The popular BBC series probes the author’s views on writing and religion.

Religions view each other with either condescension or suspicion. This can make for contentious public discourse and, as we all know, frequently escalates into open hostilities. In order to avoid having things get out of hand, one periodically finds attempts by well-meaning people who think that the problem is due to religious people being ignorant of other religions, and that if they understood each other better they would recognize enough similarities and deep commonalities to defuse the antagonisms. And so we have the emergence of ‘interfaith’ movements.

In the past, such movements brought together only people from different religions but in recent years, there is growing recognition that skeptics are a significant part of the population and so the umbrella has on occasion been extended to include them as well. But the label ‘interfaith’ poses a bit of a problem because once you include skeptics, you are no longer talking about faith-based organizations anymore. Atheists shun the word faith because its most common usage is associated with religious faith, which is the acceptance of beliefs that lack any evidentiary support and are even counter to evidence. In fact, the less the evidence in support of a religious belief, the supposedly more admirable that belief is. This is absolutely counter to the rational evidence-based approach promoted by skeptics. But I cannot think of a good word that would accommodate both faith and anti-faith groups.

These interfaith programs usually take two forms. One consists of dialogues to get different religious groups together to share information about what they believe and to clear up any misconceptions that others may have about them. I am all for increasing the general awareness about religious people’s beliefs. In fact, I think that the academic study of the world’s religions (as opposed to religious education that seeks to indoctrinate children about one particular religion) is a proper part of a school curriculum. I think skepticism and skeptic organizations can play an important role in such discussions, once we overcome the problematic ‘faith’ label.

The other kinds of programs often involve getting different religious organizations to work together on some community projects. Although well-meant, there is something fundamentally odd about such interfaith projects. Let’s face it, each religion thinks that it alone is true and all the others false. They are incompatible at a fundamental level. You cannot have real equality between religions simply because of their divergent truth claims.

These kinds of interfaith projects basically involve asking religious groups to set aside their religious beliefs in order to do worthwhile projects that have nothing to do with religion. So unlike in the case of interfaith dialogues where talk about religious beliefs is explicitly encouraged, when it comes to interfaith projects, people are expected to suppress their differing beliefs but simply work for the common good.

There is nothing at all wrong with that except why bring in the faith aspect at all if you are asking people to then suppress it? Why not invite people to take part in community service and challenge projects for their own sake simply because they are good things? You can send the invitation out to all organized groups (including religious ones) to publicize to their members or to even take part as a group but leave the issue of faith entirely out of it. The goal of getting differing religious groups to stop fighting and killing each other is surely a good thing but that does not have to be coupled with worthwhile non-religious projects.

What does religion add to such community projects, unless religious groups are taking part to show how virtuous they are because of their religion? (In my college days, I was a member of a Christian student group that used to get involved in community service projects and some of the more evangelical members of the group used the occasion to proselytize, basically telling the poor non-Christian people we helped “Look at us! We are doing good works because we are Christians so why don’t you become Christians too!” Even though I was a devout Christian in those days, this would drive me up the wall.)

My concerns apply only to the interfaith part of such projects. The other diversity elements such as including intercultural or interethnic groups suffer from no such contradiction since being a member of one ethnic or cultural group does not necessarily imply that one thinks that other ethnic or cultural groups are inferior. It is understood that these are mere accidents of one’s birth and thus not obstacles to true equality amongst them. In fact, secular democracies are based on that idea.

You may recognize Becky Fischer from the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp as the camp leader who thinks that her mission is to indoctrinate young children into being soldiers for Jesus. Here is a trailer for that film. (Note the appearance by Ted Haggard when he was an evangelical in good standing and a major player in the movement, shortly before his drug-taking gay hijinks were revealed. He is now trying to make a comeback.)

Fischer has now taken her show on the road. In this clip she seems to be bringing her creepy death cult thinking to little children in Singapore, getting them to pretend to die and then ‘praying’ them back to life. The children are told that since Jesus could do that, they can too.

She even tells them near the end that she actually knows of children who prayed and brought their dead pets back to life. The death of a beloved pet is heartbreaking. To increase the pain by giving them such false hopes is exceedingly cruel because the children will think that the reason their own pet did not revive is because they and their prayers were unworthy.

This woman is a menace who should not be allowed anywhere near young children.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Recent results revealed by the US Census Bureau show that the ranks of the poor have increased to record levels in the US.

This should really come as no surprise to any thoughtful observer, given the relentless drive by the oligarchy to squeeze everyone else in order to enrich itself. But Walter Russell Mead, one of those so-called ‘centrist’ establishment pundits so beloved in the media who can be relied upon to deliver conventional wisdom on any topic, has come up with his own explanation as to the reasons why. He says that the growing inequality in the US is due to the rise in numbers of poor, ignorant atheists. Why? Because when people leave religion, they also leave religious institutions that promote the virtues that could lead them out of poverty.
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Gallup released the results of a poll recently that said that the percentage of people who said that they would vote for a well-qualified homosexual candidate for president is 67% while the number who would vote for a well-qualified atheist was 49%. The number who would not vote for such people was 32% and 49% respectively. These were the two lowest ranked, coming in just behind Mormons, for whom 76% would vote for president and 22% would not vote.
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Stephen Colbert discusses the profound problems created for Christianity and its fundamental doctrine of original sin if the Adam and Eve story is not literally true.

Jason Rosenhouse examines in some detail the attempts by Christian apologists to deal with these difficulties.

Of course, the real absurdity is that anyone in America in the 21st century is talking about Adam and Eve except as a joke.

Part of the reason that the religious right has been able to achieve its current prominence in national politics is because even those who do not believe that god exists (at least in any personal form) have refrained from saying so openly in the hope that they will not alienate ‘moderate’ religionists. This accommodationist strategy of trying to isolate the religious extremists has not worked. All it has done is enable the religious extremists to advance their message under the protection of ‘respect for religion’ that has curtailed the ability to criticize these religious extremists in a fundamental way.
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One reason that religious rhetoric in politics is on the rise these days is because of the uncertain economic outlook. When people are fearful of their future, they tend to lash out and seek others to blame and it is easy for politicians to direct their attention to scapegoats. Blaming economic and social problems as being due to god’s dissatisfaction with our behavior has always been popular trope for a certain segment of the public, going back to biblical times. It is easy for politicians to take advantage of the vanity of people thinking that they have a good idea of what their god wants, which always conveniently happens to coincide with what they themselves want. But working against them is the general decline of religion itself. As I explained in my series Why atheism in winning, the signs of decline of religion are unmistakable and I strongly suspect that religious leaders know this and are desperately seeking ways to at least slow down the process.

The most telling sign is that surveys show that people are leaving religion in significant numbers, with the greatest drop being among young people. This is why the stakes have been raised, in a desperate attempt by religious leaders to regain ground by making hysterical claims that the lack of religion is causing America’s problems. While they point to general moral decay that is supposedly bringing about god’s wrath, one of their key signs is the increasing acceptance of gay people as deserving of the same rights enjoyed by others, including marriage.

The irony is that the more religious leaders decry the increasing acceptance of homosexuals, the more they alienate young people, the very group that they need to secure their future. As Adam Lee points out:

Over the last few decades, society in general, and young people in particular, have become increasingly tolerant of gays and other minorities. For the most part, this is a predictable result of familiarity: people who’ve grown up in an increasingly multicultural society see less problem with interracial relationships (89% of Generation Nexters approve of interracial marriage, compared to 70% of older age groups) and same-sex marriage (47% in favor among Nexters, compared to 30% in older groups). When it comes to issues like whether gays and lesbians should be protected from job discrimination or allowed to adopt, the age gap in support is even more dramatic (71% vs. 59% and 61% vs. 44%, respectively).

But while American society is moving forward on all these fronts, many churches not only refuse to go along, they’re actively moving backward. Most large Christian sects, both Catholic and Protestant, have made fighting against gay rights and women’s rights their all-consuming crusade. And young people have gotten this message loud and clear: polls find that the most common impressions of Christianity are that it’s hostile, judgmental and hypocritical. In particular, an incredible 91% of young non-Christians say that Christianity is “anti-homosexual”, and significant majorities say that Christianity treats being gay as a bigger sin than anything else.

This rise is similar to the way that acceptance of interracial dating and marriage among the young increased with time as more and more young people did not see any problems with it. Currently 86% of people approve of interracial marriages, up from just 4% in 1958. Again, young people are more accepting than old people, with senior citizens with 66% approval being the lowest group.

Many religious people and groups are locked into an anti-gay stance that they cannot free themselves from. While some are trying to soften their message with variations of the ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ circumlocution of the Catholic church, this is widely seen as a sham. Most religious institutions simply cannot escape being seen as intolerant and hateful.

So instead of religion defeating homosexuality, the increasing acceptance of equal rights for gays will accelerate the decline of religion.

Reader Jeff at Have Coffee Will Write sent me this link to a Australian TV show that seems to have as its premise asking advertising agencies to come up with campaigns for extreme ideas. They usually get a good response but when they asked for campaigns to ban all religions, for the first time ad agencies declined to take part, even though earlier suggestions such as ‘Invade New Zealand’ or ‘Bring back child labor’ or ‘Euthanize everyone over eighty’ had not dissuaded them.

One of the questions that opponents of same-sex marriage never satisfactorily answer is why it matters to them if gay couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Why do they care? What harm do they suffer? It is not as if marriage is some limited resource that allowing more people access to would reduce the general availability.

As far as I can see, the opposition to same-sex marriage seems to be almost entirely based on ancient religious texts and their associated homophobia but of course few, other than the religious nutters, want to concede that for fear of being seen as religious bigots. (That distancing from religion is a small sign of progress). Instead they dance around the issue with vague rationalizations that somehow marriage has always been between one man and one woman and has thus acquired the force of tradition or that the purpose of marriage is procreation or that changing the definition of marriage would open the door to polygamy, bestiality, or otherwise destroy civilization as we know it. Of course, none of these ‘arguments’ stand up to scrutiny but few people are willing to press opponents on this, usually out of the ‘respect for religion’ trope that assumes that people’s faith-based speech and actions should not be questioned. But the legal case involving Proposition 8 in California may finally force them to put up or shut up.

If you recall, in May 2008 the California Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples have, under the state constitution, a right to marry. Opponents then brought Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage as a ballot initiative and, heavily backed by the Catholic and the Mormon churches and using lies that allowing same-sex marriage would lead to gay indoctrination of children in schools, they managed to narrowly pass it in November 2008 by a margin of less than 5%.

The constitutionality of Proposition 8 was challenged under the state constitution and its validity was upheld. But it was also challenged under the US constitution and in August 2010, a US District judge ruled that it violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, but allowed the ban to stand while the case was appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Normally the governor and the attorney general of the state are the people who have the obligation to enforce the laws of California and they have the unquestioned right to appeal any verdict nullifying the laws. But opponents of the ruling were stymied because the then-governor of California (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the then-attorney general (and now governor) Jerry Brown refused to appeal the district court ruling.

Because of this vacuum, various private parties who had sponsored Proposition 8 then appealed the verdict but this raised the question of whether they had standing to do so. In order to prevent an explosion of third-party lawsuits, one has to show that one has standing to bring about a legal case and one of the means by which standing is established by a private party is that the party has to show that they are directly affected by a law or a court ruling and would suffer direct harm if it were carried out.

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unexpected move, ruled that before it could decide on the constitutionality of the issue, the issue of standing had to be resolved and they sent the case back to the California Supreme Court to rule on whether the challengers had standing. This has put the issue of what harm opponents of same-sex marriage suffer directly to the forefront. Ted Olson, one of the lead counsel opposing Proposition 8, puts the matters succinctly.

Olson will argue that to have legal standing the proponents have to show that they would suffer a direct harm if Prop. 8 is held to be unconstitutional.

“Here, the proponents were asked during the course of the trial, what damage would be done to heterosexual marriage if Proposition 8 was held to be unconstitutional and the lawyer for the Proposition 8 proponents said ‘I don’t know,'” Olson says. “You have to have a direct stake in the matter that’s being litigated.”

Court cases can very useful in clarifying issues because people have to answer specific questions that are narrowly focused and posed to them by people who have all the facts at their fingertips. They cannot make sweeping generalizations or filibuster or snow the listener the way they can in public debates or when answering reporters. This is what doomed so-called intelligent design. Its advocates managed to obfuscate the issue for quite some time but they came a cropper in 2005 in the US district court in Dover, PA because under cross-examination they were forced to admit many things they had tried to conceal, such as that under their definition of science, even astrology would have to be considered to be science.

So the question of standing that is going to be adjudicated by the California Supreme Court could be quite illuminating in pinning down exactly what harm opponents of same-sex marriage experience by allowing it. But unfortunately, unlike in lower courts where the merits of the case can be exhaustively examined, in superior courts the process is very brief and tends to be narrowly focused. At the hearing on Tuesday, the California Supreme Court judges seemed to be more concerned about allowing the governor and attorney general the sole right to decide what laws to defend rather than with the issue of what direct harm the sponsors of Proposition 8 suffer if same-sex marriage is allowed. Since they have ruled before that ballot initiative sponsors have the right to defend them in court, that seems likely to be the verdict here too, that they will be granted standing by virtue of being sponsors of the initiative rather than because they would suffer direct harm if same-sex marriage were allowed. You can see the full video of the hearing here.

It seems likely that both aspects of this case, the issue of standing as well as the constitutionality of same-sex marriage itself, will go all the way to the US Supreme Court.

But even if the opponents of same-sex marriage win this legal battle, they have lost the public relations war. It is only a matter of time, perhaps five years, before gay people win equal rights.