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.