David Corn has a nice piece on Ann Coulter’s Religious War. Now, I think Ann Coulter makes big fat idiots like Rush Limbaugh look moderate and thoughtful. And if you haven’t read Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, let me say it’s worth it just for (but not only for) the smackdown he gives to Nazi Barbie.

Anyway, Corn has some choice things to say about some comments she made at a little talk at Northwestern U recently.

She took the predictable potshots at liberals. And then she proclaimed that the war on terror is a “religious war.” She explained, in a way:

“This is a religious war, not against Islam but for Christianity, for a Christian nation. When this nation was founded, there was nothing like it. Our founders said there is a God and we are all equal before God. The ideal of equality and tolerance is like nothing that has ever existed in the world before. That, too, is a Christian value. The concept of equality, especially when it comes to gender equality, was not invented by Gloria Steinem. It was invented by Jesus Christ. As long as people look long enough, they will always come to Christianity.”

Are equality and tolerance historical Christian values? (Note she does not bother to use the more PR-friendly and inclusive phrase “Judeo-Christian values.”) Ask the victims of the Inquisition or the Crusades. America’s Christian founders may have preached equality, but they hardly practiced it. See slavery. Did the “ideal of equality and tolerance” only appear with the birth of the United States? Check out the preceding Age of Enlightenment. (Locke celebrated a state of nature in which people were happy, tolerant, free and equal.) And Jesus invented feminism? Then why did the “Christian nation” of the United States deny women the right to vote? Why has the Catholic Church refused to ordain female priests? Why do certain fundamentalist Christians insist that women submit to their husbands?

And where currently is this tolerance that Coulter speaks of? Her Christian supremacist comrades — such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell — blast away at Islam and other religions…. Robertson has even accused Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists of representing “the spirit of the Antichrist” and repeatedly called Hinduism “devil worship.” And Coulter showed little tolerance when she wrote of anti-American Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

You tell her, Dave.

OK, I will admit there was one moment when I had to like AC, just for a second — she did once call the Today Show’s Katie Couric “Liberal America’s little Eva Braun”. I mean, come on. Politics is politics, but funny is funny.

The always-ripe Deuteronomy provides this week’s words from God. From chapter 23, verses 1-2, we get some of the rules on who can’t enter into the congregation of the Lord (and thus will be damned for eternity). I know these two would go at the top of my list:

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

So, be careful with the family jewels, guys — not just for all the obvious reasons, but because if you wound them, God won’t let you into the club of eternal salvation. And be tracing back that family tree, too. No illigitimate offspring among the last ten generations of ancestors, either — even if you believe, do good works for God, and whatever other shit He might ask. Makes sense though, right?

Oh, now I understand why I don’t believe in an all powerful invisible daddy in the sky who in spite of his perfect goodness allows his children to suffer horribly and for no good reason — it’s because I hate my dad! “Professor” Paul C. Vitz tells us all about it in “The Psychology of Atheism“, published at Leadership U, a site run by Christian Leadership Ministries, which is the faculty arm of Campus Crusade for Christ.

…the Oedipus complex is unconscious, it is established in childhood and, above all, its dominant motive is hatred of the father and the desire for him not to exist, especially as represented by the desire to overthrow or kill the father. Freud regularly described God as a psychological equivalent to the father, and so a natural expression of Oedipal motivation would be powerful, unconscious desires for the nonexistence of God. Therefore, in the Freudian framework, atheism is an illusion caused by the Oedipal desire to kill the father and replace him with oneself. To act as if God does not exist is an obvious, not so subtle disguise for a wish to kill Him, much the same way as in a dream, the image of a parent going away or disappearing can represent such a wish: “God is dead” is simply an undisguised Oedipal wish-fulfillment….

And, of course, the Oedipal dream is not only to kill the father and possess the mother or other women in the group but also to displace him. Modern atheism has attempted to accomplish this. Now man, not God, is the consciously specified ultimate source of goodness and power in the universe. Humanistic philosophies glorify him and his “potential” much the same way religion glorifies the Creator. We have devolved from one God to many gods to everyone a god. In essence, man — through his narcissism and Oedipal wishes — has tried to succeed where Satan failed, by seating himself on the throne of God. Thanks to Freud it is now easier to understand the deeply neurotic, thoroughly untrustworthy psychology of this unbelief.

Well, gosh, doesn’t that seem way more plausible than just noticing that, you know, the evidence all goes against the existence of God?

And I love my mom, Paulie, but, um, not like that — got it?

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while which Democratic candidate has the best views on church-state separation. A recent article in The Washington Post is probably about as much help as we’ll get. (A Spiritual Struggle for Democrats) Leiberman is the worst, with Reverend Al a close second. The rest are all walking a tightrope. Given that 41 percent of respondents in a recent poll think that “There has been too little reference to religious faith and prayer by politicians”, it would border on political suicide to be a forthright defender of the great wall of separation. So the Democrats generally fall all over themselves to show that they are good, god-fearing folks, but insist that they will not let their beliefs guide their leadership. John Edwards, for example, has been very religious since the death of his son in a car accident, but says: “Most people in this country do not want you to be beating them over their heads with your religious views”. Dick Gephardt is a Baptist who almost went to seminary, but says the bible is a “different set of teachings some in the more fundamentalist parts talk about”. General Clark just says that making the religious connection to people is very important. He recently did an interview with Beliefnet, from which I got the sense that the military is his real religion. He makes a big deal about his Christianity, but he has moved around frequently between Christian denominations — he can’t even decide if he’s a Catholic or a Protestant. I don’t see much conviction there.

Based only on the Post article, it seems like Kerry and Dean are our best bets. The article noted that Kerry is a Catholic but quoted him criticizing Bush’s attack on church-state separation: “The faith-based initiative crossed that line overtly”. Dean is sure to make it known that he reads the bible each day, but he is fond of saying that “We’ve got to stop voting on guns, gods, gays and school prayer” and the article says that he “has started spreading a secular political message at black churches after singing and swaying along with gospel choirs and praying with mostly black congregations”.

So nobody’s a hero here, but Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards, and Clark all seem like they would be considerable improvements over our Holy American Emperor.

There’s an interesting column in today’s New York Times about the legacy of intolerance passed down by the Pilgrims and Puritans (The Un-Pilgrims). Since “history is written by the winners” we tend to focus on the English settlers and ignore the Dutch. Despite the mythology, the Pilgrims did not really value religious tolerance. Before coming to America, they went to Holland for religious freedom: “They found it and then left for the same reason: they feared that amid the diversity of Holland their children would stray, and so opted to carve out an isolationist settlement in the New World.” The Dutch colony, on the other hand, ” is the region that historians now see as the birthplace of religious pluralism in America: as the origin of the melting pot.”

But as powerful a force as tolerance proved to be, it was never elevated to myth. Rather, the other side of that equation � the religious absolutism that spawned the Pilgrim and Puritan sects � had the hardness and firmness suitable for that purpose. In the 1660’s, just as New Netherland got its name changed to New York, the first American history books were coming off the presses. These were written in New England by the sons of the first Puritans and Pilgrims, and spun the story of America as one of English religionists on a pilgrimage to a Promised Land. Ever since, America has been blessed or burdened, depending on your point of view, with this idea of Manifest Destiny, of being uniquely chosen by God to do his will.

If only they were holding that big parade today in a city still called New Amsterdam.
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Hey, Happy Thanksgiving. As an atheist who doesn’t celebrate either Xmas or any of the mini-pseudo-Xmases, I still do embrace T-day. It’s the American holiday of home and hearth; and in spite of the name, a holiday where religious content seems — quite rightly — utterly optional. Lots of people take the opportunity to give literal thanks to their own flavor of imaginary friend; but the generic heart of the idea of thankfulness for the good things in your life seems pretty independent of whether you think that there’s anybody or thing to whom thanks are due.

Of course, you can be thankful to other people — like parents, friends, etc. — for things they’ve done. But there is a more generic notion of thankfulness or gratitude or something that is hard to say in the language we have without expressions that imply some agent as the one you’re thanking. (Not surprising, given the dominance of religion during the evolution of English and other Indo-European languages.) Surely the inclination to be reflectively appreciative of the good things in life — many of which are due to the random chaos of the world, like not being born into abject poverty, or having children who are by and large healthy, and so on — is an inclination that seems like a fine and healthy part of our human flourishing. I don’t think it should be cast aside just because some of the more obvious ways to state the impulse (”thankful”, “grateful”) are ones that seem to imply on the surface an agent who’s being thanked, or to whom gratitude is being given.

I’d be happy to have better ways to say it. (Suggestions?) But “giving thanks” isn’t so horrible — after all, I can believe that Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth without thinking that there is a fountain of youth that he sought, can’t I? Be careful with “quantifying in”, then, and enjoy yer turkey — and the other good things of your lives.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled sarcasm, cynicism, and ridicule.

Johnny Hart, “whose combined work on B.C. and Wizard of Id makes him the earth’s most syndicated comic author” (Time, 4/19/99), and whose past Jew-bashing and atheist-bashing in his comics have made him both friends and enemies in the past, seems to be at it again. Hart, if you didn’t know, is a very serious Xian. This time, it’s Islam that’s in his sights. Not that I’m any fan of Islam; it’s slightly below Xianity on my list of nasty religions of the world. But as always, it’s curious to see how aghast everyone can get at such things. Just one more indicator of just how much most theistic folk are in pretty bad faith, and don’t take their religion very seriously until they need an excuse for bullshit. Because if you belive the Xian dogma, you should be anti-Islam — maybe even more than anti-atheist.

But I digress. Any way, Johnny boy did an “Id” strip that featured crescent moons and the use of SLAM in a way that’s pretty suggestive of a slap against Islam. Here’s a piece on the whole thing (”Cartoon Raises a Stink“), and here’s the ‘toon in question:

Judge for yourself.

Leviticus, Chapter 20, is full of many (but far from all) of the circumstances under which God deems that people should be put to death. Some seem fairly reasonable — like, for example, killing those who have killed their own children in sacrifice to Molech (the Canaanite god of fire to whom children were offered in sacrifice); some far less so (like swearing at your parents). Many (like sleeping with your daughter-in-law; or worse, your mother-in-law) seem, you know, yucky, but hardly something to kill for. Anyway, here’s a tasty morsel or two of these commands, going out to those who think that God doesn’t tell us to stone or kill other people:

(9) For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. (10) And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (11) And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (12) And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them. (13) If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (14) And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you. (15) And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. (16) And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them… (27) A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.

And by the way: I just skipped over the ones that don’t require a death penalty, but merely banishment from your people — like, for example, having sex with your wife during her period.