BikeMonkey and Equivalence of Oppression (update)

A certain lovely someone made the point to me that I wasn't particularly clear on a point that I am quite definitely not trying to claim that the bigotry aimed at atheists is like the persecution of the Jews. I am not at all. My entire point was that I have had to deal with some very intense feelings regarding this particular issue. Feelings that are completely valid.

PalMD wrote a rather upsetting post the other day, one that resonated with me on one level and made me spitting fucking angry on another. He finally felt the need to respond to Garrison Keillor's vile diatribe in Salon, trying to put non-Christians in their place in regards to celebrating x-mas. Pal comes from a very different perspective on this than I do, one that I cannot possibly understand, not being Jewish myself. His feelings on this resonated with me not because my experience is the same as his, but because Keillor's sentiments have been thrown in my face as well - sometimes by people who were once my friends and who despite my anger towards them and their bigotry, people I still care about. But that was not my first comment there - my first comment there was an expression of all out rage at something besides Christmas that Keillor ripped from Pal.

I am a musician and a midwesterner raised in Michigan - the same state that Pal hails from. I am not and never have been primarily into bluegrass, but bluegrass and hybrid mountain folk are nevertheless a part of my musical experience - a rather big part. Some of the best times I have had playing music, have been as part of a relatively large crowd of people hanging out and playing bluegrass and folk. Because of Michigan's automotive history and the importation of a hell of a lot of workers from parts of Appalachia, Tennessee and Kentucky, there is a huge presence of this sort of music here. There are professional and semiprofessional bluegrass and hybrid folk players, as well as dulcimer makers who can build instruments to rival the best instrument makers from the aforementioned areas. And I have had the pleasure of playing with a lot of these folks, as often as not, while sitting around a fire.

Here is the thing about bluegrass and folk - no one gives two shits what labels someone wears. If you want to listen and enjoy, you are more than welcome any time. If you want to join in, most folks don't care if you can't carry a tune to save your life, much less care what labels you wear. What matters is that you love music, love the community being fostered right then and there and want to take part - whether by listening or joining right in. That is what bluegrass and mountain music is all about - that is the point of it. Traditionally, folk music of any sort in most cultures has been a great leveler - a chance for everyone in a village or group to be equalized and enjoy themselves freely.

So when I read Pal's heartfelt sorrow at feeling that was taken from him, I got fucking angry as hell - far more angry than I did about Keillor's overt x-mas commentary. And I expressed my indignant anger at the notion that some motherfucker could take something so fundamentally open and inclusive away from anyone, much less someone I like. I was not invalidating Pal's feelings, I was expressing my own - and to some extent expressing my anger and refusal to let motherfuckers like Keillor "put me in my place" as well. Nowhere was I suggesting that Pal's feeling weren't valid or that he should just be able to ignore the bigotry and pretend it doesn't matter. Hell, I wasn't even suggesting that I can do that. Not letting not only people like Keillor or right wing blowhards or people who used to be my friend "put me in my place" doesn't mean it doesn't matter or effect me - obviously it does, rather fundamentally even. I just happen to have a different attitude than Pal does about how to handle it from there - in large part because I have a very different experience from Pal's.

But BikeMonkey, in his infinite wisdom decided that I needed to be put in my place, much like Keillor does - though in a different context. BM doesn't think that my feelings about this topic are valid, because my experience isn't Pal's and my overwhelming privilege means I should just shut the fuck up and pretend it doesn't matter. BM decided that there was some sort of equivalence being made, rather than what actually was happening and assumed he knows all about my great fucking privilege in the face of religious expression. I am going to address this idiot notion of equivalence first, then talk a little about my extreme privilege and experience with bigotry.

There is no equivalence between my experience and Pal's. None. Because I don't actually have a window into Pal's head, I cannot say for sure what he feels, but I do have his words to go by and can assume that this whole situation had a rather profound affect on him. Pal has a lifetime history of being Jewish that feeds his experience of Keillor's diatribe that I do not have and he has feelings that have nothing to do with Keillor that impact what he is feeling about it now. And we have to add to that that he was raised by people who are Jewish and who probably faced even more antisemitic bigotry than he has faced - something that probably had a pretty profound effect on his worldview. There is absolutely no equivalence to our experience, because his is not mine - I didn't grow up with the anything like what he grew up with.

That does not mean that my feelings are somehow less valid than Pal's. They are different - very different. They may not even have the depth of his own, though that is impossible for anyone to judge, because no one has a window into anyone else's head. I don't know what Pal's feelings are or what feeds them - I only know my own and what feeds them.

I am an atheist. I am not an atheist because I wanted to be an atheist, I am an atheist because I finally was unable to perpetuate my faith in the face of so very much evidence to contradict everything I Believed. I feel free now, like a huge burden has gone from me - do not get me wrong - in many ways I feel much better for finally shedding my faith. But that has come only after a nearly twenty year struggle to cling desperately to that faith. I described a great deal of that experience and the abusive nature of my brainwashing here, here, here and a bit here, so I am not going to really go into the abusive nature of my relationship with my faith now - suffice to say, if you do not want to click the links, that like a lot of people I spent a very long time in a very abusive relationship with religion. I will highlight one aspect of that abuse though, because it speaks well to my immense privilege.

Before I do, I do want to be clear that I am pretty cognizant of my privilege. I am privileged and I have benefited from it my whole life. But privilege is relative - it is always relative.

One of the worst abuses my relationship with religion fostered, was my attitude about my neurological issues. At an early age I was taught that I did not have neurological problems - or if I did, it was totally a matter of demonic activity being at the heart of it. I was taught by my fundie mother that it was totally a matter of wholly surrendering myself to her god and following his plan for my life. That if I just believed enough - prayed enough - figured out and accepted her god's plan for my life, I would no longer have any of these problems. On the other hand, I was told by my atheist father that these neurological issues are just as excuse others were making for me and that if I just damned well did as I was told - if I buckled down, I would be ok.

Being a hardcore little fundamentalist myself, this god person was the obvious choice. Not that it mattered, whether my faith was too weak or my will to weak, my inability to overcome my neurological issues without help was entirely my seven year old responsibility. There was therapy in there when I was in middle school, but with a therapist ill equipped to help me, especially given that I was truly convinced by my parents that it was all on my head. Faith or will, it was all up to me and me alone. It wasn't until my entire world shattered around me as a teen, that I changed my view on that - unfortunately it only changed for the worse.

I decided then to embrace my mental illness and in exactly those words. I decided that just as my god obviously wanted me to have sex and use drugs - else he wouldn't have sent the opportunities for both my way so often - I became convinced that this is the way I was made, the way my brain was made and I should just accept it as it was. I decided that the only way I could ever be successful, was if I truly accepted who and what I was, because when my world shattered I didn't stop believing. My beliefs changed to be sure - they changed quite fundamentally. But the Faith was still there - the absolute Belief was still there. Not only that, but it was something that I described as Christian, though I explored all sorts of other beliefs.

I no longer denied that I had atypical neurology, but I didn't believe that I should try to change it - in spite of using a hell of a lot of drugs that did just that. As I learned more and understood more about the world around me and even myself, my feelings about my brain evolved. I accepted eventually that I really would probably do better with help, but help wasn't available and recreational drugs were. But still there was that faith - though even that had evolved further and further.

I should note that I was quite often subject to bigotry from other Christians, because I was not the right sort of Christian and as a rather serious substance abuser and horrendous slut, I obviously did not live their version of a Christian lifestyle. My advocacy for glt rights also counted hard against me, as did my acceptance of evolution.

There were times when I might have let it go, but for the simple stark terror I had of hell and the possibility of hell. That, combined with this belief that there were otherwise unexplainable interventions in my life - the biggest being that I was still alive and relatively coherent. And it was a great comfort when I moved to a new city where I literally had two friends before I moved there. My partner and I had split and I was pretty much bereft of anything approaching the support network that I had developed and fostered back in Lansing. I went to the church that my two friends in Portland were attending and was embraced into a wonderful new family.

Until it all fell apart - until I could no longer reconcile or justify any of it. Then I was rejected by this family I had been part of. I was rejected by people who were an important part of my life and the life of my eldest child - not just in the context of faith, but in a very holistic fashion. I was rejected and my child faced rejection for things he had no comprehension of, by people who were as important to him as they were to me. And ever since, I have either endured rejection from these people or pressure to just read this book or listen to that speaker - and it would all make sense again. Comments that they are still praying for me and have every confidence I will one day return to their god's grace.

And while it is certainly not all, many people I care about find it downright offensive that I would infringe on their holidays and any other aspect of their culture.

Being back in the midwest has brought on other problems. Friends who were my friends in spite of my identifying as a Christian - friends who had been rejected by most people who carry that label, but accepted me because I did not have come to reject me for rejecting any spiritual or religious beliefs altogether. To be sure, I still have many friends - including many gay and transgendered friends. But I have lost as many as I still have.

And I still have to make a lot of decisions about whether or not to admit to being an atheist to whom. There is a very common theme in the midwest (and many places) that people don't care what your spiritual or religious beliefs might be - they just take exception to people who don't believe in any sort of higher power.

I have been soundly rejected by most of my community of friends and loved ones. Was rejected at a time when I was dealing with the trauma of finally getting free of my struggle with religion. As abusive as it was, like many such relationships it was nevertheless a fundamentally important part of my life. It is over and I am free of it, but I am not free of it's influence. I am not only dealing with the hole left by faith, I am dealing with the hole left by many people I love - exacerbated by the bigotry of people I love, the bigotry of strangers aside. And while people can't just look at me and see that I am an atheist, I sometimes have to sit quiet and pretend I am not.

And it is only in the last year, while dealing with this rejection and pain, that I am finally actually getting help for my neurological issues and managing to repair the severe damage those problems have created in my life and in the lives of my children. At thirty three, I am finally getting an education in hopes of pulling myself and my children out of the poverty and near poverty that has been their lot in life.

So no, my experience is not PalMD's experience. His experience may even plumb greater depths than my own, I can only speak for myself on that count. All I can say is that my experience with religious bigotry has had a very painful and profound affect on not only myself, but my eldest son as well. There is no equivalency because Pal's experience and mine are very different and because neither of us could begin to know the depth of suffering the other feels to compare. But just because there is no equivalence, does not make either of our experiences or the feelings fostered by those experiences less valid than the other.

Dissent: Debate v Dehumanizing

There are a lot of people who seem to have the mistaken impression that characterizing people they disagree with as something they are not equals debate. Or more to the point, characterizing people as less than they are. People who believe that dehumanizing their opponents is a legitimate tactic of debate. They turn them into "others" who lack characteristics that are fairly critical to being a functional, reasonable member of society.

Take the person I recently had to ban from commenting. Apparently he thinks that I cut him off because I am afraid to debate him. Someone who likes to make references to "you atheists." Who believes, or claims to believe that atheists lack compassion, love and morality. Someone who cannot comment on the topic of a post, without engaging in dehumanizing rhetoric that disparages atheists - as though all anyone who identifies as such is, is an atheist. The only label - the only defining characteristic that matters to him, is the label of non-believer, of atheist.

The irony of this person, is that he refuses to actually debate, instead engaging in all sorts of denigrations. He decries "those" atheists refusal to debate, claiming that this is somehow proof of the superiority of his position, while all he does is spew hateful bile - pretending that this hate somehow equals debate.

Don't get me wrong. I am no supporter of religion. I haven't even the slightest compunction about ripping into religion, liberal, moderate or extreme. I have absolutely no use for it and absolutely believe that the destruction wrought by religion is not even close to balanced by the good that religion does. Sometime soon I am going to write about an issue that my lovely Juniper and I were discussing, about the "virtue" of not being virtuous. Good works done with strings attached are not all that particularly "good." Sure, they benefit people - but what does that say about the person providing that benefit. They aren't doing it because it is the right thing to do, they are doing it to get something out of it. I realize that this is not limited to religious people - people providing charity for purely secular reasons usually have ulterior motives - but that is something for a later post.

Bottom line, I am pretty much against religion.

There is a difference between me and this person who was recently banned. I don't just label people by their religious inclinations. I recognize that their faith is just one label, one aspect of the person. I recognize that there are a great many wonderful people, who just happen to be religious. I also recognize that there are a lot of really shitty people who also happen to be atheists. I recognize that atheist is just one of many labels that make the person.

I recognize that there are things specific to atheism that some theists want to debate - I am more than happy to debate about it. If you really believe that morality, for example, is impossible without a god to shape it, I am all about having the discussion. I write about morality a lot and there is a whole hell of a lot of room to argue with me, as I have a fairly controversial stance on it. While I happen to think I am right and that my position is sound, I am not so arrogant as to assume that I assume there is no possible way I could be wrong.

The irony of the argument of he who was banned, is that he was generalizing my position on morality to all atheists. The problem with that, is that while there are certainly atheists who agree with me, there are a great many more who do not. Even more interesting, there are theists who agree with my position on morality and moral relativism.

And this phenom is true of a great many label versus label sort of issues. There are a lot of things that I tend to agree with many liberals about. There are also things that I tend to agree with a lot of conservatives about. I love, for example, going to Ed's blog, because I get to argue with people on different threads at the same time. Though I have had little time for it lately, I love to argue with someone about something over on that thread, while shredding someone else's argument with them on another. I am fairly certain there is not a single person I interact with on a regular basis, who I do not have a single, significant difference of opinion with.

And there are people I generally disagree with on things - including theists, who I love to spend time with. There are authors who support political positions I am pretty fundamentally opposed to, who I never the less love to read. That is not to say that there aren't people who support things that I find so very repugnant, that I cannot stand to be around them. Oh, there most certainly are. There are ideological positions that are so far beyond the pale, that I just can't muster anything but scorn and derision. But those are few and far between.

Seriously folks, I am all about lively dissent and discourse here. I have opened my front page to dissenting views and would love to do so again. I am all about having lively, even heated debates here. What I will not accept, is the dehumanization of people who choose to engage in discussions here. That kind of language will not be fucking tolerated - period. Argue - meaning if you disagree, tell me or someone else why you disagree and why you are right. Talking about "them" and "people like you" and "you ____" is not debate or argument - rather, it is fucking bullshit and I will delete that kind of shit out of hand. If all you have is hateful bile - I don't care how much you pretty it up, hate is hate - you are not welcome here.

Though if you drop those kinds of comments (or emails) I totally reserve to right to turn it into a post and rip your bigoted, hateful fucking bullshit to shreds.

Kant's Rigid Moral Frame in Practice

In comments on my last post, everyone's favorite hater of atheists, Zdenny, was kind enough to express his distaste for non-rigid moral framing. He expressed the opinion that the reason atheists would not care for Kant's model for morality, was because we want to be able to do whatever we please. Aside from showing an abysmal ignorance - to be clear, a willful abysmal ignorance about athiests, it also shows a rather abysmal ignorance of Kant's model for morality. Unless of course he really does agree with Kant, in which case he follows a dogmatic form of Christianity that is patently unfamiliar to me.

Kant believed that any use of another person, was inherently immoral. One of the universal axioms he believed is absolute, is lying. No matter what the circumstances lying is inherently immoral and unacceptable. The facts of a given scenario are irrelevant, one should never lie.

An example that was discussed by Kant, was a scenario in which a friend is being sought by someone who wants to kill them. Said friend flees into a house to hide, while you are in front of the house. The person who wants to kill them comes and asks you if they are in the house. According to Kant, you cannot reasonably lie to that person. Because you cannot know for sure that the friend has stayed in the house to hide, you cannot say "no, s/he is not in the house," because that may well put the would be killer to searching outside where he may find the friend. The only reasonable response, not knowing for sure what the friend has actually done is to tell the would be killer you do not know.

So lets translate Kant's response to real historical situations. Situations in which Christians were quite thankfully not inclined to follow Kant's model for morality.

Some abolitionists of the nineteenth century created underground railroads to help escaped slaves find their way to safety, in territories where they would be welcomed to freedom. At many points these underground railroads were located in places where law enforcement was very keen on returning escaped slaves to the south, often to brutal beatings and sometimes hanging. Even in places that had a more neutral attitude, there were bands of bounty hunters who were often times rather brutal in their attempts to infiltrate underground railroads and cut off these pipelines. A great many of the abolitionists involved in these efforts were Christians who believed it was their God-given duty to lie and misdirect slavers and slave bounty hunters. No few of them were inclined to lie about their abolitionist beliefs, to draw attention away from their roles in the railroad. In a few recorded cases, people involved with the railroad actually infiltrated bands of bounty hunters seeking escaped slaves, so as to more effectively misdirect.

In Nazi Germany, when people had become more fully aware of what the Nazi's were doing to the Jews, a lot of people became involved in trying to get the Jews out of Germany safely. Like the underground slave railroad, they were hidden in houses and moved in secrecy, until they were safely out of Nazi controlled territories. And like the slave railroad, there were many times when people hiding and moving the Jews were questioned about it and many times they told lies to misdirect the Nazis. A great many of the people involved in this effort, like those involved with the slave railroad, were Christians. No few of them became rather vocal and ardent supporters of the pogrom, so that like the abolitionists, they could direct attention away from their attempts to save the lives of as many Jews as possible.

In both of these cases, not only were Christians involved in lying outright to misdirect, something that Kant would consider immoral in itself, there were a great many Christians who would live a lie in public, to draw attention away from themselves and their activities. And the interesting thing about this is, they have biblical examples from which to justify their actions. Early Christians were not very well accepted. Being a Christian meant risking imprisonment and even death. Early Christian leaders had to sneak about, to visit many of the cities they visited to minister to the local, hidden Christian populations. I daresay there were a great many hosts of Christian leaders who had to outright lie to guards, when they came to the door looking for said leaders. And while the early Christians may not have been terribly inclined to live an outright lie, they were certainly very keen on not admitting to their beliefs.

I could go on and on with this. There are numerous examples throughout history, of Christians lying to protect people. There were Christians who did so during the rise of Protestantism. There were Christians who did so when Martin Luther was calling for the slaughter of Jews. There were Christians who did so when churches schismed and violence was to follow. There were even Protestant Christians who lied to protect Catholic Christians and Catholic Christians who like to protect Protestant Christians in Ireland, in particular and a lot of other places where violence between the two groups was rife.

So ZDenny, while I am not a believer in universal moral axioms, not buying into Kant's model for morality, or that of the utilitarians, does not equal not buying into universal moral axioms. The moral framework of Christianity has traditionally understood that there are times when the consequences outweigh the intent. That the moral thing to do is to do what it takes to save lives and show others what Christian charity and love is really all about. When you support the rigidity of Kant, you are denigrating the memories of Christians from the time of Jesus to the present. You are denigrating the memories of Christians who risked and in innumerable cases sacrificed their lives for what they believed was the right way for Christians to live and to be a living witness for Christ.

When you support the rigidity of Kant, you are no different than the Sadducees and Pharisees who put their religion before their god.

The Creationist Tactics of the Puritanical "Feminist" Movement

Renegade Evolution has a post up about one Donna Hughes, a puritanical "feminist" who's tirades would be right at home with those of Don Wildmon (AFA), James Dobson (Focus on the Family) and Beverly LeHaye (Concerned Women for America). Apparently Donna is taking even more cues from the religious right, using the same quotemining and mischaracterizations creationists are so very fond of. I am not going to spend the time debunking, when Renegade has done such a grand job. I am just going to reiterate a point that I have made here before and several times in meatspace - including to the faces of more than one puritanical "feminist."

When you are pushing repressive, anti-sex bullshit, you are sucking far more patriarchal cock, than those who do it for cash. So who exactly is the whore here?

Please check out her post and share it with your friends... (ht, Lou FCD)

And while we're on the topic of sexual repression, let me post a little tidbit that was sent to me by someone who shall remain nameless (unless s/he chooses to reveal)... Apparently, this does not totally get viewed on my page - clicking on it will reveal the climax...


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Bloody Hells, Am I Glad That's Over...

The fucking semester from hell, which officially ended last Thursday, is now finally over. I took my psych final this morning (it only posted this morning) and sold the book they would buy...

Unfortunately, I take the boys back to TN tomorrow. There is other sad news too, but I am loathe to talk about it quite yet - though it will all be fine in the end.

On the upside, I am going to have a little time to write more and get some more of my anthro papers posted, as well as a couple other papers that will actually get expanded a bit.

The first is a summary and opinion on a Community Mental Health board meeting I attended - something I will be doing for the foreseeable future. I will be highlighting in detail, just how fucked this great state of Michigan really is. County CMH's will be seeing anywhere from dramatic, to catastrophic funding cuts, at a time when we are going to be releasing a rather large number of felons who would continue to be in state correctional facilities, were it not for the fact that those facilities are being closed. So they will be ending up the responsibility of the counties and many of them will end up getting priority over people in the community who have lost jobs and who have no way to cover mental health care costs. Stay tuned - because I am more than a little fucking pissed about how this is all working out.

The second is a discussion of the film Out of the Shadows. This was possibly the greatest movie that I will NEVER watch again (not the greatest mind, just the greatest I really can't handle seeing again). It is a very hard film to watch, especially when you can sit there and relate to a great deal of what Millie is going through and what her daughters have and are going through. When you realize the difference is degrees and expressions...

I am becoming one morose motherfucker, but I am also pretty fucking angry, as there have been several well reasoned discussions about atheism and some less than reasoned responses from "moderate" theists and some very unmoderate, lying sacks of shit for Jesus...Stephanie has the roundup and I will be getting on that motherfucker on my way back from TN. That would be a ten hour drive - I can express a lot of irritation in ten motherfucking hours...Though I will probably be filling some of that with light entertainment.

And I will probably fill some of that with a write up about how Greg is yet again, wrong.

Juxtaposition 235: Cthuluh, Jack Chick and Child Abuse

Update: Dan J, in his total awesomeness, managed to find a link to a PDF of the Cthuluh tract at the artist's web site... Thanks Dan. I would also like to heartily recommend giving his latest post a read - I can't help but be terribly pleased to find that someone else came up with a rather more "profane" rant than I did - and a very good one at that. He makes several points that I will delve into at some point in the relatively near future - I am more than a little fucking tired of this bullshit notion that we should accept dangerous behaviors and decision making from people, that we wouldn't accept under any other circumstances, simply because there is religion involved.

As Dan so eloquently puts it; Fuck Them!!!

It is terribly amusing to me, that at the same time I managed to get into an argument with someone about Tiamat and the fact that Cthuluh is really cause for far more concern, because frankly Cthuluh wouldn't kick Tiamat's ass - h'd jst fckng eat hr, I also noted this delicious little tidbit posted at Pharyngula. I found it while perusing a few blogs that were involved in the crushing of my hopes for Canadian healthcare. I have a rather dark sense of humor, so I thought it was more than a little amusing. But when I was talking about it with my dearest Juniper, I realized that there is an element to the humor that one is likely to miss, if they never experienced Chick Tracts when they were a child. In a most unfortunate turn, it seems that the old tracts aren't available online and the new ones aren't quite on a par with the ones I was exposed to as a child, but I did find a couple that provide a decent taste. "The Beast" shows a common theme that runs through many of these tracts, providing up with a glimpse of what we can expect in these "end times." There were a lot of scenes that showed us what hell was like, showed Satan as a deceiver and even several that talked about specific demons and types of demons.

Juniper just didn't find the Cthuluh tract nearly so amusing at the end - it is, I will grant, rather disturbing. But honestly, it is not the least bit more disturbing than a lot of the Chick tracts are and were even moreso when I was growing up. And when I was four, five and six, I read Chick tracts all the time. There were scads of them at church and I happened to be rather adept at ferreting about in the sorts of places they got stored. They were comics, which are just lovely fun for a child and no one thought anything of seeing any of us kids reading these abominations. Never mind the demons and souls and brutal destruction of life and property - it was all for the greater biblical good of raising good Christian children. It was also a hell of a indoctrination tool. And it is ever so useful for a small child to get a headstart in understanding demonology.

During this same conversation, Juniper and I got to discussing my parochial school experience - it actually came up when I casually mentioned being paddled by the principle fairly regular like. It occurred to her that this was a very good expression of this concept of arationality that I have been on about, since I first noted it's use by that albino gorilla, John Wilkins. Because I think it's important to recognize that a great deal of creationist and general religious thinking falls outside the purview of the rational/irrational dichotomy - though my opinion about the value of that understanding would probably differ fairly significantly from John's. So picture a bit of my life, if you will and see just how irrational my thinking was as a child and how irrational much of my adult life has been...

Fast forward to the third grade - I have been steeped in such brilliance as those older Chick Tracts. I am firmly entrenched in the terrorizing Belief that my dad and other people I love quite dearly are bound for eternal torment in hell, unless they accept my god in their lives. I am already a "Royal Ranger," the scout group that is part of the Pentecostal, fundamentalist church my mom and I are attending. And now I am getting set to start school at the same church. Without five days a week of elementary school, I am spending the vast majority of my time in this church. I'm in the choir, I am there on Weds for Royal Rangers, I am often there on Sat, for events involving both and there are a lot of activities happening throughout the summer. And now I am going to be there for school. Where I will learn some academics - and a whole lot more of the religious nonsense - six, often seven days a fucking week.

I was rather cleverer than the average bear, no question. But all the cleverness in the world is for naught, when all that is going in is filtered through rather extreme dogma. I was, at one point, taught that intellectualism was another religion - much like evolution - a tool of Satan. I was taught that I needed to focus all of that intellectual acuity on things that fostered my faith and the faith of others. My dad ran a strong counterpoint to the notion that focusing much of my intellectual acumen on anything not within the purview of my faith was wrong. But that didn't stop me from developing some rather deep seated shame - shame that would ease up from the recesses of my mind, to make me rather frustrated with myself - possibly even ashamed of myself, whenever I allowed my intellect to be wasted on anything that didn't bring glory to my god. After all, God had given me this intellect - how dare I ever waste it on the world...

Chris Mooney wonders, in his reply to me, why the realm of moderate faith isn't a reasonable place for fundies like I was to end up - at least for a while. Why I shouldn't, in spite of my anger, recognize that this is better for that person than being a fundie. Well here's the problem with that...

I have always been an insatiably curious person - I was curious before my infant eyes could clearly view the world around me, I was curious when my brother taught me to read at two, I was curious and I was clever. I was also pervasively lied to for many years - lies made no less egregious because those inundating me with them believed the lies themselves. I was taught to be ashamed of too much curiosity, unless that curiosity was firmly focused on the dogma I was constantly and consistently hammered with - day in and day out. I was taught that the majority of the humanity that I was commanded to love, were going to suffer for all of eternity in hell, because they didn't worship the right god, didn't worship the right god properly or didn't worship any god at all. I spent subsequent decades trying to make reality fit within the confines of dogma - tried to shift the dogma to accommodate reality - became increasingly desperate to find some way to hold onto my Faith, because that was right and critically important.

Please, if you don't see it as such - please explain to me how that experience of mine wasn't child abuse that led to decades of hell. Drug abuse, self-loathing and unrelenting depths of despair, masked by extremes of sensory overload from sex, drugs, writing and music.

More importantly, why should I sit back and pretend that this moderation that Chris speaks so highly of is any better for some of those people, than it was for me. At least when I was a fundie, I was somewhat content. I wasn't desperate to make it all make sense, because it made sense - I didn't need to question, because the answers were there and beyond those answers was minutia that I could parse easily, through prayer and study. Yes, I was occasionally angry and ashamed by my inability to focus everything on my god - but it was unquestionably easier than the suffering of the last eighteen to twenty years of my life.

I am certain that there are many people who are more than happy to live in that realm of moderate faith - I don't really care. Because for many people, that moderate faith is merely fundamentalism tainted and broken by doubts. A desperate place where the reality is an increasingly desperate need to make the absolutely incompatible weave into the fresh whole cloth of a coherent worldview.

I am for helping them, helping people like me - period. If some moderates and fundies get hurt, angry or offended along the way - well honestly, I'm not even really sorry about it. Both groups and those in between and outside on the fringes foster an environment of absolutely hellish agony.

That is what I am combating and will continue to combat. And I am not going to apologize for it - no one who fostered my personal hell has, or has even shown any remorse for my experience there.

Cannabis is Magical!!1!11!!!!

Context. And more context.

Or at least seems to induce a fair amount of magical thinking.  And that would be magical thinking not a hell of a lot different than claims of magical gods, psychic phenomena or the belief that vaccines, cancer drugs and many other medicines are actually poisons being peddled to unwitting consumers by the evile of Big Pharma.  People who rightly mock conspiracy theories about 9/11 and new world order, secret governments, turn around and make the base assumption that none of the evidence showing that cannabis has more than negligible deleterious effects can be true, because there's a government conspiracy to hide the truth and scare the masses.

There is fairly exhaustive evidence that indicates the legal status of cannabis is absolutely absurd and that the scare tactics engaged by most public agencies is vastly overblown.  That is not to say that there isn't risk and evidence for harm stemming from cannabis use, on many different levels. 

There is no question that smoking anything causes respiratory damage and damages cilia in the upper throat.  Anyone who has ever cleaned a pot pipe knows that the tar left behind is impossible to clean off with water alone, unless it's boiling - this same tar mattes the cilia in the esophagus and like tobacco, coats the lungs.  While the average cannabis smoker, smokes less than the average tobacco smoker, thus lessening the overall damage of smoking it, the tar that is formed is actually worse weight to weight, than the tar from tobacco.  There is a great deal of evidence indicating that cannabis smokers who do not smoke tobacco have a higher incidence of  bronchitis and chronic bronchitis, than non-smoking populations.

No links have been found between cannabis smoking and lung cancer or emphysema - though there is evidence of proteins that are thought to be precursors to cancer in cannabis smokers, there is also evidence that cannabis use may inhibit the development of those proteins into cancer.  It is important to note however, that there is no evidence that it impacts the incidence of cancer in concurrent tobacco smokers.

Reproduced studies have indicated that the incidence of cannabis addiction in cannabis smoking populations is around fifteen percent.  Addiction being defined by the DSM IV criteria, a conjunction of pervasive use, in spite of significant personal harm.  Cut that by a third to be certain you've weeded out biased diagnosis - cannabis is magical you know - and you still have one out of every twenty cannabis smokers addicted at some point in their life.  When we look at populations that use cannabis and also have concurrent neurological issues, the percentage skyrockets.  And it is very common for people with neurological issues such as ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders to use tobacco, use cannabis and other illicit drugs. 

I could go on and on, but here are some articles that do a much better job than I.  I am way too busy at the moment and will get to more evidence - recent studies and the like, when I can.  These peer reviewed journal articles and reports are not protected by pay walls and easier to throw out there, because you can read them and I don't have to summarize anything.  I don't have the time to summarize material that is paywall protected, I'll get to it asap, but I am trying to get through a lot of credits this summer and it's more than a little stressful.

A Lancet Seminar.

The 2001 Australian study on the health effects of cannabis use.  I suggest looking at the summaries of each section and then looking at the body of each section, if you have questions.

The British Journal of Anesthesia. 

The British Journal of Psychiatry. 

This wasn't hard to find folks.  And this is just what I looked for to throw something up that isn't paywalled.  Are we to believe that there is some conspiracy that is trying to toe the usual line of most public agencies in the U.S.  Oh shit, I'm sorry but are we to believe that there is some government conspiracy to contradict the usual line of said public agencies?

Of course there is, because I just keep forgetting that cannabis is fucking magical.  Sorry, I'll try better to keep that in mind from now on.

If you gotta Godwin: A rule for Anti-vax loons and other Denialists

Orac is getting rather bored with the damned Hitler references already. Now I can't say that my new rule - more a suggestion really, will get you much further than calling anyone Hitler will. But lets try to get creative about it, 'k? In the spirit of turning over new leaves, of entering exciting new realms of hyperbole, I thought I would help you folks out. Lets stop being so generic. Hitler is so very early millennium - socialism is the new fascism.

Keep in mind though, many of these will easily apply to those of us loons who are rather more keen on evidence than hysteria. And they needn't be restricted to vaccine denialists either. These work just as well for cancer denialists, HIV/AIDS denialists, even psychiatry denialists. I am pretty sure the more creative among you - and there is a lot of creativity amongst the denialists - can even work it for 9/11 denialism and other non-medical woo.

1) Chairman Orac and his merry band of Maoist poison peddlers!!1!11!! (or Chairman Tara and her...)

2) Pal Pot, the anti-smoking mass murderer and pharma shill!!!11! (sorry, but I don't think that one really works for anyone else)

3) McCarthy Hoofnagle thought crime investigator!!!11!!

4) Mike the murdering Bolshevic!!1!11!!!

5) PZ Stalin - Christian baby eating Cthulu worshiper!!1!!!1!

6) Ed Satan and his dispatches from hell!!1!11!!

7) Osama Greg Laden - Islamosocialist terrorist!!1!!111

8) DrugCaligula evile cloner of human/lab animal hybrids!!1!!11!!

9) Bad Ass Cylon destroying the human race!!!1!!1!11!! (stolen from the Science Pundit)

10) Jason Chavez, totalitarian commie gun thief!!!11!!1!!!

11) Imelda Podblack, laughing in her million dollar wardrobe, while poor babies are injected with toxic sludge!!!11!!!!1! (Mike Haubrich, FCD)

12) Dave and Greta Mussolini, with their propaganda rag, the Communist Daily!!1!!11!!! (Lousy Damned Canuck)

13) Jamestiltskin on his Island of the Damned, dragging down teh human race one royal firstborn at a time!!1!11!!!1 (Stolen from that Damned Canuck)

14) Stephanie Genghis Zkhan, barbarian warlord, murderer of peasants and pusher of wordiness!!1!!!!1!! (Osama)

15) Mike Jong-Il, repressive socialist sociopath, who probably hangs people who aren't "rational"!!!11!1!!!!!

16) Greta M Hari, flaunting evidence, sexuality and erototoxins - she's into that toxic sludge marinading too!!!1!!111!!!

17) Lucretia Sci Borgia, the treacherous temptress of science, injecting the poison directly into your BRAIN!!!11!1!!

18) Ben Goldtorquemada, turning the tables on the inquisition!!!11!111!! (David D.G.)

Come on, lets make this list longer, so we can provide an exhaustive reference for those times when irrational arguments are wearing thin and only a Godwin will do!!! Help a loon out - or if you are a loon - get creative!!!

And if someone calls you Hitler, you can send them this way!!!11!!!1!!

Great Argument For Religious Freedom and Gay Marriage

I am really glad that my brother posted this - both because I am busy and don't really have time to post anything substantive and because this is one of the most concise arguments supporting gay marriage I have ever heard.

First Baptist Church of Jacksonville Florida: Snakes and Vipers

Please pass this along. I just don't have the time to really go into all that is wrong with this situation, but I would love to see more folks post about this and show FBC JAX that attempts to suppress dissent will lead to a greater dissemination of that dissent. And though I am no longer a Christian, I still believe that it's important to strike a blow against those who misuse the authority they are granted, such as it is, as leaders of churches.

Thomas Rich, a member of FBC, was disturbed by the actions of one Mac Brunson, when he became the senior pastor of FBC. Seeing that the complaints lodged by him and other members of the church ignored, he started a blog to provide a platform from which to express the legitimate concerns of himself and other members of the church.

This situation took a very dangerous turn towards the end of last year, when Detective Robert Hinson of the Jacksonville sheriff's department and member of Brunson's security detail, opened an official investigation to discern Rich's identity and ultimately to quell dissent. Hinson, with the support of his superiors in the department, obtained a warrant from the state attorney's office to force google to reveal the identity of the previously anonymous Rich. Though the investigation turned up nothing illegal and though Rich was never contacted about the investigation, Hinson then revealed to church authorities that Rich was in fact the dissenting blogger.

Rich and his wife, longtime members of FBC JAX, have now been kicked out of the church and there is an official no trespassing order against them. FBC also did their best to ensure that Rich and his family wouldn't be welcome in other Jacksonville churches. Moreover, the church board and the deacon's counsel have passed a resolution to ensure they can quickly and efficiently quell any future dissent against the FBC power structure (see video in the above link).

While I am no longer a man of Faith, I fully understand just how difficult this must be for Rich and his family. Being booted out of one's church family can be and often is very painful - a pain I am all to aware of. And beyond the direct impact on the Rich family, this story has very frightening implications for all of us. Yet another situation where police authority has been abused, in an attempt to quell dissent - this time in the name of a church. I have yet to hear back from Thomas Rich, having only just emailed him, but I have little doubt that he would object to a short letter of support (email at his blog).

I also think it would be appropriate to write the FBC JAX, to voice your distaste for their tactics and to let them know that by their actions, they will be known - that because they chose to act in this manner, the criticisms leveled by Rich will be spread much further than they ever would have. And comments can be sent to the Jacksonville sheriff's department, via this email form - or by phoning them through this link. If you do use the email form, be sure to use the drop menu at the top of the form and use the label general comments. And the State Attorney's office can be contacted at sao4th@coj.net or (904) 630-2400.

Addiction, Neurological Issues, Satan and the Framing Wars

I am keeping this top posted for the moment, as I have a couple of comments out that refer to it - please check out more recent posts below.

A couple of quick additions. First, I want to let those who care know that the new meds seem to be coming together for me. It's still a little early to tell, but switching off the Seroquel was definitely a positive and I do feel better overall. Second, a friend who is familiar with the coffee shop and it's denizens - as well as me, thought it likely that the scowls I got from those around us, were probably as much because of the slam on Bill. She also mentioned that they were probably already scowling at me, I just didn't notice. There are usually a few AA folks there and I do tend to discuss addiction quite a bit. So a lot of the regulars know that while I'm not as harsh as some folks on AA, I am highly critical.

I would just like to provide an example of why I have, the position I have, on a discussion over at Greg Laden's blog and on what amounts to a three year discussion about framing science and it's intersection with religion. This is something that keeps flaring up and always perks my interest, because one, I've been involved for about three years (give or take several months) and two, my position on it has changed considerably for several reasons.

Taxing my google skills to their max and beyond (learned a couple things doing this), I have managed to find one of the earliest posts on this discussion, by none other than my own brother Ed, over at Dispatches. If you're a glutton for punishment, you can wade through some of the comments and check out my contribution, which is a far different position than I express today. And one of the contributors to the evolution of my stance and shedding of my Faith, has been this very discussion. It was my intent to actually dig through and find a couple of my comments, but after the time and effort it took just finding these posts, I haven't the will. Please keep in mind that this isn't actually the first post, nor was this the only one at the time. There were at least a couple dozen other bloggers who weighed in on that particular flame war, several with more than one post.

On and off, this discussion has continued over the last couple of years, most often fomented by a Matt Nisbett who blogs at the Seed sciblog collective. I'll link to one of his more recent examples of foolishness, though to be honest, I dislike Matt enough and suspect his motivations to the point that I am hesitant to actually link him. Back around thanksgiving last, he posted this bullshit, wherein he explains to us ignorant gits, that calling people who deny certain fundamentals, such as evolution, the importance of vaccines, or, in the context of this very post, basic neuropsychology denialists, is a bad, bad thing. Several of my favorite bloggers had a lot to say about that. Matt has also given out several other fuckyouverymuch's, like this gem. And I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but Bora, the sciblogger aggregator has this passel of links from days gone by. (Bora totally rocks, btw...)

Hell of a build-up, to a rather short example - but this is why I am not going to shut up and play nice. (also note that this was my first day off Seroquel and on the new drugs)
More...
I was in the coffee shop the other day, when I chanced into a conversation with an absolute Uber-Faithful nutter. A bible and Big Book thumping True Believer. I was discussing addiction and harm reduction, with a casual coffeehouse friend, when TB decided to jump into the conversation. I had just finished explaining my own experience with addiction, (yes, I actually talk some about the things discussed in the last link on occasion, though honestly I don't remember whether I did in this conversation) when TB busted in with; "You're going to school to study Addiction! You think you're managing your addictions?! You're either nuts or stupid!!!" He wasn't actually that loud, but he was nearly hysterical by the time he got to the last bit, at which point he decided to sit down at our table - to his credit, he does know Casual Friend.

The money quote, my response to which sent him away horribly offended, ranting under his breath:

You are never going to actually deal with your addictions or get to the root of your supposed "neurological issues" until you accept Jesus back into you heart and accept the truth. Mental illness is bullshit. It's nothing more than Satan convincing you that instead of drinking and getting high, you can take these other drugs. Man is not going to help you get through your problems, therapy isn't going to solve anything, unless it's Christ centered therapy. Satan has control of you man and you need to fight him - drugs aren't going to fight Satan! Only Christ and the power of prayer can get you through this!!

Then he put his hand on my shoulder and actually asked me if he could pray with me. Seriously.

"Get your fucking hand off me, you fucking nutter! Take your Faith in Christ and your Faith in Bill and your Faith in Satan and shove it up your ass, you denialist fucking loon! Fairytales have nothing to do with what's going on in my head jackass, it's fucking neurochemistry - the way my fucking brain works!"

"You're addicted to drugs and addicted to Satan!"

"I'm a fucking atheist you fucking moron!!!"

And yes, I was more or less fucking hysterical by this point - seriously fucking pissed. Pissed enough that I shouted rather loudly, in the middle of a coffee shop in the midwest, that I'm an atheist. And I'm really only an atheist in the broadest sense of the word, deist is far more accurate a label. But I was pretty sure he wouldn't have a clue what that meant, and as I said, I was borderline hysterical - which side of said border, it's hard to say. My rather loud admission garnered me a few scowls. On the other hand, when next I went for a refill, my friendly barista mentioned that a gent over yonder had covered my next cup - when I looked over, he smiled at me and shortly after wandered over to our table.

Now I need to explain that there was about half an hour, forty-five minutes of discussion before TB and I got into our shouting match. It had mostly been a reasonable discussion, with TB mostly just listening. When he started into the above long quote (not quite a perfect reproduction, but very close - the last one was his exact words), it was like he just couldn't take it anymore and had to respond to a lot that had been said. I avoided saying anything at all about AA while he was sitting there, but I did talk about harm reduction and started touching on linguistics - he really took exception to the idea that anyone can be considered successful in treating their addiction, if they aren't entirely abstinent from all psychoactive substances - including psychiatric drugs.

After he had left, Casual Friend explained that TB regularly relapses, carries a great deal of guilt and seems to be increasingly unhinged about it all. Mind you TB's relapses aren't multi-week, or even multi-day binges in which he gets totally hammered and blacks out. Every several months, he apparently breaks down and has a couple of beers before he can stop himself.

I also want to explain that I grew up with TB's same sort of bullshit, though not quite as extreme. My mom firmly believed that my "problems" growing up, were the result of demonic activity - probably passed down from my biological father. While she has come to accept some of the ideas of neuropsychology, she still believes that many of my problems are influenced by demons - at least she accepts that the drugs are probably a very good idea (Yes CPP, I will get to discussing my cognitive therapy soon). By default, I also believed that sort of bullshit and it was nothing but trouble for me, until I got over it and accepted who I am and how my brain functions.

The thing is, while TB is an extremist, fringe fucking loon, my mom isn't. Her beliefs aren't really outside the fundamentalist mainstream on this - indeed she's rather comparatively tame these days. I am not trying to claim that all, or even most Christians attribute mental illness to demonic possession or activity, but a great many fundamentalists do. They'll accept the occasional need for medication, grudgingly, but many of them have serious issues with members of the flock seeing secular therapists instead of Christ focused counseling and prayer. And I have been to talk with several pastors in that context - it's truly insane what these folks are legally allowed to get away with in the name of religion.

Just in this, my small corner of the conflict between Faith and reason, the stakes are high and the battle is tough. Those fundamentalist positions, watered down to the moderate baseline are still quite often an uphill battle. Instead of the extreme, anti-science - blame it on Satan approach, it is merely a distrust of science that conflicts with dogma. And no matter how much you water it down, there is still conflict between science and dogma. Because unless that dogma makes absolutely no claims about it's god's influence on the natural world, there is either conflict or a god that does virtually nothing at all.

I am not militant. I'm not even really much of an atheist, I rather tend to think it likely that there is some sort of physical/spiritual duality to living beings. I no longer Believe it, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if someday we discover that this is indeed the case. When people decide that they want their god to bless me, I just smile and nod. When they ask me if it's ok to pray for me, I politely tell them that I don't think it makes a lick of difference, but it doesn't bother me. But when people want to make claims about Faith, that conflict with reality, I am not just going to smile and nod - I will respond to it. And if they are going to insist on fucking idiot notions like those of TB, I may well get fucking rude about it. If they are going to insult me with their presumptions about the nature of my shedding my Faith, I am probably going to get pissed if they insist on keeping up with it, after I've made my position clear. (Though as a general rule, I don't tend to get hysterical - that was more the headspace I was in already, than anything TB said)

And if you want to tell me that my doing this is a bad thing, that I need to change my language or shut up and let others talk about it, you can go fuck yourself.

Seriously.

Wherein DuWayne Talks About Something He Firmly Believed But Came to Doubt

And here is my introductory essay..Uncorrected from it's return by the venerable research/writing instructor. Tragically, I managed to lose the long version written before I realized that google docs doesn't format page sizes like normal word processors. Originally, I just thought that my three pages has been magically imbued with the ability to say everything I was trying to get across.

I was raised as an evangelical Christian. At first, my mother took my brothers and I to a rather moderate, United Methodist church. When I was seven we made the shift to a pentecostal church and I began my journey to becoming a fundamentalist golden child. I went to a parochial school and was part of a scout group through the church, called the Royal Rangers. During the school year I was in church every week day, every Sunday and often times on Saturdays for special events. I became very solid in my faith, I was an absolute Believer. We eventually left that church and I went back to the public schools, for a while we returned to the Methodist church. I didn't know it at the time, but it was because of some horrifying acts of hypocrisy that my mom was rather keen on hiding from me. It was at this point that I began to get serious about studying theology - I was eleven years old. It was also at this point that I began writing music, with a deep seated desire to bring glory to my god and help others worship him.

During the year we spent at the Methodist church I worked my way through most of the works of John Wesley, the pentecostal founder of the Methodist church. I realized that the Methodist church had gone far afield from the teachings of it's founder and began to really push to find us a church that fit our beliefs. I also began to study other theologians, both old and modern. I read Martin Luther, Aquinas and Augustine. I read C.S. Lewis, Frederick Beuchner and Francis Schaeffer. I read the works of theologians who supported my beliefs and the works of theologians who's reasoning I believed to be flawed. I wanted to understand the thinking of men who read and understood the Christian Bible and of men who had misinterpreted it. Throughout all of this, I read through multiple translations of the bible, because most of all, I wanted to understand it all for myself.

A couple of years before we moved to Agape, my dad (an atheist) took me to see Carl Sagan. I was very excited about going to see him, because my family had watched Cosmos a couple of times and I found astronomy quite fascinating. I was even more excited when after I asked a couple of good questions during the Q&A, someone from UoM came up and said that Prof. Sagan would like to meet me. I then took the opportunity to ask him if he believed we might someday discover god in the cosmos. He very graciously replied that he sincerely doubted that there is a god to discover, but that I should not take his word for it - that it was important that I learn as much as I can about the world and universe around me and draw my own conclusions. He emphasized the importance of thinking for myself and never just taking someone else's word as a functional truth. He also expressed an interest in hearing from me in a few years to see where I was at. I walked away from that exchange energized, believing that my drive to learn more about my faith and what drove it was of critical importance. In essence, I took this recommendation from an atheist and applied it to Belief. But to draw a Christian parallel, a seed was planted

Then we found the church that would change my life. We moved to a non-denominational pentecostal church, Agape Christian Fellowship. It was here that my musical abilities flourished, under the tutelage of the music minister. It is also where I became a part of a church's leadership, becoming a part of the worship team and occasionally filling the role of primary worship leader. I was even able to sell some of the music I wrote. At this point in my life, I had an absolute Faith that is no different than the Faith which causes people of other religions to strap bombs to themselves and kill in the name of their god. The only difference is in what I believed that my god wanted me to do with that faith. For me, it was a compulsion to witness to others in an attempt to help them realize the need for salvation through Jesus Christ. And a significant, near pathological compulsion it was, because I believed absolutely that anyone who didn't receive such salvation would be condemned to eternal damnation and suffering. As I mentioned, my dad is an atheist - so are some of my siblings, so this was a particularly terrifying notion to me. On top of that, I also took very strongly to heart the notion of loving others and believed that I was commended to do so with no strings attached, so I took my responsibility to be a good witness very seriously.

I didn't receive my first inkling of doubt, until I watched The Power of Myth, in which Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Campbell. It was not a sudden transition, it really didn't strongly affect me at all at first. Again a seed was planted. At the same time, I became heavily involved with working at a thrift shop my uncle had opened, to support a house he had started to house persons infected with AIDS. For the first time in my life, I was spending a lot of time around gays. And I discovered something – homosexuals are human beings too. But the major event that blew me out of the water, happened with my church.

A young women in the youth group committed the cardinal sin – she got pregnant. And instead of doing what I absolutely believed the bible was quite clear on and surrounding her in loving support, she was made a pariah. I was soon to follow. After talking with some of the leadership of the church, I decided to take matters into my own hands. The Sunday following the unsatisfactory discussion with the youth pastor and pastor, I used the time I was supposed to sing a new song, to make my feelings on the matter known, quoting scripture to back me up. Not too far into it the mic was cut off and shortly after that I was escorted off the platform and out of the building. It helped, but the fact that I didn't leave alone that day was little enough comfort.

I was devastated by the rank hypocrisy. I understood that such hypocrisy existed, even that it was somewhat common. What I didn't realize, was that it was alive and well in my own church. This, combined with some rather unsatisfactory discussions about geology, evolution and gay rights put me over the edge. I didn't set foot in another church for several years. Unfortunately, I was not done with my faith, though from then on it was to take on a very strange shape.

Shortly after this experience, I lost my virginity. I was smoking cigarettes and decided to try marijuana too. I soon came to the conclusion that this was all ok, mainly because it was so easy to manage all of these “sins.” I honestly came to believe that my god must approve, because when I saw someone I really, really wanted to have sex with, it ended up working out. Never occurred to me at the time that (at the time) I was a pretty boy. I also got to where if I wanted to get stoned, one of my friends would have weed. Never occurred to me that was because all the friends I had at that point were stoners. Nope. To me it was just evidence that my god wanted me to be happy and have all these things in my life.

I went through years of trying to reconcile the bible with my acceptance of evidence based geology, evolution and gay rights. I performed remarkable feats of mental gymnastics, I bought into outright lies. I decided that the bible was not actually the literal word of god, rather it was a collection of stories that formed the backbone of the Christian faith – to be accepted only to a certain point. But I finally crumbled when I was finally unable to justify worshiping a god that advocated rape, fratricide and genocide. Nor could I manage to fool myself into thinking that the god described in the Christian bible was anything but. But the final spike in the coffin, was the understanding that not all religions could be valid, but if one religion is valid, then all of them must be valid. At that, the hold out vestiges of my faith crumbled into dust.

Throughout all of this, I did manage to hold onto one final notion. I didn't become an atheist, except in the very broadest sense of the word. I don't discount the idea that there is a god, nor do I discount the idea that such a god might intervene in human affairs. For several years I was a very enthusiastic user of LSD and other hallucinogens, or as I prefer to refer to them, entheogens. I would even go as far as to say that I have addiction problems with hallucinogens, especially LSD – though I have thankfully been clean of them for eight years this summer. Throughout my experience with them, I found reason to hold onto something that, until now, I never believed I could question.

I have always believed in a spiritual/physical duality. I never questioned it – not once in all my years of searching for my faith and my god. Even when I completely rejected revealed religion, I didn't question that basic tenet. It may be that I have just been desperate to hold onto something of a faith that I had committed my entire life to – and have no doubt, I was committed for life. I can't even say how this doubt crept in or mark it's beginning. Nor can I say that I don't believe in this duality, only that my absolute certainty it exists is no longer a certainty. The most remarkable thing about it is, I'm comfortable with my doubt. I am at peace with it and have even found peace in it.

Reconstructionists In Michigan

To put a quick break to the free speech posts (don't worry, there's another one coming shortly, again via Orac @ Respectful Insolence), I thought I would cross-post from my brother's blog. First time and on his birthday no less. While I am linking to Ed, I would like to attract your attention to this great article he wrote in the Michigan Messenger, about the Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights project. (yes, I will eventually get to posting about marriage equality, for now, please read that article and while your at it, catch this great commentary, much better than my own in that thread)

I have spent little time reading about reconstructionists, except to understand that they're a bit on the loony side. Just how nuts, I was not aware. Of especial interest is the commentary on North's affinity for stoning as punishment for crimes. Talk about fostering a sense of community, I guess that could be an advantage of stoning. So without further ado, thanks to Ed, for making clear he wouldn't sue me for copyright infringment, for the repost.

From Dispatches;
Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder of Michigan Citizens for Science and The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. (static)

I was having a discussion with the pastor of a relatively liberal (in both the theological and political sense) Christian church in Lansing recently and I asked him if he was familiar with the Okemos Christian Center. He replied that he was not. I was a bit surprised that he was unaware of this fast growing congregation, also known as the Living Water Church of God, that had made the local newspapers as a result of its lawsuit against Meridian Township for denying a permit to build a new 35,000 square foot facility that would house a Christian school for nearly 300 students. I was not surprised, however, at his reaction when I mentioned that I had brought them up because they are a reconstructionist church; his eyes got big and he was clearly a bit taken aback by this news as he simply muttered, "Wow...."

In order to understand the pastor's reaction, we must first ask the obvious question: what is reconstructionism? This term is often used interchangeably with other terms like dominionism, theonomy and theocracy. Let me offer two definitions at two different levels of analysis.

Longer, more detailed definition: Reconstructionism is a particular type of reformed, or Calvinistic, theology that is based primarily on the work or RJ Rushdoony, who drew on the work of Cornelius Van Til. Theologically, it is defined as presuppositionalist (meaning they argue from the position that no argument can be coherent without being based in Christian epistemology), post-millenialist (meaning they believe that Christ will only return after the establishment of genuinely Christian societies on Earth through massive conversion of the population, and theonomist, meaning that they believe in establishing God's rule as a matter of law.

Shorter, simpler definition: Reconstructionism is the belief that the Bible should determine the civil and criminal law of the nation.

It's also important, I think, to spell out what reconstructionsts are not, or perhaps more accurately, to distinguish between what we might call the mainstream religious right and the Christian reconstructionists. Your average religious right follower of, say, Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, are likely not reconstructionists. They may refer to the Bible in order to support their political views on gay rights, for example, but that alone does not make them reconstructionists for two reasons.

First, because most of the religious right is premillenialist, not postmillenialist; that is, they believe that Christians will be raptured (taken up to heaven) before the terrible end time events happen; reconstructionists, as mentioned above, are postmillenialist and believe that they must work to establish Christian rule on Earth before the end times can begin. Second, because even most of the rank and file followers of religious right ministers like Falwell and Robertson would not accept the establishment of the entire Mosaic law in this country. They may look to the Bible to support their views on some legal issues, but they won't go as far as to institute the death penalty for the vast array of things the Old Testament commands.

It should also be noted that reconstructionists do not advocate any sort of coup or violent overthrow of society. They take a very long term view of how society is to be reconstructed and they view evangelization as the primary means of achieving their goals. Their goal is to convince enough people to believe as they do that they will eventually be in the majority and in a position to pass laws that will create a Biblical theocracy in the United States. As the Okemos Christian Center website says:

The Christian believes the earth and all its fullness is the Lord's-that every area dominated by sin must be "reconstructed" in terms of the Bible. This includes, first, the individual; second, the family; third, the church; and fourth, the wider society, including the state. We therefore believe fervently in Christian civilization. We firmly believe in the separation of church and state, but not the separation of the state-or anything else-from God. We are not revolutionary; We do not believe in the militant, forced overthrow of human government. We have infinitely more powerful weapons than guns and bombs-We have the invincible spirit of God, the infallible word of God, and the incomparable gospel of God, none of which can fail.

Let us not, however, make too much of this. That is simply a matter of means, not ends; and it is the ends they seek that should be feared by anyone who values freedom. Theocracy is the polar opposite of a liberal democratic society that values individual rights and the reconstructionists don't hide their intention to use the means of democracy to acheive their goal of destroying the very idea of a pluralistic and free society. Gary North, one of the most influential Christian reconstructionist leaders, minced no words in a 1982 article:

So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.

The notion that there is no neutrality, no pluralism, is a key idea in reconstructionism. From their perspective, a society is either Godly or anti-God, period. If a nation does not follow the Biblical law, they are condemned by God. Imagine for a moment the sort of society we would become should they succeed. Homosexuals would be stoned to death (Leviticus 18:22). So would women who are not virgins on their wedding day, blasphemers, heretics, witches and a whole host of others.

Indeed, stoning is advocated with disturbing glee by North, who wrote an article listing enough reasons why we should start stoning criminals again to make the Taliban beam with pride. First, he noted, "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." Well that's fiscally conservative, I suppose, but more importantly he liked how it brought communities together, noting that "executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual participants." But he's just warming up. Finally, he says, "by far the most important reason is that stoning is literally a means of crushing the murderer's head by means of a rock, which is symbolic of God. This is analogous to the crushing of the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. This symbolism testifies to the final victory of God over all the hosts of Satan."

The Okemos Christian Center has close ties to North and to Rushdoony, the founder of the reconstructionist movement. Pastor Craig Dumont has written articles for the Chalcedon Foundation, the most influential reconstructionist organization in the country. He was a senior fellow with the Center for Cultural Leadership, run by reconstructionist pastor Andrew Sandlin. The Center frequently brings in reconstructionists, including Gary DeMar, Sandlin and many others, to speak.

Perhaps most disturbing is that Rep. Mike Rogers sent a letter last year (see it reproduced here) praising the Okemos Christian Center on its 15th anniversary. In that letter he praised them as a "bright light of hope and faith" and a "shining example of caring for others." He further praised them for their "fiften years of ministry and promoting God's word and for being "an example to people everywhere that that a commitment to God and ministry can overcome the perils of the world."

Pastor Craig DuMont of the Okemos Christian Center was invited several times to respond to questions and to state his beliefs in his own words. He agreed to an email interview and was sent a list of questions. Three times over the course of several weeks he promised to answer them, but apparently decided not to do so. Calls to Rep. Rogers' office went unreturned as well.

Of further interest, was this article in Reason linked by a commenter on the original posting. I also recommend clicking over to the comments there.

Religion and Public Schools

In the last seven days, my brother Ed has written about three different court cases involving religion in public schools, at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. First, we had the recent 9th circuit court, making an abysmally bad decision about a bible study club, in Truth versus Kent school district. In it, the court ruled that the club could not be afforded recognition by the school, because it required that members be Christians. This, in spite of the fact that several other school clubs actively discriminated against those who did not agree with the specific ideological perspectives advocated by said clubs. This, in spite of the fact that this was the sort of thing the Equal Access Act was meant to prevent.

Two days later, Ed writes about the Praying Parents Case, specifically, John and Jane Doe v. Wilson County School System. In this case, the school is clearly in the wrong. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with parents getting together to pray for their children's school. It is even reasonable for them to do so on school property, as long as they have permission to do so and don't create a distraction from student instruction. A listing of the factual allegations, with my brothers comments on each one;

1. That the school has a See You At The Pole day and that the school put up posters around the school promoting the event.

The validity of this complaint really rides on who put up the posters promoting the event. The event itself is clearly legal as long as it is organized and sponsored by students or an outside group. If the posters were put up by a student Bible club, for example, then there is no constitutional problem here. If they were put up by the school administration, there is a clear establishment clause violation.

2. The Praying Parents are not merely a group of parents who pray on their own, they are endorsed by the school administration and given access to students that no other group gets.

This is clearly the strongest charge. Any group of parents has every right to pray for anyone they wish to pray for, of course, and depending on the circumstances they probably even have a right to use school facilities to do so. But the complaint presents a great deal of compelling evidence that this goes far beyond that and that this group is not only endorsed and promoted by the school administration, but is given access to classrooms during instructional time.

According to the complaint, after they pray they go around the school and are allowed to go in to classrooms during instructional time to hand out cards and treats to students to let them know that they've been prayed for. The school also has a section on their official website about the group, includes them in the school newsletter and sends fliers home to parents from the group. The access to classrooms is the most damning fact here and it's highly unlikely that the court is going to allow that.

3. The school sponsored and promoted a National Day of Prayer event.

This is also a very compelling part of the complaint. The complaint includes exhibits showing that the school distributed a flier to the students encouraging them to take part in this event. They also published a newsletter endorsing and promoting the event, which was held in the school cafeteria, and even held a contest among students for the best poster to promote the event, which they then hung in the halls of the school.

4. The school held a Christmas program with religious music.

This is a pretty weak claim. The courts have pretty consistently allowed religious music to be performed by school choirs and bands. It's possible that there was more to it than that, but if that's all they have this claim isn't likely to succeed.

5. That teachers led students in prayer and singing religious songs during class time.

This is a pretty serious charge and the complaint says that the school actually sent out a DVD to all the parents showing a montage of the events of the last year that included footage of this going on. Again, unlikely that a court will allow that sort of thing.

The first aspect of the complaint, as Ed mentions, hinges on who is putting up the fliers. If it is students, then it is legal, if not, then there is a serious question of it's legitimacy, if it's the faculty, then it is clearly illegal. The fourth aspect is just plain ridiculous, unless there is more to it than that. It sounds like this school might well have pushed that past a threshhold of acceptability, as they have clearly gone beyond any acceptability in other areas. However, there is absolutely nothing illegal about schools performing religious Christmas music.

Finally, we have what I would consider a very obnoxious case, Busch v Marple Newtown School District, which Ed posted about today. In this, a kindergarten child is given the assignment, about me, which asks kids to tell their classmates about the things they like. Part of the assingment is to draw a picture of their favorite things to do and have a parent come in to read from their favorite book. This particular child drew a picture of his church. Quite reasonable, depending on his mood and which of his friends were there last Sunday, that might be my son's pick (though since he has moved up from the preschool class, where his "best" friend still resides, it would be increasingly unlikely to be his answer). The problem came in when his mom came to read the class a selection from his bible. Now that is not illegal, the school was clearly wrong to keep the mother from reading.

The problem that I have with this case, is that apparently, this is not the child's favorite book. This has nothing to do with the legality of the case, flat out, the school was wrong. I imagine that this is probably why the school did what it did. This does not make it right. I feel very sorry for this child, who's mother would encourage him to be dishonest, in the name of religion. The ethics that this mentality will likely perpetuate, makes me shudder, but I digress.

What I really appreciate about this triad of cases, is that they represent the absolute mess that we have, in regards to religion in public schools. It really isn't all that complicated or difficult. The Equal Access Act is not all that complicated. Clinton produced easy to understand guidelines that clarify what is and is not acceptable, constitutionally, in the nineties.

I got into an interesting exchange, here, which I think does a very good job of showing the fuzzy thinking that gets in the way of reasonable discourse. I would recommend reading the exchange, as not only do I make some rather important points, but so do Ed and another commenter, kerhsam. While it is certainly important to keep schools from advocating religion or any ideology, it is also important to recognize that students have few restrictions in that regard, nor should they. Whether political or religious in nature, restricting student speech, requires passing a very high bar indeed.