Oh, well, that’s all right then.

I don’t say the pledge of allegiance; I actually find it rather offensive that I’m expected to give a loyalty oath to a political entity if I attend a school board meeting. So I was a little sympathetic to this story of a student was kicked out of school for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But then…the school administrators made a fast about face and decided to let her return to school. Why, you might wonder…but I think you can guess.

She simply said she was a devout Christian and could not make oaths to anyone but her god.

Zooom! Excused!

So this means an atheist student wouldn’t have an excuse and could be compelled to recite an oath to a nation “under god”? Charming double standard there.

Sanctimonious monsters

Yesterday, two great pious leaders of the world met in Washington DC. President Bush has immense temporal power, leading one of the richest countries on the planet with the most potent military force. Pope Benedict is a spiritual leader to a billion people, with immense influence and the responsibility of a long religious legacy. What could they have talked about? Mostly, they seem to have patted each other on the back and congratulated each other on their commitment to superstition.

In remarks greeting the pope at the White House, Bush called the United States “a nation of prayer.”

Bush was interrupted by applause as he said, “In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred and that each of us is willed.”

Benedict responded by praising the role of religion in the United States.

“From the dawn of the republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the creator,” he said.

I am often told that religion is a source of morality. I’ve read the Bible myself; I can see that there were moral philosophers at work behind that book, that we have a tradition of law in the Old Testament, with a fellow named Jesus adding social justice and concern for the poor and weak in the New that are actually rather commendable. I also see a lot of myth and error and misplaced obsession with the supernatural that rational people are willing to set aside to focus on the core humanitarian message … or at least they do so in the best of circumstances.

Yet what I also see in modern religion is a re-prioritizing: the secular concerns that should matter, the egalitarian word of a religious tradition that valued the cohesion of the social fabric and demanded equal treatment for even the least of society is ignored, given a little lip service perhaps, but made subservient to the intangible theological nonsense of prayer, of an invisible god, of submission to dogma and hope in an unevidenced afterlife. It’s a religion that has shifted its eyes from a task to be done here on earth to an unearthly vision of a magical unseen world run by an ethereal tyrant who must be placated.

Bush calls us a nation of prayer — a depressing label that makes us a country of delusions. Worse, he claims that we respect life as sacred, a lie straight from his lips. How can George Bush claim our country does not debase and discard human lives?

As you well informed blog readers all know by now, last week ABC broke an interesting little story. It was about how Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Colin Powell, George Tenent, John Ashcroft and other Bush “Principals” all gathered in regular meetings in the White House to discuss and approve of the various torture methods being used against prisoners held by the United States in the War On Terror. ABC interviewed the president a couple of days later and asked him if he was aware of these meetings and he said he was not only aware of them, but that he’d approved of them. Moreover, he specifically said he had no regrets about what was done to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who we know was tortured with simulated drowning — also known as “waterboarding” — which is considered by the entire civilized world to be torture.

The great pious Catholic Pope stands before this man, and what does he say? Does he mention that Jesus asked that we do to others as we would have them do to us? Does he remind him that they call their religious figurehead the “Prince of Peace”, and that he asked us to turn the other cheek when we were struck, or that he asked that we protect the poor and weak? Does he point out that the central event in their shared faith was the torture and execution of their prophet and god, and that the New Testament isn’t about emulating the heroic Romans?

No, of course not. An obscenely wealthy old man heading an organization that protects child abusers and advocates horrendous and ignorant social practices that harm the poor all around the world would look utterly hypocritical even trying to rebuke a war-monger and apologist for torture. So instead he stands there and tells him that they share common principles founded in fear of a nebulous god. Those are ‘principles’ I reject — they seem to be nothing but labile excuses for doing as you will to anyone who falls under your thumb.

There’s an evil tableau for you: the callous torturer stands up with blood on his hands and a lie in his teeth, while the priest draped in gilt reassures him of his righteousness. How often has that scene played out in history, I wonder?

Our press seems to be more interested in promoting the pomp of a papal visit than actually addressing the vileness that this administration prosecutes; we’ll see more of the pointless, self-promoting ceremonial nonsense of the mass in New York this weekend than we’ll see addressing the unconscionable evil these great pious leaders condone. I won’t be watching any of it. The sight of these two sanctimonious monsters makes me ill. How about you, Christians? These are your leaders, your paragons, your representatives of the power of your faith. Do you feel some slight tremor of shame that your values are on parade in an empty ritual in the foreground, and a brutal indifference to human life in the back?

God must really hate black people

A family of Minnesotans were involved in a horrific plane crash in the Congo.

Barry and Marybeth Mosier were on their way to visit their son Keith, 24, in Kinsangani, Congo, with two younger children when their plane crashed on takeoff Tuesday in Goma. At least 36 people died as the plane plowed through a market and burned. Most of the people who died were on the ground, according to the U.N. mission in DR Congo.

…Mosier said, he and his wife were carrying their son Andrew, 3, in the shoving “mass of humanity” trying to escape the burning plane. They got out through the opening in the fuselage.

…“Outside the plane, she was wandering around. … It was total chaos,” he said. “People were screaming and yelling because the plane had landed on this market. All of a sudden, out of the blue, all of these people who were just standing there are now dead.

“So there’s parts of bodies and people burning and people screaming and yelling, and she was out there by herself.”

It sounds like a nightmarish event, and I’m glad they survived. I wish a few more people hadn’t died horrible, painful deaths in such a catastrophe, but this was a family of despicable missionaries, so you know what’s coming next.

“We couldn’t believe that our family of four could all escape a plane that was crashed and on fire, but by God’s mercy, we did,” he said.

Mosier said he believes the family made it for a reason.

“I think the Lord has a plan for us, otherwise we wouldn’t have survived,” he said. “He still has work for us to do.”

Their god has no mercy to spare for the innocent people in the market, of course, and their lives must have been totally useless for their god to be able to dispense with them in such a brutal fashion. Or perhaps they were wicked and deserved a flaming extinction with lots of fear and screaming?

In a just theistic world, I think their god would despise such smug, self-satisfied Christians.

God hates Porsches

A doddering old fool who shouldn’t have been driving in the first place cruised into a car dealership in his cheap little Ford Fiesta, and managed to demolish two Porsches outside the showroom. Total damage: £60,000.

So what does the senile twit say afterwards? You guessed it:

It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me.

Why was he praying to wreak havoc on expensive German cars?

Not just the Mormons, of course

Here’s the story of a young Yemeni lady filing for divorce from her abusive husband.

“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.

She’s eight years old.

Why are little girls always the target?

Here, let me ruin your morning, just in case you hadn’t already heard the story of this raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

A raid was finally triggered April 3, after a family violence shelter received a hushed phone call from a terrified 16-year-old girl saying her 50-year-old husband had beaten and raped her.

State troopers put into action the plan they had on the shelf to enter the compound, and 416 children, most of them girls, were swept into state custody on suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused.

Doran said it was not until after the raid began that he learned that the sect was, in fact, marrying off underage girls at the compound and had a bed in its soaring limestone temple where the girls were required to immediately consummate their marriages. Also, investigators said a number of teenage girls there are pregnant.

I think “fundamentalist” has become a synonym for “misogynistic pedophile”.

Islamic schools, Christian schools … same difference

I’ve been getting a lot of email about this putatively Islamic public school in Minnesota, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy. It’s a wretched situation — this is a school associated with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and clearly all the students and families involved are Muslims who want a little bit of cultural isolation, and I suspect there is a lot of religious indoctrination going on behind closed doors — and I think it’s a bad thing that this school is receiving state tax dollars.

I’ve been reluctant to jump on this story, though, for a couple of reasons. The main person fanning the hysteria is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten, who is a far right-wing kook with a history of hypocrisy, and this is just another example. I am actually quite happy to see her and her fellow Christianists tearing their hair out in anxiety over the existence of a culturally Islamic school in our midst — maybe (but I doubt this a bit) they are actually getting a vague idea of what it feels like to be non-Christian in America, and watch as the schools are blithely used as organs of theological propaganda while the administrators claim they are not.

For instance, Kersten is outraged at this report:

Afterward, Getz said, “teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day,” was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man “was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered.”

We are about to go through the various graduation ceremonies out here in Morris. There will probably be a student speaker who will be trotted out to tell everyone how much he or she loves Jesus. We will witness a man dressed all in black with a funny collar who will be given a place of honor in the event, and who will close his eyes, bow his head, clasp his hands, and lead everyone in attendance in prayer to the Christian deity. What’s the difference? One chooses white, the other black? I don’t think Kersten will be going on a rampage to get baccalaureate ceremonies shut down all across the state.

Our local high school had Youth for Christ assemblies on campus, during school hours. This is just as insane and distasteful to non-Christians (as well as many Christians who didn’t care much for an airhead braying about abstinence-only education and how wicked gay people are) as having an imam preach during school hours, but of course it was welcomed by our fundie community. Where was Katherine Kersten then?

Andy Birkey points out more Kersten hypocrisy: she has nothing but praise for a “classical curriculum” that contains Christian nonsense and was implemented in a school run on the grounds of a Catholic church in Minneapolis. You could argue, of course, that you can teach religion from a secular perspective and just exposing kids to their historical roots is not in itself a forbidden act by a public school, but the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy may be doing exactly the same thing … just from a minority Islamic perspective rather than a majority Catholic one. Their website is carefully non-sectarian and secular, at any rate, not that I wouldn’t put it past the liars for Jesus or Mohammed to scrub the crazy talk from their public face.

So, yeah, I don’t like any of it, but I find it hard to get irate at a school of 300 students which may be subverting the secular mission of the public school system, when we’ve got over 800,000 students in this same system who take Christianity for granted. Let’s get it all out. The main virtue of this little episode is that we’ll be able to use it to our advantage next time some school administrator tries to infuse Christian values into our schools — we’ll be able to point out that if it’s not OK to peddle Islam in school, then Christianity should be getting equal treatment.

The other good outcome here is that the ACLU is on the case, and has sent a letter demanding explanations and accountability. I like the ACLU; I’ll abide by their findings. What will the wingnuts say, I wonder?

Which religion?

That Willikers fella has a fine post on the differences between science and religion. Even if he obstinately refuses the label of “atheist” I have to go along with him on this:

So, science is universal, while religion is rather local. One relies on an epistemology everyone in the world has access to; the other relies on an epistemology that barely works for that religion. To say of all religions that “each is valid” is to assert an absurdity. If each religion is separately valid, and all religions contradict each other, we are way past postmodernist silliness and out the other side into pure fiction and flights of imagination. It basically causes the very idea of knowledge to be degraded to the point that it no longer has the slightest meaning.

I think he ought to be invited to speak at that Australian creationist conference. If he and I were to show up there, I’m sure they’d hate him far more than me.