to sign a loyalty oath stating they will “defend” the U.S. and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Sounds reasonable, and in 1952 it was passed into law by California voters. This law discriminates against pacifists, many of whom come from peace churches. So shall we allow a discriminatory law like this to stay on the books just because the majority voted for it? I think this law does much more to interfere with the practice of religion than say saying a teacher or administrator can’t force students to pray in a public school. They’re being forced to pit their livelihood against there religious convictions. A teacher who wants to lead a prayer can go to their church to lead prayers but a teacher in California can’t teach without signing the oath.

It’s wrong. We have to have the checks and balances of our system to keep as many laws like this as possible from remaining on the books. So we need to remember our system works for both the majority and the minority as best as it can. It guarantees the rights of the majority, while protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and founder of Médecins Sans Frontières has brought up the radical (to some) idea, of having the United Nations bring in food and other relief aid, to the Burmese people, even if the generals in the military junta object. Of course, as Nick Cohen points out in the Guardian:

He (Kouchner) was opposed by authoritarian regimes the world over. A Western diplomat at the UN Security Council meeting said objections came from China, Kouchner’s old enemies in Vietnam, Russia and South Africa… All knew without needing to be told that if the Burmese military were held to be illegitimate rulers whose wishes could be overruled because they lacked a democratic mandate, the same criteria could be used against them or their allies, too, and their desperate arguments reflected their fears.

To say that the American Left has become sadly predictable in its foreign policy would be an understatement. It should be no surprise after some hemming-and-hawing, to see the Left end up as uneasy bedfellows with dictatorial governments such as the People Republic of China in this matter. After all, the people of Burma cannot compete the ugly strain of isolationism that is creeping into America’s body politic. Nor can the Burmese suffering ease the trauma that the Left would surly face by being called Western imperialists from various quarters.

Though pocketbooks have opened up around the world to help the Burmese, the next few days will require tough decisions in order to prevent an already tragic event turn into a mind-blowing catastrophe. The people of Burma need our help. So what are we going to do about it?

Today, I circulated a press release with information about the Star Hill controversy. This concerns the Village of Holmen, Wisconsin, which decided to sell to the local Lion’s Club a small patch of public land on which a cross and a star are erected. The Lion’s Club will pay $600–despite the fact that the American Humanist Association offered $1,000 and the Freedom From Religion Foundation offered $1,200 for the land. This is because the Lion’s Club will keep the cross and star in the midst of government-owned property while the AHA and FFRF won’t. (Those of you who have followed the San Diego Mt. Soledad case should be pretty familiar with this new tactic.)

As an AHA staff member who deals with public policy, I’ve sent out quite a number of press releases during my tenure here. I’ve rarely ever received editorializing e-mails back from media people. However, today I received two of particular note:

From Daniel S. Brandenburg, Publisher/Editor of the Marion Advertiser

“Three Cheers for the Village of Holmen. I think I’ll use this as an editorial to give these leaders the credit they deserve.”

From Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of VCY America Radio Network

“Ha Ha Ha. This is great. Long live the Lions Club and kudos to the village board of Holmen, Wisconsin. God bless America.”

Clearly, we have a lot of church-state educating yet to do.