After reading Dinesh D’Souza’s latest article I’m not sure I’d ever understand what it is he’s trying to prove. In his article Desecrating Darwin’s Cathedral, he quotes an article by David Sloan Wilson, in which Wilson criticizes Richard Dawkins for not using scientific theory and an evolutionary perspective (as strongly as he could) to critique religion. D’Souza admits that Wilson and Dawkins are both atheists, but what gets D’Souza excited is how devastating Wilson’s attack is on Dawkins for not using better biology and science.

From Wilson’s article:

If the trait is not an adaptation, then it can nevertheless persist in the population for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it was adaptive in the past but not the present, such as our eating habits, which make sense in the food-scarce environment of our ancestors but not with a McDonald’s on every corner. Perhaps the trait is a byproduct of another adaptation. For example, moths use celestial light sources to orient their flight (an adaptation), but this causes them to spiral toward earthly light sources such as a street lamp or a flame (a costly byproduct), as Dawkins so beautifully recounts in The God Delusion. Finally, the trait might be selectively neutral and persist in the population by genetic or cultural drift.

So, whether religion is an adaption or is selectively neutral, that doesn’t prove or disprove religion or God. In fact, if it’s an adaptation, it seems likely that it isn’t true, but rather that it is something invented to help us adapt to our environment. Then as if D’Souza wants to prove my point, he goes on to quote Sloan some more:

Wilson gives a telling example: The Jains of India seem to have bizarre religious habits. They won’t kill any creature, even cockroaches. They sometimes fast virtually unto death. They have been known to refuse contact with non-Jains. The Jains would easily satisfy Dawkins’ view of religion as a senseless delusion. And yet Wilson points out that the Jains are basically the Jews of India: they are one of the most successful economic communities in the world. The reason, he suggests, is that religious practices that seem weird and impractical to outsiders actually cultivate deep bonds of trust between Jains. This economic solidarity is crucial for a diaspora trading community that has built economic networks throughout Asia and around the world. What seems like a pointless delusion turns out to be eminently practical. From the evolutionist’s perspective–and in terms of the only currency that counts for a biologist–Jain practices have demonstrated “survival value.”

But does evolutionary survival value imply truthfulness? Is D’Souza the Catholic trying to tell us something? Is Jainism really the one true religion?

And does something that makes us feel good automatically free it from the category of a delusion? I like the idea of Santa Claus, and that I have bags of money, and that the religious right will one day come around one day and be kind to their gay and transgendered friends and family. But no matter how nice that makes me feel, it doesn’t mean that it’s any less of a delusion.

Yesterday, Mike Huckabee admitted that he wants to change the U.S. Constitution to make it comply with his biblical god beliefs. For years now, politicians whose motives were clearly theocratic, have hidden behind supposedly secular rationales for their attempts to change the U.S. Constitution. Just look at the “secular” arguments for traditional (i.e. Biblical) marriage to be imposed on all civil marriages:

· Studies show children fare better with male/female parents (reliable studies actually show that the gender of parents makes no difference in their children’s well-being)

· Civil marriage rights are given solely for the purpose of biological procreation (in reality, couples who can’t or won’t procreate get civil marriage benefits anyway; and adopting parents are also permitted to marry, but only if they are a female and a male – unless they are in Massachusetts)

· Appropriate gender roles require that a marriage include a bread-winning male and a nurturing submissive female (don’t even get me started on this one!)

Now we know, thanks to Huckabee, that the real reason was, the Bible told them so … and even if you don’t share their belief, you must live under laws comporting with their belief.

Here at the Secular Coalition for America, we couldn’t help wondering what other laws would need to change to comport with Huckabee’s biblical god-beliefs:

· Would birth control be prohibited? This would require a change to the Constitution since the U.S. Supreme Court decided such laws were unconstitutional.

· What about spilling one’s seed? Would masturbation be prohibited … and if it were, who would be tasked with enforcing the law? (Given his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia would welcome such a law.)

· Would blasphemy require a death sentence? And if so, what words would be considered blasphemous? Would only Huckabee’s specific god be included in the prohibition against taking the lord’s name in vain, or would Yaweh, Allah, Thor, and the Great Plate of Spaghetti in the Sky (all hail his noodly appendage!) be included?

Suffice to say, Governor Huckabee gives us much to ponder.

The American Humanist Association, as a 501c3 educational tax-exempt organization, cannot legally endorse any one candidate for public office. But that doesn’t mean I can’t strongly oppose one.

I feel compelled to draw attention to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s recent comments made to an audience in Michigan and reported on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

Shockingly, Huckabee’s comments even seemed to make Joe Scarborough uncomfortable:

Scarborough finally suggested that while he believes “Evangelicals should be able to talk politics … some might find that statement very troubling, that we’re going to change the Constitution to be in line with the Bible. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

Scarborough would later say the famous quote made by Jesus himself: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Luckily, with only 27 amendments that have been successfully ratified since 1788, I’ve got a strong feeling that Huckabee’s attempts to change anything in the Constitution—especially if it affects the church-state wall—won’t happen without a fight.

FindLaw.com has an good piece by Marci Hamilton, The Questions That Each Presidential Candidate Should Be Asked Regarding His or Her Views on the Constitutional Line Between Church and State. Instead of posing general questions for the candidates she poses specific candidate based on statements they have made or actions they have taken.

The questions she poses are very direct and go directly to the heart of separation of church and state issues. She poses questions for both Democrats and Republicans. However, she has more questions for Republicans, as well as Hillary Clinton than other candidates. I’m not sure I completely agree with her assessment of Obama and Edwards as having a record that indicate faith will not drive their decision making, but in general, I truly hope that someone will get a chance to ask these questions.

The Los Angeles Times ran a piece about so-called post-abortive men—a rising force in the anti-abortion movement that consists of men who suffer grief and lasting psychic damage as a result of their partners having abortions.

No doubt man men do suffer negative impacts from a partner’s decision to terminate an unintended pregnancy, and their situations shouldn’t be made light of. But there is a very telling passage in the article that illuminates my suspicion of this particular anti-abortion movement:

Chris Aubert, a Houston lawyer, felt only indifference in 1985 when a girlfriend told him she was pregnant and planned on an abortion. When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn’t; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.

Aubert, 50, was equally untroubled when another girlfriend had an abortion in 1991. “It was a complete irrelevancy,” he said. But years later, Aubert felt a rising sense of unease. He and his wife were cooing at an ultrasound of their first baby when it struck him — “from the depths of my belly,” he said — that abortion was wrong.

Aubert has since converted to Catholicism. He and his wife have five children, and they sometimes protest in front of abortion clinics. Every now and then, though, Aubert wonders: What if his first girlfriend had not aborted? How would his life look different?

He might have endured a loveless marriage and, perhaps, a sad divorce. He might have been saddled with child support as he tried to build his legal practice. He might never have met his wife. Their children — Christine, Kyle, Roch, Paul, Vance — might not exist.

“I wouldn’t have the blessings I have now,” Aubert said. So in a way, he said, the two abortions may have cleared his path to future happiness.

“That’s an intellectual debate I have with myself,” he said. “I struggle with it.”

In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.

But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?

Aubert looks startled. “I never really thought about it for the woman,” he says slowly.

That’s the problem: men who fail to understand the drastic and often devastating life changes carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term can have on women. It’s also telling that many men at first saw abortion as a practical issue, and only after had they dodged the real-life complications of an unwanted pregnancy did they begin to see it is a moral one.

Unfortunately for women, the practical implications of an unintended pregnancy simply can’t be avoided. That’s why it’s vital that abortion remain safe and legal, that easy and inexpensive access to contraception be unimpeded, and that more school systems adopt a comprehensive sex-education curriculum. Abortion is never an easy choice, but in many cases it’s the better one. With better sex education and access to birth-control we can keep it the rare choice as well, to the benefit not only of women but their partners as well.

Looks like the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up a new death penalty case. Unlike other cases of a similar nature, the Supreme Court is charge not with determining whether a death sentence is warranted. The guilt of the defendant is absolutely unquestioned. Instead, the justices must decide on constitutionally acceptable standards for when a state elects to carry out an execution by means of lethal injection.

The facts of Baze v. Rees case are not actually important to the law the Supreme Court is examining and yet the horror of the crime (Ralph Baze used an SKS assault rifle to ambush a sheriff and his deputy, shooting the former three times in the back and the latter twice in the back and then once in the head) and our emotional response to it is probably why we have a death penalty at all. Given that most European nations have banned the death penalty, it’s as if the U.S. is alone in its emotional need for retribution for the heinous acts of some of its citizens. And yet, by continuing to question the legality of the death penalty, it shows we still face some guilt over our need for executions.

Our nation must decide if we are for the death penalty or against it. This case show the ambivalence that exists. We don’t want to hurt anyone anymore than we have to, so we moved from hangings, to the electric chair and then to lethal injection. Now we’re trying to make sure that it is painless. A painless death is not what any of these criminals gave their victims, so what are we trying to say? If a painful death is extreme punishment, then we must be against the death penalty.

For myself, I’m keeping the New Years resolutions to a minimum –- organize my files better, finish a book this year, and exercise more regularly. But since tonight will be the Iowa caucuses, I have some suggested resolutions for the presidential candidates. How about these, candidates:

• Resolve to promote civil law based on civil reasons; not based on theology. This means that if you want to believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, believe away; but don’t pretend that this “lesson” is appropriate for a public school science class. It also means that your theology regarding whether stem cells have a soul and which adults should be permitted to civilly marry will affect your own life only – not mine.
• Resolve to talk about issues, values, and qualifications -– instead of your beliefs. Proclaiming your love for Jesus doesn’t tell me anything about the reasons why I vote for someone. Plus, far too many voters then conclude that a Christian theology is necessary to share their values. This is not true.
• Resolve to include minority beliefs in your representations. Don’t tell us that all Americans believe in a god, or that only Americans who do matter to you.
• Resolve to stop running for pastor-in-chief. You are running for president -– not a theological leader. We are not a theocracy … yet.

Well, candidates … any takers?

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated New Years Day by calling peace a “divine gift” and by stressing the role family values play in nurturing peace. The Pope said that peace is something that requires “commitment that must be pursued with patience.” He may only be giving lip service to this idea, but I believe it’s one of the most crucial points he makes.

This new year will be a great test of our patience as nations across the world work to hold elections, as people cry out for help in maintaining their human rights, and as we work to change the perception of our nation and its actions in the world.

In another article, the Pope is quoted as making another very salient point, even though it probably wasn’t his intention:

“The family is the primary agent of peace and the negation or even the restriction of rights of the family…threatens the very foundations of peace.”

Quoting from a message he issued in December to mark the Church’s World Day of Peace on Jan. 1, Benedict said the family was “the first and irreplaceable educator of peace”.

He also said that if the world wanted to live in peace, it would need to recognize those universal values that all people share as part of a single, “human family”.

Pope Benedict XVI may see the family through narrow lenses, but, really, when you look up “family” in the dictionary or truly think about what it means, the idea of the family is stronger and more diverse than ever. We have families made of second marriages, single head of households, extended families living together, and of course unmarried couples living together, including gay and lesbian couples. Each family is part of the great community of the “human family.” To disregard any of these families lessens and debases that community. And the patient commitment to building all of these families will be the greatest cause of peace in are time. So, well done to the Pope. I only wish he meant it.