Chaplains begone!

I’m impressed. Usually, a blunt statement of religious belief can be remarkably offensive, but in this case a Harvard chaplain used weasel words to magnify the appalling nature of his remarks.

Harvard Islamic chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser ’96 has recently come under fire for controversial statements in which he allegedly endorsed death as a punishment for Islamic apostates.

In a private e-mail to a student last week, Abdul-Basser wrote that there was “great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment [for apostates]) and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.”

One could argue with the interpretation that he “endorsed death as a punishment” since he didn’t actually say that outright. Instead, we got implications.

  • He says death for apostasy is an “established and preserved position”. This is probably the least ghastly of his claims, since it is at least true in some places.

  • There is “wisdom” in murdering people who reject your beliefs? Where? So, if I said Abdul-Basser was betraying an important academic tradition of open thought, would I be wise to suggest he deserves execution? I think not, and I add, I definitely would not under any circumstances endorse such an evil proposition.

  • He thinks killing people who leave Islam might make “some uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable? Uncomfortable? If my neighbor suggested that they were thinking of painting their house in green and pink stripes, then I might reply that that made me “uncomfortable”. If he seriously suggested that it might be a good idea to execute registered Democrats who didn’t vote for Obama in the last election, I think I’d be calling the police and the hospital…and freaking out just a little bit.

  • If pushing human rights for all people is hegemonic, who is being oppressively dominant? Do we really need to respect the right of a priestly class to dictate what others are allowed to believe?

I have a suggestion: dismiss Abdul-Basser out of hand. To be fair, fire every single one of the university chaplains, and send them packing. Universities should not be in the business of pandering to student superstitions; it’s not as if there is a dearth of churches and chapels and religious organizations already surrounding and intruding upon the campus — remove the official endorsement of the administration and banish them all from the secular business of running a university.

No shout out for Jes at that speech

Obama is going to rouse the ire of the religious right yet further: he wisely opted not to endorse Jesus while giving a speech on economics by having a Christian symbol on the lectern covered up while he spoke. Good move, I think — let’s not get secular economic decision making all muddled up with Catholicism.

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week — Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold “IHS” monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

As even us Lutherans learned, once upon a time, IHS is just the transliterated first three letters of Jesus’ name — IHΣOYΣ — which always struck me as weirdly informal. They call their god “Jes”? Can we get really casual and call him “Jezzy baby”, too?

Anyway, of course there is a poll, and of course the irate believers are peeved that our president didn’t stand up behind good ol’ Jes and talk about the bailout. Maybe some other real Americans should also make their voices heard…

Do you support Georgetown’s decision to agree to cover up religious symbols at President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday?

28%
Yes
72%
No

Thinking outside the traditional box

This is an entirely sensible ad promoting safe sex from Botswana. How do you think it would be received in the US?

i-39e538af3fcaad1bf4502165efe340c8-masturbation.jpeg

We already know. Remember Jocelyn Elders, fired from her position as Surgeon General because she said of masturbation that “I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught”? One brief sentence on this taboo subject led to her dismissal. Amusingly, the president who fired her was that dismal old prude and paragon of propriety, Bill Clinton. I guess that’s an indication of just how narrow and strait-laced this country is.

Love in Afghanistan

Spring is in the air! Young hearts turn to thoughts of love, and romance flowers everywhere, even in the darkness of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. A young couple there, their union frowned upon by their families, eloped to marry anyway, a gesture I find wonderfully romantic and sweet. I’m a little biased — my own parents were discouraged from marrying by their families, and they too ran off to marry without permission (in liberal Idaho, in their case). I wouldn’t be here without youthful affection and passion!

Alas, no such happy result comes from a region poisoned by fanatical Islam. Mullahs seized the rebellious couple, issued a religious decree, and had them shot on the street in front of a mosque, symbol of their religion of peace.

I think the true symbol of their religion should be a pair of bloody corpses, dreams dead, hopes destroyed, all joy crushed.

Spring will still come and the poppies will blossom, and the air will warm and the sun will shine—but where is the meaning of it all when minds are shackled and love is shunned, when happiness is replaced with regimented dogmatism? A season of rebirth should be accompanied by an expansion of ideas and feelings and human connections, not repression. There can be no springtime for the Taliban, except as a series of dates on a calendar.

Mac Brunson, Baptist tyrant and greedy Pharisee

What can we expect of a theocracy? One thing is for sure: you won’t be able to criticize the church or church leadership. Here’s an example from Florida.

Mac Brunson is the pastor of one of those awful megachurches, an organization that has been growing fast and sucking up lots of money for expansion. A member of his flock who was a bit concerned at the direction the church was taking set up a blog, FBC Jax Watchdog, and anonymously expressed dismay at the way the church was being run.

I saw possible abuses at our church shortly after our new pastor arrived, regarding acceptance of a $307,000 land gift just three weeks after he arrived – even though his own Pastor’s Guidebook cautions pastors against accepting large gifts! I watched as we spent $100,000 to renovate 3600+ square feet of our newly constructed children’s building to provide the pastor and his wife and secretary luxury office suites. I saw the preacher vacate the pulpit unannounced, I heard him say he took several Sunday nights off because he had to finish a book manuscript. I saw us spending money on the A-Group, a church marketing consultant and promotions firms. The head of this firm, Maurilio Amorim, came to be involved in personnel decisions at FBC Jax the first year of Mac’s tenure, at a church and city that he knew nothing about. I saw us develop promotions plans to “raise revenue” at our pastors conference through charging for advertising and selling “promotions packages”.

The pastor also gets a salary of $300,000. The universe is always telling me I went into the wrong line of work.

Simple public criticism — it’s a good thing. As you might guess, though, Pastor Brunson did not appreciate the inquiries into his cash flow (which, as we all know, is the principle purpose of a church), and hired a private investigator to find out who this critic might be. This is where it gets ugly. The blog did not post anything illegal, was not doing anything but documenting problems in the church, but the investigator successfully got a subpoena and compelled Google to release the identity of the blogger. The blogger is now banned from the church (which, to my mind, is a net positive), and his name has been exposed.

What is most troubling is that the investigator was able to get a subpoena and expose the identity of an anonymous blogger on the sole grounds that a disgustingly rich pastor was annoyed by him — not by citing any actionable behavior. You might want to think about this if you’re on google/blogspot and think that your anonymity is safe. It apparently doesn’t take much effort to crack open google and fish your name out of it…perhaps only a local judge with sympathies for some religious goofball who doesn’t like you.

Oh, wait, actually…what’s most troubling is the pastor’s salary. And he claims “he is one of the lowest-paid mega-church pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention”. Gee, so all I have to do is start lying for Jesus and maybe I can make those kinds of wages? I guess a biblical piece of silver has been inflated to be worth about $10,000.

The only good news here is that Pastor Mac Brunson’s high-handed behavior should focus a little more scrutiny on his money-making enterprise. Could we please start taxing the churches?

(via Daily Kos)

So that’s what “Focus on the Family” means

James Dobson always seemed a little too obsessed with spanking and checking out penises to be entirely healthy, and now one of his employees has been outed as a pedophile.

Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, thought he was corresponding with a girl under the age of 15, but instead it was undercover officers with the Jefferson County district attorney’s office, according to court documents.
Ovalle works for a Spanish-speaking arm of the Colorado Springs Christian group Focus on the Family and narrates Biblical text for CDs, according to Internet websites that sell the products.

“We’re shocked,” said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman with Focus.

Schneeberger said the group “is beginning its own process of looking into the allegations” and that it “will work with authorities” if asked.

…Ovalle asked the teen specific sexual questions and told her about sex acts he would perform with her, according to an arrest affidavit. According to the affidavit, during one exchange, Ovalle asked: “Would you like to meet?”

What is it with these repressed, abstinence-only organizations that promote unrealistic views of sex? They seem to attract people with warped views of sexual behavior that violate reasonable patterns of respect for a partner.

The amorality of the faithful

Rabbi Avi Shafran is a columnist who, to my mind, represents the very worst of religious dogma. He often writes about “morality”, bemoaning the horrid state of godlessness, but his morality is little more than the rote obedience of the dogmatically orthodox. His usual complaint is that atheism removes the moral compass provided by a god — that one can believe that any arbitrary thing is good if you’re an atheist.

Now he has written another bogus argument that shows the exact opposite: if you use religion, you can justify anything. It’s a very strange piece, a study in contrasts.

On the one hand, Bernie Madoff: a scoundrel and swindler who used a Ponzi scheme to enrich himself and bilk investors of an estimated 65 billion dollars. He was also a dedicated philanthropist who skimmed off a little of his ill-gotten riches and donated to primarily Jewish charities.

On the other hand, Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot whose competence made for a safe emergency water landing a few months ago. He has been fairly quiet, and has not made a big issue of the event; he also hasn’t given any credit to a deity for the landing.

Guess which one Shafran thinks is the good guy? Since he’s using religious logic, it’s a safe bet to guess the one that makes the least sense.

That’s right, Shafran thinks Bernie Madoff is admirable. Why? Because he owned up to his crime, and didn’t flee the country, and also because Shafran imagines that he begin his investment firm with good intent. Never mind that, at some point long ago, Madoff knew he was ripping people off, that he was building an unsupportably rickety pyramid of promises that he couldn’t keep, and he didn’t own up then — he just kept robbing people. And then, of course, even after he was caught out, he was frantically trying to hide his assets. He’s a crook. Shafran is impressed because he said he was sorry after he was caught.

And what about Sullenberger?

No such sublimity of spirit [the “sublimity of spirit” refers to Bernie Madoff], though, was in evidence in any of the public acts or words of Mr. Sullenberger. He saved 155 lives, no doubt about it, and is certainly owed the hakoras hatov of those he saved, and of their families and friends. And he executed tremendous skill.

But no moral choice was involved in his act. He was on the plane too, after all; his own life depended on undertaking his feat no less than the lives of others. He did what anyone in terrible circumstances would do: try to stay alive. He was fortunate (as were his passengers) that he possessed the talents requisite to the task, but that’s a tribute to his training, and to the One Who instilled such astounding abilities in His creations (and Whose help the captain was not quoted as acknowledging).

I suspect that lack of acknowledgment is what really chafes Shafran.

Here is the difference between religious and secular morality written in boldfaced crayon. The religious claim to have an absolute, a god, who has dictated an unquestionable standard for what is good, and the role of the mere human individual is to be obedient to that standard, to follow the hierarchy of leaders who exist to translate and explain their deity’s rules. I can see where this certainly has some advantages to a society — it’s a tool to promote and enforce service to the state or church — but it’s not morality. It’s rationalized slavery.

We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force — virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.

We also know that goodness is not a state of being, but a process that requires constant effort and continuous assessment against its effects in the real world. Blind adherence to a presupposition without adjustment to fit the facts of execution is a formula for doing great harm.

My short summary of the difference between religious and secular morality is this: will you obey, or will you strive? Rabbi Shafran’s answer is that you must obey.

An amusing error, and an appropriate response

All mosques are supposed to have an indicator pointing at the Kaaba in Mecca — the devout are supposed to aim their prayers in that direction (which is silly to begin with, but never mind). With all the high rises going up in Mecca, though, people were able to look down and notice that hey, the mosques aren’t aimed right, maybe all of their prayers have been missing the target!

A spokesman has said something very sensible, though, something that I think certain other religious sects might consider.

Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

“There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques,” he said.

“In any case, it does not affect the prayers.”

This is something believers and atheists can accept. The believer, because the nit-picky details of the ritual shouldn’t matter that much, if you really believe in a wise and compassionate all-powerful being. The atheist, because yeah, the prayers are ineffectual in the first place.

Now we just need to hope that certain Muslims acquire a similar attitude towards cartoons and literature. If gods are so powerful, they should be able to take a little mockery and criticism; if they’re nonexistent, there is no one to file a complaint.

Cheap saints

The Vatican is champing at the bit to turn Pope John Paul II into a saint, and central to their case is the story of Jory Aebly. Aebly was a young man who was mugged, shot in the head, and expected to die…but he recovered, fortunately. What’s the connection to a dead pope? Well, there isn’t much of one. In the hospital, he was given a rosary that had supposedly been blessed by the pope, and his religious family now credits John Paul II for his recovery. Never mind that the pope had been dead for four years.

What also isn’t mentioned is that Aebly’s friend, Jeremy Pechanec, who was also mugged and shot, died of his injuries. Was he an atheist or something? Does the pope’s magic only extend to people who hold this one particular rosary?

Why isn’t this magic rosary being used regularly for all brain injury victims in the hospital right now? Sometimes people can recover from horrific injuries, so one case isn’t at all persuasive…now if the hospital were slapping the super-duper magic beads into every victim’s hands as they were being rushed through the emergency room door, and they were all getting better, then I’d say there is something worth investigating going on.

I also want to know how many other people the hospital chaplain used his ju-ju beads on, and how many of them died. You’d think he’d be bragging a lot more about his success rate if they worked, but all we hear about is this one incredibly lucky fellow.

This is the world of Catholicism, though. Reason has no role in it, sense doesn’t matter, and statistics? What’s that? Dead man’s beads are going to get the credit, but not the surgery and care that contributed more to the recovery than superstition.

The creeping fungus of religion in government

A recent court decision went against the Bush administration, and also reveals some of the contemptible influence peddling that went on in that gathering of scoundrels. The subject was birth control, in particular Plan B and other forms of emergency contraception, and as many of you know, the Bushite regime dragged its feet with ridiculous deliberation in allowing the FDA to approve these forms of contraception, and effectively blocked them from public access. By hook and crook, by cheating and deception, and by lying to the people, as this court decision affirms. This is why we fight the inclusion of religion in government: it poisons everything.

This decision is remarkable in its detailed accounting of the corruption that religious viewpoints can wreak upon public policy. That the right-to-life community was able to derail the availability of emergency contraception so easily is a testament to how bad things truly were in the Bush Administration. It should be unnecessary to say this, but I will: Science, health, and healing should be the focus of the FDA. The pattern of conduct the district court decision reveals is lawless, not only with respect to FDA procedures, but also with respect to the constitutional right to obtain contraception established by the Supreme Court Griswold v. Connecticut. This is not the state’s role. Indeed, the imposition by the Bush FDA of the religious beliefs of some upon others who do not believe is antithetical to our system. The core of the Establishment Clause is intended to prevent this sort of substitution of religious reasoning for sound public policy decisionmaking.

But that era is over, right? Don’t start cheering yet.

President Bush seems not to have been able to make public decisions without reference to right-wing religious beliefs. That inclination was probably reinforced by his practice of having a weekly conference call with conservative Christian clergy.

It is troubling to learn that President Obama appears to have instituted the same practice of scheduled weekly consultation with clergy. While Presidents from the start have looked to their faith to give them courage and solace, and many have had a religious counselor for one-on-one discussions, the weekly call with a committee of clergy is quite different. It would be very hard to believe that the discussion does not veer away from spiritual counseling, and into public policy. And what other political interest groups get this kind of access to the President? Reading Judge Korman’s well-reasoned and well-supported decision in Tummino, one is reminded that one cannot assume that religious advising is always, or even usually, politically-neutral. Moreover, it is never accountable to the people, by constitutional design. The President, however, is.

Also, don’t forget that these so-called “spiritual leaders” use the credibility conferred by these weekly meetings to reinforce their political authority and push a political agenda on their flocks. It’s a tool that is abused and gives political leverage to people who are often the enemies of secularism.

Does anyone know who Obama’s consulting clergy are? These are people to be watched; I’d also like to see that we urge Obama to also listen to dissenting voices. Where’s the weekly consultation with atheists, I might ask? Or with scientists and engineers? Why is he wasting time with those pious con artists, anyway?