The man upstairs likes sending mixed messages.

George Zimmerman, the man charged with the Feb. 26 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, insisted during a television interview with Sean Hannity that the shooting was “all God’s plan.”

Martin’s father Tracy replied, “We must worship a different God. There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son.”

Oh dear. Let me start by saying that I can understand why Martin is perplexed. One would hope that a god who’s supposed to be loving and merciful would not plan for an unarmed teenager to be killed while walking home with Skittles and iced tea.

But, just to play devil’s–or God’s?–advocate, perhaps Zimmerman makes sense. Maybe his god really did want him to shoot Trayvon. Maybe he was praying for an answer during that rainy night in Sanford, Florida, and that’s the answer “God” gave him.

My big, obvious problem with this debate is that, well, who can really know what God wants? To get really technical, I could point to the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22: 1-19), which may indicate that God likes the killing of teenage sons. But of course, modern-day Christians would insist I’d taken that passage out of context. All that, however, is beside the point.

Knowing what God wants has been an issue for millennia, and maybe if He could send better signals, his followers wouldn’t be split into approximately 38,000 different denominations. Maybe he wouldn’t forbid and order killing simultaneously. If God’s desires were clear to everyone, perhaps Trayvon Martin would still be alive.

Or, maybe a horrible thing happened that night as the result of human, not divine, will. Maybe there was no grand plan to kill nor save young Trayvon. Maybe what “god” wants is only what we want at the moment. Maybe it’s just an unfortunate fact of the universe that bad things happen, and maybe none of those things are part of a greater plan.

And maybe there’s no man upstairs, either.

File this story from Florida under “you can’t make this stuff up.” Except, apparently in this case, they could (h/t to Friendly Atheist):

A Hillsborough public policy group whose Christian platform included a push for a state ban on gay marriage has embraced a new attack on an old target: the separation of church and state.

Ten billboard advertisements against what activist Terry Kemple called the separation “lie” are being put up across Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Seven or eight of the billboard messages already are in place, and the rest will be by the end of this week, Kemple said.

What do the billboards say? They have quotes from our founding fathers, of course, each explaining why we shouldn’t separate religion from government. For example, the photo included with the article shows a billboard, black with white text, that says, ‘”Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle” – George Washington.’

Apparently, though, there is a dearth of anti-separation quotes by the founding fathers — the billboard sponsors admit that some of the quotes that they use are completely fabricated!

Others carry the same message but with fictional attribution, as with one billboard citing George Washington for the quote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

“I don’t believe there’s a document in Washington’s handwriting that has those words in that specific form,” Kemple said. “However, if you look at Washington’s quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there’s no question he could have said those exact words.”

Pardon me? Fictional attribution is a rather diplomatic way of saying that the quote is a lie. Making up a quote out of whole cloth, no matter if it’s plausible or not, and then attributing it to George Washington is a complete lie.

Certainly doesn’t put Christianity’s best foot forward, does it?

They may feel justified by some sense that their anti-separation cause is best served by lying. But I think it’s safe to say that most of us, whether we follow the Ten Commandments or secular morals, believe that lying is wrong, even for marketing purposes.

Their willingness to put lies on their billboards is ultimately a matter for their own consciences (some might say that it is between them and their respective god, which is another way of saying the same thing). Remember this, though, the next time a humanist billboard campaign is denounced for being somehow immoral — I promise you that it won’t feature fabricated quotes!

I can always tell that we’ve been mentioned on Fox when we start getting a particular style of email.  This one was too good not to share:

Message: The AHA is ‘Stalinistic’ in it’s hatred and almost genocidal tactics against the Boy Scouts of America.

The Boy Scouts have been around for 100 years, and now, these lovers [AHA] of filthy homosexuals, reprehensible atheists and other dregs to society, want to ‘rip it to shreds’ simply because the Boy Scouts of America excludes such undesireables. “HOORAY” for the Boy Scouts for doing the right thing – GOD bless them! “BOO-HOO” for AHA and the ‘dregs’ it panders to! Get over it! You lose!

RS

My goodness!  Do you want to know what “almost genocidal tactics” we employed?  We wrote a letter to then President-Elect Obama.

The letter, which we sent with 18 other nontheistic organizations, asked Obama not to accept the title of honorary president of the Boy Scouts.  As a private organization, they have every right to reject gay or nontheistic members.  They have every right to teach that a belief in God is necessary to become a good citizen.  But Obama doesn’t have to signify that he supports their discriminatory views.

At the moment, it looks like he’ll accept the position.  Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist wrote: “I’m waiting for Obama to be the president I voted for when it comes to social issues. He hasn’t been that person yet.”

I sympathize, but I’m slightly more optimistic (I’ve had my coffee this morning).  I didn’t really expect Obama to refuse, but our letter got media coverage and made sure our point of view was heard.

How ‘Stalinistic’ of us.

Yesterday the Colorado state legislature voted on a bill that would require the health care providers of pregnant women to give them HIV tests (although the women may opt out). The reasons are pretty clear–if the mother is HIV-positive, it helps to know so that the baby can be protected and treated. The measure passed 32-1. The lone dissenter was Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis. Why did he vote against the bill? According to the Colorado Independent, he claims that HIV “stems from sexual promiscuity” and didn’t want to “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.”

My first reaction was that it’s not the mother being punished for promiscuity; it’s the child who doesn’t get treated for HIV. I was sure that Schultheis had just failed to think it through because he couldn’t really mean THAT, could he? Apparently he could:

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

I was horrified when I read that. There are many ways to contract HIV besides careless and promiscuous sex–blood transfusions come to mind. But even for someone who believes promiscuity is a sin, it is despicable to advocate that the child suffer for it. It is contrary to our conception of justice. Luckily the thirty-two other legislators agreed.

As a continuation of our unofficial John Stuart Mill appreciation week here on Rant and Reason, I thought I would reflect for a moment on a quote from On Liberty that I read this morning in the most recent edition of International Humanist News:

Strange it is that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being ‘pushed to an extreme’; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.

Ibn Warraq was quoting Mill to illustrate a point on free expression in his talk entitled Democracy vs. Theocracy, addressing the recent effort by many nations (most of them with predominantly Islamic governments) to curtail any criticism of religion by the newly formed UN Human Rights Council. I recommend following the link above and reading the entirety of his talk; the IHEU has been closely following this issue and speaking out in favor of freedom of speech and preserving human rights, including the right to speak out against abuses by religious and governmental authorities and the religious context within which those abuses take place.

But I am going to address the Mill quote in a different context, one that the American Humanist Association has been experiencing first hand recently here in the United States. As readers of this blog know, the AHA embarked on an advertising campaign in our nation’s capital, which is also where our offices are located. The advertisements, stating “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake” (see it here) appear on the exteriors and interiors of buses around Washington D.C. The ad campaign has received a lot of media coverage, and, predictably, a wide range of reactions. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

One consistent theme among many critics of the ad, though, has been that it is simply inappropriate or wrong to have it at all. For example, Deborah Simmons of the Washington Times wrote:

To even allow the specter of belief to be questioned on a public bus system that is heavily subsidized with public dollars is blasphemy.

That’s a really interesting connection she makes there. Apparently, in her view, public buses have an obligation to maintain religious correctness at all times. Indeed, allowing an expression of dissent to what she regards as the prevailing majority view is “blasphemy.”

Another comment, addressed to Metro and quoted by Human Events, illustrates my point even more directly:

Your city represents the United States, and to turn your system into a billboard for this organization is offensive to me and most American People. There is free speech but there is also responsibility to not offend a group of people in this country. Your acceptance of this advertisement is offensive to me as a Christian and I strong urge you to take them down.

That is exactly the attitude that Mill was addressing in his quote. To that commenter, free speech is all well and good, as long as it does not offend him or her. Again, he or she demands religious correctness and deference to the majority religion, simply because it is the majority and will not brook any dissent. This is a very flaccid definition of freedom of expression, essentially, “You are free to say anything you like, as long as you don’t offend me.” But it seems rather obvious that this is not the freedom of expression that Mill visualized. For what does free speech mean if it is to be regulated constantly by the will of the majority?

Of course, as I said, there has been a wide range of reactions, including the following:

A stay-at-home mother of four is poised to start a Metrobus ad campaign to counter ads from the American Humanist Association that question a belief in God.

JoEllen Murphy, a 39-year-old Catholic who lives in McLean, started a grassroots Internet campaign after hearing about the humanist ads that started appearing last month on Metrobuses.

Murphy’s ad shows an image from Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” on the Sistine Chapel ceiling with the slogan: “Why believe? I created you and I love you, for goodness’ sake. – God.”

She says that she was offended by the AHA ad campaign, and decided to counter it by organizing an ad campaign of her own. In other words, in response to speech that she disagreed with, she decided that the answer was more speech and more debate in the public forum. That is freedom of expression at work.

When you see or read something that you strongly disagree with, then your best redress is to respond. Demands to censor the cause of offense are misguided and ignore Mill’s admonition that free speech must stand even in extreme cases if it is to mean anything at all. Certainly, debate can get messy at times. And I feel that there is a legitimate concern about access, because not everyone would be able to start a bus ad campaign in order to make their thoughts or concerns public. But free and open public debate beats the alternative, which is to bow to the majority or some kind of governmental standard to ensure that no offense is caused. That would render the First Amendment meaningless.

Today the American Humanist Association was at the National Press Club in Washington DC to launch our latest campaign: godless advertisements on local Metro buses that state, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”

The advertisement directs people to the website www.whybelieveinagod.com. Our press release was issued this morning:

Already appearing today in the New York Times and Washington Post, the message will soon be blazoned on the sides, taillights, and interiors of over 200 Washington DC Metro buses.

It’s the first ad campaign of its kind in the United States, and the American Humanist Association predicts it will raise public awareness of humanism as well as controversy over humanist ideas.

“Humanists have always understood that you don’t need a god to be good,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “So that’s the point we’re making with this advertising campaign. Morality doesn’t come from religion. It’s a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience.”

At a press conference today launching the campaign, large displays were featured showing the ads in today’s New York Times and Washington Post, the bus posters, and how the posters will look mounted on the side of a bus and inside, behind the driver’s seat. The exterior posters will appear on buses in Northwest Washington starting Tuesday, November 18. The interior posters will begin December 1 in Northwest and Southeast.

“We expect these bus signs to generate a lot of public interest,” said Fred Edwords, director of communications for the American Humanist Association. “Some folks may be offended but that isn’t our purpose. We just want to reach those open to this message but unaware how widespread their views are.

The “goodness’ sake” ads and posters direct people to a special Web site at www.whybelieveinagod.org that helps people find others of like mind in the Washington, D.C., metro area and nationally. The site also informs the public about humanism and answers common objections to the slogan as well as to the appropriateness of running the campaign during the holidays.

Such high-profile promotion isn’t new to the American Humanist Association. Throughout 2008, humanist advertising has become more visible across the nation. In particular, highway billboards have been erected just outside of New York City, Philadelphia, and other major cities. They read: “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.”

“Those billboards,” Fred Edwords added, “started raising the profile of our movement and generated an avalanche of responses, both from people who realized that they, too, were humanists as well as from those who disagreed with us. But everyone heard our message loud and clear. And this is what it takes for us to reach our audience.”

What do you think of the ad? Let us know in the comments section!

After far too much kvelling, I’ve been asked by my colleagues in the Secular Coalition for America office to take a moratorium on mentioning the name Stephen Colbert. But He who shall not be mentioned was so much fun! A few weeks back, I taped a two hour interview for the Colbert Report that was cut to a five minute segment. (We were aware in advance that this is how it is done.) While I am sworn to secrecy on some of the more detailed descriptions of the process, I can generally attest that the Colbert folks, including Stephen himself, were very gracious and put this guest quite at ease.

Many individuals have asked which parts of the long interview I would have liked to have seen in the final cut (as opposed to on the cutting room floor). There was a very funny pledge of allegiance, much information about military proselytizing, and my insistence that Stephen and I don’t have to agree on theology to agree to live in a civil society – not a theocratic one. Of course I covered lots of issue oriented things that didn’t make the final cut, but the goal was to let the Colbert Nation viewers know that the Secular Coalition for America exists and then have them go to our website to get more extensive information. Mission Accomplished.

I received numerous e-mails after the show expressing excitement about the interview and those who “get” Colbert’s format understood how it works. But I also got one very funny e-mail, though the sender didn’t realize it was funny. The gentleman wrote about the issues I should have covered during the five minute interview (I guess he thought it was a live-to-tape five minute stint). He seemed to think it was supposed to be a serious debate with a serious opponent – and missed the satire completely.

After the taping, I asked Stephen to autograph my copy of his book, I Am America and So Can You. For anyone who hasn’t read it, he has a terrific section on the “Big Secularist Agenda” and how the secular “caucus” of Representative Pete Stark (the only out nontheist in Congress) – he, himself and him – is taking over. Mr. Colbert inscribed the following in the front of my book: “Better watch your back. GOD [underlined three times] bless you. Stephen Colbert.” Ya gotta love this guy!

Guest post from Intern Jesse:

While browsing in Kramerbooks, I decided to glance at Francis Collins’ The Language of God. I had heard that it was an interesting book trying to show how science and religion could coexist – Collins is a well-respected geneticist as well as a religious man. However, when I opened up to a random page, the first thing that I saw was this:

“Science is not the only way of knowing. The spiritual worldview provides another way of finding truth. Scientists who deny this would be well advised to consider the limits of their own tools…”

Collins’ point simply doesn’t follow. To say that there are limitations to science lends no credibility to spirituality’s ability to find truth. It would be like saying, “Space shuttles are not the only way to get into orbit around the Earth. Pogo sticks are another way. Engineers who deny this would be well advised to consider the limits of their shuttles.” Sure, shuttles have things they can’t do, but that does not mean pogo sticks can go into orbit.

But let’s not just make fun of the statement, let’s go deeper and examine the idea behind the claims. Sure, there limits to what science can tell us. It addresses the “hows” of the world, the physical laws and the positive truths. It can’t answer what our purpose is, how to treat each other, or what to eat for breakfast (I’m partial to Special K). But just because science can’t answer those questions doesn’t mean that spirituality can. It means that we don’t know the answers. Collins needs to present evidence to support his claim that spirituality is “another way of finding truth,” not just point to science’s limits.

And spirituality has not shown that it is another way of finding truth. Different people pray and ask God whether gays should be allowed to marry – and they get wildly different answers, although they profess to be absolutely certain to have learned the truth. The problem is that the word ‘truth’ implies a universal, objective fact that is independent of the observer. Religions try to provide those answers by appealing to divine authority – telling us that a particular way of life is best because God says so. But it is our perspective that gives things value. A painting is beautiful if we find beauty in it, not because there is something inherently beautiful about it. And a life is meaningful if we find meaning in it. We must recognize that there is not an overarching ‘truth’ to be discovered, and that it is up to us as a society and as individuals to decide how to treat each other, how to live our lives, and what to do for breakfast.

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?

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.